Travel

Interviewer: Patricia Nikolova 

Date of interview: May 2004

Sultana Sinto Yulzari is a calm and caring talker. Despite her age – she is 88 years old – she never lost her sense of humor, nor did she lose the analytical attitude to the events that happened in her life. Few people of her age in Bulgaria are grateful and satisfied with the pensioners’ way of life. However, she enjoys the incessant cares and the patient attitude of her dedicated relatives. Sultana in return – as far as she is in a position to, of course – pays them like for like. The door of her modest apartment in Ruse is always open for her friends from the Jewish community, who have always been around, especially since the period of the Law for the Protection of the Nation 1 and the Holocaust.

My ancestors came from Spain. Like the other Sephardim 2 in Bulgaria and the neighboring countries, they were expelled by the Spanish Queen Isabel in 1492 3. I don’t know where exactly they passed through, but they decided to permanently settle in Bulgaria. They led a calm life, absolutely in conformity with the Bulgarian nation during the Turkish Yoke as well as after the Liberation of Bulgaria [1877-1878] 4. Of course they spoke with each other in Ladino 5, and outside their houses – Bulgarian and Turkish.

I can’t tell exactly how my ancestors earned their living, nor what precisely their style of dressing was, nor what customs they had and how they were tempered. In any case, what I know for sure is that my paternal grandfather, Samuel Beniesh, was a rabbi and a chazzan in the Sephardic synagogue in the town of Ruse. My grandmother, Sultana Beniesh – unfortunately I don’t know her maiden name –, like all other women of that time, was a housewife and was dedicated to the upbringing of the children.

One of Sultana and Samuel Beniesh’s four children was my father, Sinto Samuel Beniesh. He had three sisters – Chorosi, Mazal and a third, whose name I can’t remember. As a matter of fact, I don’t know anything about them. I have no information on my paternal grandparents’ sisters or brothers either.

The names of my maternal grandfather and grandmother were Maier and Matilda Farchi. I don’t know the maiden name of my maternal granny. My mother’s family were Romanian Jews, born in Giurgevo. I am not familiar with the reason why they came to live in Ruse. They immigrated to Bulgaria at the beginning of the last century. I have no information how religious they were or if they were religious at all.

My granny didn’t have much education and was, as most of the women those days, a housewife, a mother of three children and a widow. Her daughters were called Rashel – my mother –, Malvina and Clara. I have no information about Malvina and Clara’s life stories.

Granny Matilda died in Ruse in the period of the Law for the Protection of the Nation – in 1943. The cause of her death had nothing to do with the fascism of the time. I remember she was very old,73 years old, ill, as she had some infection in her mouth, and exhausted. I remember that at the moment of her death, Dr. Chuhovski was by her side. A very good doctor, a Bulgarian. Unfortunately he couldn’t save her.

Her husband had died three or four decades before her in Giurgevo. Why he had returned there, I don’t know. It is just that it didn’t occur to me to ask my parents such questions when I was young. They didn’t tell me anything about their brothers and sisters.

I know, however, that Grandpa Maier had a very well-known brother in Bucharest, the owner of the famous retail chain ‘Parrot.’ My father was a worker at one of his brother’s shops. And he offended him somehow. I would give anything to learn the name of this  brother, but, unfortunately, I can’t.

My father was a tradesman and a craftsman – he manufactured umbrellas in his own workshop, which he sold in a shop he owned. He was a great Zionist, but he was not a member of any Zionist society and did not participate in any political party. I remember he was eager for our family to immigrate to Palestine, yet before Israel was constituted as a country. That is, his dream dates back to about 1920.

Then word got around in the Jewish community in Ruse that land lots were being offered for sale in Karmel. And my father let himself be duped. He sold out our hut, renounced his right over the lot, and gave all the money to a certain Robert Levi, who was promising he would buy land lots in Karmel for us, and we would go there, of course, we would immigrate. But this didn’t happen.

There were ‘feudal lords’ in what was then Palestine, who sold land to Bulgarian Jews, and probably to Jews from other parts of Europe, too. The offer was placed through an intermediary. And this intermediary represented an enterprise popular at the time. I don’t remember where it was headquartered or its name. In any case, this enterprise extended credits to the people here for buying land lots there.

Thus we moved to live in the house of my maternal grandmother and grandfather – Matilda and Maier Farchi. As a child, I used to live for a long period of time with the thought of Israel in my mind, and every year I was convinced when saying, ‘Leshana Habaa Beyerushalaim’ [Hebrew for ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’].

My father studied law, but unfortunately never completed his studies. He studied in Brasov, Romania. He studied there at the beginning of the last century, most probably in 1919,although I am not absolutely sure about the date. [Editor’s note: The Transylvanian city has been a part of Romania since 1920, when it was detached from Hungary. During the studies of the interviewee’s father the city belonged to Austria-Hungary; it became part of Romania only later.]

I remember dad as a very good and considerate father and husband. He was, however, of a very strict nature. This characteristic feature was directed especially toward us, the children. We were afraid of him a lot. When my mother used to say, ‘Your father’s coming’ – we, the two sisters, rushed and straight away laid the table. Before his arrival everything had to be ready. And when he sat at the table the bread and the water-jug were at his side. He used to take the bread, slice and ration it. After that he would take the water-jug and pour every one of us a glass. Then he would say a prayer. And it was not before that that we could start eating.

My father was a very religious man, following the example of his father, Samuil Beniesh, who was a rabbi and a chazzan of the local synagogue, as I’ve already mentioned. My father not only observed strictly all Jewish traditions and celebrated all religious holidays such as Pesach, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Lag ba-Omer, and Tu bi-Shevat. There was more. He had put aside some dishes for kosher food and separate dishes for the rest of the food. [Editor’s note: The interviewee probably refers to the separation of dishes for dairy and meat products, and not to kosher and non-kosher ones. In a religious family non-kosher food is, of course, not tolerated.] We had separate forks and plates for cheese [dairy] and for meat.

The fact that we had separate dishes for kosher and non-kosher food does not exclude the idea that our family wasn’t very religious. This means that the dishes for kosher food were used only on Pesach, while we used the other dishes for non-kosher food throughout the year, as all the religious Jewish families used to do at that time. [Editor’s note: Sultana probably means the separation of dishes for Passover from the ordinary dishes. Religious families, of course, ate only kosher all the time.]

Pesach was a very important holiday for our family, although in certain cases my mum and dad stepped away from the norms of the tradition as they didn’t always observe the kashrut on Pesach – but this was not an exception from the way the things are in a Jewish family, especially nowadays. [Editor’s note: The family was probably moderately religious, not strictly following the kashrut.]

Therefore the secret breaking of the ritual does not put a cast on my mother’s religiosity. It just means a less degree of self-control and self-discipline as compared to the high, I would say, fanatic religiosity of my father. This weakness of my mother does not exclude the idea for good religious upbringing of the children, including my upbringing.

Only we, the kids, knew of this ‘vicious’ habit of hers. In our house the kashrut was observed. When Pesach was nearing we started a clean-up of the whole house, and everything for everyday use was taken into the basement wherefrom clean dishes were fetched.

Besides, my dad had a separate room, jam-packed with prayer books and other religious books, where he used to seclude himself to read at ease, uninterrupted by us, the children. Quite frankly, we were afraid to enter this room.

My mother, Rashel Maier Beniesh, nee Farchi, was also religious but with some exceptions. In other words, she was not as fanatic as my father. I should mention that my mom used to eat secretly pork at home. But as a whole my mother was a freedom-loving woman. She had graduated from the ‘Santa Maria’ French Girls’ High School in Ruse, which was financially supported by the Catholics.

To a certain extent my mother was conservative, because she insisted that women knew how to sew and clean, rather than know as much as men do. Mum was a member of the Ruse women organization WIZO 6, but in spite of that she was conservative to a great extent.

I was born in 1916 in Ruse. I grew up in a family of five.  We were three children. I am the eldest. After me came my brother Samuel Sinto Beniesh [1919-1992] and my sister Matilda Sinto Beniesh, nee Melnik. My brother was three years younger than me; my sister was younger by ten years; she was born in 1926. We were a united family.

I had a nice and worriless childhood in Ruse. I enjoyed having a lot of friends, especially in my early years, when I studied up to the fourth grade in the  Jewish school in Ruse. At that time my friends were mainly Jews. After that, when I had to continue my education at a high school, my friends were chiefly Bulgarians.

I am glad we kept our friendly relationships even after finishing school, although we were already married women and had our own children. Good friends of mine were the Bulgarian Atina Georgieva, who is not alive any longer, the Jew Viki Mashiah, and especially the Armenian Madlen Sholaen, who now lives in Budapest. I have unforgettable memories from this place, because she kindly invited me to visit her many years ago, she took me to all the fascinating sights of the wonderful Budapest.

As a child I participated in Maccabi 7. I was never a member of Hashomer Hatzair 8. As a matter of fact, Maccabi and Hashomer Hatzair had great ideological arguments then in Ruse. Hashomer Hatzair was a very leftist, strongly Zionist Jewish youth organization. Whereas Maccabi was also Zionist, but above all – a Jewish youth physical training organization.

There was another youth’s organization, ‘Nikra,’ which focused on culture. I participated in it also. We often gathered and speeches were given on various issues connected with culture. In its essence it was a Zionist organization, without supporting the leftist views, for example, of Hashomer Hatzair. From this viewpoint I was a Zionist since my earliest years, and even – a revisionist. It was later that I started to share the leftist political views.

Besides, in this organization they educated us by letting us know about popular Jewish persons, such as Theodor Herzl 9, for example. They developed in us a feeling of patriotism and unity. However, I cannot remember who in particular held the lectures and who entertained us. I clearly remember, though, that we regularly attended interesting discussions on Israel and on the activity of our organization, ‘Nikra.’

In 1935 I graduated from the French Girls’ High School in Ruse. Before that I had studied at the local Jewish junior high school. After finishing high school I was sent to Varna, where those days lived one of my aunts, childless. I had to stay there for two years to learn to sew, studying at the business school. At the end of 1930s I returned to Ruse.

In fact, my dream was to study medicine, but my parents were strongly against it. The reason was that they were conservative with regards to the place a woman should occupy in society and, especially, in the family.

My brother studied in a polytechnic high school in Varna. But he didn’t manage to receive higher education. He was a tradesman in Bulgaria. He immigrated to Israel in 1949 and had two families there. As a matter of fact, he married in Bulgaria and from his native Ruse he moved for a while to Sofia, where his first wife was from. Unfortunately I have no idea what my brother did for a living in Sofia. The only thing I remember is that in Ruse he helped out in our dad’s shop and produced small jewelry items, such as small mirrors, for example, which he sold. His first wife died in a car crash.

He remarried but his second wife also died, of leukemia. He had two daughters, both are from his second marriage, I think. The first – is married, with three children, already grown up. The second one didn’t marry, but she has a child. An adopted girl. My brother’s elder daughter is called Shelly and her husband – Freddy. Their three children are Nelly, Shay and Roman. The second daughter, Michal, works as a teacher at the University in Jerusalem, but I don’t know her subject.

In Israel, my brother Sami worked as an employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was in charge of the people repatriated back to Israel, but I don’t know what exactly his occupation was. In any case, I think he mastered Arabic. He died in 1992 in an old people’s home, but I can’t say where exactly. Before that, however, he lived with his family in Bat Yam.

My sister’s fate is interesting. She carried through her plan of studying medicine in Bulgaria, although my parents were against it because, as I mentioned before, their views on a woman’s place in society and in family were rather conservative.

Mati managed to complete her medical education in Bulgaria, and in 1949 she immigrated to Israel. She continued studying medicine there for three more years, after that she graduated as a doctor, served in the army, and then she immigrated to the USA where she lives with her family down to the present day. Now she is a widow but has an own psychiatric cabinet in Houston and is satisfied. From time to time Mati sends me some money, which helps us make both ends meet in Ruse.

The town was then divided into quarters. Jews were not allowed to live in the center. A little bit farther from the center was the Jewish neighborhood. Even the local Jewish Community Center, Bet Am 10 was there, on Dondukov Street. Next to the Jewish neighborhood was the Armenian neighborhood, and next to it the Turkish one. It was typical for every ethnic quarter to have its own school and own cultural center, where the respective community gathered. There were two markets in the town – a big and a small one.

The market day in Ruse was a great event for my family and me, especially when I was a child. We always used to go to the big market with my mother and my father. There were our favorite sellers there. We used to buy products for our winter supplies, took them home and stored them in our basement, and we had a big basement, too. I was very glad when we bought water-melons or pumpkins. We also put them in the basement, which served us as a fridge.

We lived in the house of my maternal grandparents which was situated in the Jewish neighborhood in Ruse, on Klementina Street. It was a big house. It consisted of three large and cold rooms with high ceilings and two kitchens, one of which was a summer kitchen. We didn’t have a garden with fruits, but instead we had a yard with a small hut. We had even running water.

In the period of the Law for the Protection of the Nation, in 1943, when some Jewish families from Sofia were interned to Ruse, we were nine people living in that house. The Primo family was then accommodated with us; a father, a mother, a son, and a daughter. Besides, one of my aunts from Varna, Malvina Geron, also lived there. Her husband, Salomon Geron, was a tradesman and owned a large shop in Varna. She was a housewife. They moved to Ruse only during the Law for the Protection of the Nation.

 After 1944 they returned to Varna and from there, in a year or two, they immigrated to Israel. In those days all my relatives had already immigrated to Israel. Mainly because of the fear that fascism might arise again Bulgaria. And because of the worry that socialism might take everything from them, so that they would be deprived of their property.

When I was small I made friends only with Jews. Later most of my firneds were Bulgarian. From my early years I remember a boy, Mashiakh, and another boy, whose name I can't recall. And a girl, Malta. Then Beraha, Levi. In our free time we often played with dolls, we collected the clothes from the hangers of our parents wardrobes and made dolls of them. 

In the girls high school I already had Bulgarians for friends. I knew Bulgarian as early as a child, because I communicated with Bulgarian children in the street, where we played together. We were 15 girls in ourclass, three of which were Jews. The last of them died in Israel. We had nuns for teachers. However they didn't divide us in 'Jews' and 'Bulgarians.' But when they taught us the gospel we, the Jews, had to go out. We didn't have separate Jewish religious classes. 

The other two Jewish girls from our class were Viki Meshiakh and Frida Eshkenazi. I still keep in touch with Viki. She is the one who calls me on the phone from Israel, because it is cheaper for her. She tells me how she goes playing bridge in Tel Aviv, at a place where women gather. We communicated only in Bulgarian. Viki has a daughter, married in Ramah Hasharon. She often tells me stories of her life. But I know nothing else about what happened to my friend in Israel. 

Generally speaking, I was a polyglot: Ladino, Bulgarian, Spanish – which I learned because of Ladino – French, Turkish, Romanian, Ivrit. I say ‘I was’ because it has been a long time now that I haven’t had anybody with whom to practice the languages I learned as a child.

Ladino was my mother tongue. I learned Spanish in my family, as my parents spoke both Ladino and Spanish; Romanian – as I’ve already mentioned my maternal grandmother came for Giurgevo in Romania. When a secret had to be told at home they spoke Romanian, so we learned it by ourselves out of childish curiosity, probably because we wanted to know by all means what they were talking about.

We also learned German out of curiosity. Moreover I studied German, French and Bulgarian at the high school. I learned English many years after that when I attended courses. Otherwise, mom and dad used to speak only Spaniol, as Bulgarian Jews usually call Ladino, at home.

Turkish I learned from the gypsy women that came home to help with the household. They spoke between each other in Turkish. I learned it from them.

Ivrit I learned in the Jewish school. I was taught by adon [‘Mister’ in Ivrit] Goldschmidt and Lea, who had come from Israel specially to teach us. I have no idea if they were a family. 

Subsequently, in the high school, my favorite subjects were chemistry and Latin. We are speaking of the French girls’ high school ‘Santa Maria’ which was half-classical. My dream was then to become a pharmaceutist. Well, I didn’t become one. My mother, who was conservative, used to say, ‘A woman must know how to cook and to bring up children rather than study.’ When I finished high school I was sent to Varna to my childless aunt. I was already between 19 and 20 years old then. I studied for two years in Varna. After that I got married.

My husband’s name is Mois Eliezer Yulzari. He was born and grew up in Pleven. The truth is that I didn’t know him long before our wedding. We hadn’t been friends beforehand. We didn’t have common things from our past, nor did we have common friends.

Our marriage was arranged. Our matchmaker was one of my cousins from Pleven, who understood he was a good boy and decided to recommend him to my parents. It was not for me to say then. So we got engaged. And we married four months later. That happened in 1940.

We had a religious wedding; there were no civil marriages then. [Civil marriages were introduced after 9th September 1944]. My husband was a communist, but despite that he entered a synagogue in order to marry me. The wedding was nice. But the things got worse after that; my husband was mobilized 75 days after our marriage as a frontier guard at the south border, near the village of Lyubimets. Thank Goodness he came back alive and well.

After Mois came back from the frontier we set off for Pleven because he was from Pleven and I had to follow him there being his wife. We lived there two years, but these were war years, you know. In the period when we lived in Pleven, our house was situated at the highest spot in the town and it was the highest building. In Musala Street.

In these days I gave birth to my daughter, Buena – in 1941. The children then were born at home. We didn’t go to hospitals as they do today. And I remember us staying at the windows on 1st March 1941 watching the Germans arriving. It was not a pleasant vision.

Then came the period of the Holocaust which in Bulgaria took the form of the infamous Law for the Protection of the Nation. We came back to Ruse upon our own decision. And my husband was at forced labor camps 11 for three years. Our men went to forced labor camps in March and came back in November. He was taken to five camps. And I was afraid and I was awaiting his return as soon as possible. Husbands usually returned to their wives in an awful condition – infested with lice and overstrained. But at least they hadn’t been beaten.

My husband was sent to the village of Rebrovo, then Mikre, Lovech region, then Lakatnik and Ugarchin, where roads were built. I remember that 1943 was our toughest year. Because they were dismissed from a camp, but subsequently were given instruments to start work again. And he was sent to Veselinovo, Shumen region, where 1944 found him. But he was impatient to get free and escaped from the camp. Then he came to me. I told him to go back to Veselinovo because I was afraid. ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he said, ‘the war is over.’

In this period – during the Law for the Protection of the Nation – they often sounded the alarm for air-raids in Ruse. Then in the Jewish neighborhood we were surrounded by Bulgarians who were accommodated in the expropriated apartments of Jews. They used to run to hide in the air-raid shelters and we used to go home, gather in the garden and wait. Even my father ran home from the shop. There we gathered all shivering: my aunt from Varna, the children, my mum and dad, and my daughter [Buena], who was already born. It was very hard. 

As a matter of fact, I have to specify a detail. In the period of the Law for the Protection of the Nation neither our furniture, nor even my father’s shop got broken by the authorities, nor were they touched by whomever else at all. The reason was that my father had a military cross for bravery, which granted him special rights, despite being a Jew. This cross was either from the First Balkan War 12 or from the Second Balkan War 13. I don’t know why he had participated in both the wars. But when I was born he was still a soldier.

In fact there was an anti-Semitic reaction well before 1940. The so-called ‘National Defense.’ Against me personally there were no such things. But against the Jewish community there were some outbursts of anti-Semitism. For example we gathered to celebrate a certain Jewish holiday always fearing that we can get attacked, but it didn’t happen. The Jews then gathered ready to protect themselves.

After 9th September 1944 14 a great joy set in. But it didn’t last for long because in 1947 my nearest and dearest immigrated to Israel. We remained only my husband, our two children and I. My father’s house was sold out and we had to find another home.

The brightest day in my life was 9th September 1944. Yet in 1944 I applied and was accepted as a member of the communist party. I have maintained my leftist views ever since and even now I keep them by paying my membership dues regularly.

As a matter of fact 9th September 1944 is also the reason for our decision not to immigrate. Because my husband and I thought that after this bright date good times for Jews, for Bulgarians and for all people had to come by all means. As it turned out we weren’t disappointed in our hopes. We remained in Ruse, together with three or four more families that completely shared our views, such as the Beracha family, for example.

I had promised to myself that my children wouldn’t live in poverty as I did once. I remember it clearly that we didn’t have money for clothing when I was to finish high school and when I was a school-leaver. At that time my dad asked one of my cousins, who was better-off than we were, to sеw for me new clothes. And finally I had to go to her and thank her. And it was a severe slap on my human dignity. I wanted my children never to feel such lack and humiliation.

My life after 9th September 1944 was calm. We weren’t well-off, but we had everything we needed. My husband was a director of ‘Toplivo’ [a big state-owned company for coal and timber] for twenty years. I want to emphasize that my husband and I never had any problems at work because of our origin.

In 1946 I gave birth to my son, Shemuel Sinto Yulzari, and my daughter, Buena, was then already six years old. We brought them up as Jews and because of that they have had Jewish identity since their early years.

At present my son is an associate professor in child pedagogy at the Veliko Turnovo University. He had been a teacher at the Institute of Pedagogy for a long time, after that he became a Ph.D., later – an associate professor. His wife worked as an engineer in a plant in Ruse, but she got dismissed and now works in a grocer’s shop.  

I am proud of my three grandchildren: Irena, Mois and Stela. Irena Cestnik, born in1962, is the daughter of my daughter Buena Mois Cestnik, nee Yulzari, whereas Mois Yulzari, born in 1973, and Stela Dimitrova, born in 1976, are the children of my son Sinto Mois Yulzari. All of my grandchildren are, as people say, ‘pure-blooded’ Jews.

The wife of my son Sinto Mois Yulzari is called Sima Nissim Mayer. The family name of my daughter’s husband is Cestnik. Their daughter, Irena Cestnik, is a teacher of Ivrit in the Jewish school in Sofia. She is 42 years old, not married.

Two of my grandchildren, however, already have mixed marriages. They are my son’s children: Stela Dimitrova and Mois Yulzari. Stela married Nikolay Dimitrov, who is from Yambol, in 2003. Now they live and work in Varna and she is expecting a baby. Mois married Nevena – I know next to nothing about her – in 2000. Now they live and work in Ruse and are also expecting a baby. 

My first occupation after 1944 was that of an ordinary statistician. After that I became a planner – in charge of the plans in the Ruse state-owned enterprise for transport and cargo vehicles ‘DATA’ [state-owned automobile enterprise]. I started working there in 1950. I was a planner in the cargo department. Apart from the cargo department there was also a passenger department. The cargo department was engaged only in goods, transportation of some materials for other enterprises. The passenger department focused on transportation of passengers out of the town, the town buses.

I planned what we loaded and what we unloaded in accordance with different conditions. At the beginning everything was measured in tons/kilometers. After that everything got dependant on the indices of the revenue.

I worked there for 21 years. I retired in 1971. Even after my retirement they used to invite me to work for three or four months a year. They used to give big bonuses. In fact I worked this way from 1971 to 1983. I made the plan in accordance with various indices – average and technical speed or average and trade speed. These are the factors that influence the fulfillment of the plan. 

I felt very well as a working pensioner. Something more: I stopped receiving my pension for one year and an additional year was added to my length of service. It happened in 1973. I decided to increase my length of service because I had started working very late – I was 30 years old after I had brought up my children.

As a pensioner I traveled a lot in the country and abroad. I visited the West – Stockholm and places in  the Soviet Union –many of the towns, three or four times. I saw Istanbul, Athens and others. We are speaking of tourist trips here, of course.

My father, my mother, my sister and my brother all immigrated to Israel in 1949. I didn’t immigrate to Israel for ideological reasons. My husband was a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party [BCP]. I stayed in Bulgaria because of him. I shared his views. I am still a member of the Bulgarian Socialist Party [BSP]. I don’t go to party meetings any more, but I regularly pay my duties.

At present both my brother’s daughters live in Israel together with their families. We still keep in touch. They came to visit us and I visited them twice: in 1959 and in 1960. I have never had any problems concerning political matters or any other problems connected with my trips to Israel or my keeping the relationship with the nearest and dearest.

When I was back from Israel I was always carrying presents for my colleagues – Bulgarians. I used to bring them ball-point pens, because in Bulgaria at that time people wrote with pens, that is, penholders dipped in ink, and the modern ball-point pens were still unknown. Before my departures it was these friends who saw me off.

Nobody has ever said anything bad to me. Something more – in 1963 the director of the enterprise where I worked invited my sister together with her husband to have a look at our modernized enterprise during their visit to Bulgaria.

I knew they were leading terrible wars in Israel. The brother of my brother’s wife was killed in 1948 15. Was it the first war? I remember that I monitored the events of 1967 16 but only from afar. It was only the echo that reached us here.

When I visited Israel in 1957 the situation there resembled that in which Bulgaria finds itself today. For example, there were elections there during my first visit. My brother had a job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and he had to participate in the holding of the elections. He was asked, ‘How many parties do you have?’ And he answered, ’57.. I couldn’t believe my ears because there was only one party in Bulgaria then – the communist one, BCP. And now we have even more.

In Israel I was astonished that there were a lot of beggars. Whereas we, in Bulgaria, did not have beggars beforehand. And now it is the opposite. I couldn’t explain it to myself – was it a hidden unemployment in Israel? There was neither unemployment nor deficit in Bulgaria in those days. As a whole, before 10th November 1989 17 everybody had a job. It is true – low salaries and low pensions, but we had enough for everything.

For example I participated for 20 years in a physical training group in Ruse, part of the sports club ‘Lokomotiv’ [Locomotive]. I had a lot of friends, who were also members, and we often met apart from our activity in that group. Two times a year we used to go on a 14-day holiday to some picturesque place in Bulgaria. And our pensions were enough for that. 

The events of 10th November 1989 did not turn into a disaster for my family and me since my pension is not small. Besides, my sister from Houston sends something from time to time and this also helps. But I am very pitiful towards the sick and unemployed people, towards my friends who receive small pensions and hardly manage to make ends meet.

As far as the Jewish community in Ruse is concerned, if there are still Jews in Ruse who haven’t immigrated to Israel, the situation is almost the same. True, they gave us back the estates that were expropriated from us during the communist period. And in contrast to the past, the members of the community now gather to celebrate the important Jewish holidays as religious ones. Before 1989 we always used to celebrate them as a sort of national, historical holidays. Such as Pesach, Chanukkah, Purim. This is the basic difference for me – the shift of perception.

Raisa Roitman
Kishinev
Moldova
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: July 2004

Raisa Roitman lives near a large park, in an old, beautiful district of Kishinev [Chisinau in Moldovan] built in the 1960s. The yard of the so-called Khrushchovka 1 is very green. Raisa’s two-room apartment is well-furnished. She lives with her son now, and the apartment is too small for two adults. Raisa Roitman is a buxom woman. She is very polite and reserved. Raisa has taken out a lot of old photographs. There are a lot of pictures, and all of them are very interesting. Raisa comes across as quite standoffish. She is reserved and rather tacit. Her answers are curt. She is not willing to say much and she avoids answering certain questions that refer to her private life. Nevertheless, in the course of the interview, Raisa comes to trust me more and we part as friends. A couple of weeks later, I find out from one of the employees of Kishinev Hesed 2 that Raisa had immigrated to Israel shortly after our meeting. She didn’t tell me anything about her intentions.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

My family background

Rubel was the surname of my paternal great-grandfather. The surname, which looked more like a nickname, was passed on to my grandfather, then to my father and then to me. Great-grandfather Itsik Rubel was born in the 1840s in the town of Rezina [80 km from Kishinev]. He lived there all his life. Itsik was involved in agriculture and mostly in viniculture. He had a large vineyard with vintage variety. Great-grandfather worked mostly by himself, occasionally hiring workers during the harvest time. He made wine and then sold it to the marketers from Kishinev at a wholesale price. Itsik had his own house, though it was rather small and modest, not to say poor.

My great-grandmother Charna was a housewife. She was a tall beautiful woman, always dressed in a dark skirt with an apron, blouse and a neckpiece. Grandmother also wore a crocheted headkerchief with lace trimming. Itsik was a good match for Charna – a tall and handsome tanned old man with a wrinkly face and a spade-like beard. He always wore a broadbrim hat or a kippah when he went to the synagogue. He also had tallit and tefillin. He never worked on Sabbath, even in the busiest times. My great-grandmother was a housewife, she raised the children and helped Itsik with work in the field. Her hands were parched because of the sun and with the dirt ingrown in the skin. Charna was also religious, observed Sabbath, the kashrut and raised her children as true Jews. I don’t remember Great-grandfather Itsik very well. He died in 1930, when I was a small girl. Great-grandmother died later, in 1939.

Itsik and Charna Rubel had many children. I know hardly anything about them. I know that the eldest one, Monysh, was also a vine grower and lived in Rezina, in Itsik’s house. He died in 1920. I don’t know what happened to his wife and children. Out of all the siblings of my paternal grandfather I knew grandfather’s sister Perl best of all. She lived in Rezina with her husband David [Roitman], who worked from morning till night, and her son Nahman. She was a housewife. With the outbreak of World War II 3, she and her husband went into evacuation on foot. They reached Rybnitsa, where Grandfather’s younger brother Gedali Rubel lived and worked. They didn’t walk far and were chased down by the Fascists. All of them – Perl with her husband and younger son and Gedali with his wife – were brought to a ghetto in Transnistria 4, in the town of Balta [Vinnitsa region, today Ukraine, about 250 km from Kiev]. All of them perished there during one of the actions against the Jews. Perl’s son Nahman, born in 1920, was drafted into the army in 1941. He was in the labor army 5 and when World War II was over, he came back to Kishinev.

My grandfather Abram, born in the 1870s in Rezina, was Itsik’s middle son. He got married rather early, which was traditional for Jews. His wife Nehama was also from Rezina. She was even younger than Grandfather Abram. My grandmother’s maiden name was Torba. They [her parents] had many children, but I only knew Uncle Yankel and Aunt Haika, who lived in Kishinev. Yankel had four children. All I know is that they left their parents’ home at a young age. They were members of an underground Communist organization. They were often imprisoned in Romania. Yankel died at the age of 94. Haika lived a long life as well.

Grandfather Abram finished cheder. I don’t know whether he got any further education. I think that his education was rudimentary. He could read and count, which was necessary in his work. Abram was a forwarding agent. He accepted cargo at the railway station and then forwarded it to the clients, who were rich victualers and owners of stores. This job wasn’t stable. Besides, it didn’t yield a sufficient income. It took a lot of money to support a large family.

Abram and Nehama had nine children. I only knew my father’s eldest brother Yankel. I remember the names of the rest – Nahman, Srul, Revekka, Golda, Lena… The thing is that in 1913 Grandfather Abram left for Argentina to look for a job and a better living for his children. Some of the elder children left with him, and Grandmother Nehama with the rest of the children joined them in a couple of years. That is why I never met my grandparents, my uncles and aunts. Only the eldest son Yankel, born in 1892, and my father Shapsha were so much against the departure to Argentina that Grandfather Abram got upset with them and left without his elder sons. Father and Yankel also were frustrated that they parted with the family and didn’t keep in touch with them for a long time. Only ten years later did they start to correspond with the family.

Father and Yankel had already been working when their family left. They were loaders at the creamery since the age of 13. Yankel lived in Rezina. He got married rather early. His wife was a Jew called Pesya. They had four children – a boy, Monya, born in 1922, and the daughters Golda, born in 1917, Revekka, born in 1924, and Leya, born in 1926. Yankel worked really hard to provide for such a large family. He worked two shifts at the creamery. On 12th October 1935 my uncle died as a result of the collapse of the ceiling in one of the creamery premises. During his funeral the coffin wasn’t open so that the relatives wouldn’t see Yankel’s dreadful remains.

For two years Pesya and her children lived on the money given to them by my father and the kin from Argentina. In 1937 they received an invitation from Argentina and Pesya left with her children. I loved them a lot, especially Revekka and my peer Leya. We took a picture together before they left. That was the last time I saw them. Before 1940 we received letters from Argentina and then the Soviet regime was established 6 in Bessarabia 7 and it was impossible to write to our relatives abroad 8. We couldn’t correspond with them after the war either.

I found out from my distant relatives, who lived in Israel, that neither my relatives who left with Grandfather, nor Yankel’s children ever became rich. However, they had a decent and good life. They didn’t respond to my letters that I sent after perestroika 9, when it became possible to keep in touch with relatives abroad. I know that Grandfather Abram and Grandmother Nehama died in the 1960s, and both of them were over 90 years old. Yankel’s children are still alive and have their own families with the exception of Leya. She was the only one who remained single. Unfortunately this is all I know about my father’s family.

My father Shapsha was born in 1894. He studied at cheder until he turned twelve. He began working at the age of 13. Father didn’t go to school. In spite of the fact that he was self-taught, he was a very literate man. He knew Russian, later he studied Romanian. Besides, he had an aptitude for Mathematics. He was able to add, deduct and multiply up to three figures. After Grandfather Abram’s departure for Argentine, he and Yankel lived with their Grandparents Itsik аnd Charna. Maybe for the reason that they were the bread-winners of the family neither my father nor Yankel were drafted into the Tsarist army during World War I.

Father worked as a loader at the creamery. He loaded milk and butter and delivered it to the sales agents. Owing to his intelligence and good sense he became the assistant to the owner. During one of his trips he met Moishe Lerner, the owner of the creamery located in the small town of Vad-Rashkov. He invited him to come over to his house. Shapsha was rapt by the beauty of Moishe’s daughter Tabl and began to make frequent trips to his colleague from Vad-Rashkov, [90 km from Kishinev]. In a couple of months Shapsha sent a shadkhan to Moishe and in 1924 my parents got married.

My mother’s parents, Moishe and Sura Lerner, born in Vad-Rashkov in the 1870s, had a modest living. Grandfather’s creamery was the only income source for the whole family. Although the yielded income wasn’t high, it was enough for the Lerners to get by. The creamery premises are still preserved in the town. Moishe had an adobe [construction material made from clay and thatch] house, consisting of three rooms. The members of this large family usually gathered in the largest room during family reunions on Sabbath, on Jewish and family holidays.

Grandmother Sura was a housewife. Her mother, my great-grandmother Haya was helping her out. She was born in a Moldovan village, and there were only two Jewish families there. She was equally fluent in Russian and Moldovan, but she preferred Yiddish. Great-grandmother lived to be almost a hundred years old, preserving a clear mind and a great sense of humour, being kind and benevolent. Haya had an ear for music and a melodic voice in spite of her age. She used to sing beautiful Jewish songs to her great-grandchildren and grandchildren. She was also good at knitting and embroidering. The ladies of our family looked very nice in her handmade laces. Haya had a calm death as if she just fell asleep. She passed away at night, on 8th May 1940.

Moishe and Sura lived the way other Jews from small towns did. They observed Jewish traditions, celebrated Sabbath, went to the synagogue, even raised their children in a Jewish spirit. Finally, at the end of the 1930s Grandfather was severely afflicted with leukemia. He died on 9th May 1941.

Moishe and Sura raised five children. Ousher, born in 1899, was the eldest. He lived not far from my grandparents, with his wife Klara and three daughters – Fira, Feiga and Mara. Ousher was a peasant. His wife and children did their best to help him with work, but their family still lived from hand to mouth. On 8th July 1941 Klara and the youngest girl, Mara, died during the bombing. Ousher, his daughters and Grandmother Sura were captured by the Germans on their way to evacuation and happened to be in Kishinev ghetto 10. Here Grandmother and Ousher died of hunger in the first hard winter. The girls survived. Feiga has terrible memories of the war times. All of her fingers were amputated as a result of severe frostbite. Fira and her daughters have lived in Israel since the late 1980s. Feiga was married to Magelman and lived in Soroca [130 km from Kishinev] with two sons.

The next son, Leib, born in 1901, owned a small bakery. Apart from the ordinary bread, Sabbath challah, Purim hamantashen and white loaves were baked there. Leib’s family was so indigent that Reizl had to learn how to sew. It helped the family budget. Leib and Reizl had three children – the daughters Ida and Sonya and their son, Pinhus. During World War II all of them were in evacuation in Andijon [today Uzbekistan, 3500 km from Kishinev]. Leib died from typhus fever on 23rd March 1943. Reizl and her children came back to Moldova and settled in Soroca. She worked very hard as a seamstress for her children to get a good education. She died in 1967. Her children left the town with their families. Ida is currently residing in Israel. She took back her maiden name of Lerner after her husband’s death. Pinhus and two of his daughters are in Chicago. Sonya Vougsdorf [married name] also lived there. She died in 1998.

Mother’s younger sister Feiga, born in 1907, was a very beautiful woman. She got elementary education. She was married to Shneer Kleiman, who worked as a steward in the store owned by his rich relatives from a small Jewish town, located not far from Vad-Rashkov. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the town. Feiga and Shneer had two children – Rimma, born in 1928, and David, born in 1930. Feiga was a housewife. She took care of the household and raised their children. Feiga’s family was also evacuated to Andijon. When she returned to Moldova, she settled in Soroca, not far from Leib’s children. Feiga didn’t live a long life. She died in 1951 from liver disease. Her children got university education. Rimma was a therapist. She died a couple of years ago in Kishinev. David was an engineer. He lived in Moscow and died in 2000.

The youngest in the family, Joseph, born in 1910, is still alive. He is still of sound mind and body. He is currently residing in the USA. His wife Fira died three years ago. Their twin daughters Mara and Raisa have families – children and grandchildren. Sometimes they send me New Year’s greetings.

My mother, Tabl Lerner, born in 1904, wasn’t the most beautiful, but she was the most intelligent out of all the children of Moishe and Sura. She was able to express reasonable thoughts and make wise decisions. She was the head of our family. Father followed my mother unconditionally. She was often the ‘judge’ in many moot questions addressed by friends, relatives, neighbors. Usually those were issues concerning reconciliation of some quarreling spouses, raising children, keeping a family budget, seeing a doctor. Mother was an intellectual person, though she only had elementary education. She was very good at Russian as she studied it at school, and later on she was fond of Russian literature. She knew the works written by Pushkin 11, Lermontov 12. She was also attracted to Lev Tolstoy 13 and Fyodor Dostoevsky 14. My mother was self-taught. She had an insatiable appetite for learning. When Bessarabia became Romanian territory 15, Mother learned Romanian rather quickly.

Mother had many friends and admirers. But she liked Shapsha, who called on her father all of a sudden, at once. When my adolescent parents met, they soon began dating. Father came to Vad-Rashkov, and Mother used to come to Rezina. On 11th November 1924 they got married. I have a picture of the gorgeous newly-weds. Mother was dressed in a posh dress and Father in a new suit. The wedding took place in the synagogue in Vad-Rashkov under a chuppah. There were a lot of bride’s and groom’s relatives. Mother said it was very merry. Klezmer music was played and the guests danced till dawn. The tables were abundant in delicious dishes, mostly cooked by my grandmother and great-grandmother Haya. The bride had a dowry. I don’t know what amount was given to my father, but it was enough to buy a small house in Vad-Rashkov, where Shapsha and Tabl settled.

Growing up

I was born in that house on 21st April. I was given the Jewish name of Ruklya, but I was registered with a more modern Russian name 16 – Raisa. My parents called me Raisa, only Great-grandmother Haya called me by my Jewish name. In 1930 my brother Motle was born. I remember the day when my mother was giving a birth to my brother. Farther was going to and fro. The moans and screams were heard from the bedroom. Then I heard the cry of the baby. I remembered it for ever. I loved my brother at once. I had a kind of adult and maternal feelings for him.

I remember my childhood very vividly. I recollect our house – a small adobe low-set house, consisting of two small rooms and a kitchen. There was a stove in the kitchen, which was heated with firewood. It was used to cook food. Later on we had a Primus [Primus stove: a small portable stove with a container for about 1 liter of kerosene that was pumped into burners], and Mother used the stove only for heating purposes and during preparation for Sabbath, when a lot of dishes were supposed to be cooked and kept warm for the next day. Mother usually started cooking festive Sabbath dishes since early morning on Friday. Friday and Saturday were special for our family, because Father worked in Rezina and came home only on his days-off. Early Saturday morning my parents left for the synagogue. When they came back, the dinner cooked on Friday was still warm. On Sabbath we often went to Grandfather Moishe. All the children and grandchildren got together in the drawing-room. The table was laid with such festive dishes as gefilte fish, chicken broth and tsimes. Challah and wine were in the center of the table, and Grandfather was saying a benediction. After that, I, the favorite granddaughter, came up to everybody with a wine carafe on the tray and everybody was supposed to sip wine from that vessel.

We also observed the kashrut. There was a shed in the backyard of our house. Firewood and other household things were kept there. Father made a coop here for chicken and ducks. We didn’t have a kitchen garden, because the whole yard was the size of a room, but poultry was a big help for us in nutrition. Mother took chickens to a shochet. I often went with her. When I grew up, I went to the shochet by myself. I observed the butcher putting the fowl on hooks so that the blood would seep into a special tray. Only after that the chicken was considered kosher. After that, Mother plucked feathers from the chicken. She disemboweled the chicken and scorched chicken at home. The meat was also made kosher. There was a special cutting board with the notches placed at a certain distance from each other. Salted meat was placed there and blood would seep from the notches. Meat was made kosher within an hour. There were separate dishes for meat and dairy, as well as differently marked knives and cutting boards.

Since my early childhood I went to the synagogue with my parents. There were several synagogues in our small town. I remember four of them. Maybe there were more than that. The synagogues weren’t classified in terms of the craft. Synagogues were attended by the Jews who lived in the closest vicinity. There was a rather large synagogue not far from our house. It was a one-storied building, though men and women prayed in different halls. On Saturdays Father put on his tallit and tefillin. I carried his prayer book to the synagogue. Sabbath was sacred to my father, though during the rest of the week he was a secular Jew. He didn’t even cover his head all the time. What I liked the most in our synagogue was the place where the Torah was kept – adorned with gold and velvet. I liked to listen to the singing of the cantor and chorus. It was spectacular.

Synagogues were crowded in our town. The population of the town mostly consisted of Jews. There were a few rich people. I remember the owner of the manufactory store, Tsenner, and the owners of the grocery stores, the Goldenbergs and Fainsteins. The shoe-store belonged to Gonikman. There were also several doctors and a lawyer. The rest of the population lived very moderately, not to say indigently, counting every kopeck. My family was one of those. There were neither class nor national divisions among children. All of us were very friendly – Moldovans, Jews, the children of the rich, middle-class and poor people. Jews respected the poor ones. On Sabbath and holidays there were always indigent Jews, who where sitting at our festive table. 

I had a lot of friends, mostly among boys. In winter the Dniestr was frozen and we used it as a skating rink. I didn’t have my own skates. I usually borrowed them from some boys, who helped me skate on ice. In summer, I liked to stroll in the central park, located on the bank of the Dniestr, on the picturesque turn under the hill. There was a large and nicely decorated Orthodox church on the central square. The bell toll of the church was very beautiful and we liked to listen to it. I also liked going to the market, located not far from the church. The counters were full of all kinds of vegetables and fruits of different colors. There was also a wholesale of grapes. Father always bought grapes from one and the same Moldovan. He also made wine for us, which was kept in our cellar. Mother liked to haggle. How could she do without making a bargain? The sellers from the market went shopping to the stores to buy the things they needed as well as presents for their children. The peasants liked bagels most of all. They bundled bagels on the thread and put it over the neck. Jews and Moldovans treated each other as neighbors. I can’t say it was a cemented friendship, but at least there were no insults.

Jewish traditions were observed in the house of Grandfather Moishe. I learnt from my neighbors about the Jews, their mode of life, traditions and holidays. The rabbi and his wife lived in front of our house. They didn’t have children and they loved me very much. I was a welcome guest almost every day. I am sorry that I fail to remember the names of such close people to me, who taught me the Jewish traditions. The rabbi’s wife taught me the ethics of the Jewish family life, housekeeping. She was always wearing nice dresses, wigs and kerchiefs tied in an eccentric way. She taught me to be dressed up in the house, for the family, so that the husband enjoys looking at his wife, not only the outsiders. She also taught me how to cook a variety of Jewish dishes in accordance with the holiday traditions. She and I baked hamantashen for Purim, potato fritters and doughnuts for Chanukkah. She also taught me how to place all Paschal products mentioned in the Haggadah on the dish and cook bitter herbs.

I liked holidays very much. The fall holidays of Sukkot and Simchat Torah appealed to me the most. They were after Yom Kippur, when our parents were fasting and attending the synagogue, and we, the children, were forbidden to have fun and chatter. I began fasting rather young, at the age of six. During other periods of time I couldn’t fast, but on Yom Kippur, I was as if choked and got over the fasting rather easily. I also enjoyed the ceremonious Rosh Hashanah, when they blew the shofar in the synagogues.

I liked Sukkot for its being so peculiar. There was a festive table laid in the sukkah, built by Grandfather Moishe. The sukkah was decorated with tree branches. I liked the mirthful holiday of Simchat Torah, when the Jews were carrying the Torah scroll with dancing and music. The parade, carrying a hollowed-out-pumpkin lantern with the candles inserted inside, was descending from the mountain to the central park and walking along the town. Like many other children, I remember Chanukkah, as I was given money by Grandfather Moishe. My mother’s brothers also gave me money.

We were looking forward to the joyful Purim. First, there was a pageant procession in the town. When I was in my teens, I also took part in it. Children got together in the rabbi’s house, where a Purimshpiel was organized. As a rule I was Esther, the heroine of the Jewish peoples. Apart from hamantashen there was also a white loaf, baked only in the rich houses. It was made of dough with honey and nuts. Not everybody could afford such a luxury. In the evening the Jews could be seen with trays, taking shelakhmones to each other. There should be no less than two presents. As we had a lot of relatives, my mother would start baking the hamantashen in the evening. She also used to make homemade sweets and cookies. My brother and I used to take those presents. We also were given delicious shelakhmones. We knew the way each lady baked, and we could tell with the eyes closed whose present it was.

Pesach was the king of all the holidays. We started getting ready for it right after Purim. I liked the fuss in the house. We were cleaning things, moving the furniture, beating carpets, whitewashing the stove, putting dressy curtains on the windows, and a lacy cover on the table. Even the chicken coops were cleaned. Father came home beforehand and brought presents for all of us – Mother usually got a nice shawl or fabric for a dress. I got patent-leather shoes or a dress, my brother was given boots or a coat. Though our garments were pretty nice, we were looking forward to getting new pieces. The chest with beautiful dishes was taken from the loft. Those dishes were used once a year for a week.

Chametz was banished from the house on the eve of the holiday. Father was walking around the house with a goose feather and sweeping out non-existent crumbs. Starting on that day only matzah was used. Sweet or sour keyzels, kneydlakh for the chicken broth were also made from matzah. Even gefilte fish was made with soaked matzah flour. Mother always baked nut cake for the dessert with the following ingredients: 100 nuts, whipped egg whites from ten eggs, matzah flour and lemon.

Father would always carry out the seder. First, I asked the four traditional questions about the origin of the holiday. Then my brother Motle took over. Our neighbors, the Tkaches, were always invited to sit at our festive table. They used to be rich, and then they went bust and became very poor. They had a large family of eight children. For the second seder we usually went to Grandfather Moishe. Grandmother Sura, who loved me best of all, always demonstrated special attention to me. She gave me the best presents and let me lay dishes on the table. So I felt that I was her favorite granddaughter.

In 1934, I went to a Romanian elementary co-ed school. I was good at my studies, ranking top of the class and getting the first and the second prizes. At the end of the year we were given prizes, usually these were books and backpacks. The teachers treated me very well. They had an equal attitude towards Jews, Moldovans and Russians. Jewish children were exempt from the course of Orthodox Christian religion. They were taught Jewish history. It was so interesting that Orthodox children cut their classes to attend our lectures. I liked such subjects of natural sciences as botany and zoology. I was also good at such crafts as knitting and embroidery. At the end of the year there was an exhibition organized at our school. The students’ works were exhibited there and my works were always in the most conspicuous place.

Grandfather Moishe asked me to embroider him a night shirt. Back in those times men went to bed in long night shirts. I had been procrastinating all the time, and didn’t manage to embroider the shirt for my grandfather. On 9th May 1941 Grandfather Moishe passed away. Great-grandmother Haya had died one year before. My grandparents were buried in accordance with the Jewish rites. They were covered in a shroud. I didn’t go to the cemetery. It was not traditional for the Jews to take those children to the cemetery, whose parents were still alive. I remember the period of mourning. We took part in it as well. We sat on the floor with our relatives. I was walking without shoes, just in my stockings. Our neighbor, the rabbi, read a prayer for the deceased.

I studied in Vad-Rashkov for four years. I had to go to another town to continue my studies, as there were no other schools in our town. I studied in Vornicheny for two years. The town was 18 kilometers away from us. I shared the apartment with two girls from our school. Our landlady was a Jew, Sima. We had bed and breakfast. She fed us very well. All of us lived in one room and got along with each other. On the eve of Sabbath, viz. on Friday we went home. We also went home for Jewish holidays. By then I wasn’t as delighted by the holidays as I had been in the period of my childhood. I was just paying a tribute to tradition. Besides, I didn’t have other things to do other than observing Jewish traditions.

The Fascist organizations of the Cuzists 17 and Legionnaires 18 were established. Jewish youth adhered to two opposite camps – Zionists 19 and Communists. I was indifferent to either of them. When I came for a visit to Uncle Yankel and Aunt Haika I heard their delightful stories about the USSR from their Communist children and their dreams about justice and equality in the society of the future. I, being calm and well-bred, and respecting traditions and the existing mode of life, wasn’t carried away by their ideas. I didn’t participate in the Jewish Zionist organizations either.

When in the late June of 1940, Soviet peace troops came to Bessarabia, my family wasn’t meeting them with admiration, the way many other Jews were. Moreover, we were plagued by the feeling of uncertainty. Father even locked the door. Nothing bad happened. We weren’t affected by repressions and sequestration, which started a couple of days later. We heard about those things from other people. There were few rich people in our town, and all of our acquaintances and relatives were poor. Father was employed at some sort of an enterprise. In late August I left for Rezina and entered the eighth grade of the Soviet school. I turned over a new leaf. My life was more interesting now. I was an excellent student at school as always, in spite of the fact that subjects were taught in Russian and it was rather difficult for me. I became fluent in Russian rather swiftly. The main difference between the Soviet and Romanian school was that now children of the poorest strata of society were able to study at school, before that it had been unaffordable for them. The atmosphere was also more democratic. I lived with my father’s aunt Perl. I made friends with her eldest son Nahman. We spent a lot of time together. It was a puppy love with him. I had a lot of friends. We became pioneers 20 and had a lot of new events for us – pioneer meetings, workshops, PT, but it didn’t last long.

During the War

In June 1941, I passed final exams for the eighth grade and was supposed to go back home on vacation, but I stayed in Rezina for a couple of days as I didn’t want to part with Nahman. At 12am on 22nd June we found out about the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War from Molotov’s speech 21. That was the last time I saw Nahman before leaving for evacuation. As it turned out, he was drafted into the Soviet army 22 in the first days of the war. There was panic at home. Father insisted on evacuation, Mother still had doubts whether to leave or not to leave. On 8th August the town was bombed for the first time. We stayed in the town for another week. Almost all the Jews left for the evacuation – some people left on carts, others went on foot. Some Jews, especially the elderly ones, weren’t in a haste to leave as they thought that the Germans would do no harm to them.

On 16th July my parents decided to leave, right after Kishinev was occupied. Mother thought that things would be settled down within a couple of days and we would be back home. She only took some documents and money. She even left her modest jewelry at home. Mother locked the house and gave the keys to the Moldovan neighbor, asking her to watch over the house. We didn’t take most of our belongings, we just had light luggage. Only Motle took his favourite thing – his backgammon. I still keep it. I don’t remember how we met our relatives on our way to evacuation. Soon the families of my mother’s relatives joined us. These were Leib, Feiga and Joseph. So, our big family left the household for nowhere.

We walked along the road together with other fugitives. There were frequent bombings and we had to hide in the field or in the forest. There was screaming and sobbing. There were wounded and killed people. Sometimes we went to the Ukrainian villages. The hosts were very hospitable. They let us take a bath in the bathhouse. We stayed overnight in their house. They also fed us, gave us milk and clean clothes. Kind Ukrainian ladies asked us to stay with them. They were sorry for my mother, me, and especially for my little brother. We carried on like that for a month. There was no way we could return home. In each village we came to, we got together by the radio at 12am to listen to the news round-ups. We found out how rapidly the Germans were penetrating and moving forward in our land.

On 25th August 1941 we happened to be in the town of Bataysk, Rostov oblast [today Russia], about 1000 kilometers away from our home. We took locomotive trains and moved further to the east. There were people evacuated from different towns and villages of Ukraine and Russia. There were crowds of people, but everybody was given a chance to get on the locomotive. There was hardly any food. We managed to get some boiled water at the stations, sometimes some food. We didn’t know exactly where we were going. All we knew was that we moved eastwards. It took us almost a month to get to the town of Andijon in Uzbekistan.

Father, together with other men, went to the evacuation point right away. They went to work as loaders in the vegetable warehouse. We found a lodging the same day. We rented a small house, where our family settled. We were starving at first. Though, owing to Father’s work at the warehouse he got potato and beet skins and semi-rotten cabbage leaves. We were fed once a day in the evacuation point. We were given some porridge made of water and grains. Usually the neighbor boy, who was lame, cried to us: ‘Porridge is given out’ and we would dash to the evacuation point with our plates. There were long lines of people. The most important thing was that we were given 400 grams of bread daily. It was military, underbaked, sour bread, but it seemed a tidbit to us. I went to the ninth grade in Andijon. I worked after classes during the second shift. I did my homework at night.

In 1942 Father, my uncles Joseph and Shneer were drafted into the labor front. They were sent to build the metro in Moscow. Father sent us letters. Sometimes he sent us money as well. It made our life a little easier. I worked as a loader at the cotton oil factory. Before I left the factory I was allowed to soak my clothes in cotton oil. I put as many clothes as possible and soaked them in oil very well. The members of my extended family were waiting for me by the entrance. There was a considerable lack of fats in our diet, so they had to suck cotton oil from my clothes. I was standing there and crying. Almost all the factory workers were taking the cotton oil the way I did, and there were other people close to us, who were saturating in oil like my relatives. Mother used to cry a lot because I worked very hard. I tried to leave some oil for my little brother. Motle took the hunger really hard.

At the beginning of 1943 my little brother and Uncle Leib got afflicted with typhus fever. I was surprised that the rest of our relatives, stuck together in our poky place, didn’t catch that disease. I was immune, as I had had this disease in 1936. No matter what we did we couldn’t save my brother Motle and Uncle Leib. They died on 23rd March 1943. They were put in the cart and taken to the cemetery. They were buried in a common grave for the afflicted with the typhus fever. I kept the backgammon of my brother Motle as a precious thing.

In spite of working hard, I finished school with honors in 1943. Father sent me some money. He insisted on my continuing my studies. I went to the town of Osh, located at the border of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Rostov University was evacuated there. I submitted my documents and was enrolled without taking any exams, because I was an excellent student. I entered the Chemical Agents Department. I settled in the hostel. A new stage in my life began. I became a student. I had studied at Rostov University only for two months. In late October there was a terrible explosion in the laboratory of our university and a couple of our students died, many students were evacuated with severe scalds. I didn’t tell my mother about it, but Mother had a hunch that something had happened. Mother came to Osh, and having found out that I had remained alive by a miracle, insisted on my leaving the institute. I always listened to my mother and left Osh, in spite of liking my studies and having friends there.

I was transferred to the Tashkent Medical Institute, where I studied until 1944. I have never regretted that, because I understood that medicine was my calling. There, in Tashkent [today capital of Uzbekistan] I made friends with Jewish girls from Moldova 23, with whom I lived in the hostel. Gradually our life was getting better. I received an increased stipend and was paid for knitting, so I had the opportunity to send some money to my mother. What made me rejoice the most was that Nahman had found me via the bureau of the evacuees. We started to write each other tender letters. In late 1944 Father came back from Moscow and began working as a digger. He was grieving over his son’s death, but he tried not to show that to my mother. Mother couldn’t forgive herself for Motle’s death. She thought it was her fault.

After the War

In late December 1944, right after the liberation of Bessarabia we left for home. Of course, our way back home seemed much shorter to us. We had to change trains and on 3rd January 1945 we arrived in Kishinev. The city was dark, devastated and dilapidated. Father decided that we should stay in Kishinev, as Vad-Rashkov was also devastated. From our pal’s letters we found out that our house was demolished as well. So we didn’t go back to our town. There were a lot of unoccupied basement and semi-basement premises. We took one large room and began settling in.

Father started work at the creamery. Mother was a housewife. Shortly after my arrival in Kishinev, I applied to the newly-founded Medical Institute and was accepted in the second year. I was happy. Here in Kishinev I met Nahman. He barely participated in any battles. Like other Bessarabians, Nahman was demobilized from the lines in a month, as the Soviet regime didn’t trust people from the newly-annexed lands. In Buguruslan [today Russia] he entered the History Department at the Teachers’ Training Institute. In 1944, Nahman was among the first graduates. By that time he had become an active Komsomol 24 member, the secretary of the Komsomol committee of the institute. [Editor’s note: Komsomol units existed at all educational and industrial enterprises. They were headed by Komsomol committees involved in organizational activities].

Nahman came to Kishinev with other graduates of the institute right after the liberation of the city. Nahman moved in with us, being our relative. His close relatives died. His mother Perl and brother Gedali perished in a ghetto. Nahman and I became more and more close. Soon he proposed to me. It happened on Victory Day, 9th May 1945. Nahman and I were in Odessa on that day 25, strolling along a beautiful maritime boulevard. It seemed to us, that the entire population of Odessa was in the street. Unacquainted people were kissing each other, rejoicing in our victory and hoping for a bright future.

In spring 1946 Nahman and I got married. We had a hard life. Bread was given out by cards 26: there was neither provision nor essential commodities. But we were young, we loved each other and hoped for the future. I sold my bread card and bought my dream – nylon stockings. I also put on a skirt made from burlap and a patched blouse. That was the way I was dressed to go to the state registration office to register our marriage. In the evening our relatives got together in our dark room. We had tea with rye bread and sweets made of colored sugar and water. Then we danced to the gramophone and had fun.

We kept on living with my parents in their poky room. We made a kitchen from the small corridor, where Mother cooked on a Primus stove. We didn’t feel the lack of space. Our relatives came over often. We kept late hours, having tea and they stayed overnight. Some of them were sleeping on the table, others on the floor. There wasn’t enough room for everybody, but we had a good time anyway. I brought up my first-born son, David, in this room. He was born in 1948, and in 1952 I gave birth to another boy, Boris.

I didn’t quit my studies when David was born. It was difficult to combine my studies at the Medical Institute with sleepless nights, laundry and changing swaddles. My parents helped me a lot. I became a Komsomol member at the institute and even found time for social work. Nahman became a member of the Communist Party after graduation. He began to teach at the Teachers’ Training Institute, then at Kishinev University. When I was graduating from the institute, state anti-Semitism became commonplace. It was the year of 1949, famous for the overthrow of the anti-Fascist Committee 27, and then the Doctors’ Plot 28. I graduated that year.

In spite of having graduated with honors, I wasn’t accepted for the post-graduate studies, after I submitted the documents and passed all exams with excellent marks. They told me that I was to practice medicine first. But my Moldovan friend was easily accepted. I got my mandatory job assignment 29 to a distant Moldovan village, but they had to let me stay here, as my husband was working in Kishinev, and besides I had a small child. I was sent to the department of preventive care of the health care ministry and was employed as a therapist part-time. It was dreadful to practice medicine during the sensational Doctors’ Plot. I came across such a case: the patient whom I was calling on, shut the door right in front of me. She didn’t tell me anything, I understood everything by her grouchy look. It was hard for me to go to see other patients on that day.

When I addressed this case to the head of our department, he told me that patients were entitled to refuse to be treated by certain doctors and concocted a kind of a petty accusation for me. Jews were always criticized. In spite of being calm and reserved, I cried all night long. My husband was comforting me and saying that all that injustice would be over soon. He had the power to predict and at the same time to have a fair opinion on the reality. Either this was a feature of his character or his profession of a historian made such an imprint on him. Anyway when Stalin passed away in 1953, he wasn’t mourning like the rest of the people, he was one of the few ones who were almost glad. He said that now justice would prevail. I, being influenced by my husband, had a clear mind and took the death of the leader rather calmly. But my parents, especially my mother were grieving over it and crying.

Mother was ill at that time. Her health was undermined when she was working hard in Andijon. The years of starvation also affected her. Mother had liver cancer. In 1956 she died, being a little over fifty. She was buried in the Jewish sector of the Kishinev cemetery. Father read a commemoration prayer. It was very hard for me to get over my mother’s death. She was the dearest person to me. Father did many chores, trying to help me about the house. He went shopping, to the market, cooked and looked after the children. He was so complaisant and reliable that it helped me to overcome a hard period of grievance.

I have always had two jobs since our financial situation wasn’t favorable. I had to raise two children. The salaries of doctors and teachers weren’t high. I never got a promotion and remained in the same position. However, in 1956, after the revelations about Stalin’s personality cult, I had a new feeling of the wind of change. But in reality things didn’t change that much for the Jews. My husband was a talented historian. For several years he had been working on his dissertation 30, but he couldn’t defend it as it was declared outdated. Then he wrote another thesis, on a different topic, and he was told the same. He remained an ordinary teacher till the rest of his life.

Our children were growing up like any other Soviet children: nursery, kindergarten. When they were ill, my mother often looked after them, and when my mother died, Father would help out. In 1959 we got an apartment, and finally moved out of that basement. I am currently living in that apartment.

My sons were excellent students, both of them finished school with a golden medal. [Editor’s note: the golden medal was the highest distinction in USSR secondary schools. A student was supposed to have straight excellent marks (100%) to get the golden medal.] We paid a lot of attention to our children and tried to bring them up as civilized people. We used to discuss the books, read by our boys. They read almost all the Russian and foreign classics. They also knew Sholem Aleichem 31. At that time he was the only Jewish writer, whose works were published in Russian.

We were theater-goers. We also liked to attend symphony concerts, go on excursions to Moscow, Kiev. One of our vacations was totally devoted to Leningrad, its palaces and museums. We went to the seaside, to the Crimea, the Caucasus. I can say we had a full life. Of course, we were not rich: we didn’t own a house or a car, but at least we had a well-furnished apartment. We also could afford good food, clothes and recreation.

Jewish traditions were always kept only by my father. Of course, my husband and I were atheists. Nahman was a member of the Party. We worked on Saturdays, as Saturday was a working day, but Father always observed Sabbath. He attended the synagogue while he could walk. The kashrut couldn’t be observed, as it was hard to get any food products not to mention kosher ones. There was always matzah for Pesach. Father waited in a long line to get it in the synagogue. Father cooked traditional dishes for the holiday.

David and Boris always felt themselves to be Jewish and were interested in the long Jewish history since their childhood. Father told them many stories. He told them about the town we lived in, about Jewish traditions. I think he plied them with love for the Jewish people. Father lived a long life and died in his sleep in 1988, at the age of 94. He was buried next to my mother in the Jewish sector of the city cemetery in accordance with the rite. He was buried in a shroud. The warden of the synagogue, an elderly Jew, read a prayer.

My children got a wonderful education. The elder one, David, entered the Physics department of [Kishinev] university. He was an excellent student and graduated with honors. He worked for many years as a theoretical physicist. After perestroika the institute he worked for was closed down and David remained jobless. He decided to become an entrepreneur and founded his own company on sales and installation of computer equipment. His company is prosperous now. David was married, but got divorced. He keeps in touch with his son and helps him. My grandson Pavel, born in 1983, graduated from the police academy. He is currently living and working in Kishinev. He has a two-year-old son, my great-grandson Dmitriy. My son David left the apartment to his wife and lives with me now.

My younger son Boris followed in his father’s footsteps: he graduated from the History Department of Kishinev University. He is married to a Moldovan lady, Lidia. They have a wonderful family. They have two children – Polina, named after my mother-in-law Perl, born in 1985, and their son Sergey, born in 1987. Their children are grown now. Sergey is finishing school. Polina left for Israel to study. I visited her in Israel. We had a good time together. Israel is a marvelous country. I admire it, but I am always nostalgic about my motherland. Polina doesn’t want to leave Israel. She has become a real Israeli citizen. She observes all the traditions there. She has a lot of friends. Polina wants to serve in the Israeli army. She sees her life only there and I am happy she has found what she sought.

We always implicitly supported Israel, even during those years when it was officially stigmatized as an aggressive country. It was hard for my husband, as he worked in an ideological atmosphere, and he had to take part in the conversations and listen to accusations towards the young Israeli state. When the immigration started, most our relatives left for Israel. Neither my husband nor I wanted to leave, as we were attached to out motherland, Bessarabia. We were born and raised here, being part and parcel of it.

My husband died in 1989 from a heart attack. I have been by myself for many years now and I still can’t get over his death. He was a remarkable man – intelligent, thoughtful and kind-hearted. I was barely affected by perestroika and the foundation of the independent state of Moldova. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to live on my pension, but my children are helping me out as they have their both feet firmly on the ground. Besides, Hesed is assisting me a lot as well as other Jews. I receive food and what is most important, I have some moral support. I have a lot of friends among Hesed’s clients. We celebrate Jewish holidays and Sabbath together. I am not religious, but I became a member of the women’s club, where Jewish traditions are studied. I can say that perestroika brought about a revival of Jewish traditions, which is wonderful.

Glossary:

Busia Makalets
Kishinev
Moldova
Interviewer: Nathalia Fomina
Date of interview: May 2004

Busia Litmanovna Makalets is a loud expansive lady. Despite being 85 years of age she is full of energy and coquetry. When we met, she wore trousers and a dark sweater. She has silver gray hair, which reflected the dark color of her sweater, and a long fair shawl emphasized the elegance of her slim figure. Busia Litmanovna has extraordinary eyes: one blue and one green. They look enormous behind her glasses. She lives in a two-bedroom apartment in a Khrushchevka 1 house, though it’s furnished in such a way that the apartment looks spacious and cozy. The room where we had our conversation has soft beige wallpaper, there is a piano near the window, a table in the middle of the room, a few chairs, and a TV set in the corner. There is a cupboard and a bookcase by the wall. There are family pictures behind the glass. Busia Litmanovna tells me about her life with warmth and humor. She sings Jewish songs with perfect Yiddish intonation beautifully.

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

My parents’ families lived in Poland, in the town of Vladimirets [Lutsk district, Volyn province; according to the 1987 census there were 2074 residents, 1024 of them were Jews]. In 1918, after World War I, Vladimirets was annexed to Poland. I came from Bessarabia 2 to visit Vladimirets for the first time before I turned six years old. We visited my maternal great-grandmother Cipora, whose surname I don’t remember. She was 105 years old. She couldn’t see anything due to her old age. She was sitting on the bed in a dark room with her feet down, and there were chickens running around on the ground floor. When I approached her, she hugged me and stroked my hair repeating, ‘Basia-Bunele, Basia-Bunele.’ I was called Busia at home and had never heard my Jewish name of Basia-Bunia at home before, and it seemed to me that Grandmother Cipora was teasing me. I felt hurt and burst into tears. Grandmother Cipora must have lived with one of her children and they must have been poor, judging by their house and earth-floors.

My maternal grandfather, David Tetelbaum, died before I was born. He was a cattle dealer. My grandfather must have died in the 1900s, since my brother David, born in 1910, was named after him. We lived in the house of my grandmother Golda-Leya Tetelbaum for almost ten years, but I have very dim memories of her. Of course my grandmother was very religious and observed all the Jewish traditions like all Jews in Vladimirets. I remember, when my older sister Tania sent a card with a photo of a woman wearing a swimming suit, my grandmother got very angry seeing this picture. She decided this was Tania and really told my mother off, saying that Tania was a frivolous woman. My grandmother had an ordinary house. I remember that when we moved in there from Bessarabia, my father modified the stove in the Bessarabian manner, fixing it with a metal rim on the edges.

I don’t know how many children Grandmother Golda had. My mother’s sister Tauba lived in Vladimirets. She had a store where she sold beer, I guess. She and my mother’s younger sister Zelda were killed in the ghetto [in Vladimirets] during the war. This is all I can remember about her.

I remember Zelda well. She was a bright person. Zelda and her husband Yakov Bass, a pharmacist, lived in Rafalovka, a Jewish town near Vladimirets. Besides selling medications, the pharmacist also recommended treatment and was a popular figure in the town. Yakov was a very intelligent person. Zelda liked singing. She took part in amateur concerts and traveled with her group to Vladimirets, and then there were posters saying, ‘Concert with Zelda Bass’ in the town. These concerts were usually arranged in somebody’s big shed and then all residents of Vladimirets attended them. There was no other entertainment in the town.

From what I remember, Zelda had three children: the sons Nathan and David and a daughter, Rivka. When the war began  3, Zelda and her children were kept in the ghetto in Vladimirets. As for Yakov, the locals convinced the Germans that they needed him, and the Germans left him alone. He came to Vladimirets to talk with his relatives, and the family decided that one of them had to stay free. I don’t quite remember what happened next, but somehow Yakov joined a partisan unit and his children David and Rivka and Nathan’s fiancée Fenia were with him there. From what I’ve been told, I remember that when they were escaping from the ghetto, Fenia kept a piece of matzah against her heart as a talisman that was supposed to save them.

Aunt Zelda and her older son Nathan were killed in the ghetto. Later Yakov married his deceased son’s fiancée and moved to Italy and from there – to Eretz Israel, where he published a book about his adventures during the war and anti-Semitism in the partisan unit. He also enclosed Zelda’s last letter in this book, I translated it from Yiddish: ‘Our dearest, we shall not lose our faith in God till the last minute. I kiss you, our darlings, be strong. Whatever happens, may the Lord help you. Zelda’, and a few words that Nathan wrote: ‘Greetings, Papa, David, Rivka, Fenia. We die proud. Be happy. Nathan’.

My mother, Esther Tetelbaum, was born in Vladimirets in 1882. My mother was very beautiful. That is, I think so now, looking at her photograph, but as a child I didn’t give it a thought. My mother must have been educated at home. She spoke fluent Yiddish, knew all the Jewish traditions and was a wonderful housewife. She was crazy about keeping the house ideally clean. My mother didn’t tell me how she met my father, but I think they married for love: their families were neighbors in Vladimirets.

I can't say what my paternal grandfather, Gersh Volok, did for a living. I met him, when he was very old and lived with his son’s family. He was a handsome Jew: with his beard, payes, wearing a black kitel. My grandfather’s appearance struck me. While living in Bolgrad, before we moved to Vladimirets, I didn’t meet such expressed Jews, and later I read about them in Sholem Aleichem 4 books. We kept my grandfather’s portrait for a long time at home and I’m so sorry it got lost. My paternal grandmother died so long ago. I don’t even remember her name. There was an old woman living with my grandfather, but she wasn’t my father’s mother.

I loved my grandfather dearly. I came to see my grandfather on Yom Kippur, before the Kol Nidre prayer, a known prayer before the Day of Atonement, and my grandfather laid his hands on my head and blessed me. After my father died, I heard and learned the song that I always associate with him: ‘Erev Yom Kippur, erev Kol Nidre, kind mayn zayt genetsht – before Yom Kippur, before Kol Nidre, may my child be blessed. Zayne bayde hande, zayne tzittern … – His both hands, his trembling…’

My grandfather died, when I was about 15 years of age. This happened in 1934. We came to his funeral from Bolgrad. I felt like crying, but I held back my tears for the fear that the boys I knew would think I pretended. My grandfather was buried in accordance with the ritual, of course. I remember that he was wrapped in a takhrikhim and there was a cover on him. There was no coffin and he was carried on a stretcher. I don’t remember how we sat shivah.

Of all of Gershl’s children I only remember my father’s brother, who lived with my grandfather. He was a Hasid 5 and was fanatically religious. I don’t remember his name. He had a beautiful daughter and a handsome son, who studied in the yeshivah. We had too little in common and didn’t communicate closely. They perished in the ghetto during the war.

My father, Litman Volok, was born in Vladimirets, in the Russian Empire in 1878. He finished a yeshivah and taught Hebrew and traditions. He spoke fluent Russian. My parents got married in the early 1900s. My father was in the tsarist army for four years during World War I, but I don’t know whether he took part in combat action. He returned home in 1918. At that time my parents lived in Cimislia in Bessarabia. By that time my parents had five children. My oldest brother Zelik was born in 1903 in Vladimirets, my second brother Boruch-Nathan was born in Cimislia in 1905, my older sister Tuba, whom we called Tania, was born in 1907, and the next two brothers Mikhail and David were born one after another [in 1909 and 1910, respectively].

Growing up

I was born in Cimislia in 1919. Even before I was born my parents decided on giving me the name of one of my paternal ancestors: Basia-Bunia. However, my father didn’t like this idea. When he went to the synagogue bringing vodka and honey cake, as was customary with Jews, he gave me the name of Busia. Our family moved to Bolgrad, when I was about a year old. My father taught Hebrew in a Jewish school called Tarbut 6 in Bessarabia. We, the children, spoke Hebrew at home. My mother understood Hebrew, but spoke Yiddish with us. I remember one summer my brothers Mikhail and David were arguing in Hebrew about which of them was going to pick a watermelon in the cellar. We had a blue box where my parents dropped money for the fund of Israel, this contribution was called Keren-Kayemet 7, which means that my parents were Zionists. My father loved Mama dearly and I remember my oldest brothers saying. ‘Papa is in love with Mama.’ I was three years old, when my brother Zelik went to the chalutzim camp, and then moved to Palestine in 1922 where he changed his name to Aviezer.

When I was about five years old, my 19-year-old brother Boruch-Nathan drowned in the river. I can still remember this horrible day in all details. It was Thursday, and on Thursday there was a brass orchestra playing on the boulevard where we lived. People went for a walk on the boulevard. Before going out I cried, asking Mama to let me wear a new marquisette dress, but my mother said that since there was no holiday there was no reason for me to wear the dress. I ran out and my tears dried out, when I heard the music. All of a sudden a bunch of boys surrounded me. They were shouting, ‘Your brother has drowned! Your brother has drowned!’ I didn’t understand what they meant and ran home. Mama was sitting in the yard having tea, holding a lump of sugar in her mouth. She asked me, ‘What’s up?’ and I replied, ‘The boys say that Boruch-Nathan had drowned.’

There were two exits from our yard: one to the boulevard and the other one to Magazinnaya Street leading to the river. When I said this, there was a roar of voices from the side of the river: ‘Uh-uh…’ that I could never forget. Mama fainted…  Then my sister Tania’s friend Esther took me to her place. I remember sitting on a windowsill in her house, crying. The dogs were barking. When my older brother living in Palestine heard that our brother had drowned, he changed his surname to Achinathan. ‘Achi’ is ‘my brother’ in Hebrew. Achinathan means ‘my brother Nathan.’ His name became Aviezer Achinathan. We corresponded with him before the war. He wrote that he worked in road construction and took part in the Haganah [defense organization].

That same year Tania finished a gymnasium in Bolgrad and moved to Aviezer in Palestine. My parents and I went to see our relatives in Vladimirets in Poland. Vladimirets belongs to Ukraine now, it is located near Sarny in Rovno region. The relatives started telling my parents, ‘Why live in a foreign land in Bessarabia, come move to Vladimirets.’ My parents left me with Grandmother and went to Bolgrad to pack our belongings and pick up Mikhail and David. So we moved to Vladimirets and stayed with Grandmother Golda-Leya.

Vladimirets was a typical Jewish town. For me it is the Kasrilovka of Sholem Aleichem [Kasrilovka is a fictitious name of a Jewish town in the works of Sholem Aleichem. Busia means to say that Jews in Vladimirets were as archaic as Jews in the tsarist Russia.] The population of Vladimirets was Polish, Russian and Jewish. The main street in Vladimirets was in the lowlands, and narrow streets started on both sides of it with houses on the slopes. Housewives threw buckets of waste water right into the streets. There were whitewashed houses with tiled roofs in the town. There were dirt roads with wooden walkways. There were two synagogues downtown and I remember that there was no peace between them. One synagogue stood for one rabbi and another one for a different one. There were even fights like there are in our parliament now.

My grandfather Gersh Volok’s house was on a hill, across the street from our house, and the synagogue was down the street. One winter day I watched my grandfather and an acquaintance of his sitting on the snow to slide down the street. Grandfather Gersh rarely visited us. My brothers didn’t wear hats, and when Grandfather Gersh came by, my brothers were running around turning everything upside down looking for their hats in panic. When my father asked Grandfather why he came to see us so rarely, my grandfather replied, ‘Why would I come by? When I do come, they start looking for their hats and there’s a lot of fuss. It’s no good.’

My father owned a private cheder in Vladimirets, where he taught Hebrew, the Tannakh and everything there was to teach. My father also prepared boys for their bar mitzvah. According to Jewish rules boys become men at the age of 13, when they wear tefillin and read a section from the Torah at the synagogue. My father didn’t go to the synagogue every day, but he fasted on Yom Kippur, went to the synagogue on holidays and strictly observed traditions. I remember his words: ‘Traditions have kept us as a nation. Traditions are most important.’

I went to school in Vladimirets. I attended a Polish school in the morning and after lunch I attended my father’s classes in Hebrew. I picked up Polish soon and I knew Hebrew since I was born. I remember that my Polish school allowed me a day off on Saturday. Basically, the Poles were rather anti-Semitic, but I didn’t feel it. We didn’t have the Polish citizenship and my brothers Mikhail and David served in the Romanian army since Bessarabians were Romanian citizens. Later they studied in the Teacher’s Training College in Rovno. In Vladimirets I joined the Zionist organization for young people, Hashomer Hatzair 8. We were dreaming of communism in Israel. So go to Israel and build communism there! Besides my preoccupation with Zionist ideas, I went out with boys and liked singing Jewish songs. I learned all Jewish songs I know in Vladimirets.

Our home was a Jewish home. My mother kept a kosher home and we strictly observed Sabbath. My mother cooked on Friday for Saturday. On Sabbath Mama lit candles and prayed over them.

We celebrated Pesach according to all the rules. There was a general clean-up before the holiday. Then my mother or father – I am not sure – swept out the chametz with a chicken feather. The whole family got together at the table on seder: Grandmother Golda-Leya, my mother and father, my brothers Mikhail and David and I. My father conducted the seder. I, being the youngest in the family, got up and said: ‘Abah ehal otha arba kashot? Hakasha harishona: mah nishtanah halaylah hazeh, mikol halaylot? In Hebrew: Papa, I will ask you four questions. Question one: Why is this night different from all other nights?’ My father reclined on a cushion and there was a piece of matzah hidden underneath. We were to find this matzah secretly, and the one who found it received a gift. I remember one present I got: a big ball with red dots. Why I remember this is because my brothers lost it, when playing with it. There were candles burning, and we were all waiting for Eliah the Mashiyah, Eliah Hanavi, to come in. I waited for him so much in my childhood, but of course, I always fell asleep!

On Rosh Hashanah apples and honey were served. It was always cold in Vladimirets on Sukkot for some reason, and though we installed a sukkah in the yard, we didn’t have meals in it. The climate in Poland was colder than in Bessarabia.

I remember my father giving me Chanukkah gelt on Chanukkah. I knew a song: Chanukkah, Chanukkah, a yomtev a shayner, a lustiger und a fraylicher. Nicht noch azoyner… Which means: ‘Chanukkah, Oh Chanukkah, a fine holiday, a happy and a joyful one. There is no such another one’…  We played with the whipping top. Our chanukkiyah was different from what they have now: it had oil lights that were small round vessels with special Chanukkah oil and wicks in them. My mother added another light each night.

I put on my mother’s coat, a mask and glued on some sort of a beard on Purim and went to give performances in the houses with other children. People gave us some change and we contributed to the fund of Keren Kayemet.

In 1930 my sister Tania visited Vladimirets from Palestine. She was very beautiful and wore different clothes from what women in Vladimirets wore: they had an open neck and short sleeves. She had an unhappy love affair in Palestine: her fiancé moved to America and my sister came to Vladimirets. She didn’t take any interest in young people from Vladimirets, for a whole year she grieved after her young man. However, she took an interest in the Jewish life in Vladimirets.

On some holiday a rebbe from Rovno visited Vladimirets. This was a great event: people got together at the synagogue and brought food with them: I think it was cholent. The rebe gave out this food with his hands, and people grabbed it from him to receive his blessing. One day Tania also went to the synagogue. My father, a respectable Jew in the town, told us later, ‘Everything grew dark in my eyes! All of a sudden I saw my daughter wearing a sleeveless dress standing almost beside the rebbe’. Tania got so absorbed and eager to miss no details that she had quite forgotten that women weren’t supposed to be with men at the synagogue and had to have their arms covered down to their elbows.

A year later Tania moved to France, where her friends from Bolgrad studied: Esther Fishman and Fira Yagolnizer. They had corresponded. In Paris she entered the Chemical Faculty of the University, where she communicated with French Communists and met her future husband. It was also an interesting story. Her friend Esther fell in love with Paul-Christian Megrain, but didn’t dare to tell him about her feelings. My sister went to tell him the story. This matchmaking ended in Christian’s proposal to Tania. She became his wife around 1932. Tania didn’t tell our parents that her husband was French for quite a while. She only called him Paul in her letters, and our parents thought he was a French Jew. We were a patriarchal family, and my parents didn’t approve of this marriage, of course. 

At some point of time my parents felt rather uncomfortable with their material situation in Poland – this coincided with Golda-Leya’s death – and decided to go back to Bolgrad in Bessarabia. My parents and I moved to Bolgrad in 1932, I think. We rented an apartment from Kuchiniaev, who was probably a Bulgarian. There were many Bulgarians in Bolgrad. There was a Christian church in the center of the town on the boulevard and there was a town garden nearby. Arecurrent theme of my childhood: people strolled on the boulevard here as well, there was a stage and an orchestra playing on it on Thursday. There were many stores owned by Jews. I remember the owner of the fabric store named Gesermann. My father went to teach in the Tarbut in Bolgrad.

I didn’t know a word in Russian or Romanian. The first word that I learned in Romanian was viata – ‘life.’ I was full of life and shouted: ‘Viata!’ and threw myself into the snow till I fell ill with pleurisy. All doctors in Bolgrad were taking care of me: I was Mademoiselle Volok, Mr. Volok’s daughter, who was a teacher. They didn’t charge me for respect for my father. I began to read popular books to pick up Romanian. This was a collection of books published in Romania. There were Stephan Zweig and Somerset Maugham in this collection.

I continued to study in a secondary school in Bolgrad since I didn’t know Romanian to go to a gymnasium. Of course, the boys and girls of my age were excited about my coming to Bolgrad: a very tall girl that can sing well and has an unusual biography. I made many friends and got two lifetime friends: Sara Shlimovich and Nesia Fridman. There was no Hashomer Hatzair in Bolgrad, but there were two other organizations: Gordonia, named after Judah Gordon [Gordon, Judah Leib (1830-1892) Russian poet, essayist, and novelist, considered the leading poet of the Haskalah, the 18th and 19th-century movement for enlightenment among Central and Eastern European Jews. His use of Biblical and post-Biblical Hebrew resulted in a new and influential style of Hebrew-language poetry. His line ‘Be a Jew in your tent and a man when leaving it’ became a motto of Jewish enlighteners of the time], and the extreme right organization Betar – the organization of revisionists 9 of Jabotinsky 10. We believed Betar members to be Jewish Fascists, and I joined the Gordonia. To be frank, I didn’t quite understand all the ideological details. For me, the most important thing was a club where I could sing. Singing was my passion. I remember rowing with my brothers and my close friends Sara and Nesia and I was singing on this night with a full moon and there was a caravan of boats following us – people were listening to me singing.

My father guessed about my creative aspirations. He understood me and I enjoyed spending time with him, while my mother was a common Jewish woman. She took care of the household and always wanted me to become a good housewife. When she was cleaning and took all the pillows outside, I would take a book lying on top of the pillows and started reading. Can you imagine my mother’s response to this? I also liked standing before an open window singing. My mother could interrupt me: ‘Busia, go wash the dishes!’ This got on my nerves and I thought she didn’t understand me. I feel so sorry, when I think about it now.

Or another episode: I am cleaning a window at my mother’s request, doing her a big favor, when my friends go by. They said: ‘Busia, Arlazorov was killed!’ [Arlazorov, Chaim Victor (1899-1933):  one of the leaders of the Zionist workers’ movement, member of the Board of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency since 1931. In 1933 he was actively involved in the organization of mass aliyah of Jews from Nazi Germany. In June 1933 he was killed during a walk in Tel Aviv. Many members of the workers’ movement believed their political opponents, the followers of Jabotinsky to be guilty of the murder of Arlazorov, though the latter denied this bluntly.] Arlazorov was killed! And revisionists and Betar members were suspected. Of course, I gave up cleaning the window and rushed to the organization. I don’t know why they suspected the revisionists. In the evening, and I remember this episode in all details, we, the Gordonists, stood by an open window of the locale – this was how this club of revisionists was called – and heard their leader say, ‘Our friend Arlazorov’… And when we heard this ‘Our friend Arlazorov,’ we threw as many stones into the window, as we could find.

I finished my school and was to decide about my future studies. My father heard about the teachers’ training workshop in Chernovtsy [today Ukraine] where they taught Hebrew. I went to Chernovtsy and entered this teachers’ training workshop. I rented a room from a Jewish family: a widow and her two sons. I made friends with Kubi, the younger one. Kubi’s family was not religious. They were leading a more secular way of life than our family. Anyway, I felt quite comfortable staying with them. Kubi helped me to study German and I started reading in German. I don’t remember any anti-Semitism in Chernovtsy at that time, but it also needs to be mentioned that I was fond of Zionist ideas and socialized with Jews for the most part. I even knew a few underground Communists who had been in Doftan, the main political jail in Bucharest. There was one Gypsy in our organization. I knew about the following Romanian Fascists organizations: Iron Guard 11, Cuzists 12. When I was in Chernovtsy, the Iron Guard in Bucharest was defeated, and there were rumors about dead Iron Guard members in the streets of Kishinev [Chisinau in Moldovan]. My favorite subject in the workshop was music taught by a professor, a former teacher of Josef Schmidt, a famous singer in Romania. When the professor was introducing his students to an official inspecting the workshop, he said about me: ‘As for this girl, she will earn her living with her voice.’ 

There were many cases of tuberculosis in Bolgrad and my parents were very concerned about my condition after I had pleurisy. They took a loan from a Jewish bank to buy me a trip to the Piatra Neamt Mountains. When Tania was visiting us from Paris in 1935, I was to go to Brasov. Tania changed her plan to spend her vacation with her friends and took me to Brasov [today Romania]. I enjoyed the trip with my favorite sister. However, I was an eccentric and spoiled girl, a bad one, frankly speaking, and my Romanian was rather poor. We rented a room from a Romanian family, and almost at once I started a romance with Uce, a young Romanian guy. Tania was staying in the apartment and I went out with Uce. I could hardly understand what he was telling me, but I felt like telling him something sweet. I remembered the word ‘bula’ and said it, though I didn’t remember the meaning. When Uce heard me saying this word, we turned home right away and he said a rather dry ‘good bye.’ I was upset and couldn’t fall asleep for a long time, till my sister asked: ‘What is it?’ When she heard what happened she almost fell from her bed. She was fluent in Romanian. Bula was a ‘bull’ in Romanian and we laughed and laughed in our beds.

In 1940 the Soviets ‘liberated’ Moldavia [Moldova in Moldovan] 13 However, they truly freed us from the Fascists. Private stores in Bolgrad were closed and wealthier people were exiled. They closed the Tarbut and my father lost his job. However, he knew Russian and they sent him to teach Russian in a village. Submitting my certificate from the workshop I entered the Kishinev teachers’ training college to study by correspondence.

During the war

When the war began in 1941, we already knew how Germans treated Jews. We listened to the radio, and besides, I remembered Hitler’s speeches at the time when Bessarabia belonged to Romania. My older brother Mikhail was mobilized to the labor army 14, David and I evacuated, like most young people did. Our parents refused to go with us. ‘Who cares about old people? – my father said. – But you need to go’. We went to Odessa via Akkerman [today Belgorod-Dniestrovskiy]. I had never seen the sea before, and when we got off the boat, I decided to wash my feet. It never occurred to me that the depth there was a few meters and if David hadn’t stopped me, somebody would have had to rescue me. We stayed in the railway station garden for two weeks. Then a Jewish woman from Odessa gave us shelter for a few days. I only remember that her name was Bunia. I also remember Bunia stating rather authoritatively: ‘Stalin? But he is a Jew.’

Odessa was encircled and David went to the evacuation agency every day, trying to obtain a direction for evacuation. We were accommodated in the university hostel. There were bombings in July. Every morning we bought bread in a nearby store, but one morning this store was pulled down. Then my brother obtained permission for us to evacuate. We were to be taken to the harbor by military trucks. David and I boarded different trucks. On our way to the harbor another air raid began. We scattered around and I lost my brother. I spent that night in a house and in the morning I went to the harbor. Our ship happened to have left for Novorossiysk that night, but David was waiting for me at the harbor. We boarded another boat and got to Novorossiysk successfully.

From Novorossiysk we took a train to Kazakhstan, Balkhash. From there David went to the labor army. Having my documents about finishing the workshop and one year of the teachers’ training college I went to the town education department and they sent me to teach German in a secondary school. I worked there for six months. I kept thinking about my parents: we heard on the radio about German atrocities against Jews. There were first gray streaks in my hair at that time. I could not forgive myself for letting Mama and Papa stay.

In 1942 my friends Sara and Nesia found me. They were in Buguruslan where our teachers’ training college evacuated. I went to Buguruslan with them. On the way there my belongings were stolen. I lost all of my winter clothes. My friends shared their clothes with me. I can’t remember what kind of a coat I had, but we had one pair of valenki boots [Russian winter boots made of felt] for the three of us and we took turns wearing them. We rented an apartment and Sara’s sister Lyuba was also with us.

One day our landlady sent a messenger to the college to tell me that my brother was waiting for me. I rushed home. What happened was that the labor army dismissed all former Romanian citizens since Romania was an ally of the Germans. David had no clothes under his winter jacket. Sara, Nesia and I collected clothes for him in our college. David found a job in our college – he studied in the Teachers’ Training College in Rovno, when we lived in Poland. David and Sara’s future husband Yakov rented a room. We spent our time in college together. We didn’t face any anti-Semitism in evacuation, but I remember one episode that seemed funny to me. Once Sara and I were walking home from college and some local boys shouted at Sara: ‘Sarochka! Sarochka!’ [the main characters in Russian anti-Semitic jokes were Abram and Sara]. I asked Sara: ‘How come they know your name?’ It never occurred to me that they were teasing her.

When Kishinev was liberated in 1944, we went there with our Teachers’ Training College. On the first days of my stay there I bumped into our neighbor from Bolgrad, who told me that Mama and Papa were shot in 1941. I was a fifth-year student and we lived in a hostel. We often ran to the market to buy some food. In fall we liked ‘most’ – fresh grape juice. They made young wine from it and farmers were selling it in barrels.

After the war

One day my friend Lora Schlein and I bumped into Petre Scherban, her acquaintance. He knew that Lora had a high soprano and I had a contralto. He said that the Republican Radio Committee was organizing the ‘Moldova’ choir. Lora and I went for the audition. I sang a Moldovan song; singing a Jewish song was out of the question considering the times. I got a job and entered the Vocal Department in the Conservatory. My teacher was Professor Dolev, who taught Ognivtsev, a Soviet singer, soloist of the Bolshoy Theater. I noticed a young man in the choir. He was wearing a military uniform and sang in the tenor group. I asked my friend Liya Barladian, ‘Who is this guy whose eyes are burning like the eternal fire?’ and she replied, ‘He is a very gifted boy, very gifted! He studies at the Composer’s Department of the Conservatory’. Well, this was my future husband Yevgeniy Makalets.

Yevgeniy was born in Comrat in 1921 and was the only child of his parents. Later his family moved to Kishinev. His father Ivan Makalets, a Moldovan, was a chanter in a church choir. His mother Anna Makalets, Russian, was a housewife. Yevgeniy finished a gymnasium in Kishinev. and was recruited to the Romanian army, when World War II began in 1939. He was a teterist [civilian]. The Bessarabians had to decide whether they were going to the front or wanted to be released from military service. Yevgeniy thought all night through and decided against going to the front. When Germany attacked the USSR, he was in evacuation in Central Asia and later served in the Soviet army. In 1945 he entered the Composers’ Department of the Conservatory in Kishinev and also worked in our choir. 

When I met Yevgeniy, I was renting a small room with a window in the ceiling. That was when I read a book about artists entitled ‘The attic of dreams.’ I often felt ill and sent notes to the choir: ‘I’m not feeling well and won’t come to the rehearsal.’ Yevgeniy came to see me. He stole boiled beans from his mother to bring them to me. We were happy. One night he said, ‘I’m leaving earlier tonight. It’s my mother’s birthday.’ When he left, I felt sad. I boiled some water to wash my hair, when all of a sudden I heard: ‘Attention! – this was quite in his manner – the order of the commander is to make your appearance at a birthday!’ I hurriedly put on my only fancy blouse from an American parcel – I received it in the Radio Committee, and we went to visit his mother. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the semi-basement of the house. Yevgeniy’s father had died. Her friends were sitting at the table. And she introduced me loudly: ‘Meet my son’s wife!’ And her friends screamed: ‘Zhenechka!’ [affectionate of Yevgeniy] Jee, how horrible!

Shortly afterward we registered our marriage and my landlady allowed Yevgeniy to move into ‘the attic of dreams.’ I quit the conservatory and went to work as a music editor in the Radio Committee. Yevgeniy became a choir master of the ‘Moldova’ choir. After finishing the conservatory he became its artistic director. In the first years of our family life we changed apartments. We lived in a small kitchen. There was a door, but no windows. There were a few planks on the floor and the rest of it was ground. We also stayed with my mother-in-law for some time. We slept on a wooden couch in the kitchen. My mother-in-law gave us pillows. We were very poor. When my mother-in-law died, we rented a one-bedroom apartment where we had a sofa.

In 1949 our daughter was born. I named her Tatiana after my sister. I already knew that Tania was gone. Shortly after the war – I don’t know for sure, when – her husband Christian Megrain visited Kishinev; he was an activist of the Communist party of France and was allowed to travel to the USSR. He told me about the wartime. When Paris was occupied in 1941, the Gestapo came for them one night. Christian and Tania grabbed their little daughter Monique and jumped out of the window. They were hiding in apartments of their Communist comrades for some time before they got to the unoccupied part of France. Tania died of a heart attack in 1942, when her daughter Monique was seven years old. She was buried there, but I don’t remember in which town. I have a photo of her grave. Some time later Christian married a Polish Jewish woman. Her name was Frania. She was also a Communist and both of them arrived in the USSR. Frania knew Russian and was an interpreter for us. They became very close to my family and me, my brothers Mikhail and David, who also lived in Kishinev. I also went to Moscow visiting Christian and Frania, who often traveled to Moscow.

During the period of the Doctors’ Plot 15 in 1953 I worked at the music editing office. I was to schedule the pianists, violinists and opera singers’ concerts on the radio… My family name was Makalets, and only very few people knew I was a Jew. One of these days the leading singer in our opera theater came to the editing office – I’d rather not mention his name. He said, ‘Have you heard, Busia Litmanovna, that they will fire all Jewish employees from the Radio committee. Now they’ll see!’ He was rather stunned, when he heard that I was a Jew. Fortunately, his words didn’t come true. I kept my job. During the Soviet regime, people working for radio, TV, newspapers were always related to ideology and policy thereof. When my husband became an artistic director of the choir, he had to join the Party. He became a candidate to the Party, when some rascal reported on him that he was a former Romanian officer, though he had only been a soldier, and that his father was a priest, though he just managed the choir. A party meeting expelled him from candidateship to the Party. He submitted a letter of resignation from the Radio committee. However, the times changed and he resumed his work.

Though the Khrushchev 16 and Brezhnev 17 periods were significantly different from the Stalin period, I remember, when Rostropovich [Rostropovich, Mstislav Leopoldovich (1927): one of the greatest cellists in the world of the 20th century] and Vishnevskaya [Vishnevskaya, Galina Pavlovna (1926): singer (soprano), soloist of the Bolshoy Theater (1952-1974), moved abroad in 1974] gave Solzhenitsyn 18 shelter at their dacha before he was sent into exile, they were immediately enrolled on the list of those, whose names couldn’t be mentioned on the air. We received such lists regularly. At one time mentioning Dunayevskiy [Isaac Dunayevskiy (1900-1955): a popular Soviet composer, Jew] wasn’t allowed due to some occurrence with his son. I remember, when Kiril Kondrashyn moved abroad, his name was forbidden, though most opera performances of the Bolshoy Theater were taped, when he conducted the orchestra. And there were many such cases. [Kondrashyn, Kirill Petrovich (1914-1981):  conductor, Professor of Moscow conservatory. In 1943-1956 – conductor in the Bolshoy Theater, in 1960-1975 – chief conductor of the orchestra of the Moscow philharmonic. In 1978 he moved to the Netherlands. Since 1984 an international contest of young conductors named after Kondrashyn has taken place in Amsterdam.]

I liked my job as music editor. I liked working in the record library, listening and selecting recordings of music pieces to include them in radio concerts. I also made montages of opera performances and had over 200 of them. Before a performance there was to be a story about the composer, the author of the performance, and I selected an actor to read these stories. For ten years I conducted programs about Moldovan music on the radio. Every Friday the Union of composers of Moldova had auditions of new music pieces and I always got invitations there. I spoke to many Moldovan composers. Vasiliy Zagorskiy, who was chairman of the ‘Union of Composers of Moldavia,’ was my friend. He’s passed away, and I miss talking to him, sharing my thoughts. I also knew Tamara Cheban, a popular Moldovan singer. We met in a studio, when the Moldova choir performed on the radio: Tamara was a soloist. When her part was over, she turned her face to the choir, making funny faces and we were not to laugh since it had to be quiet in the studio. Tamara was smart and cheerful. She was the only Moldovan Prima Donna and was known all over the Soviet Union. When she was awarded the title of People’s Artist, she quit the Radio committee and went to work in the philharmonic.

In the early 1960s we finally received our first two-bedroom apartment with all comforts [running water, toilet]. The Radio committee built a house for its employees. I remember that that year my daughter Tania and I went to a resort in Truskavets in Lvov region [today Ukraine)] for patients with liver problems. I had liver problems and the local water ‘Naftusia’ was good for me. My husband stayed at home waiting for an apartment. When we returned, he met us at the railway station and took us to the new apartment without saying a word about it. My older brother Aviezer visited us in this apartment.

We didn’t correspond after the war 19, but when Israel was established in 1948, and the USSR acknowledged it officially, there were visitors coming from there. From them I heard that Aviezer was doing well. He had a wife and two daughters: Dahlia and Esther. He was a co-owner of a small cinema theater in Tel Aviv. I didn’t mention at work that I had a brother in Israel and a niece in France, fearing to lose my job in the Radio committee. I was also concerned about my husband’s position and was reluctant to invite Aviezer. In the early 1960s our close acquaintance arrived and asked me in my husband’s presence: ‘Can Aviezer come to visit?’ I was confused, my husband hit his fist on the table: ‘Why! Of course, he must!’ In summer 1963 my brother was to arrive in Odessa on a boat. I secretly told my boss that my brother was visiting me from Israel and he let me go and meet him. My brothers Mikhail and David went with me. We were standing on the pier. It was crowded with people meeting their relatives and I was confused, trying to find my brother, when I heard: ‘Busele!’ My brother recognized me from photographs. 

We came to Kishinev, and I tried to keep quiet about his arrival. There were employees of the radio committee living in the house. My brother Aviezer was surprised: ‘Sister, why do we talk so quietly?’ I also told him then, ‘Don’t you dare to go to the synagogue!’ Israelis used to go to the synagogue, telling people about the synagogue. Aviezer promised me to keep silent. Once he came from the synagogue and told me that there was a meeting with a group of Israelis arranged by the town authorities. They were telling them about the wonderful reconstruction of Kishinev. ‘And here I couldn’t hold it longer and said ‘Do come to Jerusalem, if you want to see a miracle, look at all the construction there!’ I almost fell from my chair – this was how he kept his word! Once he was helping me with dishwashing and said, ‘Sister, I am not a composer like your husband, or a music editor like you. But my apartment is more beautiful than yours, if you’ll excuse me.’ When my brothers and I went to take him to Odessa, he wanted to buy souvenirs before leaving for Israel and was surprised to see no smiles on the vendors’ faces. ‘Sister, aren’t they interested in selling things?’ When we were sitting in the harbor I felt like boasting of something – I was a Soviet person, wasn’t I? I pointed at the dressed up Odessites: ‘Look how well they are dressed.’ ‘Sister, but you have a poor life!’ 

My husband and I were of different nationalities, but it never caused any conflicts. We were a close family. Yevgeniy was a nice person: intelligent, kind, very natural and easy-going. You know, the more educated a person is, the easier it is to communicate with him. We got along well, though I was far more expansive. Our work drew us closer together, and I was his first critic. Once, his choir singers came to invite me to a jubilee of their choir saying: ‘But you are our first critic.’

Our daughter grew up in a wonderful warm atmosphere of love. Tatiana was a ‘home child.’ She didn’t go to kindergarten or any pioneer camps 20. When Tatiana was little, we had a housemaid who lived with us, did the cooking and cleaning. Her name was Vera, she came from a village. I often came to work and they weren’t at home. I remember once I found them near the cemetery: Vera had a date with a soldier, and the soldier was holding Tania. When we moved to the new apartment, my neighbor, who worked as a cleaning lady in the radio committee, helped me to clean my apartment. I did the cooking myself after work and often stayed in the kitchen till late. I was a good housewife and liked inviting guests.

My brothers Mikhail and David and their families lived in Kishinev. They were accountants: Mikhail worked in the housing agency and David worked in a canteen. David and his wife Olga and Mikhail and Charna and we got together on birthdays and Soviet holidays. My friends Sara and Nesia were also with us. When we got together, I sang Jewish songs. My husband loved listening to me and played the piano for me. He also recorded my singing. I still have these recordings and also, recordings of my husband’s music and his songs with the lyrics written by Moldovan authors. 

We were not wealthy – I was no good at saving money, but in summer we went to resorts on the Black Sea, in Gagry. For this I always had to borrow money from my acquaintances or my brother David. We rented a room and lay in the sun and bathed in the sea. I was always so concerned that my husband was a year and a half younger than me. When we were in Gagry, I overheard his conversation with our landlady. I went up the stairs to the house and they were still downstairs. She asked him, ‘How old are you?’ And he added two years, I heard. He came into the house and I asked him, ‘Listen, what nonsense did you tell her?’ He embraced me and said, ‘But you are such a fool ‘…  I went to recreation homes in Yessentuki and Truskavets. After my husband died, I went to Yalta in the Crimea with my daughter.

Tatiana was a nice and quiet girl. She went to a Russian school. There was no anti-Semitism there. She had Russian, Moldovan and Jewish friends – it made no difference. Sara’s daughter Taya was her best friend. They grew up together like sisters. Tatiana fell ill in the tenth grade of school. There was an X-ray to be submitted to college with all other documents, and hers showed a dark patch in her lungs. The doctors suspected tuberculosis of her lungs. My husband and I were horrified. It’s hard to tell what we lived through. Our acquaintances helped us to arrange for Tatiana to stay in the tuberculosis hospital for a check up. When we were to go there to get to know the results, I was sitting in my editing office exhausted and asked my husband to go there alone. When he left, I couldn’t do any work. He returned. He had a habit of jokingly commanding in a military manner. He commanded: Attention! This was so different from how I felt that I recalled a Yiddish saying: ‘A goy will be a goy’, when he smiled: ‘Tomorrow our daughter is going home!’ ‘How come she’s coming home?!’ – ‘This was a shadow of her plait!’ Tatiana had gorgeous thick hair like I did when I was young. Tatiana wore it in two plaits. She forgot about one plait, when the X-ray was done.

Tatiana didn’t think of becoming a doctor after finishing school. She was terribly afraid of blood. When I was preparing a chicken in the kitchen, she ran away to the farthest room. Due to this incident with a wrong diagnosis Tatiana missed her entrance exams to college and went to work as an attendant in the surgery in a hospital. In the course of this year Tatiana decided to become a doctor. We hired teachers to prepare her for the entrance exams. She went to take exams to the Pediatric College in Leningrad, the only Pediatric College in the country. Tatiana passed her exams. She and a friend of hers rented a room. She studied very well. The Soviet regime did much harm and I have my claims to it, but there were positive things as well. For example, free higher education. Tatiana finished the college and got a job assignment 21 to Berezniki in Perm region [today Russia]. She worked in the ambulance for three years. Then she returned to Kishinev and went to work in that same hospital where she worked as an attendant.

I wasn’t assimilated, but I didn’t try to move to Israel either. We are not so active: my husband, Tatiana or myself. However, Israel is a dear word for me: the Promised Land – these are not mere words for me. I remember how we listened to the BBC during the Six-Day-War 22. Tatiana, who was a student, used to say, ‘Mama, you keep quiet!’ Because I was subjective. My husband said: We won’t give Jerusalem to them [Arabs]!’ My brother Mikhail moved to Israel in the 1970s. I remember how his son Grigoriy went to Moscow to obtain a permit for departure and even asked Sakharov 23 for help. I remember that we didn’t go to the railway station to see Mikhail and his family off since we were afraid. My brother understood it. He knew it might cause problems at work. In the 1980s Grigoriy married an American Jewish woman and they moved to Philadelphia in the USA.

In 1972 my dear friend Sara died. Nesia and I looked after her in the hospital in her last days. Before she died, Sara said to her husband Yakov and Nesia, who was single: ‘Stay together’ and Nesia and Yakov got married four yeas later. Later they moved to Israel. 

My husband and I lived together for 33 years. He died from his third heart attack in 1979. I was a pensioner [in the Soviet Union the pension age was 55], but I still worked. I worked for the radio for 30 years. My boss was the wife of Petru Zadnipru [1927-1976], a Moldovan poet. She was a terrible anti-Semite. She didn’t promote me to senior editor, though de facto I was a senior editor. When she became a widow, she used to come to me at work. I am not a rancorous person. We became friends and even used to have a drink together. I joked: ‘Besides being a zhydovka, [abusive term for Jewish women], I became a drunkard.’

Tatiana didn’t get married for a long time. She grew up in this kind of family and had high standards. She refused all her admirers. Once she went to do an inspection in a district hospital where she met her future husband Vladimir Kasymov. He fell in love with her and waited for her consent for eight years. I liked him a lot and wanted Tatiana to marry him. She gave her consent in 1990. In 1991 her son was born and she named him Yevgeniy after her father. After their son was born they went to the registry office to register their marriage. I was waiting outside with Zhenechka [affectionate for Yevgeniy] in his pram. When they registered their marriage, Vladimir asked the master of ceremony, ‘Would you like to see our son?’ and she replied, ‘I would”. She came to look at the baby.

Tatiana and Vladimir rented an apartment before they moved into Sara Shlimovich’s daughter Taya’s apartment, after she moved to Israel with her family. Taya left her apartment and everything in it to Tatiana. My brother Mikhail and relatives in Israel partially compensated Taya for this apartment. My brothers always tried to help, whenever they could. David died in 1999 in Kishinev, and Mikhail died in Philadelphia in 2002.

During perestroika 24 Christian and Frania visited Kishinev and made me a surprise, bringing my niece Monique with them. I told Monique about her mother and Monique got attached to me and Tatiana. I also love her dearly. She visited us three times. Monique studies Russian to be able to talk to us. When I talk with her on the phone, I really get exhausted. Unfortunately, I lost contact with Aviezer’s daughters and grandchildren. They don’t know Russian or Yiddish, and I almost forgot Hebrew and it’s hard to communicate.

I knew little about the revival of Jewish life in Kishinev in the 1990s. I didn’t even know about Hesed 25. However, they found me and put me on the lists of Hesed. I became an active member of the community, particularly since I knew Hebrew and can sing Jewish songs. I attend the warm house where I told my aunt Zelda’s story and sang Jewish songs. However, lately I’ve felt ill twice due to the spasm of vessels. I don’t leave home alone. A few times a month they send a car to take me to the warm house. I pay for the apartment and utility fees from my pension. I refused the food packages since it is hard for me to cook. I am 85 years old. Hesed delivers dinners for me at home twice a week. I have these trousers and slippers from Hesed. My posh quilt blanket is also from Hesed. I mean to say my well-being is Hesed.

My grandson Yevgeniy knows that on his mother’s side he is a Jew. He studies in a Moldovan school by the German system of Waldorf. [The aim of Waldorf schooling is to educate the whole child, “head, heart and hands.”] He is a talented boy. He knows Moldovan and German. He’s been in a Jewish camp twice. I asked him, ‘How are the Jewish children? – and he replied, ‘Grandma, there are many Jewish boys like me there.’

Glossary

Isak Avram Levi
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interviewer: Dimitar Bojilov
Date of interview: September 2004

Isak Levi is a tall and big man with an impressive sense of humor. Despite the fact that he is advanced in age, he strictly observes the traditions; he also visits every day the ‘Bet Am’ Jewish community center to have lunch with his friends. Punctuality and correctness are qualities of extreme importance to him. As he claims, it is out of question for him to enter into an engagement and not to fulfill it. In the last several years he has devoted himself to mapping the houses inhabited by Jewish families in Sofia in the first half of the 20th century. Isak Levi is a member of the Board of the Sofia Synagogue, as well as of the Bnai Brith Jewish organization.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

It is known from history that 380,000 Jews were expelled by Ferdinand and Isabela during the 15th century. [Editors note: It is hard to estimate the number of Sephardim expelled from Spain and Portugal; according to the Encyclopedia Judaica a number of 250,000 subsequently settled in Ottoman territory, North-West Africa, Italy and Western Europe.] They left via the Mediterranean, some of them landing on the Italian coast, but they were not welcome there and thus they moved to the Balkans. [cf. Expulsion of the Jews from Spain] 1.

At that time the Balkans were subject to a lot of changes – for more than a hundred years Bulgaria had already been enslaved by the Turks. The Jews landed on the scattered islands [along the coastal line] and were accepted by the Turks. At the beginning the Jews settled in the cities of Salonika and Adrianople [today Edirne, Turkey].

Except for the language, we, Sephardic Jews 2 differ from Ashkenazi Jews in terms of some cultural characteristics. Our art, our customs and our ‘character’ are more lyrical, while the Ashkenazi Jews are more resolute; I would call them more ‘emerald.’ We have kept the soft vowels in our pronunciation – ‘e’ and ‘i’ – which are predominant in our manner of speech, on the account of the hard ones – ‘o’ and ‘a.’

Ten years ago I was in Dublin, the capital of Ireland, where the Jews are Ashkenazim and I visited the synagogue there. I met the people there and I wished to recite the Kaddish, which is repeated ten times during the service. So I asked to be allowed to recite the last Kaddish, which is usually given to foreign guests. I recited it and everyone was astonished as I did it the way I had learned it – with the soft vowels.

However, the difference between our old Spanish language, Ladino 3, and contemporary Spanish is not that great, therefore we can easily understand contemporary Spanish.

My family background

My father’s kin is from Salonika. As far as my father has told me, there were many rabbis, religious figures, as well as artists. [Having an absolute Jewish majority, Salonika was the ‘capital’ of the Balkan Sephardim up until the Holocaust.] Yet, they didn’t have many opportunities there to advance and my grandfather together with his brothers and their families decided to move to the north. [Both Salonika and Gorna Dzhumaya were Ottoman territories up until the First Balkan War (1912). The borders separating the two cities were drawn after the Second Balkan War (1913) when Macedonia was divided up in between Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria.]

Besides, Spain is a ‘high,’ mountainous country – the average height of its plateaus is about 2000 meters. Moreover, the climate there is very severe. After being chased from Spain, the Sephardic Jews arrived in Greece [The Ottoman Empire] by sea and settled in the southern part of the [Balkan] peninsula. Many of them couldn’t get used to the climate, and then they learned from travelers that there was a place to the north with four seasons, just like in Spain.

In Greece, especially in the south there are only two seasons – summer and winter. The winter is very humid and unpleasant, while the summer is unbearably hot, therefore many of the families moved to the middle part of the Balkan Peninsula – Bulgaria, in the region of Dupnitsa and Gorna Dzhumaya. The winter is nice here and the weather is comparatively cool here.

[Editors’ note: The reason for migrating from the Aegean littoral to the Balkan inlands was probably for economic rather than climatic reasons. Sephardim being typically engaged in textile production in Salonika and textile trade to Central Europe settled in cities en route towards the Danube, connecting South-Eastern and Central Europe. Gorna Dzhumaya and Dupnitsa are located in strategic positions in the valley of the Struma River, on the way from Salonika to Sofia, and further to the Danube.]

And so, my paternal ancestors moved to Dupnitsa. Most of my father’s uncles and aunts were tailors and shoemakers. All of them were ‘Judaikos,’ that is, people who professed Judaism. This means that the perfect Jew should observe 613 bans, that is, things which are forbidden, and respectively there are 613 rights, that is, things which he is allowed to do. [Editors’ note: According to the Rabbinic tradition the full number of mitzvot (commandments, including both prohibitions and precepts) is 613, that is, taryag mitzvot.]

My father’s grandfather was a rabbi, but his children did not keep this tradition and oriented themselves toward crafts – shoemaking and tailoring, while my grandfather was involved in the goldsmith’s trade as well.

My father devoted himself both to trade and tailoring. He started dealing with trade, yet simultaneously he led a strict religious life. At that time it was a rule for every Jew to visit the synagogue three times a day for a prayer – in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. It was observed by everybody and that is how my father got started.

My father, Avram-Nissim Levi, was born in Dupnitsa in 1865. He graduated from a school with extensive studies of the French language. And if I know a little French, I owe it to him, as he was my first teacher.

He and his two brothers used to live for some time in Dupnitsa and after that they moved to Gorna Dzhumaya. He got married there, but his wife didn’t bear him any children. He was one of the prosperous traders in Gorna Dzhumaya. He used to sell manufactured goods to people from the neighboring villages, as well as medicines known at that time, without actually being a pharmacist. People knew and trusted him.

It is interesting that in the period while he was living in Gorna Dzhumaya, he learned Turkish very well. [Gorna Dzhumaya was a part of ‘European Turkey’ until 1912.] Even much later, when we moved to Vratsa people realized that he knew Turkish and in the café, where they used to gather, they made him talk in Turkish to them. My father used to buy bread from a baker who was a Turk, and my father loved chatting in Turkish with him. They were very pleased with that, as though he was their teacher in Turkish. He only spoke it though, he couldn’t write a single letter.

[Editor’s note: The Latin script in Turkish, that made writing easy, was only introduced in the Turkish Republic after WWI. Before that the Arabic letters were used that made the writing in Turkish difficult and as a matter of fact relatively few people could master it.]

Until 1912, the First Balkan War 4, the town of Gorna Dzhumaya was held by the Turks. This war was considered a liberation war by the Bulgarians, as Bulgaria fought for its territories. Then the Turks were chased from the town of Gorna Dzhumaya but before leaving it, they burned it down.

The house where my father used to live was also burned to the ground. Then he raked up the ashes and found there a gold medallion with a diamond. From the strong fire and the high temperature the gold had melted into leaves but the diamond was preserved.

In accordance with the custom my father fixed a stake into the ground where he had found the diamond and from that place of one square meter he took the soil, which was considered to be the ashes of his wife, who burned to death during that fire, and thus he buried her. That diamond was a gift to her from him.

My father was 48 years old at the time. He decided to look for a new wife and therefore he came to Sofia. Before that he gave his shop to his assistant.

My mother, Rashel Levi, was born in Sofia. Her father is from the Behar kin. The Behars belong to the Jews who had lived here as early as Roman times. According to the legend the Jews who left to Europe in Roman times left posts of theirs at every one hundred kilometers; around these posts people started settling and thus towns were formed. In Bulgaria there was such a post around Ruse and Jews settled there.

The Behar kin was Sarah’s kin, the wife of Tsar Ivan Alexander [a Bulgarian tsar from the beginning of the 14th century], who gave birth to Tsar Ivan Shishman [the last Bulgarian tsar before the medieval Bulgarian state fell under the Ottomans in 1392]. I know this from my mother’s stories. Her father belonged to that kin, while her mother was from the Sephardic Jews.

My maternal grandfather was called Isak Behar, and I was named after him. Yet, my mother and her brother, who was two years older than her, were orphaned at an early age and were raised by their aunt as her own children. She herself had seven daughters and two sons.

My mother had attended school, she knew how to read and write. When she grew up, a young guy, a sandal maker from a good family saw her and wished to marry her, and she agreed. He was a Jew from Dupnitsa, who had come to Sofia and there he noticed her and proposed marriage to her. She accepted and married him, and thus she went to live in Dupnitsa at his father’s place.

Her husband was from the Pilosof kin. They lived together from 1910 to 1911 but in 1912 the war started [First Balkan War]. He went to fight in the war, and she was already pregnant. He left for the front line and never came back. Meanwhile she gave birth to a girl, my sister Oro.

Unfortunately, as it often happens in such cases the boy’s parents wanted to get rid of her. She wrote a letter to her brother and he took her back to Sofia together with the baby.

My father, Avram-Nissim Levi, learned about her when he went to Sofia and he proposed marriage to her. At first she didn’t agree but her brother’s wife – as he was already married and she used to live at their place – told her, probably because she wanted to get rid of her, ‘Well, he is the right man for you and you should take this chance!’

And so she accepted despite the great age difference: she was 23 to24 years old, while my father was 48; she could have been his daughter. And she got married to my father and they settled in Gorna Dzhumaya. I was born after nine months, in 1914, on 6th December during the Chanukkah holiday. I am my father’s firstborn child and my mother’s second one.

After that my mother gave birth every two years. Two years after I was born, in 1917, she gave birth to my brother David; after that, in 1919, my brother Mordechai was born; in 1921 my sister Adela was born; in 1923 my mother had a miscarriage, and in 1925 she gave birth to my youngest brother, Yosif. Our age difference was ten years.

Growing up

We had a hard, yet interesting life. We created such incredible relations and we have so many memories, a life-time unforgettable. I remember us, five kids playing in the yard and suddenly having an itch, and all of us scratching ourselves. A neighbor came then and told my mother to smear us with sulphur vaseline. And then we got undressed – the boys and the girls in separate rooms… How can you ever forget such a thing!
 

In the course of time, I, being the eldest among them, gradually turned into something like a ‘third’ parent for them, as my father was already 60 years old when my youngest brother Yosif was born.

Our mother tongue was Ladino. My mother initially talked to me in Ladino. When I turned two, my father started taking care of me and he began talking in Ivrit to me. At the age of five, I was already able to write from right to left and read fairy tales in Ivrit. Then I began to get ready for school. I studied both Bulgarian and Ivrit at the Jewish school.

Later, when I went to the Bulgarian school it was a little difficult for me there as I didn’t have the basis for the Bulgarian language that I used to have in my earliest years with Ivrit. We used to speak only in Ladino at home. Even for my father it was sometimes hard to talk in Bulgarian. My mother spoke Bulgarian better, yet it was difficult for her also.

In Gorna Dzhumaya we lived in comparatively good conditions. My father had fixed the house, which had once burned and we used to live in it. It had four rooms. We lived separately in it. We kept very friendly relations and always got on very well with the Bulgarians in the town.

I was born in 1914, and in 1915 the war started [cf. Bulgaria in World War I] 5, which lasted until 1918, and I remember that we lived on the ground floor of the house, while some officers used to live upstairs. We had a fountain inside the house linked to the town’s water-main.

For a certain period of time maids from the [neighboring] villages used to help my mother with the housework. They were treated in a very good manner. My father even used to help them a lot, especially with their weddings when they got married.

I used to study in Gorna Dzhumaya till the fourth grade, the first and second class at the Bulgarian junior high school, and then we moved to Vratsa.

In the 1920s my father’s business started declining because after 1918 the country’s territory was re-allotted. Bulgaria lost lots of territories, which were annexed to the territories of Yugoslavia and Greece. The clientele withdrew and my father decided to change his subsistence.

Therefore he decided that we move to Vratsa where he applied to become a rabbi. At that time my mother was pregnant with Yosif – that happened in September 1925. Local people there had to find a home for us. They found us lodging in a basement, and in this basement Yosif was born.

In a year we moved to some sheds where there used to be a church beforehand. And there we lived – all in all, we spent eight years in Vratsa. There I studied in the high school, like all my brothers did. Yosif studied only in the first grade.

Generally there weren’t any anti-Semitic movements at that time. Only two times synagogues were burned – in 1910 in Vratsa and in 1903 in Lom. It was done in most of the cases by strangers [people from other villages], who were later isolated by the local people and chased away in the end.

I was the only Jew in Vratsa’s high school and I had many good friends among the Bulgarians. Yet, there were several anti-Semites, who had come from other towns and they assaulted me, beat me and bothered me. The whole town used to gather in the central square and those anti-Semites used to threaten me there also, yet my friends shielded me from both sides and even walked me home.

In Vratsa my father began to perform all rituals during the holidays. Actually, my father never cut his hair, never shaved and always had a little beard, just like his brothers as well as his friends. My father visited the synagogue so regularly that he also attended courses for slaughtering in order to be a shochet, too. In Vratsa my father was very good at his job. He made friends with all Christian priests, too.

My father used to check the knife’s sharpness by passing a nail over its edge, no roughness had to be felt. Usually the knife’s edge for birds was around a span long, while for bigger animals it was longer.

In Vratsa I used to help my father by preparing the stamp put on the animal in order to mark it as being kosher. I used to take a rubber and hollow a few millimeters out in it with a little knife, so that the three letters in Ivrit, which mean ‘kosher’ [kaf, shin and resh], would stay protruding. The letters had to be written backwards in order to be printed correctly. This rubber is dipped in an ink-soaked inkpad. When the Jews came to the slaughtering house, they wanted to see if the meat had such a stamp and only then they bought it.

After the basement we set ourselves up in rooms. We lived in a room and a kitchen. My father and my mother inhabited the room. At that time she was breast-feeding Yosko. My two younger brothers used to sleep in the same room when they were little boys. I, and later my brother Yosif as well, used to live on a wooden bed in the kitchen, where we used to light a fire at first with wood and later with coal. It was cold there, there was no heating, yet we covered ourselves and got warmer. My sisters used to spread out on the floor and there they slept.

We were a family of eight people, occupying a very narrow space and we were a very united family. There was neither crying nor quarreling between us. There was never enough food, as we were many children. It was difficult for our parents to raise us, yet we grew up with a lot of joy also.

We lived on the outskirts of Vratsa, just where the town’s territory began. The climate there is wonderful and the place is known for its hard Balkan water [i.e. mountain water from the Balkan Mountain], very harmful for the health. Yet people have lived for many years there.

We had a lot of stones in the yard and when we were old enough we gathered, moved away all the stones and planted vegetables there. Thus my mother became a tiller for the first time. We also had a hencoop at home and the cocks used to wake us up every morning. You should never leave one hen per cock; they should be at least four hens because if it is only one, he might kill her.

At the age of 18 I was involved in some kind of conspiracy. A strike was organized by the northwestern schools in Bulgaria. Its leader was Zhivko Trapkov Oshavkov, who was the first teacher of social sciences in Bulgaria. For example, Zhelyo Zhelev [former Bulgarian president, 1990-1998] and Petko Simeonov [Bulgarian writer, journalist and politician] are students of his. The strike was directed at improving the conditions at school.

Oshavkov made a big mistake as he invited also representatives from Pernik, Vidin and Lom. All school representatives came and we gathered in the water-mill of Vratsa. The representative from Pleven said that he had to leave the meeting earlier because his mother was sick. So he left the meeting and in half an hour the police came. It turned out that he was an agent and had betrayed us.

We were moved to Sofia together with him, we were arrested and investigated. We were interrogated by Nikola Geshev. He was a former communist, who later turned on them and knew all their secrets as a result of which many people became his victims. He was a very clever and talented cop. When he saw that I was only 18 years old, very young and with no connections, he released me under the condition to let him know in case of future activities of that kind. He wanted us to become his agents but it didn’t happen.

I studied in Vratsa until the seventh grade, but seeing how difficult it was for my father to provide for our large family, I realized that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to continue my education. I envied the students who went to Sofia in order to study. When I understood that my parents wouldn’t be able to provide for me to continue with my studies, I quit high school in the seventh grade, and the last high school grade is the eighth one.

I left and enrolled in the local two-year textile school in Vratsa. I attended it for one year and simultaneously I studied as a private student and took the exams for the seventh high school grade also.

While we still lived in Vratsa, I used to go to Sofia as I had practice in the textile factories. Together with that I prepared well and took the second-year exams at the textile school and in 1932, at the age of 18, I went to Sliven and later to Sofia in order to work as a textile worker.

It was a good job, a well-paid job and I took care of the whole family. When they worked, my brothers got a salary of 1000 leva, which was a very low salary at that time. Being a textile worker I got 6000 leva. Yet, I had a large family to provide for, and, to give you but one example, my friends were able to order suits for themselves at the age of 18, while I couldn’t afford it until my 25th birthday.

However, I was pleased with my situation because I had fulfilled my duty and my siblings grew up thanks to me as well. I owe very much to my mother. She supported me in everything. She was a martyr, a saint, because it was she who built our decent family.

In Sofia I had very good masters. Actually, I was an absolute beginner in the job of a textile technician, as I took the degree very quickly and it happened so that I had to catch up with the others in the actual work process. I became an assistant to a very good master, whom we became friends with.

And so, in two years and a half, he and I were already colleagues in the ‘Ruse’ silk factory in the ‘Poduene’ quarter in Sofia. We split the sections and I managed very well. There were great machines in the factory, exported by Italy and Germany.

In 1933 we moved to Sofia. My father was already quite old then and hardly worked. First we settled in a shed. I remember we moved from one place to another six times or so. Most of the lodgings were on different floors, others were on the ground floor, yet we lived happily.

In 1936 my sister Oro got married and we had a wedding. As she was our half-sister, she was different from us. She was darker and not very good in school.

I learned the Jewish traditions from my father. When we were in Gorna Dzhumaya we visited the synagogue very often. That wasn’t the situation with Vratsa, where our visits got rare as there were less Jews there and the Jewish cultural life was not as rich as in the other towns. I have had greater opportunities for development in comparison with my brothers.

When we arrived in Sofia my brother Yosif was seven years old, and I gave him his first lessons in Ivrit. We enrolled him in the second grade of the Jewish school. Still, on the first school day he came back home crying and he wanted to go to a Bulgarian school. But in the end he graduated with a six [the highest mark in the Bulgarian educational system], while those who laughed failed at the exams.

My brother enrolled directly in the second grade, as he had finished the first grade at the Bulgarian school in Vratsa. In Sofia he had to catch up with the other pupils with the Bulgarian subjects and he had to start learning Ivrit from the very beginning, as the rest of the students already knew it. He put a lot of effort into studying and he succeeded. Now he is grateful to me for not moving him to another school, as that would have given his personality a totally different direction.

The two-floor building of the Jewish school in Iuchbunar 6 was on Bregalnitsa Street. Next to it, at the corner of Pozitano and Osogovo Street, the modern building of the Iuchbunar synagogue was built. The room, where the ritual slaughterer, the shochet, used to slaughter the birds brought by the Jews, was situated in a little shop at Osogovo Street.

The slaughtering ritual was very interesting. Before performing the ritual the shochet always read the prayer. It says: ‘Be careful, this cock (or this hen) will be slaughtered and his (or her) life will be passed to you and you will live your whole life in happiness.’

The shochet also slaughters herbivorous animals: sheep, calves, buffaloes. He takes his well-sharpened knife and his assistants, also slaughterers, hold the animal down. He bends over the animal and counts its cervical vertebrae, and he would cut it in such a way so that he would leave one more vertebra from the side of its head. He makes the section and marks the place where the animal should be slaughtered, and then he steps aside and leaves his assistants to finish the work. They have to slaughter it, skin it, hang it on the hooks and package it.

In the meantime the shochet carefully examines its internal organs and decides whether it is a healthy one and if it is good for eating. First he examines the epidermis, than the liver and after that the other internal organs. He assesses the situation with the animal according to the color of its organs as well. If there is even the slightest sign of damage in the tissues and the organs, that means that the animal was sick and thus not kosher and couldn’t be served as food to Jews.

According to the Torah it is absolutely forbidden to use blood for food. Therefore when slaughtering the animal, it should be totally blood-drained, then the meat should be brought home and lavishly salted as salt drains the entire blood. Then the housewife must wash it well and finally prepare it. Using blood is a great sin for the Jews.

We used to live right at the corner of Opalchenska and Positano Street. Our house was destroyed and a new one, a larger one, was erected in its place. We spent our whole life in lodgings, we never owned a house. We never had normal living conditions that others had, such as living-rooms, writing tables. All of us studied simultaneously and shared our common knowledge. The teachers, who came to our place to visit us, used to say how sorry they were that we had to live under such conditions.

I, my little sister Adela and my brothers David and Mordechai were born in Gorna Dzhumaya, while my sister Oro was born in Dupnitsa. My second brother got ill and could not further develop, while the other one, Mordechai, became a good printer in the state printing house. My sister Adela used to make glasses.

My youngest brother Yosif graduated from high school and then he graduated in law, became a lawyer, but meanwhile he was accepted in the police. In fact he retired as a police employee. At first he was an ordinary policeman. Yet, for a very short period of time he advanced in his career taking higher ranks, but I don’t know exactly what kind of a job he had.

The Jewish holidays are connected with history, earth and seasons. All celebrations were organized by the synagogue. On Pesach special bread is prepared only of flour [matzah], because the Jews had spent in the desert 40 years without having salt in order to salt their bread. They used to grind the flour manually and thus they prepared the bread they ate.

I think that Christianity was copied exactly from Judaism. I think that Christians believe in non-realistic things: for example, the Immaculate Conception and the Resurrection.

When we were better off materially, we had special dishes for Pesach. Every year we took them out especially for the celebration and then put them back in the cupboard. They were used in the course of eight days, as long as the festival took place. But when our financial opportunities deteriorated and we had to cut back, we used the ordinary dishes only.

During the War

I got married in 1942, during the Holocaust. When the internments 7 started in the 1940s my wife [Dora Levi, nee Avram Ronko] and I were interned first to Kyustendil, then to Pazardzhik and finally back to Kyustendil again. Before our internment we sold everything we had in Sofia almost for nothing. During the Holocaust we suffered a lot and in the material sense the Jews were deprived of and lost much. The restrictions were great and we had no financial resources.

In Kyustendil we were accommodated at our relatives’ place. Upon our arrival a cousin of my wife came to meet us. But we remained at their place only for a few days. We didn’t get on well, they made our life unbearable and we moved to a Bulgarian lodging. Out landlady’s name was Linka and she helped us a lot. At that time my father was ill.

During our internment to Pazardzhik, in order to provide for ourselves, we did some agricultural work. We dug gardens, planted cherry trees and gathered grapes. The wages were miserable, but we had no other choice.

At that time I realized that my wife had been arrested. So I went to Sofia in order to see what the situation was, we got married on the second day, and I returned immediately. I was punished, detained for 24 hours, but later they set me free. My service was from June to 5th December, until it started snowing.

My wife was arrested before 9th September [1944] 8 as a Jewish activist. There was a Jewish UYW 9 [i.e. only with Jewish members], which struggled against fascists. She was arrested because she collected money for the partisans. Nikola Geshev [a popular policeman and chief of a State Security department in the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s at the time of the pro-Hitler regime in Bulgaria] interrogated her personally. He applied his own methods, yet it was already too late.

When he saw that she was a young girl, he tried to recruit her in order to get some more information about the others through her. Yet, in 1943-1944 the political situation had already changed, the Soviet troops began their attacks, so did the USA and England. Therefore Geshev’s methods – although he was a very bright cop – were not as effective as before.

In Pazardzhik there was only one textile enterprise, in which clothes were being made out of jute and sacks were being sewed. Some good people recommended me to the owners and thus I started working. My wife also joined me there as a weaver, and so did twelve more Jews, who were interned like us. They were very grateful to me for that.

So the winter of 1943 finally came to its end. During the next spring I received an instruction to go to a forced labor camp 10. All young men were mobilized. We were sent to the village of Gabrovenitsa, 10 kilometers away from Pazardzhik. We were accommodated in sheds and we started digging.

Yet, the chief engineers from the textile factory decided that they needed me. After I had been in the camp for two days one of the factory’s owners, Sotirov was his name, together with the local colonel went to the camp’s superior and asked him to release me. He agreed and thus I got back to work.

The other Jews were both happy about me and envied me. I was released from the forced labor camp because the order said that if there were more than three brothers in a [Jewish] family, one of them had to be liberated [from the forced labor camp].

At that time my wife got ill. I sent her to her parents, who were interned to Kyustendil and in a few months I joined them. I did mostly agricultural work there. We helped local people to cultivate the earth and gather the crops. I am a technician and whenever it was necessary to maintain a machine, I was asked to fix the problem. Our relations with the Bulgarians were very good but the payment was very low.

After the War

And so, 9th September came as well as the end of the war. We returned to Sofia and found out that other people had already settled at our place. We started searching for another lodging. We settled temporarily at the place of some relatives of ours, who had a three-story house in Iuchbunar, on Straldzha and Paris Streets, which has already been destroyed and no longer exists. They gave us two rooms – one for my wife and me, and the other one – for her parents.

I got back to my old job in the silk textile factory upon my return to Sofia. There I worked in shifts until May 1945. Thus my work as a technician ended after 15 years.

During the same year I enrolled in the party school 11, which prepared its organizational cadres. I attended the school for seven months and finally I took the exams. In 1946 I graduated from the school and started working for the [communist] party. At that time the preparation for nationalization was set forth. I was involved in the preparation process and was appointed director of a big enterprise in my capacity.

In the course of three years I was director of a large textile enterprise. Yet, a problem occurred, as a result of which I was fired. In the process of textile production there are strictly specific requirements. Water steam at fixed temperature is being used in order to dye the textile. There was a problem with this steam. So, in order to be economical, the enterprise started using steam at a lower temperature. Thus the coals used for preparation of the steam were economized.

However, I did not agree and protested against it, I even ordered on my own responsibility the steam temperature to be increased for the colors to be fixed better in the textile. Yet, this was considered by the higher circles of the Bulgarian Communist Party 12 to contradict the party’s policy and I was fired as a factory director, as well as expelled from the BCP.

In these times I was impressed by the fact that very often people with no professional experience and qualification were hired for leading positions in the production. They were former partisans and active anti-fascists. For example, in our enterprise a nice young girl was employed, who used to be a partisan for some years, she was awarded several times and was declared a hero. Therefore no one cared whether she was good at her work or not. This is only one example of the tendency that existed back then.

The case with the steam and me being fired illustrated the same idea. Some incompetent superior party official had decided just like that, that the textiles could be dyed with less steam and had ordered the coal deliveries to be lessened. My disapproval was interpreted as disapproval of the party’s policy. I was even subject to a trial for letting the steam out, but finally I was acquitted. In a year I was rehabilitated, my membership in the party was reinstated and I was offered a new job as a consultant.

There were textile enterprises in the light industry and I became instructor there. In the co-operatives there were textile enterprises, where I worked not as a chief but as an employee. Those were a kind of workshops, small factories. I have been a member of the party for nearly 60 years and I am still a member.

Later I was invited to join the Technical Progress Committee as a textile specialist. We were sent as a delegation abroad in order to buy textiles. Thus I have visited Norway, France several times, Germany, I have also been to Russia several times, and then came the time for me to retire. After my retirement I collaborated with many enterprises.

As far as the attitude of Bulgarians to Jews is concerned, I can say nothing but the best. Because when there was anti-Semitism worldwide, when there were murders everywhere, there weren’t such things in Bulgaria. Bulgarians and Jews have been living for more than 400 years in an atmosphere of mutual understanding.

There were two great events in the 20th century. The first one is that 100 million people were killed, this was the most war-loving century. And at the same time there was a small nation, which saved 50,000 Jews. It’s a small thing, yet it’s a great thing.

You feel free as long as you have good friends. Even though they were fewer, there were Bulgarians, with whom we got on very well. Every year in the course of ten years we went on excursions – from 1981 to 1990, even during the new regime [the period after 1989].

Within these 45 years after 1944 we became less ‘Jewish’ because of the Party’s attitude. Some very refined restrictions were introduced and the Jewish schools were closed. I was raised as a Jew up to my 25th year of age. The first language I spoke was Ladino and at the age of five I was already speaking Ivrit. Generally we became estranged with the holidays. I kept visiting the synagogue because that comes from my kin and I belong to my kin. But not everyone was like me.

My daughter Ema was born in 1952. She graduated from high school in Sofia, she got married early and she devoted herself to looking after her children. She was  married twice and has three children. She has two girls from her first marriage, Teodora and Mariola.

The older one, Teodora, went to Switzerland in the 1990s and currently lives there. She is dealing with interior design. The other one got married in Sofia and has a very successful marriage. She is expecting a baby now.

My grandson’s name is Borislav, he is finishing high school and playing basketball in the Jewish organization’s team in Sofia. My daughter is currently dealing with a real estate agency.

I received letters during the wars in Israel. We were six children – three of us in Sofia, and the other three – there, in Israel, and my mother suffered a lot. She was worried for all of us. I was able to see my relatives in Israel only after we had been separated for 30 years. They already got children, who had married in their turn, they already had grandchildren.

That was the only time I went to Israel. I visited my sister [Adela], who grew up under my protection, as I supported the whole family and was like a parent to her. I also visited my nephews. I stayed there for two months and a half. My sister passed away in October 1981. I left for a week and stayed there until 15th January 1982.

I didn’t have any problems regarding my departure. I think that at that time no one who wanted to visit Israel had actually had any problems with obtaining a permit. In the beginning [after 9th September 1944] we were restricted, but later [in the 1980s] the authorities realized it wasn’t necessary.

When I went there something interesting happened. When they took my passport they doubted my name. All passengers were aboard the plane and my passport was the only reason for delaying the flight. They let me get on board, the plane took off, made a lap and landed again. We all wondered what was going on and my passport was required again. It occurred that my name coincided with the name of some terrorist.

We arrived in Israel. There, after the passport control, all passengers were allowed in except for me. I was detained for two hours and after the authorities realized that I wasn’t a terrorist, they released me. On my way back I was detained again and the whole thing repeated.

During the events in Hungary in 1956 13 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968 [Prague Spring] 14 we didn’t have much information and we didn’t know what exactly was going on. Those were rude mistakes and a lot of good comrades were killed in this common mess, yet gradually they resumed the balance and now they live well.

I was convinced that it was not right to do the things in this way [through military power]. That was Stalin’s way copied by everyone, which failed in the end. Tito 15 didn’t let it happen in Serbia [i.e. Yugoslavia]. The Chinese didn’t let it happen, and neither did the Vietnamese. They took their own way. All of us referred to it [the communist idea] as per absolute truth. There is no absolute truth. We ignored the most important fact – the economy, and that we should do everything in accordance with it, as it feeds the state. The ones who produce, should prosper.

During my retirement I became guest lecturer in historical grammar at the Faculty of classical and new philologies at Sofia University 16 in the specialty ‘Spanish Philology.’ Following my idea, the Professor of Spanish philology, Kanchev, initiated a course for studying the different Jewish writings. I examined the basic kinds of ancient scripts, which Jews used to write in – such as Meruba, Rashi 17, and first of all, Solitreo.

Solitreo resembles the Turkish alphabet and it was practically used in Bulgaria till the 1920s. My father used to correspond with his friends in Dupnitsa through this alphabet. It is interesting that Solitreo was also spread among some Bulgarians, who needed to have some knowledge in it in order to trade with Jews. There are around 600 documents preserved in the National Library in Sofia in Solitreo.

During the course we exercised converting texts in Latin letters into Solitreo. I have an article entitled ‘Ladino in Three Alphabets – Latin, Rashi and Solitreo.’ The most difficult thing in reading Solitreo comes from the various writing out of the vocals in the different countries.

Lately I’ve devoted most of my time to taking care of my wife, who is confined to bed. Every day I visit the Jewish center and the synagogue, where my brother Yosif Levi works. Every Saturday on Sabbath and during holidays we gather with my compatriots in the synagogue.

I also spend a lot of time on my research of the old Jewish neighborhood in Sofia. I map the places in Sofia, where Jews used to live or live nowadays including information on their names and kinship ties as well.

Vera Erak
Zemun, Serbia
Interviewer: Klara Azulaj

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

My family background

My name is Vera Erak and I was born in 1925 in Zemun. My father, Ilija Erak, was born in 1890 in Zemun; and my mother, Edith Erak (nee Bondy), was born in 1903 in Zemun.

We lived in Zemun in a beautiful one story house, which, unfortunately, did not have a garden, only a small courtyard. It was a three-room house and my governess and our maid lived with us. My parents had a mixed goods store where they both worked, so that the governess took care of me and we had a maid that cooked and cleaned the house. I remember that we had two big dogs, Dobermans, who were my best friends. When the governess had work to do in the house, she let me stay in the courtyard with them because they took care of me and followed my every move. We did not keep kosher, but we celebrated all Jewish holidays. Mother regularly went to synagogue, and when I grew up a bit she regularly took me with her. My father, even though he was not a Jew, respected my mother’s desire to observe the Jewish regulations, and to raise me in that spirit.

My maternal grandfather and grandmother were Ashkenazic Jews. Grandfather Markus Bondy and his parents came from Hungary. He was born in 1866 to a very prosperous family. When they moved to Zemun, they bought a one story house and a big store. Very quickly he became widely known as a capable and honest merchant. He had a fancy-goods store and in it he stocked quality goods which came from Paris, Vienna and Budapest. Grandfather Markus attended the Commercial Academy and he spoke German, Hungarian and French perfectly. I do not have any pictures of him, but my mother described him as a slim dark man with a thick black moustache. As a respected citizen, he was elected to be a deputy in the Magistrate of Zemun in 1912. Documents concerning this are on display at the Native Lands Museum of Zemun and Surroundings. At the outset of World War One, my grandfather enlisted in the Serbian army, voluntarily, because he was a great patriot. Unfortunately he was captured by the Austro-Hungarians and taken to a prison in Prokuplje, where he died of typhus in 1916.

My mother’s mother, Minna Bondy (nee Weiss) was born in 1880 in Vrpolje, Croatia. She was a blonde and was considered one of the most beautiful girls in Zemun. When she married my grandfather Markus, she helped run his store. Since the store was very big, there were always two assistants and two trainees. While she was in the store, their four children were watched by the governess, Olga, who at the same time took care of the entire house with the help of one maid. In the family they celebrated all the holidays. Grandmother and Grandfather also went to synagogue.

Grandmother Minna was considered a big benefactress. Every Pesach she dressed poor children from head to toe, regardless of whether they were Jews or not. She had a bad gallbladder and had it operated on at the Zivkovic sanatorium in Belgrade. Soon after that she developed a blood sugar problem and died of complications from diabetes in 1920. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery. The cemetery caretaker was a German named Geringer, who described my grandmother’s funeral. He said that a large number of the citizens of Zemun came to pay their respects. Incidentally, it is because of Geringer that the Zemun cemetery was protected from destruction. In the old part of it are the remains of the grandmother and grandfather of Theodore Herzl.  The remains of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies killed at Sajmiste (editor’s note: a German run concentration camp just outside Belgrade) are also buried there.

The eldest of my grandparents’ four children was Jakob, nicknamed Zaki. My uncle Jakob was born in 1901 in Zemun. He attended a Jewish elementary school and a gymnasium in Zemun and he graduated from the Economics Faculty in Belgrade. He worked as the commercial director of the Ta-Ta commercial company in Belgrade. He lived as a tenant. At the outbreak of World War Two, a proclamation arrived which stated that everyone had to register in their place of residence before 1918. Jakob registered in Zemun, and at the same moment they took him into forced labor. He worked on cleaning up the debris from the bombing of Zemun (from the German air raids of April 1941). In mid-1941 he was taken to the Jasenovac concentration camp, from where he did not return.

After Jakob, Robert Bondy was born in 1902 in Zemun. He went to a Jewish elementary school and then to a commercial secondary school. He was employed by the bookstore owner and publisher Geca Kohn as a traveling salesman. At the beginning of the war in 1941 he was taken to forced labor in Zemun and from there sent to Jasenovac. From there all information about him is lost. (Editor’s note: according to the memoirs of German-born Kafka and Herzl biographer Ernst Pawel, who spent the late 1930s in Belgrade, it was Kohn who brought Europe’s best literature to Serbia and ran a penny a day lending service.  Kohn and his family were murdered in Sajmiste).

My grandmother Minna and grandfather Markus’s youngest child was my aunt Greta Bondy. She was born in 1905 in Zemun. She attended a Jewish elementary school and continued her studies in a commercial school in Belgrade. She spoke German, French and English. Before the war she worked as a secretary in a private firm. From 1938 to 1941 she lived in a rented studio apartment in Belgrade. She did not marry. I liked to visit her during my vacations. Her apartment was nicely furnished. She had central heating and hot water in the apartment, which were not common in those days. When the war started, she and her friend Edith Weiss (who was not a blood relative despite the last name), went to Vrpolje to stay with her uncle Weiss. He was my grandmother Minna’s brother, but I cannot remember his name. He was a lawyer and the owner of a mill called Roza Paromlin.

We received information that at the end of 1941, Greta was taken to the Djakovo concentration camp (editor’s note: run by the Croatian fascist Ustasha) from where she did not return.

My mother, Edith, was the third child, born in 1903. She went to a Jewish elementary school, and after that she attended a school for girls. She played handball. She went to a boarding school in Vienna in 1915, where she studied music and painting for a year. In Vienna she learned of the death of her father Markus, and she came back to Zemun in 1916. After the death of her mother, Minna, she went with her sister, Greta, to her uncle Weiss in Vrpolje. The two of them helped him in his law offices and his mill. She stayed in Vrpolje until 1925, when Ilija Erak came to her uncle’s to ask for her hand in marriage.

My father Ilija Erak was born in Zemun in 1890. He attended primary school and commercial school in Zemun. When the war began, he was a member of a youth organization for resistance against the Austro-Hungarian government and for the liberation of Zemun. In 1915 when that organization was discovered, the Austro-Hungarian government published a list of names of its members who should be captured. Among the names was my father’s. To avoid capture, he headed for Serbia, together with his parents, who did not want to separate from their only son. My father enlisted in the Serbian Army in the Moravian division. At the same time a refugee convoy for civilians was formed, which my father’s parents joined. When the Serbian Army met their demise, the people from the refugee convoy and the army pulled back through Albania together. When they passed through the Albanian mountains and came to Skadar, my father’s mother, my grandmother Zorka, died from exhaustion and hunger. In 1915 she was buried in the Skadar military cemetery. The day after the death of his wife, my grandfather Stojan woke up entirely gray-haired. The military and the people from the refugee convoy continued towards the Adriatic Sea, and embarked on boats which sailed towards France. When they arrived in Marseilles, my grandfather Stojan, unable to get over the death of his wife, took ill from grief and died. He was buried in 1915 in the military cemetery in Marseilles.

While they were passing through Albania, the detonation of a bomb ruptured my father’s eardrum, so that he became deaf. Because of this he was unable to continue with the military, so he stayed in Grenoble and continued his education. He attended the Commercial Academy, and to fix his material situation, he worked at the same time in a sawmill. While he was working there, a saw cut off part of his right thumb. He received cash compensation, and when he finished the Commercial Academy in 1919, he used that money to return to Zemun. He settled into his father Stojan’s house, and he bought a mixed-goods store right across the street from the building where my mother, Edith, lived. Very quickly they met each other. They date their love back to those early days. When he found a place to live, he sought after Edith in Vrpolje to ask for her hand in marriage.

In January 1925 they married. The only person who was against the marriage was my uncle Jakob. He could not accept the fact that his sister was married to a non-Jew. He never again went to visit his sister, and he never met me.

Because of my father Ilija’s bad health, we moved to Dubrovnik in 1928. My father sold his house and store, and with the money he received he bought an apartment and two stores, one in Dubrovnik and the other on the island of Lopus. The license for both of the stores was issued in my mother's name. My parents sold souvenirs in their stores, and all sorts of things that were useful to the many tourists. They sold handmade fabric rugs, Konavljanski embroidery, Turkish coffeepots, bathing suits, photo equipment, etc. During the summer, the store on Lopud worked at full capacity. My mother Edith ran it. During the winter the store was closed, because there were few tourists. The Dubrovnik shop was run in the summer by my father Ilija and in the winter by my mother. After a short period my father took up photography, and he opened a small photo laboratory.

Using the treatment his doctor prescribed for his kidney stones, my father had a full recovery. Every morning he had to drink two small glasses of sea water and one small glass of olive oil. He never had any other problem with his kidneys.

Growing up

I began elementary school in 1932. The school was called Pucka School. In Dubrovnik there was no Jewish school. After elementary school I enrolled in the first grade of the gymnasium.

My parents regularly went to synagogue. We observed all the holidays. I remember that the Jewish community and the synagogue were well attended. The rabbi, who was also the ritual slaughterer, came from Trebinja. The president of the Jewish community was a prominent merchant called Tolentino (editor’s note: the last native Sephardi Jewish family in Dubrovnik, survived into the 1930s.  Their house was actually attached to the synagogue, and they entered by a secret door.  Their father was the city’s last rabbi, appointed in the early part of the century.  His three children, one daughter and two sons, never married, and ran the synagogue service each Friday night and Saturday morning until they died).

Already in 1938, intolerance towards Serbs and Jews had begun in Croatia. On one occasion the windows on my father’s store were broken. My family was no longer able to survive in Dubrovnik and we accepted an invitation from my mother’s distant cousin Josef Kronstein who lived in Novi Sad and owned three movie theatres named “Apolo,” “Odeon,” and “Rojal.” We moved to Novi Sad in 1939 and my father accepted an offer to run the Rojal movie theater. I enrolled in the second grade of the gymnasium. I had a lot of Jewish friends. Lia Stark, Egon Stark, and Vera Schlosberger were my best friends. Vera Schlosberger survived the war and became a famous pianist in Yugoslavia. Egon Stark was president of the Jewish community of Novi Sad until not long ago. He held that position continuously for almost 10 years.

During the war

We lived quite normally until the outbreak of World War One. The Hungarians issued a declaration that all residents of Novi Sad who had moved there after 1918 had to immediately return to their birthplace. On April 30, 1941, my father, with two suitcases, my mother and I went on a ferryboat to Petrovaradin and there we embarked in a wagon. On May 1, we arrived in Zemun. My father’s cousin, Pavle Todorovic, who had a pastry shop on Main Street, took us in. After some time we became subtenants.

Every day my mother and I had to go to register at the Kulturbund. The Kulturbund was the German Cultural Federation and was backed by the SS. They were very strict. We had to go regardless of the weather conditions, and we waited if necessary through the hardest of rain storms so that we could sign in. I remember that Rudikka Teibl and Albrecht controlled us. Rudikka Teibl , whose father was the owner of a big hotel in Zemun, and Albrecht, whose father had a well-known furniture store, were members of the Kulturbund. They were both only about 20 years old, but they were famous for their brutality. They greatly mistreated the Jews of Zemun, who had to come to register at the Kulturbund everyday. Rudikka and Albrecht wore red suits and armbands with swastikas. We wore a yellow arm band with a star of David on our arm. We stayed in Zemun until August 1941, until the moment that we heard that the border with Croatia would be closed. We knew that they intended to collect all the Jews, and that is why we moved to Belgrade. In Belgrade we registered in the Commissariat for Refugees. To hide my mother’s Jewish name Edith, my father registered her under the name Zorka Erak. After two days we went by convoy to Pozarevac. The Commissariat for Refugees lodged in the Hotel Balkan, and then with Mrs. Agica Jankovic. We lived with Mrs. Jankovic free for some months and she treated us very correctly. She was not a Jew, but she treated us as if we were her family. Not wanting to be too much of a burden on her, we rented a small room.

In Pozarevac, I continued the fifth grade of gymnasium. Since I spoke German fluently, I signed up at the Red Cross so that I could work on correspondence between the citizens of Pozarevac and the surroundings, including their relatives who were prisoners in different German camps. At the time I was a member of the SKOJ (Federation of Communist Youth). Working at the Red Cross provided me with a cover, because I received a document which stated that as a Red Cross activist I could freely walk around the city from 8 to l2 and from 14 to 18. This gave me the opportunity to do work for SKOJ. However, the organization was uncovered and I and some other members were locked up in a Chetnik prison. The head of the Pozerevac district was the famous Chetnik, Kalabic. (Chetniks formed a non-regular army in Serbia under the control of Draza Mihajlovic, a general of the Royal Yugoslav Army. At the beginning of the war they were important as fighters for the liberation of Serbia from occupiers, but they quickly joined the Germans. Most frequently they went around Serbia in groups of three, and slaughtered followers of the partisans and innocent residents. General Draza Mihajlovic was captured, but he committed suicide before being sentenced.) There they seriously mistreated me. I constantly screamed that I was innocent, that I did not know anything, that I only went to school and that I did not know anyone. Because of lack of evidence they released me.

I finished the 6th grade of gymnasium. In September 1943, I joined the Partisans in the Second Southern Moravian Unit, which on February 4, 1944 became the famous 7th Serbian Fighting Brigade. (The Seventh Serbian Fighting Brigade was famous because its fighters participated in battles from Djerdap to Belgrade. The brigade was among the first to reach Belgrade and its fighters devotedly fought for liberation.) On the 15th of October, 1945, my brigade liberated Pozerevac. We remained there five days, then merged with the 23rd division and went to liberate Belgrade. After almost four years, on October 23 1945 at 5:00 PM I set foot in my liberated Zemun.

After the war

I did not have any contact with my parents until the liberation of Pozarevac. All the war, my mother hid herself, almost never leaving the house. The neighboring villagers helped her and my father, sometime giving them a kilogram of flour or a little meat. After the liberation of Zemun, I rented a small truck and went to get my parents. We took the few things we had and moved to Zemun to the small apartment we were given. After demobilization I finished my schooling.

After graduation in 1946, I became employed in the military firm Planum. There I met my future husband, Pavle Ruman, and we got married in August 1946. I enrolled in the journalism/diplomacy school. I kept my own last name so that I would not have to change all my documents from Erak to Ruman. At that time you could do this at the time of marriage. We lived in the house of my paternal uncle, Milorad Jovanovic’s, who moved to Novi Sad.

Our son Branislav was born in 1947. He used his father’s name, Ruman, until he became an adult, and afterwards to fulfill my father’s wish he took the last name Erak, because my father did not have a son to inherit his name. In 1951 we had a daughter, Vesna. We had a good marriage, which ended in the tragic death of my husband in March 1952. In the firm where he worked he was hit by a broken high voltage cable and was killed instantly.

After the firm Planum I began working at the Military Post 44/45 as a personal referent. I did not manage to finish the journalism/diplomacy school. I transferred to work in the municipal government of Zemun and in the meantime I had three heart attacks and four bypasses. I retired in 1981 with 39 full years of work experience. They also recognized my three years and nine months of fighting experience.

Even though I was a single parent, with the help of my parents, I managed to educate the children. Branislav attended a two-year electrical college and Vesna a two-year medical college.

My father Ilija worked as the head of Izgradnja’s Warehouse, and in 1967 he died of a heart attack. My mother worked for a short time as a clerk and then dedicated herself to the home. She died in 1983.

After the war I helped to rebuild the Zemun Jewish community. Its first president was Albert Weiss. Working together, we gathered information concerning the Jews from Zemun who did not return from Jasenovac, and that list was given to the curator of Jasenovac. After that, Albert Weiss went to Nuremberg as the representative for Yugoslavia on the prosecuting committee.

Aleksandar Frank became president of the Jewish community, and he maintained this position for a long time. The Jewish community entirely revived itself and my children went with the other Jewish youth every summer to Hvar, Korcula, etc. In 1990 I organized the women’s section in the Jewish community, and I am still the president of that section. In 1995 I helped to establish the youth section.

Parallel to my work in the Jewish community of Zemun, I also work actively at the Red Cross. I am the recipient of many awards for my humanitarian work.

Polina Leibovich
Kishinev
Moldova
Interviewer: Nathalia Fomina
Date of interview: March 2004

Polina Leibovich is a short young-looking lady, with dark hair with hardly any gray streaks. She has smooth skin with a slightly pink complexion. She speaks looking at her counterpart intently. One can observe a strong and independent character and a great sense of dignity behind her pleasant and gentle manners. During our conversation, Polina asked for a break every now and then. She has hypertension and suffers from frequent headaches. Being 79 years old, Polina still shows interest in people and the taste of life: during intervals she willingly talked about literature, theater and modern cinema. She lives in a two-bedroom apartment with all comforts on the first floor of an apartment building in the quiet Rykhanovka district in the center of Kishinev. Polina leases a smaller room to two students of Kishinev University - she likes having young company. Polina’s room is clean and spacious. There is a couch covered with a plaid, a big cabinet with a cupboard and a bookcase by the wall, a low table and two armchairs by the window in her room. She willingly agreed to tell us the story of her life and her family, though she mentioned at the very beginning that she wasn’t going to talk about the Holocaust. However, at the end of our discussion she told us a few episodes from this tragic period of her life. She wanted to mention the people who helped her to survive. We sat at the big dinner table during our conversation having tea with candy which has been Polina’s weakness since childhood.

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

When I was born, my parents were old people, so they told me about my grandparents. My maternal grandfather, Gersh Iris, came from Kishinev in Bessarabia 1. My grandfather was a soldier in Nikolai’s army 2. He served in the tsarist army for 25 years. I don’t know whether he was a cantonist 3, but he never quit his Judaic faith. According to my mother, my grandfather had a business and provided well for his family. My grandmother, Cipora, was a housewife like all Jewish women at that time. I only know four of my grandparents’ children, including my mother.

My mother’s older brother, Samuel Iris, was an actor. I don’t know what town he lived in, but he worked in the popular Jewish drama troupe of Fischzon touring across Ukraine. Uncle Samuel moved to South America before I was born where he wrote plays in Yiddish for the Jewish theater. I don’t know whether he had a family or when he died.

My mother’s second brother, Yakov, was also born in Kishinev. When the Romanians occupied Kishinev in 1918, he moved to Paris, France, with his family. I can’t remember what he did for a living. I think he was a businessman and he must have been successful. His family was very wealthy. Yakov had three sons, my cousin brothers. One of them was called Shymon. He was an engineer, and then there was Avraam, another son, who was an artist. I don’t know the name of the third son or his occupation. One of the brothers had a son, born in France. His name was Lucien and at home he was called Loulou. Loulou was a very beautiful child and once he won the 18th place at a beauty contest. My mother told me about it, and the family was very proud of him. Loulou graduated from the Medical Department of the University. He worked as a doctor, and he still lives in Paris. I correspond with him. I have a good conduct of French, and this correspondence is no problem for me.

My mother’s youngest sister, Rachil, completed the gymnasium in Kishinev during the rule of Nicolas II 4. Rachil had a fiancé whose name was Lampert. He moved to America in the 1910s and settled down in New York. She followed him there and they got married. Rachil’s husband had a network of textile stores. Aunt Rachil was a housewife. Her daughter was born in the late 1920s. She was named after my grandmother - Cipora. Later, her name changed to Zora. Zora was an actress. She could play the piano very well. Aunt Rachil kept in touch with our family before and after the war [Great Patriotic War] 5. Aunt Rachil and her husband lived a long and happy life. She died in 1968 at the age of 88. Her husband died a few years earlier. Zora is about seventy now. She lives in New York. She studied French to be able to correspond with me.

My mother, Shyfra Sohis [nee Iris], was born in Kishinev in 1877. She was short, had a nice physique, big blue eyes and dark hair. She was extremely kind and gentle. My mother was the oldest child in the family and the family couldn’t afford to pay for her complete education. That’s why my mother finished four years in the gymnasium and got married at the age of 16.

My paternal grandfather, Rahmiel Sohis, came from Latvia where his family resided in a small Jewish town. My grandfather was a rabbi, a teacher, as my father used to say, and all the Jews of the town went to ask for his advice. My grandfather died young. I don’t know when the family moved to Kishinev, but my father was born in Kishinev in 1869. All I know about my paternal grandmother is that her name was Shyfra just like my mother’s. She was a housewife. I faintly remember my father’s sister, Sarah, who also lived in Kishinev with her family. In my early childhood I met her and her children. I know that they survived the war, but I don’t know what happened to them then, perhaps, they moved abroad.

My father, Yakov Sohis, was born in 1869. My grandfather insisted that my father finished a yeshivah. He was very well educated in Judaism. He knew the Talmud and Tannakh and was interested in the Jewish philosophy. In his youth he worked with my maternal grandfather, Gersh Iris. That was when my father met my mother. They liked each other and got married in 1893. The bride was 16 and the bridegroom was 24 years old. Of course they had a traditional wedding under the chuppah. After she got married my mother wore a wig that Jewish women were required to wear. In the only photograph of this period she wears a wig, but later she quit wearing a wig. After the wedding my parents settled down with Grandpa Gersh. After my grandpa died, my parents opened a dairy store that became the start of my father’s business. I know very little about my parents’ life before my brother Shymon was born, though this is quite a long period of time. My brother Shymon was born on 17th March 1918, when my mother was 42 years old. I was born six years later, on 2nd April 1924. I was named Cipora after my grandmother.

At that time my father owned a store of men’s clothes on Aleksandrovskaya Street. I know little about his business, though I know that my father made charity contributions to the Jewish community like all other wealthy Jews. We had a big house in the wealthy Jewish neighborhood, Irinopolskaya Street. There were three, three-bedroom wing annexes in the yard. They also belonged to my father and he rented them out. There was the mansion of Perelmuter, a wealthy Jew in Kishinev, near our house. The lawyer, Levenstein, and his family lived near him. They were educated and respectable people, and our family had good neighborly relations with them. There was a wealthy Romanian or Moldovan family living in another mansion, but we didn’t know them. There were five rooms, a kitchen and back rooms in our house. My parents had a bedroom and Shymy – that was how we called my brother at home – and I had our own rooms, there was also a big living room and a dining room. We had ancient furniture of red wood, velvet curtains and crystal chandeliers. There was a piano in the living room, but I didn’t study music. Unfortunately, I have no ear for music, though I love and understand it.

I remember that my parents loved each other dearly. My father was a big tall man with a small beard and moustache. When he would introduce my mother to somebody, he would say, ‘You see this small woman. Oh, she is worth a fortune!’ There was a warm atmosphere at home; they had such a beautiful life together. I never heard one swear-word at home. My mother was so smart, kind and gentle. She always wore a hat to go out, dressed like a dame, and wore her golden jewelry. I remember that she had a nice silver purse – it looked like silver net. My father was very witty. He was a big humorist and could make people laugh. I never saw him sad. He was always full of energy and optimism. He wasn’t fanatically religious; there was even some frivolity in his character, but he prayed every day. He never started anything without praying first. He started every morning with a prayer with his tallit and tefillin on. My father always had a yarmulka on at home. My mother also taught me to pray in Hebrew, I can still remember it: ‘Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu Adonai ehad…’ ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One’… this is what I think it means. I had a small siddur in my childhood. I still have a siddur, though I don’t think I am a fanatic believer.

My mother was a housewife and we had a housemaid to help my mother do the cleaning and some housekeeping while my mother cooked herself. She made delicious Jewish food: gefilte fish was number one, of course. Jews like gefilte fish. She also made chicken broth, yeisek flesh – sweet and sour meat stew. My mother made delicious pancakes from stretch dough. It stretched like parchment paper – very thin. She filled them with cottage cheese adding fried onions – very delicious. Our family also liked pte [petcha] – hardly anybody would know the word. It was cooked from calf legs bought at the market. It was cut to smaller pieces, cold water was added and it was cooked for seven to eight hours like holodets [holodets: a cold meat dish, usually made of boiled bones with little meat on them, the meat is mixed with the bouillon and cooled, after which it becomes jelly-like because of the high percentage of gelatin in it]. Two hours before the end of cooking, onions, carrots, garlic and spices were added, and then vinegar or lemon juice. It was served hot, but I never ate it for I didn’t like it unlike the rest of the family. I liked Moldovan mamaliga [boiled corn flour] that my father cooked. This was the only dish my mother allowed him to cook. When the family felt like having mamaliga, my father made it. It goes without saying that my family followed the kashrut.

Besides a housemaid, there was my nanny living in the house with us. She was a Russian woman, rather old. I don’t remember her name; I just called her ‘nanny’. My mother said that the first thing my nanny did, when she came to live with us in the house and heard that my name was Cipora, she said, ‘What kind of name is that? I will call her Polina, that’s it!’ So, it was her initiative that everybody in the family began calling me Polina and now everybody calls me so. Only in my documents I am Cipora. The nanny was very good and was devoted to our family. She was like a member of our family, but she was quite a drunkard, as they say. Often a policeman took me back home from a stroll for she would be lying on the pavement drunk while I would quietly play beside her, when they found me. My mother was terrified by this situation saying each time, ‘This was the last time. It’s impossible to go on like this’, but my nanny didn’t have a place to go to, and my mother was so kind that she tolerated her. She lived her life with us. She loved me and loved our family. At the age of three or four, I was sent to the kindergarten and not to a Frebelichka [Froebel Institute] 6.

My mother was involved in charity activities along with other Jewish women in the community. They were called patroness dames. There were two marble plaques with the names of these dames on the wall of the choral synagogue, and on one plaque there was the name of Shyfra Sohis. My mother sacrificed herself for the sake of others. She was ill having calcula in her gall bladder. She had attacks of acute pain at times, but as soon as she felt better she got up and hurried to the lower side of town where poor Jews lived. She distributed special coupons to poor Jews and they would go to the Jewish community to receive food products.

My father used to say, ‘You really have no love for yourself. You’ve just suffered from pain. We were fussing around you not knowing what to do, then you are up and on the run again.’ This is the way my mother was. Besides, poor people always came to our house. My mother appointed the time for them to come. She gave them wood or food. She gently told me, ‘You go open the shed and leave him alone there. Let him take as much as he needs.’ We were a hospitable family. I try to follow this tradition in the memory of my mother. There was also a children’s home named after Babich in the community. Babich was probably a founder and chief contributor to the house. My mother also worked there. She couldn’t stay quietly at home. She just had to go out and help people.

Our family observed Jewish traditions like all other Jewish families. We strictly observed Sabbath. My mother baked challah in a special oven. I also had one recently, but I gave it away. My mother cooked cholent, chicken broth and fish for Sabbath. She left the food on a special grate with lamps above it to keep the food hot. On Friday evening my mother lit two candles in silver candle stands. My father always had the company of a poor Jewish man, when he came home from the synagogue for Sabbath. This was a rule. Before a meal my father always recited a prayer in Hebrew, and my mother translated it for me. On the afternoon of Sabbath we always sang songs called zmires. We did no work on Sabbath; we didn’t even turn on the lights. My father had many religious books, and every week he read me an article from the Torah which is habitual for Jewish families. I could listen to him for hours. I remember that Shymy also sat with us. My father read in Hebrew, also called loshen koidesh [‘holy language’ in Yiddish], and of course, interpreted each word to us.

Growing up

Pesach was the main and my favorite holiday. Shymy and I got presents for sure. I usually got a pair of patent leather shoes for Pesach. There were preparations for the holiday. In fall my mother started making goose fat: she had a special board and utensils to melt the fat. This fat was kept in a special jug in the attic where fancy crockery for Pesach was kept. Before Pesach the house was cleaned thoroughly. I remember that my mother thoroughly cleaned the kitchen utensils that she had no replacement for. All chametz was removed from the house. My mother also distributed coupons to the poor for them to receive food products for the holiday. My mother took the crockery from the attic after the house was cleaned up. It was beautiful crockery of thin china. There were silver wine glasses and silver tableware. The table was always covered with a beautiful white tablecloth.

At the end of the day, before seder, everything had to be ready. Undoubtedly there was fish, meat, matzah pudding and haroset – ground apples with wine and nuts to symbolize the clay that Jews worked with, when they were slaves. There were candles lit in silvery candle stands on the table and the seder began. We always had quests on seder. My father and brother conducted the seder: this was a tradition. My father told us about Moses who led our people from Egypt. My brother, Shymy, asked the four questions – fir kashes. He would ask, ‘Why are we sitting on this night? My mother or I didn’t say anything, but I knew the fir kashes by heart. I’m not sure, but it seems we also sang zmires on Pesach. My parents and whoever was our guest had their glasses filled with wine. The children also had a little in their glasses. Each adult was supposed to drink four glasses, but I don’t remember for sure whether they did.

I had a little thick glass with a little handle called a koise. There was a big copper glass for Elijah the Prophet on the table. It was polished and shining as if it was made of gold and there was the candle light reflecting in it. The glass was filled with wine. My father used to say, ‘Look carefully. Elijah will come at midnight and open the door.’ We left the door open for him to come in. Seder began early in the evening, but ended very late. Gradually, the scene became blurry in my eyes: the candlelight and the shining glass for Elijah. I always fell asleep and never knew whether he came or not. And I never saw him.

Rosh Hashanah was a wonderful holiday. I loved it. It is the Jewish New Year. My parents went to the Choral Synagogue. My mother took me with her and we sat on the upper tier with the other women. Before we started going to the Choral Synagogue we went to another synagogue which I don’t remember. There was a festive meal on Rosh Hashanah with apples and honey, a round-shaped challah loaf and broth with mendelakh – little pieces of dough fried in oil.

On Judgment Day [Yom Kippur] my parents fasted and so did I. I fasted at least till two o’clock. I started fasting at about the age of 14. My father came from the synagogue in the evening and had a shot of vodka with bronfn and lekakh. Bronfn is vodka and lekakh is honey cake. Eggs were frothed to make lekakh. Then the family sat down to dinner. I remember that on Yom Kippur my mother served broth with little dumplings filled with meat. They are called pelmeni in Russian.

I liked Simchat Torah very much. My father used to hold me and go for a walk, when I was small. I always waited for Simchat Torah with a special feeling. We, children, walked with little red flags and red lollypops on sticks. I remember the Torah being carried out and we kissed it stretching our little arms. I remember this well. How wonderful those years were!

On Sukkot we made a sukkah in the yard from special planks that were kept in the attic. On top, the sukkah was covered with straw or reeds – I don’t remember for sure. We got together with our Jewish neighbors for celebrations and had meals in the sukkah all week long. Sukkot is celebrated in fall. When it was cold, we wrapped ourselves in warmer clothes, but still had meals in the sukkah.

On Chanukkah my father gave me Chanukkah gelt. I don’t remember what I did with it – bought sweets, I guess. I also remember merry dreidel whipping tops. We had a big silver chanukkiyah on the window. Every day another candle was lit in it.

On Purim my mother made hamantashen for our family and for poor families. She visited them before Purim taking baskets full of presents to them a week before Purim. My parents were rather old and we didn’t have noisy celebrations at home, but there were jokes, and children visiting and we had fancy dress costumes on.

I was a stubborn girl and wanted my wishes to come true. It was hard for my mother to handle me and she often said, ‘I will send you to school’. I was six, when my mother had enough of my unbearable character and sent me to school. It was a Romanian elementary school one house away from our house. The teaching was in Romanian at the school. My parents didn’t know Romanian. We spoke Yiddish or Russian at home, so I had to learn Romanian. I don’t remember having any problems in this regard. I did well at school, but I was probably a hoyden. I remember an incident, when I was in the fourth grade. There were only girls in my class. I demonstrated my adroitness to them running on the desks, when a teacher walked into the classroom. She asked, ‘What is this? Stretch out your hand!’ Hitting pupils on their hands with a ruler was a common punishment.

I was very independent and spoiled – hitting me on my hand? No way! I jumped off the desk, grabbed my bag and I even remember the words I said, ‘Draku suei schcoala sa!’ [God damn this school!], and went home proudly. At home I said I wasn’t going to that school again. A week passed and then the teacher came to our home. I remember her last name – Pekush – she was Czech, it seems. She came in and asked, ‘What’s happened?’ My mother replied, ‘I don’t know, she doesn’t want to go to school, but she wouldn’t say why.’ I was there in the room. I guess they found the right words to convince me to go back to school. That’s what I was like.

I adored my brother Shymy. He was six years older than me and I was jealous that Mother bought him whatever he wanted. Shymy was a little boy, when our parents bought him a big toy car with pedals that he drove in the yard. At 13 Shymy had his bar mitzvah. I remember many guests and they all brought him presents. When I was at school, he already studied in the lyceum and was popular with other students in Kishinev. He was good at basketball and volleyball; he was the captain of these teams in the Jewish sports community Maccabi 7. When on holidays Maccabi teams took part in parades, my brother always marched in the first rows.

Shymy was very handsome. He was tall and slim and had a special bearing – royal and sportive. I always went to watch his teams playing and I always sat as close as I could, though Shymy asked me to sit further behind fearing that the ball might hit me. I always cheered for his team and wanted everybody to know that I was his sister. I was jealous when Shymy went on dates in the evening and asked him to take me with him. Sometimes he took me with him. Shymy taught me to dance tango – this dance was popular at the time. Tango became the only dance I can dance. He was also a member of Betar 8, I remember that Betar members were ardent Zionists and so was Shymy.

After graduating from elementary school, I went to the French Jeanne D’Arc gymnasium. It was a private gymnasium, the most prestigious and the most expensive in town. There was competition to enter the Dadiani and Regina Maria gymnasiums, but not to our gymnasium. They charged a lot and admitted all who could afford to send their children to study there. We had French teachers, Monsieur Clemant, the language teacher, Madame Pobelle, and Madame Pizolit. They were intelligent and educated people knowing the etiquette. We had summer and winter uniforms. The winter uniform was a black gown with a white collar and the school emblem on it, dark blue coats and hats with small rims, decorated with a ribbon from the same fabric. In summer we wore skirts and white blouses.

During the war

When the fascists came to power in Romania, we began to wear a plain uniform of a military kind. On holidays the flag of the gymnasium was raised in the yard. The biggest national holiday in Romania was Zece May, on 10th May 9, ‘Unire principatelor’ – Union of all principalities. At the start of each academic year there was also a flag raised by the honored gymnasium students. I remember I was authorized to raise the flag – I was tall and slim. I’ve never been a girl of fashion. I like plain clothes. All gymnasium students wanted to be kind to me knowing what kind of a brother I had. They walked with me during the intervals. Shymy’s girlfriend, Gusia Necler, was my special friend. She was about two years older than me.

My favorite subjects in the gymnasium were botany and natural sciences. I liked flora and animals, but the French language was number one. I could read in French for days, and I liked reading aloud to hear myself. Our teachers told us that we had to read aloud to hear ourselves to master the pronunciation. I could read books in French and this helped me to enrich my vocabulary. I always looked up new words in the dictionary. I didn’t do that well in math, and in senior grades my parents even hired a private teacher for me. In Kishinev it was quite common to hire the gymnasium graduates or senior students to give private classes, so I had one. They were mostly Jews since it was more difficult for Jews to find jobs in Kishinev, and they gave private classes.

There was no anti-Semitism in the gymnasium. My closest and best friend was Mania Feider, a Jewish girl. Her father was a commercial agent, and her mother was a housewife. They were wealthy, but they didn’t own a house. They rented an apartment. We spent all our free time together. I visited Mania and she visited me at home. We trusted each other with our secrets and read books together. Mania and I liked knitting and embroidery. Mania perished in the Kishinev Ghetto 10 during the war.

The Kishinev of my childhood and youth wasn’t so big. Its population was less than one hundred thousand. [Polina is wrong here, according to the all-Russian census in 1897 Kishinev had 108,483 residents, 50,237 of who were Jews.] There was an upper and a lower town. The lower town was a poor and dirty neighborhood. The upper town was a fashionable place, particularly Sadovaya, Nikolayevskaya and Aleksandrovskaya Streets. There were posh stores on Aleksandrovskaya Street. One of the biggest stores was the Barbalat garment store. Perhaps, Barbalat was the name of the owner. Its owners shipped their goods from France and other European countries. I remember that they also sold some clothes from my father’s store. There was also a shoe store, I don’t remember the name. These stores were for wealthy people.

There were also small stores. Most of them belonged to Jewish owners, but there were also Russian-owned stores. I can’t say now whether they were open on Saturdays, but I can say for sure that if they were, there weren’t Jewish shop assistants working in this case. There were also street vendors. One of them was a Greek vendor who sold ice-cream in waffle cones. It was delicious ice cream far better than what they offer nowadays. In winter this Greek man sold khalvitsa, an extremely delicious oriental sweet toffee. The children liked it a lot. My mother didn’t allow me to eat khalvitsa outside. Imagine me eating khalvitsa in the street! This would have been bad manners. There were numerous confectioneries in the town selling cakes, hot chocolate, delicious nut khalva. There was an expensive Zamfiresku cafe on the central street. Businessmen or enamored couples met there in the afternoon.

There were horse-drawn cabs and trams running along Nicolayeskaya and Harlampievskaya Streets. Before the Soviet regime [1940] they were almost empty and hooting: Dong! Dong! During the Soviet power they were overcrowded and hooted the same. During the Romanian regime a tram ticket cost 30 bans. When my mother gave me money to take a tram I saved it to go to the cinema. A ticket to a movie cost 18 Leu, it was expensive. Since I didn’t want to ask my parents for the money to the cinema, I tried to save. One paid for an entrance ticket to a movie and could stay in the cinema as long as they wished. In Kishinev there were a few cinema theaters: Odeon on Mikhailovskaya Street, and Coliseum on Alexandrovskaya Street. I remember silent movies, when there was a pianist playing. I remember the stars of silent movies: Rudolf Valentino, Mary Pickford.

Kishinev residents used to walk along Aleksandrovskaya Street near the Triumphalnaya Arc. Mothers and nannies took little children for walks on the boulevard. Young people went for walks in the town park where there was a monument of Stefan the Great [The ruler of the Moldova principality in 1457 - 1504, who conducted the policy of centralization]. I liked going to this park to sit on a bench with a book and then I secretly watched the enamored couples. There was a central library on Alexandrovskaya Street near a big bank with two stone lions at the entrance where my mother and I used to borrow books.

There was an Agricultural College and a Religious Faculty in Kishinev and most Jews left Bessarabia to study abroad. Those who wanted to study medicine went to Italy. Graduates from Italian medical institutions were regarded as good doctors in Kishinev. My brother Shymy went to the University of Bucharest after finishing the lyceum in 1936. He never finished it due to persecution and abuse of Jews that started in Romania. Shymy was proud and independent. He had a fight with the Cuzists 11 once and then he had to leave Bucharest for the fear of his life. He came home and said, ‘I won’t study there any longer. I’ll go to Palestine. Palestine is my Motherland and I’ll move there anyway.’

In 1938, when he was twenty, he moved to Palestine with other halutzim [halutz is a pioneer in Hebrew – participant of the Jewish settlement Erez Yisrael from the late 19th to the early 20th century]. There were 300 of them on the Greek boat ‘Aspir.’ They paid the captain and he took them on board in a Mediterranean post. The boat arrived in the harbor of Haifa, but the passengers weren’t allowed to get off board. Palestine was under the British mandate and the Brits didn’t accept Jews. They were at sea for three months with hardly any food or water before they managed to get off-board. From there they were sent to a quarantine camp.

We didn’t hear from Shymy for a long time and were very concerned. My mother and I even went to a fortune teller. She said, ‘Your son will work and will have a very good life.’ We believed her and looked forward till we could see each other again, but this wasn’t to be. World War II, fascism, began. When in 1940 there was the Annexation of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union 12, my father was ruined. The store and houses were taken away from us. My father had to go to the police station many times and each time he said ‘good bye’ thinking that it was for good. I don’t know why we weren’t sent away with other wealthy people that the Soviet power was deporting from Bessarabia in 1941. This was a terrible time!

There were other families living in the house, one family in each room, this was a real communal apartment 13. We stayed to live in the living room. One NKVD 14 officer, who came to search the house wanted to occupy the living room, but this time my mother was firm. ‘Pick your hat, you aren’t staying here! The three of us are enough for this room.’ And he left. The gymnasiums were converted to schools and had numbers [see school #] 15. Most of them became Russian schools, and there were few Moldovan ones. By that time I had finished six grades in the gymnasium and went to the ninth grade of the Russian railroad school #1. Though my Russian was poor I picked it up quickly since we sometimes spoke Russian at home. I was doing all right at school.

Our family didn’t have anything to live on. We leased a corner in our living room to a man from Russia. So there were four of us sharing the room: my mother, my father, I and this man. He was a Soviet official staying with us temporarily waiting for his wife and son. He was a decent and honest man and paid us his rental fee for the corner. My parents also took work to do at home like sewing buttons on clothes. Probably, one of my father’s former suppliers helped my father to get this job. My father was 73 and my mother was 64 years old. What could they do? I couldn’t wait till my summer vacations when I hoped to find a job to help my parents, but then the war began on 22nd June 1941. Germany attacked the USSR.

We didn’t evacuate. My mother was very conservative. She didn’t want to leave the place. I yelled, ‘Mama, come on… Papa, you see, everybody is leaving!’ My mother said, ‘Can’t you remember our life during the Romanian regime? Where would we go?’ Of course, we knew about the fascists and how they treated Jews, but it was probably my parents’ age that they didn’t care, but they should have thought about me. Well, whatever the reasons, we happened to stay. When the Germans and Romanians occupied Kishinev, an officer of the German army, a Czech man, settled down with us. He talked with my parents. He was a good man. He used to say, ‘Go away, they will kill you!’ An old Jewish man, my father’s acquaintance, who knew German, interpreted for us. He sent his son away and he, his wife and his old grandmother stayed home.

My parents should have done the same; they just didn’t understand that they had to do it! Later, I met my father’s acquaintance in the camp in Golta. [Following the Antonescu-ordered slaughter of the Jews of Odessa and Bessarabia, the Romanian occupation authorities deported the survivors to camps in the Golta district: 54,000 to the Bogdanovka camp, 18,000 to the Akhmetchetka camp, and 8,000 to the Domanevka camp. In Bogdanovka all the Jews were shot, with the Romanian gendarmerie, the Ukrainian police, and Sonderkommando R, made up of Volksdeutsche, taking part. In January and February 1942, 12,000 Jews were murdered in the other two camps. A total of 185,000 Jews were murdered by Romanian and German army units]. He was alone and he said, ‘Polia [affectionate of Polina], I am all alone, and they will kill me one of these days’.

Before Bessarabia was annexed to the USSR, Romanian troops trained near Kishinev, and some high-rank Romanian officer stayed in our apartment. When the German and Romanian troops came to Kishinev in 1941, he came to see us and left a sign on the door that there was a Romanian officer staying there. It helped us to escape from searches for some time. However, in fall we were sent to the ghetto in Kishinev, and in January 1942 all inmates of the ghetto were taken across the Dnestr to Odessa region. My father was very ill, and I managed to get a place in a train car for him. This was the last time I saw him. My father was killed near the village of Yasinovo in Odessa region. My mother was with me. She couldn’t walk and we dragged her holding her by her arms. On the way they began to kill exhausted people. I survived by some miracle and ran out of this crowd. I didn’t care whether I would go alone or with the crowd and I escaped. It was a frosty night. It started snowing and there was wind. I didn’t see anything.

I knocked on the door of the first hut on my way. An old man’s voice said, ‘Go away, they will kill me because of you.’ I went to the cowshed. Though I was afraid of cows, I stayed there a whole night shivering from the cold. The old man saw me in the corner when he came to feed the cows in the morning. He asked, ‘What are you doing here?’ I couldn’t talk, when the Romanians were shooting at the people I screamed so loud that I tore my chords. I somehow explained who I was and he said, ‘You know, since you are here, come on in.’ They were an old Ukrainian couple. They burned my clothes as there were lice in them. Then they washed me. She rinsed my head with alkaline water; there was no soap. There were lice on each hair on my head and she was sitting brushing my hair to remove them. A complete stranger that she was! Then she gave me her dress and let me sit on the stove bench to warm up. I stayed there for two weeks before I restored my voice by having hot milk and honey.

The old man was the secretary of the village council of the kolkhoz 16, and he wanted to help me, but what could he do! He said there was Yuschiha Belinskaya, a lonely old woman living in a farm near the village of Bobrik: ‘You go there and tell her I sent you, but before you go to Bobrik to see Batko, also secretary of the village council, tell him that I’ve asked him to issue you a document with a stamp that you are baptized and that you are from the Odessa children’s home.’ The old man told me about the children’s home and how to get there for me to give correct answers in case they asked. Batko did everything as the old man requested and issued me a forged certificate, but he warned me to only show it to common people, not to any officials. So I headed to the farm of Yuschiha Belinskaya. She showed my document to her neighbors and allowed me to stay in her house. I stayed there till spring. In spring the old woman’s cousin brother, Vasia Belyi, came to stay in her house. He wanted the house considering her being old. He worked for the Germans and I grasped at once that he would even kill me himself or report on me to the Germans. I left Yuschiha.

I was captured in Bobrik. There were other Jews that they captured in the district. We were locked in a shed on the outskirts of the village. I was sure they were going to burn us. Women were sobbing and screaming, but it didn’t happen. Our guards were two red-head soldiers wearing German uniforms and they probably weren’t fascists. They let the men free as soon as night fell. Then they began to let the women free in small groups. By the morning there was an old woman and I left, and they said, ‘Go where you want.’ This old woman and I went to the village of Lubashovka. Where were we to go? We had no idea, and we got to the gendarmerie. I don’t know what happened to the old woman, but I was taken for interrogation. A Romanian man interrogated me. There was an interpreter. I told my story and didn’t mention that I understood Romanian. He asked me who I was and I said that I was a soldier. He said, ‘Soldier? I will show you what kind of soldier I am. Puk, puk, puk – shi es gata [You’re done - in Romanian].’

I stood quietly pretending I didn’t understand. Then the interpreter took me to the shop where Jews from Lubashevka were working. I began to work in this shop and also told them that I was Russian and came from the Odessa children’s home. Once, a local Jewish man approached me, ‘You know I’ll help you. There is a woman whose children live in this house. She brought us food. I will talk to her. Maybe she will take you with her.’ This woman’s name was Nina Tsvetochnitsa. She went to the gendarmerie and said, ‘Why are you keeping her here? I know her well, she was in the children’s home with my children. Let her come with me.’ There, what great people I met. I stayed with her for some time. She also starved.

Then I ran away from Lubashevka and went to Golta. This happened in early 1944. In spring, when the Soviet troops were approaching, the Romanians had other things to think about than us. A local girl approached me and said, ‘We are Baptists and we want to take a Jewish girl with us.’ She told me to follow her. I stayed with them till the Soviet troops came. After the liberation I went to work in the village of Gandrabury, Ananiev district, Odessa region. It was a big village and there was a ten-year school where I worked as elementary school teacher. I was eager to go back to Kishinev, though nobody waited for me there, but somehow I believed that there was a good life there and people were dressed nicely like before the war and I was ashamed of the shabby clothes I had. Then I thought ‘be what may’ and went to Kishinev on summer vacations. I went to the university and ascribed myself to the Faculty of Moldovan language and literature. I needed a certificate to obtain a letter of invitation to go back to Kishinev. I obtained a letter, went back to Gandrabury, went to Ananiev, and submitted this certificate to the district prosecutor, which enabled me to return to Kishinev. This was the only possible way during Stalin’s regime.

Shortly afterward, when I recovered from the horrors I went through, I wrote to Aunt Rachil in America. I told her about my mother and father’s death, asked her whether she had any information about Shymy since he was the only close person I had. I had a good memory and remembered two addresses of my aunt in New York: Ardel Street and Pickman Street. I sent the letter having little hope it would reach her, but a few months later I received her response. My aunt wrote to me that Shymy was alive, and sent me his photograph where he wore a military uniform. She wrote to him about me and our parents. Then I received a long letter from my brother. It made a long journey before I got it. He wrote about his life in Palestine. He worked a lot. He delivered milk to customers, washed cars in a garage and picked any job and studied simultaneously. Aunt Rachil sent him money and he graduated from the University of Jerusalem and became an engineer. During World War II, Shymy volunteered to the British army to fight against Nazis. He was an officer and had a higher education. He had awards. My brother was a brave man. In Palestine Shymy changed his surname from Sohis to Sofar.

I learned about his life from Aunt Rachil. Occasionally I received letters from him. During the Soviet times it wasn’t safe to keep in touch with relatives abroad 17. When Shymy’s dream came true and the Jewish state was established, Shymy took part in the war for independence in 1948, when the armies of five Arab states attacked Israel. Shymy got married before Israel was established. His wife, Pnina, arrived in Palestine from Poland with her parents at the age of eight. She got a medical education and worked as a cosmetologist. Later, she quit her job and became a housewife. They have no children. Shymy became a professional military. He participated in the Six-Day-War 18 in 1967, and in the War on Judgment Day in 1973 [see Yom Kippur War] 19. He took part in four wars. They live in Rishon Le Ziyon.

I corresponded with Aunt Rachil. She sent me parcels and tried to help me as much as she could. In the first letter my aunt wrote, ‘Maybe you’ll come to America?’ I couldn’t explain that this was impossible considering the Soviet regime. Then she wrote, ‘You must have good friends and can’t leave them.’ It never occurred to her that nobody would let me out of the country and that I might have been arrested if I tried.

I have dim memories about the first months of my stay in Kishinev, this was 1946 already. I was looking for a place to live, and an old woman, Russian or Moldovan, offered me a place to stay. She had a dark dirty room that looked like a shed. I slept on an old box. It’s scary to recall this life. I was admitted to the extramural department of the French language at Kishinev University. Since I didn’t have a certificate of secondary education, I was supposed to finish the tenth grade via correspondence. After completing my first year at university I went to study in a Moldovan evening school. I also went to work. I got a job as an assistant accountant at the buttery. There I met my future husband, Boris Leibovich. He was chief of the raw material department at the buttery. Boris was nine years older than me. He was a nice looking man with somewhat old-fashioned manners that were unusual for me. Boris came from a village.

Boris introduced me to his parents. I was very worried, when I first went to see them. I was ashamed of my more than modest clothing. I had just one pair of stockings. Once I fell on my way from the school in the evening and there was a big hole on one stocking. I was good at sewing and darning, and made a knee-big darn on the stocking. I pulled my skirt down to hide the darn, but Boris’ mother saw it anyway. Later she confessed that thanks to this darn I made a very good impression on her. ‘I knew at once that you’ll make a good housewife,’ she said.

My husband’s parents came from the village of Kriuleni. His father, Yakov Leibovich, was a grain dealer. They also had a small store where his mother, Esther Leibovich, was the owner. Boris was her fist child. She gave birth to him when she was twenty. They were wealthy people, but when the Soviet power came they were dispossessed of their property. During the war they evacuated to the town of Frunze [today Bishkek] in Kyrgyzia [today Kyrgyzstan]. They kept their belongings and brought their Moldovan carpets back home. There were seven children in the family: three daughters and four sons. They all got secondary education and were very smart. Their mother never forced them to do things.

After the war

When they returned from the evacuation they did what they liked to build their own life. My husband’s sister, Anna Barash [nee Leibovich], and her family lived in Pinsk. Mark, the middle brother, also lived there. He was a shop assistant in a textile store. The rest of the family lived in Kishinev. Grigoriy was the only one who graduated from a technical school. He worked as an engineer. Alexandr, the youngest brother, worked as an electrician in the theater. He was married to a Russian woman. The girls married wealthy Jewish men. Mara’s husband’s name was Fima [Yefim] Kiselyov, and Clara’s husband was Senia Berg. Anna and Clara and their families live in Israel, and Mara, the youngest, lives in America. The brothers of my husband are dead already.

My husband, Boris Leibovich, was the oldest of all the children. He was born in Kriuleni in 1915. After graduating from secondary school he helped his father. During the war Boris wasn’t mobilized to the army having short sight of minus 19. He couldn’t see without glasses. He was a very gentle and educated man, though his education was different from mine since I grew up in a more intelligent family. I always enjoyed visiting people with him. He could eat beautifully and beautifully courted me. He called me ‘kind child’ in Yiddish.

When Boris proposed to me, I talked to Bertha Yakovlevna, the aunt of my friend, Zina Veisman. Zina lived with her aunt. Bertha Yakovlevna treated me like her own daughter and even loved me more than Zina. I always asked for her advice. I liked visiting them. They were poor, but Bertha managed to make their home very cozy. She always put starched embroidered place napkins on the table and managed to set the table with such chic that even miserable food looked appetizing and it reminded me of my home and my mother. So, I went to ask for her opinion. Boris was nine years older than me, and I wasn’t sure if I loved him. On the other hand, I was alone, had no home, and he was a decent man and he loved me. Bertha told me at once, ‘Polina, he will make a wonderful husband; he is so tender with you. You are sure to love him.’ She told me a lot and I sort of received a motherly blessing from her.

We got married in 1947. We invited 40 guests to the wedding. We were poor and couldn’t afford a big dinner. Therefore, we only served desserts. My husband’s cousin sisters made a ‘napoleon’ cake, strudels with apples and cookies. I didn’t even have a white gown. Boris’ younger sister, Mara, gave me her white dress for the wedding. My mother-in-law made me a short veil from old laces. We had a Jewish wedding. Boris and I fasted on this day according to the rule. The ceremony was conducted by Epelbaum, a former assistant of Rabbi Cirelson, a well-known and respected man in Kishinev. Cirelson perished on the first days of the war, when a bomb hit his residence.

There was a chuppah in Boris parents’ apartment. I remember us walking inside the chuppah. Then we sipped from a wine glass and broke it. Epelbaum issued a ketubbah, marriage contract, and two witnesses signed it. I kept it for a long time, but now I can’t remember where I put it. Then we were invited to dinner. My husband and I had strong chicken broth. The rest of the guests had wine and desserts. There wasn’t much joy. The guests were my husband’s age and older, most of them being his colleagues, they didn’t feel like entertaining. They danced a little. My husband’s relatives did their best, but I cried a lot thinking about my parents and Shymy, as there were no guests from my side at the wedding. This was a sad day for me. I don’t think I danced.

After the wedding we lived with my husband’s parents. They had a three-bedroom apartment in a big one-storied building on Stefan Velikiy Street. There were 19 other apartments in the house. Boris’ sister, Clara, and her husband lived in one room, Boris’ parents lived in another, and we got the third room. The rooms were spacious with 3.5 meter high ceilings and tiled patterned stoves. Our room was the biggest and the most beautiful. The walls were whitewashed and decorated with a color pattern. However, it was almost empty, there wasn’t even a table. There was only a wide couch covered with a Moldovan carpet where my husband and I slept. His mother gave us a blanket and bed sheets. Mara also slept on a sofa in this room before she got married and moved out. Later, we made a back door to the yard and built an annex corridor and a kitchen. It was nice and my son still tells me, ‘Mother, do you remember how nice it was in our apartment on Stefan Velikiy Street?’

My husband’s family was patriarchal. They treated me well. We got together to celebrate holidays and birthdays, but we knew little about one another. I didn’t quite understand this; in my family it was different. They were tight-lipped and weren’t open with one another. I had the warmest relations with my mother-in-law. I even called her mama. She was so kind to me. I can’t find words to say how warm and gentle she was. She was also reserved and tight-lipped, but it always seemed to me that she wasn’t quite happy. I heard from other people that during the evacuation my mother-in-law didn’t talk to my father-in-law for a long time for some reason. I didn’t know any details, but I believe she must have been hurt. My mother-in-law wasn’t so religious, though her husband bought her a seat at the synagogue where she went on Jewish holidays. She didn’t do any work on Sabbath, of course. Like in my parents’ family, they didn’t work on Saturday. I didn’t do any housework on Saturday, but I had to work at school, of course.

After the war there was one synagogue in Kishinev, but neither my husband nor I went there. It was overcrowded on holidays, the building was too small. I stayed outside a little occasionally. We celebrated Jewish holidays. On Pesach we always had matzah, but nobody could conduct the seder. We bought matzah at the synagogue, but in the first years, when it wasn’t so good there, I made matzah at home. It wasn’t kosher since I made it on the same table that I used for everyday cooking, but the main thing was to have matzah on Pesach. I always fasted on Yom Kippur. It was necessary for me. I only stopped fasting recently due to my health condition. On Chanukkah all children in our family were given Chanukkah gelt. My son has grown up, but he still remembers how his father and uncles gave him Chanukkah gelt.

My son was born on 22nd March 1949. This was a great event and a gift on my birthday since I was born on 2nd April. My husband took us home from the maternity hospital on the eve of my birthday and we rode home on a two-wheeled cart since there were hardly any cars in Kishinev then. I held my son, who was wrapped, strongly. On the way my husband told me ceremoniously, ‘You know, I’ve bought a table for your birthday.’ It was an expensive gift at the time. According to the Jewish customs, the mother names her first baby and I named my son Yakov after my father. My husband’s father also was Yakov. He died one year before at the age of 60.

My mother-in-law helped me a lot in the first months after my son was born. She helped me to wash the baby and change diapers. She often took Yasha [affectionate for Yakov] to her room so that I could have a nap. I stayed away from work for three years looking after the baby, but I continued my studies in the evening school. My husband looked after our son and I rushed to school. I didn’t send our son to kindergarten as there weren’t many of them and it was next to impossible to get a child there. Besides, I didn’t feel like leaving my only son in the care of other people. I felt happy to be his mother. When asked what day is the most memorable for me, I always reply, ‘My son’s birth.’

Yasha was a strong boy. Once or twice he had children’s sicknesses. When he turned four, I was already working at the school. I graduated from university, obtained a diploma in French and became a Moldovan teacher at a secondary school. I rushed home from work. Yasha was waiting for me on the porch. He could wait for me for hours. Seeing me at a distance he ran to me stretching his arms. It felt so good to hold him, so warm and dear he was. Yasha went to the school where I worked not far from where we lived. Frankly speaking, I wanted to have him close. He did well at school. He liked literature and humanities. My life was filled with household care, I liked my work and took little interest in politics, but the policy broke into people’s lives.

When in 1952 the notorious Doctors’ Plot 20 began, my friend Zina’s uncle Veisman was arrested. He was far over sixty and they sentenced him to exile in the North. Zina told me they discovered a photograph where he was with a doctor from Moscow who had been arrested. His wife, Bertha Yakovlevna, whom I loved, lived alone. Once I met her at the market. She said she had no information about her husband. Though my husband and I didn’t have much at the time I took all the money I had in my pocket and gave it to her. I wanted to help her at least as much as I could. Anyway, I didn’t do any shopping on that day. Later she moved to her son who was also a doctor; he lived somewhere near Moscow. She left a book by Gorky 21 with Zina for me. She wrote on the title sheet, ‘To smart and kindhearted Polina from Bertha Veisman.’ Her husband perished in exile. The Doctors’ Plot was closed after Stalin’s [1953] death, but so many innocent people suffered. I didn’t care about Stalin’s death. I always remembered what Stalin did to my parents before the war. I remember the mourning meetings at school, many people were crying.

My husband and I had a harmonious life. We never raised our voices to one another. This was like it was in his family and in the family of my parents. If he hurt me unintentionally, I would cry all day long, but never showed any signs to him, when he came home from work. I did what I was supposed to do pretending that nothing had happened. He washed himself after work and I set the table. I believe this was a right approach to marital life. Boris’ sister, Clara, and her husband sometimes had rows that we could hear and Clara always pointed out to her husband how exemplary our relations were.

Boris worked as chief of the raw material department at the buttery all the time. At that time everybody tried to take advantage of the position he had at work, but my husband was different. He wanted to have a quiet life. We didn’t want anything more than we had. When delivering the raw stuff to the buttery, kolkhoz representatives tried to cheat by lying on their trucks to increase the weight by 60-80 kilograms. The receivers of shipments shut their eyes to this receiving their share, but my husband was an honest man and knew his business. He even made an innovative proposal installing a special looking glass on the scales to see whether there was somebody on a truck. His colleagues said, ‘I won’t have it and nobody else will.’

We went on vacations together. Our favorite place was Odessa. Each year we took a train to Odessa. We used to rent a room near the sea, somewhere like Chernomorka [a village at the seashore near Odessa], or the 16th station of the Bolshoi Fontan [resort area in Odessa], and often in Arkadia [Arkadia is a well-known Odessa beach, a recreation place]. We spent most of the time by the sea. Boris could swim well and he taught our son and they swam far into the sea and I would sit on the shore worrying. In the evening we had walks and went to the Opera Theater. I liked and still like Odessa. We returned to Kishinev with a sun-tan and felt well rested. At times my husband got free vacations at work and went alone since I didn’t get a chance. I did renovations at home and I enjoyed painting, buying a rug or a shelf, made new curtains and then sat on the sofa enjoying the results of my work.

Boris loved theater and we never missed the first nights in Kishinev theaters. In Kishinev there was a Russian Theater and the Moldovan Opera and Ballet Theater that later split [1957] to two theaters: a drama and opera, and a ballet theater. My husband and I were good at Russian and Moldovan. We liked opera. In summer, theaters from other towns of the USSR came on tour to Kishinev. We often went to the cinema after work, while our son was in his grandma’s care. My husband took no interest in politics. He always thought about work, anyway. He didn’t join the Communist Party and was skeptical about the Soviet regime after it dispossessed his parents of their property. However, we subscribed to newspapers and magazines. My husband preferred ‘Izvestiya’ 22, that wasn’t so biased as ‘Pravda’ [Truth, the main paper of the Communist Party of the USSR]. I subscribed to a few professional magazines. One was ‘Foreign language at school.’ In 1961 we received a new two-bedroom apartment. This is where I live now. We earned well and had a good life, but we only lived together for 15 years.

My husband died in 1962, at 47, from cancer of the pancreas. We buried him in the Jewish cemetery. My mother-in-law invited a rabbi to recite the Kiddush. She sat shivah, but I had only three days off from work and then I had to go back to work, though I wore mourning clothing. I was 38 years old. I never remarried. My son was 13 and I raised him myself. My son and my job were essential to me. Yasha finished school in 1966. I wished he became a doctor, but in Kishinev, due to the state anti-Semitism, it was difficult for Jews to enter the Medical College. He went to Tyumen in Russia, where they have oil fields. He entered the Tyumen Medical College. However, he studied there for one year and then said he couldn’t be a doctor. He couldn’t stand blood and couldn’t work in the dissection room.

At that time a Higher Engineering Military School opened in Tyumen. Yasha entered it. This was what he had dreamed of since childhood. He only went to the Medical College for my sake. After finishing school he was offered to choose his future job between Khabarovsk, Moscow and central Asia at the mandatory job assignment 23 session. However, a Jewish military could make no career in Moscow, and Central Asia was too different. So he went to Khabarovsk. He didn’t return to Kishinev, but he visited me every year.

After my son’s departure work became number one in my life. I worked in two schools teaching French in daytime school #7 and Moldovan twice a week in the evening school. I got along well with my students in the evening school. They regarded me as their friend. They shared their problems with me. In our school there was a Moldovan boy. His name was Boldishor. He tried to enter the fifth grade several times, but failed, and he was already 16 or 17 years old. I bumped into him at the entrance to the school before the beginning of an academic year and he complained that they didn’t allow him to go to school again. I felt sorry for him and talked to the school director. I asked the director to let him come to my class where I was a class tutor. He appreciated this so much and tried hard to study better and managed to finish the tenth grade.

A few years later I met him at the market on the eve of New Year. He ran to me from a distance shouting, ‘Polina!’ I turned my head and saw Boldishor. I asked, ‘What are you doing here?’ He asked me what I was doing there and I told him that I was looking for a calf leg for holodets. He said, ‘Stay here, I’ll get one for you.’ It was hard to buy a calf leg before the New Year, but he brought me one. Then he took my bags and accompanied me home. I asked him on the way, ‘How are you doing? I know nothing about you.’ He replied, ‘I’m doing well. I sell meat here at the market. I’m married, we have a child and I’ve bought good furniture.’ He spoke Moldovan, but then he switched to Russian: ‘I’m living to my pleasure!’

There was another incident. One of my students, he was 28 or over, fell in love with a young teacher, but she rejected him. Then he came to talk to me and spoke for a while about his love. ‘Polina, only you can help me. Talk to her, please!’ One winter evening he came by and we went to this girl. There was no transportation and there was ice on the ground, but I walked beside the man across the town. What else could I do, when he showed so much trust in me! I don’t remember the name of the girl, but she happened to be a smart girl. My student was rather plain, but kind. She listened to me and we talked for quite a while and the ill-starred guy waited for me outside. My mission was successful. After this discussion I saw them together several times. Perhaps, they worked it out. And there were numerous times like this. My students liked me and I liked them. My former student, Dasha, she is 60, bumped into me once and we found out that we lived in the same district. Since then she’s come by to see me almost every evening.

I also liked working in the daytime school teaching French. I taught them like I had been taught in the gymnasium: ‘Read aloud as much as you can, listen to yourself to master the correct pronunciation.’ When the deputy director visited my lesson, she approached me after the lesson and said, ‘I don’t know French, but seeing that your children raise their hands and answer, you are at the right place.’ Since then she often visited my classes and invited young teachers to learn from me. I liked knitting and watching TV after work, or I read. I also went to the theater and cinema with my friends like I had done with my husband before.

My son got married at the age of 29 in 1978. He was serving in Belogorsk Amur region. He married Valentina Madiarkina, a Russian girl from Belogorsk. Valentina graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Pedagogical College, but she had such a thin voice that she couldn’t work at a school. She went to work as chief of the Soyuzpechat office, and later she had an administrative job in the district educational department. I didn’t mind her being Russian, no! As soon as I received my son’s letter with a complete description, as they say, I wrote them a whole page of a greeting telegram. I didn’t care about the nationality of my daughter-in-law, but I cared about what kind of person she was. Some time later they visited me. Valentina was worth all the nice words that I wrote in my telegram. She deserved to be my son’s wife. I love her dearly. In 1979 my grandson Andrei was born, and in 1986, my granddaughter Olga. Andrei followed into his father’s footsteps. He graduated from a higher engineering military school in Cheliabinsk and now he is a captain of the Russian army. Olga is a student of the Faculty of Foreign Languages in the Pedagogical College in Blagoveschensk.

In 1979 I turned 55, and I had my documents processed for a pension, but I continued working at the school. However, I had problems with my blood pressure and it was difficult to work as a teacher. I went to work as a deputy director for extracurricular activities at the district house of pioneers. This was easy work and I used to joke, ‘How come I didn’t know about this house of pioneers before?’ I worked there for eleven years. In 1985 my mother-in-law died. She lived as long as 88 years of age and had a sound mind. We buried her in the Jewish cemetery beside my husband.

In 1990 I visited Shymy in Israel. It’s impossible to describe how we met, 52 years after we parted. I can’t find words for it. I can only say that we sat in a restaurant in Rishon Le Ziyon, when they played the tango. Shymy turned to me and said, ‘You will dance, you remember, Poli.’ All I could dance was the tango, which he had taught me when I was just a girl. And we danced. Shymy showed me around Jerusalem and Israel. I admire this country. It’s a pity that the current immigrants hardly resemble the halutzim, with whom my brother arrived in Palestine. In 1995 Shymy visited Kishinev. I was happy, but there was also sadness in my brother’s meeting with the town of his youth. We couldn’t even go to the graves of our parents; there are no graves. Shymy calls me every week. He is 86 and he doesn’t look like himself. He and Pnina are very thin, they don’t eat, damn it.

When Gorbachev 24 came to power, I had an impression that things would change and life would improve. He changed the world undoubtedly, but I can’t say that our lives have improved, probably, it’s even vice versa. Intellects have become miserably poor and they are respectable people, for example, doctors and teachers. I know pensioners who can only afford milk. Once I came to the store to buy food for my cat Murka for four Leus. There was one of these rich men standing beside me and he wanted to pay for me, but I felt hurt, ‘No, no, I can afford to pay for this. Don’t do it.’ I wouldn’t have accepted his offer even if I didn’t have anything to pay with. I like giving, not taking.

However, perestroika 25 changed the Jewish life in Kishinev, Jews sort of woke up. At first the Sochnut 26 came up. I wasn’t fully informed to describe this process completely, but I remember that young people took a big part in it. They arranged Sabbath celebrations, sang Jewish songs and opened a club for young people. When in the early 1990s in Kishinev they began to enroll children into a Jewish school, I went to the director of this school and told him I wanted to work for them. I was eager to work with Jewish children. He offered me to teach Moldovan. They didn’t study French, they studied English. I was also involved in the enrollment of the children. It was a secular school, but they also studied Jewish traditions and Hebrew. I worked in this school for about four years. Then the school moved to another building in a distant district of the town and I had to quit. I was 72 already and it was hard for me to commute so far, though we had a school bus to take us to school.

However, I couldn’t sit at home and so I went to teach Moldovan in specialized English school #53, near my house. Then there was a conference arranged by either Joint 27, or Sochnut where I met the directress of a Jewish kindergarten. Her children performed a concert for the participants of the conference. She offered me to work for them. When the academic year began I thought, ‘I teach Moldovan at school #53, and the Jewish kindergarten isn’t far from the school, so why not work there, too?’ And I made a decision to teach two hours in the afternoon in the kindergarten, but at the age of 73 I had a hypertension stroke and I had to quit the school and the kindergarten. Later, when I felt better, I went back to the kindergarten and I don’t regret it.

I never imagined how interesting it would be to work in the kindergarten. I point at one child calling him a ‘teacher.’ He sits beside me and begins to ask questions. Other children raise their hands to answer. Then everybody who wants it acts as a teacher. I made this method my practice in the kindergarten recently, though I used it often at school. I didn’t think it would work in the kindergarten, but this was a preparatory group, where they could manage it all right. It’s becoming hard to work. In the middle of the year I tell Svetlana Mikhailovna that I won’t work next year, but she laughs, ‘You say each year that this is the end of it.’ She is a wonderful person.

Our Hesed 28 Jehuda helps me and other Jews a lot. They are doing a great job since there are many needy pensioners. I also go to the warm house. It’s great that we can talk and support each other telling what we remember about Jewish traditions. Some of us study the traditions fundamentally reading modern literature on this subject. We also have common memories of our childhood years in Kishinev, about studying in the gymnasiums. Sometimes young people from the Gilel organization visit the warm house. They have so much energy of the youth. They tell us about the Jewish culture and sing songs. However, it was different in my childhood. There was no propaganda of Judaism as there is nowadays. Jews just observed their traditions, and this was their way of life. They couldn’t live otherwise. Now they sort of open the gates for us: some accept it and others don’t. I’ve felt ill lately. My strengths are deserting me. Human life is so short to manage it all. My son and my daughter-in-law invite me to join and live with them. They are concerned about my health, but I don’t feel like leaving Kishinev, everything is so familiar here.

Glossary:

Leon Kalaora
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interviewer: Patricia Nikolova
Date of interview: September 2004

Leon Kalaora is a pleasant and a dedicated person to talk with. The clarity with which he remembers small details from the past complements his skill to describe unique situations, images and faces. His precise language and insight into the events from the past show the delicate nature of Leon Avramov Kalaora. That is why the wealth of his humble home in the very center of Sofia – very close to the Bulgarian Parliament – is in the spiritual comfort of the books and the warmth of its inhabitants.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

My family background

My ancestors came from Spain 1. They came from a village with the melodious name of Kalaora, which still exists today, but I do not know if its name is still the same. [Editor’s note: Calahorra is in La Rioja administrative division and Calahorra de Boedo is in Castilla y Leon.] In order to reach Bulgaria my ancestors firstly passed along the north coast of the Mediterranean Sea, then through Greece and Turkey. [Editor’s note: Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria were all parts of the Ottoman Empire during the Sephardi migration.]

They settled here, in Bulgaria, because they loved the nature and the people. They also liked one typical trait of Bulgarians – the tolerance towards every one regardless of their religion, language or ethnicity. Unfortunately, I cannot say what my ancestors did for a living, neither what clothes they wore, nor what habits they had.

What I know is mostly about the parents of my parents. But I never met my father’s parents and thus didn’t know them. The only thing I know about them is that they lived in Turkey, but without the father in the family, so my father had to work from an early age to support his mother, who could not earn any money.

My father, Avram Avramov Kalaora, came to Bulgaria with his mother Sara Avram Kalaora when he was 16-17 years old [1900/1901]. He was born in 1884 in Istanbul. I do not know why they moved to Bulgaria. He always lived in great misery. From an early age he had to be the head of the family. In northeast Bulgaria, Varna, he worked for merchants and craftsmen, but he earned only enough money to buy some bread.

I remember that my father was always very kind to people and liked to joke. He spoke Ladino 2 at home, but he also knew Turkish and Greek, and Bulgarian, of course. Besides, the Jewish religion was very dear to him – he observed the Jewish holidays and kashrut. He never ate pork. He observed the kashrut as best he could, because it was not always possible to find kosher food in northeast Bulgaria. He had a tallit and a kippah. He went regularly to the synagogue.

It is interesting that my father never said anything about doing any military service. So, I think that he never served in the army, neither in Bulgaria, nor in Turkey.

My mother, Donna Avramova Kalaora, nee Farhi, was born in 1888 in Shumen. When she was a child, my mother worked a lot as a maid in Jewish homes in order to earn some money. Gradually her brothers Avram and Isak overcame the financial crisis and they started living a little better. Avram was an anatomist pathologist and Isak was a driver.

My mother was very sociable and kind. She was the perfect example of how people should treat each other. What was most special about her, was her readiness to help people. For example, she visited sick people and did their laundry – and there were no washing machines at that time –, cooked them food, and if she could afford it, she brought them some food from home. I saw all that with my own eyes.

My father and mother met through friends when they had both lost their first wife and husband. My father’s first wife – unfortunately I do not know her name – died of some illness. And my mother’s first husband, Moshe Davidov, died in World War I 3.

The mother of the beautician Visa – the woman who told me how my parents met – now she lives in Israel and I know nothing else about her – once told her husband, ‘This woman is alone and has a son. She is a healthy, nice and honest woman and she is also hard working. Let’s arrange a meeting between her and bai [uncle] Avram – that’s how they called my father then!’

And so they invited them to their home together with other guests. They introduced my mother to my father and left them alone to talk in private. She could not tell me what they had talked about. But in the end, they gradually became friends and decided to marry. That happened most probably in 1917 or 1918, because I was born in 1919.

The most interesting family story which my parents have told me involves my father. I was still a child when he told me and my brothers about some murders which happened years ago. Today we link this story to the Armenians. I do not remember the concrete date, but it must have been before 1921. [The Armenian Genocide took place in 1915, during World War I.] When my father was a seven-year-old child in Turkey, he collected fezzes from murdered Armenians, which he sold to buy bread for his mother, who was alone and poor.

My father and my mother spoke Ladino to each other and to us, too. So, they did not speak much Bulgarian at home and we studied it at school. By the way, my parents spoke a kind of Bulgarian, which immediately showed that they were not native Bulgarians. They dressed very modestly.

My father worked all the time and cared a lot for the family. For example, one summer he worked in a grocery store and got up at 2am to go to the market in Varna and buy vegetables for the store. So, he did not sleep more than four to five hours a day. But he did not own the store. My father also liked to drink, but no more than 50 grams of rakia 4 and always at home – never in a tavern.

My parents got along very well with their neighbors. Their friends were Jews and the neighbors – both Bulgarians and Jews. Some of my father’s friends were Greeks and Turks. But I cannot remember any concrete names or people. I remember only that the relations between them were excellent. For example, we lived in a house with a yard, but neither the door of the yard or that of the house were ever locked. Such were the relations between the people – pure, peaceful and nice.

Growing up

I was born in 1919 in the Bulgarian seaside town of Varna. I have five brothers and one sister. They are Yosif Avramov Kalaora [1907-1953], Jacques Avramov Kalaora [1910-1974], David Avramov Kalaora [1911-2003], Izak Avramov Kalaora [1915-1966], Perets Avramov Kalaora [ 1915-1997], Sara Avramova Lazarova, nee Kalaora [1992-2001].

My family was very united. I remember that my brothers often read the Varna dailies at home, as well as the ‘Echo’ newspaper, which was progressive, that is, presenting left, communist ideas. I remember that when I was young, in order to make me go and buy them the newspaper one of my brothers would tell me, ‘I will spit right here on the pavement, let’s see if you can come back before it gets dry. Come on!’ And so I ran. I remember that my brother Perets read the works of Maxim Gorky 5, ‘Mother’ and others. Jacques and David read mostly ‘leftist’ books.

David worked very much. He gave all his salary to our mother. My other brothers would always find some work to do on Sundays. For example, people hired them to build the electrical installation in their houses. I also helped them when they laid the pipes in the walls.

David and I had the same mother, but different fathers. When the Law for the Protection of the Nation 6 was passed David changed his name. He adopted his father’s name, who was killed in World War I. His name was David Moshe Davidov. Also, during the time of the Law of Protection of the Nation my brother did not wear a yellow star 7 like all Jews in Bulgaria, but one yellow button. It showed that he was a war orphan, but did not entail any other rights.

I remember David Kalaora as a caring husband and brother.

The fate of my brother Perets Kalaora during World War II was very interesting. At first he studied industrial chemistry in Brno [Czechoslovakia]. But after the German invasion [cf. Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia] 8, he had to save himself. He went to study industrial chemistry in Paris. But the Germans showed up there, too. He went to finish his education in Bordeaux; Marshal Petain [1856-1951] governed this part of France, who was known to be a servant of Hitler’s. The French government did not shoot down Perets only because he was too young.

At the same time in Bulgaria King Boris III 9 issued a special decree and ordered his foreign minister to tell the German government that all Jewish Bulgarian citizens in the territories occupied by Germany and in the allied countries must be treated in the same way as the local Jews. That is, they could be arrested, harassed and, all in all, included in that group of six million killed Jews. At that time my brother was in Bordeaux.

One day, as usual, he studied for some exam with a fellow student in his rented apartment. It was a late, rainy and cold autumn day. The evening was drawing near. Perets went outside to see his friend off. They started talking at the front door when two Gestapo officials approached them and asked, ‘Sirs, do you know if Mr. Pierre Kalaora lives here? They meant Perets. And my brother obligingly informed them, ‘Yes, he lives here. Go to the third floor...’ and he showed them his door.

The moment the men entered the building, he and his friend ran away. He ran into one direction, and his friend in the opposite one. Naturally, my brother never passed through that street or that neighborhood again. I was told this story by fellow students of my brother, but I do not remember their names. He did not like to talk about it, even in front of his relatives.

A few months after that incident, he went to the city hall in Bordeaux to change some documents. The clerk there told him to come back after two or three hours and everything would be ready. But Perets started wondering whether the clerk wanted him to come back later so that he would have time to call the Gestapo, or he was just paranoid. So he stopped 100 meters from the building and looked around for any Gestapo officials or suspicious civilian people.

Then he went to the clerk, who, to his great surprise, gave him not one but two sets of documents. One of the sets contained the real documents, and the other – fake ones. And the clerk said, ‘Sir, I feel for you and I want to help you...’ It turned out he was a man from the Resistance. After 9th September 1944 10 Perets returned to Bulgaria for a short period to try to find and thank this man, but he could not find him.

All my brothers had interesting lives. Yosif moved to Argentina in 1930. He died in Buenos Aires in 1953. David emigrated to France in 1929 and lived in Paris. Perets also lived in France and died there in 1997. Jacques and Izak emigrated to Israel in 1948. My parents also moved there after 1953.

So, only my sister and I remained in Bulgaria. She died in Sofia in 2001. She worked in the trade business. She had two children: a son and a daughter. Her son is Yosif Eliyau Lazarov. Before 10th November 1989 11 he headed a department in a clothes manufacturing company. He died in 2002. Her daughter is Dolya Eliyau Doncheva, nee Lazarova.

Our home was in the old Varna district Kadar baba. It was not a Jewish neighborhood and its name is Turkish. I don’t know what it means exactly. We lived in a small old house with a little garden. Its floor was made of soil and covered with straw mattresses.

Everything was primitive, there was no running water, no electricity. We only had a big room and a kitchen, which was also very big. The toilet was made of ordinary boards and there was a hole in the middle of them. It was in the yard. I remember that we also had a small cellar with a wooden door, which opened inwards.

Despite all this misery, I keep very nice memories from my childhood. But I don’t remember my parents taking us to a resort or even to the sea; and Varna is a seaside town, after all.

Varna was the seaside center of Bulgaria. There were around 70,000 citizens in the town, of whom 2,500 were Jews. The Jews were mainly employed in trade or worked in private companies. For example, I remember very well the place where I lived at some point – a two-storey house right next to the synagogue, on 2 Prezviter Kozma Street. Two brothers, who worked as tinsmiths, let out the two floors. There were also rich Jews in the town, but not many. Most of them were craftsmen, workers or a few of them were merchants.

The typical market day in Varna was no different from the market days in the other Bulgarian towns. Villagers with donkey, horse or ox carts came carrying products. They were very poor, because the land they owned was parceled out in pieces of 10 decares, 20 decares, 30 decares. Villagers with larger parcels of land were rare. And if they had more land, they had to hire workers.

My friends Marin Bankiev – he became an ambassador to Cyprus – and Lasko Marinov and I went to work for the landowners so that we earned some money for the community home of the village. There I could see the complete misery of the villagers in the Varna region – people who were dressed and ate poorly. My friends and I worked for people who had 27 decares of land, but had a family of eight people and lived poorly.

Varna was a beautiful town, visited by many merchant and passenger ships, although its infrastructure was not as good as it is now. The most famous neighborhood was Kadar baba. A very well organized Jewish community lived there, though it wasn’t a specifically Jewish neighborhood. The district had a Turkish name like most of the districts in Varna at that time. Although it was a Bulgarian city, there were many Turkish people living in it and in fact almost all people in the city spoke Turkish.

We had various organizations: Maccabi 12, Hashomer Hatzair 13, Bikur Cholim 14, WIZO [Women’s International Zionist Organization] 15. Some of the organizations were political: left Zionists – Poalei Zion 16 and general [right] Zionists – Betar 17. There were differences between them. For example, the members of Betar were the richer Jews. Poalei Zion was considered more leftist, that is more communist and its members were people of the lower social strata.

I was a member of Maccabi first, then of Hashomer Hatzair, in which I was even in the leadership. In Maccabi we often did gymnastics. I was responsible for the technical matters related to the organization of the events, etc.

There was a nice synagogue in Varna. Our landlord was haribi [rabbi] Nissim; I cannot remember his family name. He had two sons. They both became chazzanim. One of them, his younger son, buried my mother while I was in Israel in 1965. Unfortunately we did not have the chance to meet again after that. I was devastated after my mother’s death and was not myself for ten days.

I remember that as a child my favorite holidays were Fruitas 18 and Pesach. I loved Fruitas, because of the nice fruit that we ate then. When I was a child, my father taught me and my brothers how to take part in the prayers when we went to the synagogue. He taught us what answer should be said and when; this is a tradition from antiquity and resembling very much classical Greek dramas, in which the choir is personified as a single entity and has its unique role. But our father did not make us always answer the chazzan.

I remember that I always stayed late for slichot. I remember that we all went to the synagogue with our fishing rods so that we would go fishing to the sea early the next morning. This had nothing to do with the religious holiday, we just used the occasion to do something we liked.

As a child I studied in the local Jewish school, which included a kindergarten, and the first four classes. The teachers there were very educated and excellent pedagogues. My favorite teacher was Formoza, but I do not remember her family name. She taught students from the first to the fourth class.

We had an interesting teacher, haribi Aron Dekalo, who taught us Ivrit. He was much respected and tried to teach us the literary Ivrit. When I was in Israel in 1965, I was asked in Ivrit, ‘Will you leave for Bulgaria this week?’ and I answered, ‘Eineni yodeah,’ while they say ‘Lo yodeah.’ And they would ask me right away, ‘How come you speak such a literary Ivrit?’ And I would say, ‘Haribi Aron taught me in this way.’ He was a very conscientious man.

Unfortunately, I felt anti-Semitic attitudes as early as high school. I studied in the 1st Men’s high school, where all boys from Varna went. But at the beginning of the 1940s the school was full of Branniks 19 and Ratniks 20. I had a classmate, his surname was Avdjiev, but I do not remember his first name. He always showed off his expensive and fashionable clothes – for example, broad trousers, and he boasted about his knowledge of Spanish. He got on my nerves.

In our class we were also separated into ‘we’ and ‘you.’ ‘Our’ group, that is, the group of students with communist beliefs included the majority of the students in the class, but I do not remember their names. I, for example, was the deputy chairman of the temperance society in the high school, and its members were mostly communists. Then I had to be appointed chairman, because the former one graduated from high school.

The Branniks and Ratniks came with sticks and leather belts, showing them off. Our teacher, also a communist, cancelled the meeting. We held it another time. They could have beaten us, although the director of the high school, Mister Arahchiev, was in constant contact with the police.

In contrast to the present Bulgarian high school, besides our classes at school our teachers insisted very much on extra-curriculum activities in the so-called ‘societies.’ The more popular societies were the temperance one, the history one, the geography one etc. We also had a literary society. I was a member of the history society and the temperance one. Every student was a member of such a society. In these societies we wrote papers of three to five pages on some issues and we had to make an effort to get higher marks at school.

We were teenagers at that time, so we were old enough to hold a political view. Those of us sharing the communist idea, had high marks and served as an example for the others. We even persuaded some of our classmates who previously held the opposite political view, to join us.

I will never forget a classmate of ours Petko Petkov, who was a member of Otets Paisii 21. One day in our last year at high school he suddenly disappeared. We looked for him along the sea beach, in case he had drowned, but we did not find any trace of him. After 9th September 1944 we found out that he had become a partisan and he survived.

The concrete story related to anti-Semitism in high school that I remember took place on the holiday of Slavic script and culture – 24th May 1936 22. At that time Hitler was already in power. The cruelties against the Jews in Europe had already started. The school building was decorated in green, with green twigs along the windows outside and inside. It was a real holiday, not like nowadays.

All the students and teachers gathered in the school yard. There were loudspeakers and the teacher of literature was standing in front of a microphone. I hated him because of the following reason. Once I had to be absent from school for ten months. I was down with some severe illness. There were not such good medicines at that time, which could cure you in five days.

When I came back to school, the teacher in literature decided to test me. He asked me to analyze a poem by Yavorov 23. I said, ‘Mr. Karagyozov, this is my first day at school, I haven’t been to school for ten months.’ ‘I'm giving you a poor mark,’ said he. That is why I hated him.

So, on this day, 24th May 1936 he had a report to read. He had a beard, he looked dignified. And he said, ‘In our country and in the countries of the Slavic people, we, the Slavs, will never become compost for the Aryan! What the West is speaking and dreaming about now!’ He did not mention Germany, but everybody knew that only Hitler spoke and thought like that.

Everybody cheered. Only the students from ‘Otets Paisii’ did not. And he continued, ‘No, we should not cheer, but act. Every one of us, Slavs, must act! We should stand up to prove that we, the Slavs, are people!’ And from this moment on he became my idol.

I came to Sofia for the first time on 1st August 1940. And naturally, I started to work straight away for my brothers Jacques and Izi [Izak], who had already settled in Sofia and had a shop for electric materials near Serdika Street. My wage was enough for me.

When my brothers left for Israel, I worked as a press operator on Karl Shvedski Street. At that time there were some very fashionable electric rings – the most modern and easy to use kind of electric stove at that time. I produced their metal part under a license. So, I worked there until 1941 when, as a Bulgarian Jew, I was forced to work in labor camps 24.

In fact, I had a double job, because I did not come from Varna to Sofia by accident. I was recommended by the Union of Young Workers 25 and I was involved in the illegal communist party. As a young man in Varna I had joined the Union of Young Workers. I was recommended by Zahari Donchov from Varna, a classmate of my brother Perets, and I had to contact Jacques Baruh, who was a student of medicine in Sofia. Zahari Donchov and he were colleagues at the university.

I arrived in August, but he had gone to his birthplace, the town of Kyustendil. In the autumn Jacques Baruh came back and we met in the Jewish community house on Lege Street in Sofia. I went to the community house every evening to check if he was there. I remember clearly my first visit to the Jewish community house. I was welcomed by the librarian – the famous writer and activist Haim Benadov. He was a librarian and kept the community house from outsiders not sharing our views.

I definitely looked like an outsider. The situation was quite funny. Haim Benadov was short-sighted and he came near me and pretended to read something. He did that for a while and then he asked me who I was looking for. I said, ‘Jacques Baruh.’ ‘And who are you?’ ‘Don’t you see me, here in front of you?’ And I explained to him that I was from Varna and I was sent to contact Jacques Baruh, but I did not tell him why.

He put me in touch with Jacques Baruh and I met him. He, in turn, put me in touch with Baruh Shamli and he – with Haim Oliver. We were a whole group of UYW members or a youth unit at the workers’ party. One of the activists was Haim Levi-Haimush, future husband of the actress Luna Davidova. I also worked actively, mostly as a campaigner.

The Jewish school was also important for me for another reason. There I met and befriended my future wife Berta. Jacques Baruh introduced us to each other. He told us that we were people from a similar kind, with the same views. At first she and I met mostly at the so-called ‘meetings of sympathizers.’ They included not only members of the WP [Workers’ Party] 26, but also of the youth movement of the party, sympathizers and people sharing the same beliefs. For example, Violeta Yakova came. Berta also came often.

The topics we discussed were on a variety of issues – political, economic, theoretical [philosophical], social and even military ones when World War II started. At these events which resembled a circle of people with similar interests we could see who from us were the best prepared ideologically. Those who were not so well-prepared, had to move to other groups discussing other issues.

After the meetings the whole group went for a walk and if it was Saturday or Sunday, we went to the opera or to a concert. Berta and I were always together. Even as early as then she created the impression of a humble and considerate person who really listened to what the other was talking about. And these qualities were very important for me.

My wife Berta Kalaora, nee Isakova, was born on 29th March 1920 in the town of Gorna Dzhumaya, present-day Blagoevgrad. After she finished high school in Gorna Dzhumaya on 24th May 1937 she went to Kyustendil to live with her sister Buka Haravon, nee Isakova, who was seven or eight years older than her. Buka was married to Samuel Haravon, who worked as a tinsmith.

Berta could not stay and live with her step-mother, whose name I do not remember, because they did not get along well. Her step-mother was also a Jew, but she treated her very badly. But Berta’s father, Yako Sabetay Isakov, was a very nice man. He made quilts at people’s houses. He could barely make ends meet.

In Kyustendil Berta lived only a couple of months, because the Haravon family was also very poor. Then she came to live in Sofia where she worked as a librarian in the Jewish community house at Lege Street [at the crossing between Stamboliiski Blvd and Odrin Street]. She lived at the place of Raina Mayer, who now lives in Shumen, since she married in Shumen during her internment there 27.

Berta lived miserably at that time. She weighed hardly 45-46 kilos. She ate lentils, rice and tomatoes in a restaurant. I also went with her to this restaurant on Tsar Kaloyan Street near Stamboliiski Blvd [near the place where the Jewish Home in Sofia is located now] to check if she was eating well. At that time I worked as a press operator, and I had no problems at my work place because of my origin neither before nor after the Holocaust.

During the War

I remember the date 6th April 1941 very well. There was a bombing over Sofia during the evening by Serbian planes which was Serbia’s answer after the Germans attacked the Serbs from Bulgaria. [Editor’s note: Germany, Italy, Hungary and Bulgaria jointly attacked Yugoslavia in April 1941.]

During the day forty of us were on an excursion in Vitosha Mountain. We came back late and Berta and I decided that she would stay at my place. She went to sleep in my sister’s room and the bombing happened during the night. Right behind our home – we lived in a rented apartment on 51 Benkovska Street – a bomb fell down and four people were killed. That made us even closer, although we were still only friends.

Berta worked in the library only for about a year and two months. After that she left, because she was paid very little there. But for her this year was very fruitful, because it coincided with the golden period of the Jewish community house in Sofia. There were different circles there led by the best artists in Bulgaria at that time: in choir art – the conductor was the famous Bulgarian artist of Jewish origin Tsadikov –, in dramatic art – the famous Bulgarian directors of Jewish origin Mois Beniesh and Boyan Danovski staged plays in the community house starring artists such as Luna Davidova, Leo Konforti, etc. 

After she left that job, Berta found another one, which allowed her to pay the rent to Raina Mayer where she lived for free up to then. She became a typist in a shop, whose owner was a Jew. I do not remember his name. It was on Banski Square. That happened in 1942 when the decree to dismiss Jews from their jobs came into force. Then Berta once again was left without a job, but this time for a longer period.

During the internment, after the Law for the Protection of the Nation came into force in 1941, I was sent to a number of labor camps. I had to work first in the labor camps in the village of Beli Izvor, Ardino region in 1941, and in the village of Klisura, Tran region, in 1942. I came back for a little while from the labor camp in the village of Beli Izvor in November 1941 and then I was sent to the next one.

At that time Berta was worried and visited my parents very often. They were still in Sofia. By the way, when the Law for the Protection of the Nation was passed, my parents who lived in the center of the capital, on 51 Benkovski Street, were forced to live in Iuchbunar 28, the poor Jewish neighborhood in Sofia. They rented an apartment on 31 Sredna Gora Street Berta lived near then, also in a rented apartment. Soon my parents were interned to Shumen and Berta to Kyustendil.

When in 1941 I was released for a while from the camp in Beli Izvor, I came back to Sofia and I wanted very much to find a contact and enter once again the illegal organization fighting against the fascist power in Bulgaria. I missed my former activities. So I contacted Haim Oliver and he became my contact. But everything happened very slowly, that is, I was not given a serious task for a long time, and I started to become nervous.

At that time the commander of the illegal combat special task groups, Slavcho Radomirski, who was famous as a great street fighter, set fire to a workshop with leather coats worth around 20 million levs. These were special leather coats designed for the German armies on the Eastern front. The action was organized as an attempt to sabotage the Bulgarian production for the German troops. The accomplices were Violeta Yakova, Ivan Burudjiev and others. That happened in 1942.

But this action was criticized by the leadership of the Trade Union Commission at the District Committee of the still illegal Communist Party. Some, however, applauded it. Thus, an illegal group was formed whose aim was to continue to organize acts similar to that one. I was also in that group and I took part in it in the breaks between the three camps that I was sent to, that is during the days when I was on leave.

The other members of the group were Slavcho Radomirski, Violeta Yakova, Velichko Nikolov, Ivan Burudjiev, Mitka Grabcheva, Miko Papo, Zdravka Kimileva and Danka Ganchovska. The group was divided into a number of sub-groups which consisted of two to three people and did not know the members of the other sub-groups. Metodi Shatorov was the leader of the whole group.

My sub-group included at first Mitka Grabcheva, Velichko Nikolov, Zdravka Kimileva and me. Its goal was to assassinate General Lukov, who was honorary chairman of the Legion in Bulgaria and Lieutenant Colonel Pantev, who was former director of the police. I hated Lieutenant Colonel Pantev the most, because it was known that he had killed honest people, democrats, who had taken part in the illegal fight against fascism in Bulgaria.

Moreover, General Lukov and Lieutenant Colonel Pantev insisted that the symbolic war declared by Bulgaria against the USA and England should become a real one. That meant that Bulgaria would be involved in a war against the democratic camp of England, the USA and the USSR.

In the end, General Lukov was assassinated by the group of Ivan Burudjiev and Violeta Yakova. My group was divided into two pairs. The first pair had to shoot Lieutenant Colonel Pantev and the second one, Violeta Yakova and I, had to watch their backs. We assassinated him on 3rd January 1943, at 1:23am.

Meanwhile, when the decree for the internment of the Sofia Jews to the countryside came into effect in 1942, Berta was arranged to be interned to Kyustendil and I was sent to my second labor camp [in Klisura, Tran region].

What do I mean by ‘was arranged’? In fact, in the beginning Berta had to be interned to Vratsa, but my brother David Kalaora contacted the commissar on Jewish issues in Sofia and in exchange for some money arranged for Berta to be interned to Kyustendil so that she would live with her relatives: her sister Buka  lived there with her husband Sami Haravon. So Berta lived again with her sister in Kyustendil until 1st March 1944 – the day of our wedding in Shumen.

I have various memories from the different labor camps I have been to. For example, my first camp in the village of Beli Izvor, Ardino region, was bearable. I worked there for six months. In 1941 when the war against the USSR started and there was the danger that Bulgaria could be involved in a war against England, the USA and the USSR, we in the camp managed to steal some stone-mason’s explosive and combat capsules. Our aim was to give them to the partisans with whom we kept in touch. In my second labor camp in Klisura, Tran region, I personally kept in touch with the Serbian partisans who fought against the Germans.

I remember that my stay and my work in the second labor camp were more unpleasant than those in the first one. I was there once again for six months. Everyone in the camp worked very hard and the food was complete rubbish. I remember the hunger. We were hungry all the time. The food was always bean soup with hardly any beans in it. So, we, the prisoners, made jokes over our plates, calling, ‘Hey, show up!’ to the little bean at the bottom of our plates…It was very miserable.

The first three months we wore clothes given to us by the state, but then they made us work with our own clothes, which turned to shreds right away. 42 people lived in one tent. It was raining often. And when it stopped raining outside, it rained for another hour inside our tent.

Despite all that, there were some nice people among the commanders, who were all Bulgarians. For example, the commander of our labor group in the second camp was a great lover of music. Unfortunately, I do not remember his name. Thanks to him we managed to arrange for the great violinist, pedagogue and future professor Leon Surojon to be exempt from work. We wanted to spare his hands.

He, in turn, became our courier. He went to the village of Klisura, Tran region, to get the mail and learned the political and military news there, which he informed us about. We passed them on to the other groups. Moreover, Surojon was the first to know if the commanders of the camp groups had received an order dangerous for us, he warned us and we were more careful.

In the evenings one could often see the following scene in the camp: the silhouette of Leon Surojon playing the violin on a hill bathed in moonlight. His favorite piece, which also became my favorite later, was ‘Funny Story’ by Dvorzak. The commander of our labor group also sat among us and listened to him. During that time we had complete access to his tent. So, one day we stole his weapon without him finding out.

In 1943, while Berta was still in Kyustendil, I worked in my third labor camp which was in the town of Lovech and later it was moved to a neighborhood 4 kilometers away from Lovech. There I kept in touch with villagers from the nearby villages, who had radios. I visited them to listen to the news from the front. I also kept in touch with some partisans. Some of the men in the camp bought cheese from the villagers. The great opera singer Bitush Davidov was also among them. I was released from that camp in November 1943.

When I left my third labor camp, I hurried to go to Kyustendil to see Berta instead of going to Shumen first to see my parents who were interned there a year earlier, in1942. I was traveling in the train with the husband of Buka, Berta’s sister, with who she lived there. His name is Sami Haravon. We were both in the same camp in Lovech.

I did not wear the obligatory yellow star at that time. I only had my mobilization documents which all people in the labor camps had. The conductors realized that my star was missing, but pretended they did not see that. I was very lucky that no policemen got on the train. I do not know what would have happened to me if they had arrested me.

When I went to Kyustendil, Berta told me that she could no longer remain in this town, because she was in danger. She had become a member of the illegal District committee of the Workers’ Party [after 9th September 1944 the Bulgarian Workers’ Party changed its name to Bulgarian Communist Party]

At that time the future professor Simcho Aladjem led the youth movement in the party; he educated the youth in the spirit of communism. His father was a glazier and he inherited his business. One day the police in Kyustendil asked him to come to repair some windows. At that time I was at a labor camp.

While he was placing the glass sheets, a policeman approached him and started asking him about Berta – who she was, why they met etc. He lied right away that they were close friends, because their meetings as members of the Workers’ Party were illegal at that time. Then he told everything to Berta and she told the party secretary Ivan Nidev. When I came back from my third camp, he advised me to do everything I can to get Berta secretly out of Kyustendil.

Berta and I discussed this complicated situation and decided that it was high time we married. And during those days one had to have a serious reason to leave a town with the permission of the authorities: a funeral, wedding or birth. And now we found a reason to leave the town. We went to Shumen where my parents were interned and married there on 1st March 1944.

After the wedding in Shumen Berta and I packed our rucksacks in order to escape to another place, but the illegal organization of the Workers’ Party in Shumen insisted that we stay. The reason was that they did not have any people, whom they could trust to hide them. So, Berta and I took that risk and remained in Shumen until the end of the Holocaust.

The deputy commander of the Shumen partisan squad, Stoian Radoslavov, speaking about his memories of the events before 9th September 1944 still adds, ‘Only three secure Jewish apartments had remained: that of the Kalaora family, of Albert Basat and of Baruh Grimberg.’ And it was true that there were only three apartments that could be used as hiding places, because all the others had been arrested and sent to the labor camp in Enikioy, Xanthi region [Bulgarian occupied Aegean Thrace].

In Shumen Berta and I lived in a room with no windows, three by three and a half meters. A small sagging Turkish house plastered up with mud on the outside. We did not have any money to rent another house and that one at least was in the Shumen Jewish neighborhood near Tumbul Mosque. [Editor’s note: Shumen is a city with a large Turkish population even today and it used to have a much stronger Turkish character in the 1940s.] 29

Despite the risk, the humiliation and the poverty, there were things that brought us much joy. Such an example was Kiril Angelov, my employer in Sofia. He owned the shop in which I worked as a press operator. He was a craftsman, a very humble man. He supported me from the day we met, especially during the Law for the Protection of the Nation. He did all he could to send us money, because he knew that we were starving. Even after I married, he came to Shumen to see me and brought some things I could sell and use the money.

At that time, in order to make ends meet, I dug hiding places in Shumen. The money I received was only enough to buy rice and yogurt. [Editor’s note: ‘Kiselo mlyako’, literally ‘sour milk’ is one of the cheapest and most common food in Bulgaria.]

After the War

After 9th September 1944 Berta and I came back to Sofia. At first, until 1947 we lived with my parents on the last floor of the ‘Shalom’ building [this building still stands today on Stamboliiski Blvd. and is known as Bet Am – the Jewish home, housing the Organization of Jews in Bulgaria ‘Shalom’ and the Jewish community house ‘Emil Shekerdjiiski’] 30. At that time this building was also used as a police hospital for people wounded or tortured by the police. They were treated only to have strength to endure torture again.

For a while after 1944 I worked as director of state trade companies such as ‘Stroymatmetiz’ – the name is an acronym of construction materials and metal products – ironware –, ‘Shoes and Clothes’ and ‘Home Appliances.’

Berta, who worked in the trade union commission before 9th September 1944, which was illegal then, continued to work at first in the City Council of Trade Unions and then in the Central Council. At first she worked in the human resources department and then she headed the organizational department. After 1949 she became editor-in-chief of the ‘Trud’ newspaper 31 which propagated the communist ideas. Berta died this spring after a long illness. She spent her last nine years bedridden and I still can’t get over her death.

My daughter Dolya Leon Andreeva, nee Kalaora, was born on 6th January 1948 in Sofia. She finished the Russian high school ‘A. S. Pushkin’ [communist elite high school before 1989.]. Once a classmate of hers in the elementary classes mentioned to her that she was a Jew. She returned home puzzled and asked us, ‘Mum, dad, are we ‘evreitsi’? [Editor’s note: The correct word for Jews in Bulgarian is ‘evrei’; hearing the word the first time she used a made-up incorrect version.]

Then she graduated from the Faculty of Architecture Institute of Sofia University. While she was a student there, she had the following experience. In the break between two lectures the students in the corridor were talking to each other divided into two groups. Dolya and her friends were in one of the groups and a Syrian student with his Bulgarian friends in the other. One of her colleagues from the other group said something insulting about the Jews and Dolya went to him and slapped his face.

Today Dolya is married and has a son and a daughter. Her husband is also an architect. My life as a pensioner in Bulgaria was so to say quite restricted, as in the course of ten years I took care of my wife Berta, who was bedridden because of an illness.

Meanwhile I didn’t lose my connections with both the Jewish and the Bulgarian communities. One of the main reasons for me to meet with different people was my devotedness to the communist idea – I communicated mostly with my party comrades. I am still a member of the BSP [Bulgarian Socialist Party, heir to the former Bulgarian Communist Party after 1989]. I spend my pension mostly on medications. Yet, I am not complaining.

My friends after 1989 are mostly Jews. Like most of them I have received aid from Switzerland, Germany and the Joint 32. We usually gather in the Jewish home. We eat together. Then we play cards and talk. To tell you the truth, I do not feel well, when I am isolated from the other people.

During the totalitarian period my relations with my relatives, that is my brothers, cousins, and friends, have always been strong and unhindered. I am aware of the fact that among Jews in Bulgaria there were ones, who complained from obstructed contacts with their relatives in Israel, but I was never among them. I can only feel sympathy for them, without actually knowing anything specific. 

Glossary

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

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

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

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Growing up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

During the war

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After the war

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Glossary:

Molka Mirskaya
Kishinev
Moldova
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: July 2004

Molka Mirskaya lives in one of the greenest and most beautiful parts of the Kishinev [Chisinau in Moldovan] city center. She resides in a ten-storied building, constructed in the 1970s. Molka and her husband live in a two-room apartment with all the modern conveniences. There are a lot of books on the bookshelves and in a bookcase. The walls are adorned with reproductions and engravings. Molka Mirskaya is a pretty fair-haired voluptuous woman with big gray eyes. She is still beautiful. She meets me affably and shows me into the drawing-room, where her pictures were laid out for me. The way Molka met me and started her story testifies to her keen interest in our work and the willingness to contribute to the revival of the Bessarabian 1 Jewish history.

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

I, Molka Mirskaya, nee Vaksman, come from a common family of Kishinev Jews. My paternal grandfather, Khuna Vaksman, born in Kishinev in the 1880s, finished cheder, which was traditional for poor Jewish families. He didn’t continue his education. Khuna started earning his bread and butter early in his adolescence. He was an apprentice at a bakery, and subsequently became a baker himself. Khuna never had his own business. No matter how hard he tried to tuck away a nest-egg to open-up his own business, it never went beyond his reveries. My grandfather always worked for a well-heeled Jewish bread chandler, Goldman.

My grandmother, Khuna’s wife Motl Vaksman – I don’t know her maiden name – was several years younger than my grandfather. Her name seemed to be odd, as usually this name was given to boys. Grandmother was a housewife. As far as I remember my grandparents used to rent an apartment on Keleyevskaya Street. It was a dark and indigent apartment, consisting of two rooms. However, Grandmother took pains to embellish the apartment for it not to look so poor. There were snow-white starched doilies on the table and sideboard. The oven was always impeccably cleaned and lime washed. Grandmother, wearing almost one and the same clothes – a long black skirt and a long blouse – used to scurry around the apartment taking off the inconspicuous dust. She wore a kerchief on her head so that one could see her ears. I thought she did that in order to hear better. Only now I found pictures in the magazines of Jewish photographs showing the same way of wearing a kerchief as my grandmother did. Grandfather also dressed the way other elderly Jews did – a long jacket suit and a black hat.

On Fridays Grandmother changed her attire. She would dress up in white instead of wearing a dark blouse. That was the way she dressed for the holidays, when she went to the synagogue with Grandfather. My grandparents were practically illiterate, though Grandmother knew how to put her signature in Yiddish. Grandfather couldn’t even do that. My grandfather’s family was religious, but they were no zealots. Khuna and Motl observed the kashrut, Jewish traditions, celebrated Jewish holidays and went to the synagogue. But I don’t remember them praying, and they never idled on Sabbath, they used to work about the house. Of course, they brought up children according to the religious traditions, but they failed to make them truly religious.

They had two children: my father Yoyl and his younger sister Rosa, born in 1908. Rosa got married early to a local Jew called Shepshel Khalfin, and bore three children in a row. But she was unhappy. Rosa’s husband died from tuberculosis, leaving three orphans. Rosa, who knew how to sew a little bit, became a seamstress. But she wasn’t able to keep her three children. That is why she gave the oldest son Vevl to a hospice. The other two, Avrum and Ruklya, who was called Raya, stayed with their mother. They were very poor, and my father always used to give some money to his younger sister from our pretty skimpy budget.

In 1941 Rosa was evacuated with her children and wasn’t in touch with us. Only after the Great Patriotic War 2 was over, my father found out that Rosa and Avrum were killed during the bombing of their echelon. He found his niece Ruklya in the Russian town of Ivanovo, where she lived in the orphanage and went to a weavers’ school. My father took her in and she stayed with us until she got married. Rosa’s elder son Velvl was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1941 and was reported missing in action during the first war months. No matter how we strove we didn’t manage to find out anything about him.

My father, Yoyl Vaksman, was born in Kishinev in 1906. After he finished cheder he was a cobbler’s apprentice, and then he became a cobbler himself. By the time of drafting into the Romanian Army he became a cobbler of the fifth grade and this was written in his military pass. I don’t know who nurtured Communist ideas in my father, and when, he always used to sympathize with the Communist Party, though he himself was not a member. He also used to call upon the Soviet mode of life, taking part in the strikes, and Romanian authorities were after him. He was frequently arrested for dissemination of Communist literature. He was put in jail, beaten up, but always released. Once the craftsmen, who were on a strike, were taken away and punished by having freezing water poured all over them in the cold. After that Father got ill rather often.

My father met his future wife at the birthday party of her friend, it happened in 1928. They liked each other at once and started dating. Then they understood that they would never part. It was the time when my father was drafted into the army. They arranged an engagement to be certain that they would stay together. My father was in the army for three years, and my mother was waiting for him. When Father was on leave in Kishinev, he decided not to go back to the army. My father was so head over heels in love with mother that he couldn’t part with her. He was found, arrested and returned to his military unit. They made him serve an extra year. Mother had to wait for my father for four years, and she was faithful to him.

My maternal grandfather Elek Alterman was a cobbler. He was born in Kishinev in 1870. Grandmother Charna was born in Orgeyev [Orhei in Moldovan] in the 1880s. As an adolescent girl, she was noticed by my grandfather, Elek Alterman, who came to a huge Jewish wedding in Orgeyev, being the groom’s distant relative from Kishinev. He saw Grandmother and fell in love. In several weeks he proposed to my grandmother. Their wedding was truly Jewish: with a chuppah, rabbi, klezmer musicians, numerous guests and scrumptious food. Charna left for Kishinev after the wedding. The firstborn came in a year. Elek and Charna had six children. Though one of them died as an infant. I don’t remember his name. All children went to cheder, and then their father gave them for apprenticeship to the craftsmen, for them to help out their parents with maintaining this big family.

The eldest was born in 1902 and given the rare Jewish name Nysl. He was also a cobbler, making uppers. He had a wife, Feiga, and two children. The elder, born in 1934, was named Ella after my grandfather Elek. And with the birth of a boу in 1937, their wealthy neighbor, the sponsor of the synagogue came. He had buried his father Hershl not long before that. Since the neighbor didn’t have his own children and didn’t hope to have any in the future, he offered them big money to sponsor the child under the condition that they give him the name of Hershl. I don’t know if the rich man kept his word, but my cousin was named Hershl. During the Great Patriotic War Nysl was evacuated with his wife and children to the town of Guryev [today Kazakhstan], not far from Astrakhan. He died in 1987. Now Hershl with his family have a happy life in Tel Aviv. We are in touch with Ella Sharf [her marital name], who lives with her family in Kishinev.

Then my mother was born, a boy, Shloime, followed her – a fly in the ointment – as they say. So in a common family of working people, Elek and Charna, a bad egg was born, who didn’t care for study nor work, he just took to the bottle, having fun and sometimes fights. Shloime wasn’t married. When the Great Patriotic War broke out, he went to the front as a volunteer, and we don’t know what happened to him. He could be living somewhere in Russia, or maybe he was killed in battle.

Mother’s younger sister Feiga, born in 1913, became a seamstress. She didn’t get married in Kishinev, besides there was nothing to do there, and she decided to leave for Bucharest. She rented an apartment there, and worked as a seamstress at a sort of factory. She married a Bucharest Jew. I don’t know his name, since she was married only for a couple of months. When in 1940 the Soviet regime was installed in Bessarabia 3, Feiga left everything and came back to Kishinev with her husband, as she was afraid to be separated from her relatives, when Fascism flourished in Bessarabia. During evacuation Feiga and her husband were reported missing. That is all we know about them. They must have died during the bombing of their echelon like my father’s sister.

The youngest in the family, Avrum, born in 1918, became a tailor. He evacuated with our family when the Great Patriotic War started and then at the beginning of the war went to the front as a volunteer. Avrum was severely wounded, and lost his arm. When he came back from the hospital, he settled in Kokand [today Uzbekistan] with me and my mother. We returned to Kishinev together. After that Avrum married a Jewish woman, Basya, and adopted three children: Charna, named after Grandmother, Tsilya and Molka. They all currently reside in Israel. Avrum’s daughters have their own families. His senile wife Basya is at a hospice, and Avrum stays with each of his daughters in turns.

My mother, Tsivia Alterman, was born in Kishinev in 1906. She went to a Russian school for a couple of years, and then she learnt to become a seamstress. Grandfather Elek bought her a ‘Singer’ sewing machine, which my mother took great care of. She lubricated and cleaned it.

The family of Elek and Charna was more religious than my father’s family. My grandfather Elek used to think that one could do without food for the entire week, but for Fridays and Saturdays there should have been a feast. He went to the synagogue on Fridays. The synagogue was located not very far from our house, at Asiatskaya Street. Grandmother laid a festive table, lit candles and the whole family got together to celebrate Sabbath. 

After getting acquainted with Father in 1928, my mother waited for him for four years. My father was supposed to return from the army in January of 1932. My mother was excited to see him. Things were ready for the wedding. But there was a tribulation on the eve of my father’s arrival. Grandfather Elek died and when Father arrived, he saw Mother and Grandmother Charna mourning. The wedding was put off for several weeks, then for some more time, as Grandmother Charna insisted. And when Grandmother broke the subject of shifting the date of the wedding for the third time, Father went to the rabbi for advice, and he said that the wedding couldn’t be postponed for a third time. Thus, my parents went to the synagogue under a chuppah. When I was a child, I enjoyed looking at a beautiful picture of my mother in her wedding dress and my father in the frock coat. Unfortunately this picture was burned during war times. According to the Jewish rites the wedding was modest, considering Grandmother was mourning.

After the wedding my parents moved in with Grandmother Charna. I was born on 19th January 1933, in the Jewish hospital, which was free for poor Jews. I was called Molka, but I don’t know whom I was named after. We lived in a small three-room apartment, rented from a Romanian, Domna. The house was one-storied, with a long veranda, with two apartments – the landlord’s and ours – facing each other. During the first months after the wedding our family lived modestly, not to say poorly. There was a cutting table and my mother’s sewing-machine, our bread-winner, in the first room. The second room was my parent’s bedroom. My grandmother and I stayed in the third room.

Growing up

I have memories of myself since the early age of three. My grandmother always stayed with me. My mother used to work hard. The problem was that even after getting married my father didn’t stop being overwhelmed with Communist ideas. He was an instigator, and participant of the strikes, that is why he often lost jobs. There were few owners of shoe workshops and factories in Kishinev, and soon they got to know my father very well. They didn’t want to employ him and would say: ‘You are a good worker, but a big mouth!’ Of course, Father was not a lazybones, but he never had a steady and well-paid job. My small, slender mother with strong hands and will was the bread-winner of our family. She said facetiously that Father was playing in revolution.

My mother sewed all ladies’ dresses, suits and even coats, as well as children’s clothes. She also mended and remade things, which was so important. Mother’s clients were common Jewish women, our neighbors, the same as my mother and grandmother. My mother, coming from a cobbler’s family, had an immaculate taste. Since my early childhood my mother dressed me up, and she dressed to the nines, too. When I was going outside, my mother would take a break from sewing to see how I was dressed. Sometimes she made me change my clothes, or use different ribbons to match my dress. They said I was a cute child with gray eyes and fair hair, braided in rolls. I wore a snood over my braids to keep my hair in. I was a poor trencherman, and my grandmother was following me with a plate in the yard to feed me, asking me in Yiddish, ‘What are you going to eat tomorrow?’ Tomorrow, or today, I didn’t want to eat anything but hominy [corn flour meal] with fried fish.

I had a wonderful childhood. My mother and grandmother loved me very much, and my dad just adored me. Every morning he used to kiss me while I was asleep and said that we would go for a walk in the evening if I ate well and behaved. I was looking forward to the evening. My father came back home, had lunch, and the three of us, dressed up – my dad in a suit, my mother in a frock, and I with the ribbons in my braids – used to go to an ice-cream café, owned by a Greek. There were tented tables in this Greek café. There were no less than 30 kinds of ice-cream, and my father bought me a new one each time. Then we walked along the thoroughfare and went to the park. Sometimes we went to the sausage store, which belonged to a Russian merchant, and bought tasty sausages, which were packaged in a parcel with a bow. I liked carrying that parcel home. However, my grandmother and I didn’t eat those sausages, as she observed the kashrut. My father wasn’t religious, he would even eat pork fat at work. Sometimes I used to eat a piece of tasty sausage from Father, if my grandmother Charna wasn’t close by.

Apart from the Greek owner of the café and the Russian ‘pork-butcher,’ Jews owned most of the stores, small shops and restaurants. The Jewish population made up 80 percent of the population in Kishinev and almost all of them lived in the central part of the city. Our family kept in touch only with Jews, and it seemed to me in childhood that there were no other people. Yiddish has always been my mother tongue. My parents, grandparents, relatives and my childhood friends spoke that language. Jewish families lived in our yard, a Jewish girl named Klara and I used to play with dolls and with paper wraps. I was worried about Klara’s fate after evacuation. I used to wonder where she was, and whether my blue dress, which I gave to her, had been kept. After the war there was neither Klara nor the dress. Probably her family just didn’t return to Kishinev.

I was friends with a boy called Izya. He was my age. His father was an accountant, which was associated with wealth, as compared to our families of common craftsmen. Izya’s mother Zhenya dressed to the nines, and usually hired a cab. Izya’s family was also famous for having a refrigerator – it was an unseen luxury back in those times. It was called ‘Glacier.’ Aunt Zhenya treated me very well, often asked me to come and visit them. Then my mother dressed me up even more meticulously. Izya’s mother gave me chocolate and the tastiest homemade cookies. She talked to me as she would to an adult, and it flattered me. When I caught scarlet fever, and my mother was with me in the quarantine, the so-called ‘contagious’ hospital, Aunt Zhenya and Izya came to my ward, all dressed up, and brought me oranges. It was very important for my mother. Years passed, and my mother still remembered about those oranges. Izya and his parents were reported missing during the Great Patriotic War.

There were no more friends but Klara, Izya and my cousin Ella, often brought by my Aunt Feiga. My grandmother was my greatest friend and confidante. She was always neat, in a snow-white kerchief. She used to have her hands full about the house – dusting, cleaning, washing and ironing and at the same time she was teaching me, perceiving my childish curiosity and worries. She scrubbed the apartment before Sabbath, even washed the walls. There were starched napkins on the table and on the chairs, old and darned, but clean. Grandmother lit candles, and there was freshly baked challah and wine on the table. My father was present, too. In spite of him not being religious, he respected Jewish traditions, and he let Mother and Grandmother observe them. On Saturday he usually went out, either to see relatives or acquaintances.

Jewish holidays were always celebrated in our family. There was a chest in the bedroom covered with a rug, containing paschal dishes. I was looking forward to Pesach, for the beautiful dishes to be removed from the chest along with the crockery and goblets, even my special little blue cup. When Grandmother kneeled by the chest, trying to unlock it, I asked to take out my blue cup in the first place. Before Pesach Mother even stopped working and helped Grandmother clean the apartment. Just before the holiday, matzah was brought from the synagogue. I don’t remember the rite of ousting chametz from the house, but I remember that there was no bread in the house during this holiday. During seder there was the most scrumptious Jewish food cooked by my grandmother: chicken stew, gefilte fish, casseroles, matzah dishes. My father didn’t observe seder the proper way. All of us just sat at the table, prayed and started eating. Sometimes my grandmother took me to Uncle Nysl for other seders. He was religious, and carried out seder sticking to the Haggadah. We went to Uncle Nysl during Chanukkah, too. I was given Chanukkah geld. Grandmother made delicious potato scones and doughnuts with jam.

Since my early childhood I remember Yom Kippur. I was astounded that my mother and grandmother were fasting. I recall how my mother took me to see my grandfather Khuna and grandmother Motl, for them to chat to me and get distracted from hunger. I didn’t know the reason for their fasting. During the Doomsday holiday my mother and grandmother went to the synagogue. I remember that they left me with the neighbor. I wanted her to take me there, and my mother said that during that day a special prayer was read, and those whose parents were alive were not supposed to listen to it. My mother promised to take me to the synagogue for other more festive occasions. She kept her word and took me there for Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Chanukkah and Pesach. There was a small one-storied synagogue not very far away from our house. But it seemed very beautiful to me. It was the place where the Fascists shot Jews later, during the occupation. The building of the synagogue was burned during the Great Patriotic War.

During Sukkot holidays they built a sukkah in the neighboring yard. My family had dinner with my neighbors over there. I was cold, and I even remembered a Russian saying: ‘As cold as in a sukkah, but I didn’t know that I had to dress warm for the sukkah; however, I liked it anyway. I liked the merry holiday of Purim, and especially how we got ready for it. My mother and grandmother would bake hamantashen with poppy, honey and nuts, fluden, waffles with honey and nuts, which were put in packages. In the morning, a mentally retarded lad came from the synagogue, running an errand. He took shelakhmones and gave it to relatives and acquaintances. Later on, there were presents from them. Later on my mother and grandmother used to discuss Aunt Feiga’s hamantashen, which were better than Aunt Basya’s. When I grew up a little bit, my mother took me to purimshpiels in the Jewish lyceum. 

There were female and male lyceums in Kishinev, as well as a Jewish hospital, health care community, orphanages and hospices for the children from poor families, almshouse, charity canteens, in a nutshell: a great network of ordinary and charitable institutions. Zionist ideas were very popular at that time 4, i.e. the idea to create the Jewish state. Zionists had their organizations, viz. professional schools and sports organizations – Maccabi World Union 5. I was not of age to be enrolled there, but I learnt from my parents that those organizations existed.

At the end of the 1930s, inter-community relations deteriorated with the foundation of the Fascist party of the Cuzists 6 and legionaries 7. They used racism and anti-Semitism in their rhetoric, but there were no open collisions and pogroms as there were in Germany. There were cases of moral anti-Semitism, and my mother had to go through that. There was one tram line in Kishinev along the lengthy Armyanskaya Street to the city cemetery. My mother was in the tram car, fashionably dressed in a coat, wearing a hat and gloves. There was a Romanian officer sitting close to her. An ill-kept and poorly dressed elderly Jew got on the tram at one of the stops. He took a seat next to the officer. Then the officer started demanding that the Jew should get up and leave. The old man didn’t get to say a word. Then my mother sat down between the officer and the old man. The officer took off his gloves, hit the old man with them and turned him out of the tram, telling my mother that the old man smelled. Who knows how the officer would have acted if he had found out that my mother was a Jew.

In 1939 mother gave birth to a son. My brother was named Shepshel after my Aunt Rosa’s husband. In June 1940 I joined a professional girls’ school, Tarbut 8. I was trained for a certain time, along with getting compulsory education. But I wasn’t able to study there. On June 28th 1940 the Soviet Army entered Bessarabia and the Soviet regime was established. My father was rejoicing. He put on a dressy suit and went out to the central street, where Soviet tanks were placed, with the soldiers communicating with people. He came back very happy, showing Mother a simple huge Soviet watch that he swapped with the Soviet soldier for an expensive Swiss watch given to him by Grandfather Khuna. When Mother dared to tell Father that the swap wasn’t fair and equal, he said that the most important thing was that the watch was Soviet. Then he went to the photo shop straight away to get a picture taken with his new watch.

Our Romanian landlord Domna escaped to Romania the same night, taking only precious things with her. Her well-furnished apartment was given to two Soviet officers and their wives. They became our neighbors. These officers’ wives, who had never seen beautiful clothes and lingerie in Russia, put on laced chemises of the Romanian lady, and wanted to go out in them, mistaking the underwear for evening gowns. They didn’t care and were walking in these chemises along the street. The officers and their wives were running amok with such an exuberance of grapes, wine, delicious products and fruit, sold dirt cheap by the peasants. They had never seen anything like that. Hardly had three days passed, everything vanished from the stores: caviar, tasty fish, smoked meat, cheese. Even bread became rare. Then repressions started. Many of those, who were connected with Zionist movements, as well as the remaining rich and well-off people were arrested and exiled. We were lucky to be beyond that. The Soviet authorities took no interest in us. My father was disillusioned. The Soviet regime didn’t meet his expectations. He even said in despair that they were not so-called brothers, but cousins.

During the war

In September 1940 I was supposed to go to a Russian school. But I caught measles, missed the beginning of the school year, and my mother decided that I should go to school the next year. My happy and carefree childhood lasted for another year: Father still went for a walk with us in the evenings – my parents paid a lot of attention to me, teaching me to read and count. I knew the Russian and Yiddish alphabet. And on 22nd June 1941 the Great Patriotic War broke out. My father was demobilized in several days. I remember seeing him off. Father kissed me saying that the war wouldn’t last long. The Red Army was very strong and would defeat the Fascists, so he would be back home in a couple of weeks. He was not the only one to believe that. Many people didn’t even think of evacuation. Grandfather Khuna said that he had lived with Russians, Romanians, and Communists and will be able to live with the Germans. He was flatly against evacuation. My grandparents stayed in Kishinev.

Kishinev was bombed real hard. Mother and Grandmother decided to leave. We left for the neighboring village on foot, holding my little brother in our arms. My parents had some Moldovan acquaintances there. We stayed there for two or three days, as the host told us that the Fascists had retreated and we could go home. Kishinev was on fire, before the Red Army retreated. Mother could hardly pack some things. My mother and grandmother left the city, holding me and Shepshel tight. I remember things burning and collapsing. It was hideous. My mother covered my eyes with her hand so I wouldn’t get scared. We met Uncle Avrum and Aunt Feiga on our way.

We were walking for several weeks. The bombing gradually weakened. It was hard to walk as it was stifling in the daytime, and cool at night. We were also caught in the rain a number of times. Mother went to some Ukrainian village to get a rest and get dry. A beautiful Ukrainian woman was very hospitable. She brought us some warm water and gave us food. It was so good and warm that we decided to stay. Then in a couple of days the scared neighbor rushed in and said, ‘Tsivia, leave. The Germans are ten kilometers away from the village!’ So we ran again. We walked on a road full of fugitives. Sometimes people were sorry for us and put us in a cart, then we went by a truck. Then we went by train a little bit. Mother washed at the railway stations using process hot water, coming from steam trains. We had nothing to eat, we just picked up ears of wheat roots, boiled maize, we ate seeds.

This way we reached Rostov-upon-Don. I was eight years old, and all those things are mixed up in my memory. I remember that we stayed in Rostov for some time and then in a Cossack village near Rostov. This is how we spent the first war winter, but I can’t recall everything clearly now. When the Fascists approached Rostov, we moved on. We reached Stalingrad [now Volgograd in Russia, 1200 km north-east of Kishinev], and came to the evacuation point. We stayed there no longer than a day, were given some sort of soup and dispatched to the railway station. The city was on fire and the fugitives were sent away immediately.

I remember how a soldier lifted me up and put me in the car, he did the same with my brother. They put us in the locomotive. After that my brother got ill and I had an outbreak of furunculosis. When we arrived in Astrakhan [today Russia], we were put in hospital, my brother was in the infectious department as he had measles, complicated by a cold, and I was in the surgery department. My brother died in the hospital. And I learned about it when I was discharged from the hospital. I don’t remember how we went across the Volga, and moved forward. We were brought to Tashkent [today Uzbekistan, 3500 km east of Kishinev], and from there we went to a collective farm 9 near Kokand [today Uzbekistan].

The evacuated were lodged in a club. There was nothing to sleep on, so my grandmother, mother and Feiga picked up grass, dried it and put it on the floor. In several days collective farmers brought some simple trestle beds that we used. We starved, the food provided by the collective farm was not enough. Other Jewish families were our neighbors. There was one family from Kharkov [today Ukraine], another family was from Poland. I went out with other children, looking for food in the collective farm. We managed to find apricots, carrots and beets. Uzbeks let us pick things up from the ground, without taking anything from the tree. Uncle Avrum walked to the military enlistment office, located in Kokand, to go to war and not to starve. My mother and Feiga worked in the collective farm, picking cotton. It was cold. The evacuees used an oven from the club for heating purposes. We filled it with cotton waste and started the fire with coal taken from Uzbeks, as we had no matches.

I remember how in 1942 Grandmother was asking me at night, ‘Feigele, I would like to have some tea to get warm. Take the coal and make me tea, I am so cold!’ My reply was that I was afraid to walk around at night and I asked Granny to wait until the morning. When I woke up, Granny still hadn’t got up. When Mother and Feiga came back from work I told them that Grandmother was still asleep. She died at night, and I being next to her, didn’t even notice it. Mother and Feiga buried Grandmother behind the cemetery fence. Uzbek Muslims didn’t let Grandmother be buried in their cemetery. Then Feiga left. She was told that her husband had been seen in some city, and she left there to look for him. She left and went missing. I never saw her again, and know nothing about her. She must have died in 1941, otherwise, she would have definitely come back to us or sent us a letter, but I don’t know how she perished.

My mother and I remained by ourselves. There was no news about my father and uncle Avrum, and our hope was forlorn to see them ever again. We had a hard life in the collective farm. Mother decided to move to the city. One early morning we packed our few things and walked away. It took us a day to reach Kokand. My mother asked for help in broken Russian. The policeman that we came across first took us to the railway station. That was the place where we could stay overnight. We went to the evacuation point in the morning. We were given food and taken to an apartment. The Uzbek owner of the apartment made our beds in the corridor between two rooms. We had to go to bed after everybody had fallen asleep, otherwise there was no way they could open the door. But it was a wonderful and warm lodging as compared to the collective farm. Mother went to work for the military plant, where valenki [warm Russian felt boots] were made for the front. She worked for two-three shifts without a break for me to survive and not die of hunger.

After a while we received a letter from my father. He found us through a notice he saw in Buguruslan. My mother and I cried from happiness. My father wrote that he didn’t go to the front; he was mobilized to do physical work for the army 10. He worked at the military plant in Ulyanovsk. He enclosed his picture in the letter – unfortunately, my mother didn’t keep the picture, she tore it up and threw it away after war. Father asked us to write and send him our pictures. We went to the central photo shop to have our picture taken. Both of us were unrecognizable, having swollen bellies from starvation and I, having a bald head. Those pictures were sent to my father together with the letter, where Mother wrote about our ordeals and losses – my brother’s and grandmother’s deaths. Father told us after the war that he couldn’t believe his eyes, when he was looking at our pictures, and his friends were laughing at him and telling him that he had lied to them when he said that his wife and daughter were beautiful. They also said that my mother was illegitimately pregnant. Certainly, my father didn’t believe the gossip. He used to write to us and even sent a package with provisions, containing sugar, rusks, canned meat. It was a real joy and treat. We exchanged canned meat for four loaves of bread.

I turned nine, and still hadn’t started school. I was ashamed of my illiteracy in front of my coevals. Our neighbor, a Jew from Kharkov, taught me the letters. I started writing. Then I went to school without feeling ashamed. I was accepted in the third grade. However, my name was changed. When my mother began to process my documents – my birthday certificate had been lost – she was told that the name of Molka didn’t exist and they suggested naming me Maya. There were many other problems, and my mother agreed to it even without arguing. At the end of the day it wasn’t important what was written in my documents. I became Maya then.

My life was getting better. I remember how we were exulting when we heard the news about the liberation of Bessarabia and Kishinev. We understood that the victory was coming, and soon we would be able to return. At the end of 1944 I caught dysentery. I wasn’t fed at the hospital, they decided not to waste precious food on such patients and I was on the brink of death. Uncle Avrum showed up in my ward like an apparition. It turned out that he was decommissioned for being wounded and sent to the hospital in Tashkent. Here he found my mother and me via an enquiry bureau. One of his arms was an amputation stump. He took me with his only hand as I was so feather-light and took me home. I was fed at home. Uncle brought food, and I was getting better. Avrum sold on rustic tobacco and rented a better room for us. Soon he was called to Kishinev. He had the right to come back there as he was at war, and he registered us as his family members. In April 1945 we went home. Of course, our way back home was much shorter as we took the train as passengers with tickets.

I couldn’t recognize my native city. It was devastated. The central part was in shambles. Our pre-war apartment was also destroyed. A Moldovan lady leased a small room to us, where the three of us stayed before my father’s arrival. During the first months after our arrival my mother and I went to the place, where my grandparents Khuna and Motl used to live before the war. Their Moldovan neighbors told us a terrible story about how they perished. After the Fascists occupied the city, they brought all Jews together out of town. They also came for my grandparents. Grandfather, being seriously sick, couldn’t walk and fell in the yard and Grandmother bent over him. Then a Fascist shot them at once. They died immediately without much agony. The neighbor said that they didn’t want to remove the corpses, and they stayed in the yard for a long time as a warning for those who wanted to help or hide Jews. When the bodies were taken away, the blood stains couldn’t be washed for a long time, and were removed later with snow. My mother couldn’t listen to the details of her parents’ death. So she left rapidly and never came back to that place again.

I remember how we rejoiced during the victory day in May 1945, one month after our arrival. Uncle Avrum went back to work, and my mother found clients and took up sewing again. Father wrote to us and even sent us money from Ulyanovsk. In fall I went to school, to the fifth grade. My life was getting much better. In the summer of 1946 Father came back, which made me really happy. We didn’t want to leave him for a minute. The three of us laughed and cried, clustered together. Father couldn’t get over my brother’s and his parents’ death for a long time. Uncle Nysl came back from evacuation with his family. He also became disabled. His leg was amputated after he was afflicted with diabetes. Father and my legless uncle found a small deserted house and began fixing it. They looked for old construction materials, ransacked the shambles and finally were able to fix two little rooms in the house. One of those rooms was taken by Nysl’s family, and the other by my family and Uncle Avrum.

After the war

Soon, our family got bigger. My mother got pregnant, and my parents decided that it was a godsend. They thought if this were a boy, they would stop mourning over Shepshel. But in 1948 a girl was born. They named her Musya. My parents and I loved her very much. In 1947 Father found his niece Raya [Ruklya], the daughter of his perished sister Rosa. He went to Ivanovo and took her from the orphanage. Raya settled in with us. So, there were six of us sharing one room. My parents and little Musya slept on a big bed bought at the market. Raya and I shared a trestle bed. Avrum slept on the floor. Soon Avrum got married and went to live with his wife. Raya, who was my close friend, got married at the age of 17 and left our house. She was always a dear friend to me, and a sister to my mother. Rayechka had a wonderful life with her husband. They had two sons. Unfortunately she died young from cancer. Her sons with their families moved to Israel in the late 1970s. I don’t keep in touch with Raya’s sons.

Father worked at a shoe factory as a shoemaker. He was well-respected and became a foreman. My mother spent the whole day sawing as she did before the war. I helped her about the house, looking after my little sister. I finished seven grades of school. I was a good student. I was keen on literature and was an avid reader. I went to the library every other day. They didn’t exchange books earlier than that. I was glued to books and ‘gulped them up.’ I read while walking, in a tram. They knew me and loved me in the library. My parents advised me to find a job after I had finished seven grades, as it was hard for them to keep me and my little sister. I talked about it in the library. The head of the library offered me a job there. First I was taught how to distribute books on shelves, hand out books, work with catalogues and soon I became a competent librarian. I finished evening school while I was working. The head of the library recommended me to enter a librarians’ school, located in the town of Soroki [Soroca in Moldovan], not far from Kishinev. I passed the entrance exams successfully and I was enrolled for the second year of the extramural department. I worked in my library, and still read books in bouts. I took exams twice a year. After obtaining a diploma, I was appointed the senior librarian.

I had many friends, but I was particularly close with Ella, my cousin. I remember how we were getting over Stalin’s death in the year of 1953. When his death was announced, thousands of Kishinev people rushed to his monument, depicting Stalin in a military coat with the stretched out hand, which was located by the Patria cinema on the central city square. There was a long line of people, who’d been waiting there for hours to bring flowers to the monument. We were also in the line, sobbing. There was mourning in our library. When at the 20th Communist Party Congress 11 Khrushchev 12 dispelled the myths behind Stalin’s personality cult, it was another blow, as our idol was crushed. We had worked for many hours in the library. We had to look through every book. If we came across the mention of Stalin’s name or his picture, we were supposed to mar those books by crossing out his name and tearing out his picture.

I kept in touch with my school friend Lusya Baum. She studied at the railway school, and invited me for a New Year’s party in 1957. There were a lot of boys in her company. There were few girls in that school. My mother made a new dress for me to celebrate the New Year. As always, she chose the fabric and the style. I asked her to make a detachable dress that was in fashion. But she didn’t listen. She sewed the way she found appropriate, being frugal and taking into account the eternal need of the Jews to remake and reuse things. And now she remade a dress by adding beautiful frilling at the bottom, making me the best-dressed girl there. It was ‘bring your own party,’ so everybody had to take a dish. My mother made potato patties, which everybody enjoyed. That was a Jewish company, and there I met a lad whom I liked. In spite of the fact that my boyfriend was in the army at the time, we started seeing each other. I had to listen to my mother’s stories about my mother’s and father’s love for each other, about how my mother waited for my dad for four years. They disapproved of my precipitancy, but my heart could not be forced.

My beloved, a Jewish guy called Aron Mirskiy, was born in Bucharest in 1932. His father Uscher was a locomotive mechanic and his mother Perl was a housewife. Aron was an only child. In 1940 his family moved to Kishinev like many other Jews. Uscher went to the front from here and perished during the Great Patriotic War. His single younger brother, who survived the war, married Perl when he got back. When I met Aron he was a student of the Lvov Polytechnic Institute. We got married after he graduated from university in 1957. Our marriage was registered on 24th December, and our modest wedding was held on the 31st. The celebration took place at home with rather modest food and with gramophone music. At that time Jewish traditions weren’t observed in our families, so nobody even mentioned the possibility of having a Jewish wedding. We moved to the house of Aron’s mother and his stepfather. Their house was built in the suburbs of Kishinev after the war.

In 1958 our son was born and we named him Alexander. I was a young mother and kept working, but my husband insisted that I should enter the institute. I went to Moscow to enter a Bibliographic Institute. I passed the entry exams and studied extramurally for three years. In 1963 I got very ill. I had a dreadful diagnosis – cancer. The doctor told me that I had only five years to live. I quit the institute, I couldn’t even think of studying. Then it turned out that they were mistaken with the diagnosis, I had no cancer. I don’t even want to recall that terrible year, thinking that I was lethally ill. My parents and husband helped me get over it. My colleagues, who treated me very well, were also very supportive at that time.

In 1970 we received a good apartment, where we are currently residing. We never came across anti-Semitism. I was promoted at work. After my husband graduated from university, he was offered a leading position in the Ministry of Automobile Transport. We were pretty well-off. We owned a car, though we didn’t have a country house. In the summer time we went to a wonderful facility of the Ministry of Automobile Transport for rest and recreation. Sometimes we went to the seaside. There was a pioneer 13 camp where Alexander spent the whole summer.

My son experienced explicit anti-Semitism, when he served in the Soviet Army in Odessa 14. My husband and I visited him rather often as Odessa was close by. Once I came to see my son in the summer. He was given a leave pass and went to the beach. My son didn’t want to undress, and I made him do that. Then I saw bruises all over his body. I took pains to make my son tell me the truth. It turned out that he stood up for a Jewish boy, who was circumcised during childhood. Other soldiers teased him. Then anti-Semites went after my son, beating him black and blue. No matter how Аlexander asked me not to leak a word of it, I went to the commander and told him everything. He promised to punish the offenders, but when I came back, nothing had changed. Then I wrote to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow. After that my son was transferred to another unit by Kherson, but the bullies weren’t even punished. My son entered the automobile vocational school and then started teaching driving in the training facility. There he met a wonderful Jewish girl. Her name was Tuba Nerdinskaya. They got married and they had two children in a row: Mikhail, born in 1985, and Irina, born in 1986.

In 1985 my father passed away without having a chance to rejoice in a great-grandchild. In 1994 my mother died. She had been afflicted with cancer for a while. When my mother got ill in 1990 I had to quit work to look after her. My husband and I didn’t observe religious traditions during the Soviet times. However, we went to my parents for Pesach. My mother always had matzah. My mother used to light candles on Fridays, and fasted during Yom Kippur. My parents always spoke Yiddish, so I know my mother tongue very well. I buried my parents at the Jewish cemetery according to the Jewish rite. An old Jew read a prayer.

I always wanted to be close to my kin. I knew that my true name was Molka. When in 1991 Moldova got its independence, and there was a passport exchange, I was given a certificate in an archive and changed my name from Maya to Molka. Now I am Molka again, both in my passport and in my other documents. I like my name Molka more than Maya, because it is connected to my people, my childhood and my parents.

I always took an interest in the fate of our people, Israel. During those years when Israel was spoken about as a hostile country, I got in touch with dissidents and read literature about Israel. I worshiped this country, and dreamt that one day we would live there. My husband was always against immigration. He loved Moldova and Kishinev, so I had to submit. However, my son’s family immigrated to Israel in the early 1990s. I often go there. My son works in the field hе is specialized in. His wife has also settled in.

Our grandson Mikhail serves in the Israeli fleet. When he was about to be drafted I told him to come to Ukraine to escape army service. Then my son had a talk with me and said that in Israel army service was honorable, and he was happy that Mikhail would serve Israel. He believed Israel needed them, and that was the reason for their immigration. My son is a real Israeli patriot. My granddaughter Irina entered the university this year. My sister Musya also lives in Israel. She didn’t go on with her higher education after finishing school. She got married, and then divorced. Her second marriage with a Moldovan Jew, Shunya Weinstein, turned out to be very happy. Musya and Shunya left Israel at the end of the 1970s. Musya has a daughter, Lilia, who works as a teacher.

Now we live in independent Moldova. Many people took the breakup of the Soviet Union very negatively. But I think there is something positive in it. After gaining independence, we have the conditions to develop our Jewish culture. We have Hesed 13, the association of the Jewish organizations, which unites all Jewish organizations. I also found my purpose there, working as a health visitor and a kindergartner. I liked my job. My deteriorating health made me leave it. Now I am a Hesed client. My husband still works. He is the head of the automobile department in a Polyclinic. We often attend Hesed’s events, celebrate holidays with our Jewish friends. Symbolic as it may be, after gaining independence and getting my original name back, I turned to the Jewish life and remembered my roots.

Glossary:

Efim Geifman
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Elena Tsarovskaya
Date of Interview: December 2001

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary    

My family background

I was born on 8 August 1923 in the small town of Novograd-Volysk in Zhytomir region.  My ancestors must have come from Belarus. I had many relatives there. My grandfather, my father’s father, Elia Berko Geifman lived in Novograd-Volynskiy. He had a small house there. There were three rooms and a carpenter’s shop in this house. My grandfather was a carpenter. Perhaps, somebody still has those solid pieces of furniture that he made. There was always a lot of freshly cut shavings in his shop. This smell has become the smell of childhood to me. There was a small vegetable garden and an orchard near the house, but no cattle. My grandfather and grandmother were living in one room. There was a second little room with a small window in it that was meant to be mine later. My grandfather died in the early 30s. I remember him well saying his evening prayer wearing his tahles He was prayed each day, often went in the synagogue, but me this not much interested. Clothing he was either as all handicraftsman, usually, only on the head always was hat. My mother called him and her own parents orthodox believers (orthodox here – extreme believers). I have no idea what was the name of Elia Berko’s wife and my grandmother. She was just a Granny, wearing her shawl tied under her chin, and an apron (there were always dried pumpkinseeds in its pocket that she readily treated me with). In third room of this building live Israel, the only brother of my father, his wife Feiga and their many children (Grisha and Fania – the children of his first wife that died; Raya, Abrasha, Bella, Petia, Sonia, Rosochka and Fierochka were born in his 2nd marriage). I was very close with Fania (1907–1983). After their wedding my parents took her to their family. Father much liked Fania, and she was to him clinging. Feiga was not Faina’s mother, and her was difficult to contain such greater family. She looked after me and loved me very much. Later she married my father’s colleague Boris and moved to Kiev. Uncle Israel, Fania’s father, had no education or profession. His 2nd wife Feiga was the breadwinner in the family. She was very handy. She did this and that, made little pancakes and sold them, sold something at the market and did whatever she could to support the family. Three of her children Grisha, Raya, Petia and became typesetters in a printing house. Raya was in evacuations in Chkalovsk. Her son become to the scientist, physicist, he after the war has left to work in Leningrad. Presently it lives in Sankt-Peterburg, brings up grandsons. Petia waged war the whole war with 1941 before 1945 ordinary soldier, has finished a war in Berlin. Married, live in Belorussia, worked on post. Died In 1970s. He's son and daughter live in USA. Bella live in Ovruch, dide before the war from some diseases. Abrasha studied in the Leningrad Aeronautical Institute (after finishing Jewish school in Novograd-Volynskiy). He was a pilot during the war. He died in the rank of lieutenant colonel in Kiev some time in the 1980. He’s daughter Ella lives in USA in Baltimor. Firochka was the most small, she brought up Abrasha, as he’s native daughter. After,  she has married and has left in Belorussia. In Minsk she worked a master at the factory beside it three sons. In 1979 they have left with USA. Relationships with they are broken.

I not litter in the house of grandparent of religious holidays. Anyway, I not know that anyone from he’s families kept traditions.

Lashanovskiys, my mother’s parents, had a house in a different part of Novograd-Volynskiy. It was located not far from my Granny Geifman’s house. Their house was different from the house of my grandfather Geifman. Theirs was a big house with big rooms. There was a kitchen, a bedroom and a living room in the house. My mother and I lived in this house for a very short time. I remember my grandmother wearing a wig. Their last name Lashanovskiys derives from the name of a little town Loshanka or Lashenka somewhere in Poland. My mother’s grandfather came from this town. He was a cattle dealer. My grandfather Berko Lashanovskiy was his son and was involved in the same business. So was my mother’s brother Petia. But this business didn’t bring them any riches. My grandfather Berko Lashanovskiy had died some time before my birth. My mother told me that his last wish was to have the ritual of circumcision performed if they gave birth to a boy. They had a different opinion on this subject but dared not to disobey. I don’t remember the name of Berko’s wife, my mother’s mother. She died from cancer in 1928 or 1929. Besides my mother, the Lashanoskiys had three sons and a daughter. Yakov, the oldest, was good at playing chess. He moved to the United States in 1905. He was single. After the revolution the family heard that he died. Aron (Arun), another brother, also died very young, but I don’t know the reason why. His sister Sarah (Surah) married somebody by the name of Gorodetskiy in 1915 and moved to Alexandria (near the town of Rovno) where he lived. Gorodetskiy was a very well to do man. He owned a mill. After the revolution the Rovno region belonged to Poland. This was so until 1939. We were separated with our relatives by the borders.  My mother’s brother Petia, his wife Luba and daughter Golda (they called her Galia) lived in the village of Rykhalskoye in the vicinity of Novograd-Volynskiy. I spent almost every summer in my uncle’s family when I was a child. He had a house and kept poultry and cattle. His wife Luba was a plain Jewish housewife. But my uncle was very religious and prayed every day, although he didn’t understand a word in Yiddish. However, he knew his prayers and knew how to observe the rules. There were kosher dishes and kitchenware in the house. But when I was visiting them Luba used to fry eggs on pork fat, and my uncle was naïve enough to think that it was done on a different frying pan. However, he allowed himself some violation of the rules. On Friday night he used to secretly smoke a cigarette that he rolled for himself after a substantial supper. My uncle had a horse. He said that one had to treat her with the utmost respect considering her age. Once this horse got loose and broke into somebody’s vegetable garden. This happened on a Friday night, when my uncle was praying. I ran to him to tell him to get the horse out of that garden, but he just showed by the intonation to leave him alone, murmuring his prayer. So Luba and I had to go after this runaway horse and take her back to where she belonged. Here’s another story. Once uncle Petia and another farmer bought a haystack (the two of them were going to share this one haystack). This farmer insisted on delivering this hay on Saturday. It looked like a storm and my uncle agreed. I put harness on the horse under my uncle’s supervision. My uncle was walking beside the wagon (he walked with a stick, as he had a broken his leg). I had the reins. We came to the spot where some guys loaded our and that farmer’s wagon with hay for a pack of makhorka (cheap tobacco).  They put a long beam on the hay and tied it, and I sat on top of it holding the reins. The horse knew her way home well; therefore, my involvement was minimal. My uncle’s house was on top of a hill. I was only 10 years old and knew little about reining horses. The wagon full of hay fell on its side on the ascent. I fell into that nicely smelling haystack. My uncle’s partner had left by then. I couldn’t possibly cope with that much hay alone. So, my uncle had to call his neighbors and they took all that hay to the attic of his house.

My uncle didn’t do any work on Saturday. Besides my uncle’s, there were five or six Jewish families in the village The rest of the population was Ukrainian or German. Families of Jews spoke on Yiddish, German - on Germanic language, Ukrainian - on Ukrainian. Uncle liberally spoke on Ukrainian and Germanic by languages, but its neighbors knew little Yiddish. All live much amicably, all each other understood, respected and helped. The German community was big. They were all very close and well off. My uncle had a German friend that was a forester. I also played with German children. That was where I heard German for the first time. There were horses, cows, bulls, pigs, turkey and ponds full of fish in every German farm. At the beginning of the war Luba and her children came to Kiev and then moved on to Luba’s sister in Dnepropetrovsk. Yasha Kotlar, her sister’s husband, was Chief of the police department at Sinelnikovo near Dnepropetrovsk. We couldn’t track them down after the war. They must have perished. Uncle Petia refused to give up his household and leave. Besides, his German friend promised to hide him in the woods. After the war people at Rykhalskoye told me that uncle Petia and other Jews were shot by the Germans.

The life of my mother’s sister Surah was also tragic. She had a daughter and four sons. We didn’t hear anything about their family until 1939. During the Stalin’s period it was very dangerous to have relatives abroad and my mother didn’t ever mention the fact that she had relatives. After the Western Ukraine joined the Soviet Union they found us. My mother went to visit them on 10 June 1941. The war began when my mother was there. However difficult it was she managed to return to Kiev on 23 June. My mother’s family stayed in Rovno region. When the Germans came my aunt’s family and another Jewish family went to the woods. The local people helped them to arrange a shelter in the woods. The local farmers provided them with food and everything else they needed to live there. Before leaving the Germans happened to discover their shelter. They were all exterminated. Only a girl from that other family and my cousin Yasha survived. Yasha went to the Polish army. After the war Yasha (Yankel) Gorodetskiy turned out to be in Israel. That’s all I know about him.

My father Ios-Haim Elia-Berkovich Geifman was born in 1891. He must have been born in Novograd-Volynskiy. I don’t have any information about his childhood or education. In one of pictures he’s wearing some kind of a uniform. He was literate and had beautiful handwriting. This shows that he must have studied somewhere. My mother told me that my father could sing and play the violin and flute.

During WWI my father was in the sharpshooter unit on the front. After one of combat actions there were only three of them alive. My father returned from the front with a gray strand of hair. During the civil war he struggled in a Red Partisan Unit. My mother and I had a certificate confirming this fact and we could have some privileges, like food ration, and later we received an apartment in Kiev.

After the civil war my father was Chairman of the United Consumers’ Community in Novograd-Volynskiy. Although he wasn’t a member of the Communist Party, he had an official position being an intelligent and honest man. Once he went on business to Zhytomir. He let his accountant take a seat in the cabin and he sat in the body of the truck. He was wearing shoes although the weather was cold. His employees told him to take warm boots from the storage facility but he refused, saying that warm boots were for the workers. He caught cold that resulted in the fulminate tuberculosis. His friends took him to a hospital in Kiev but they failed to stop the hemorrhage. He only lived three months. He was buried at the Jewish cemetery 1 in Kiev. My father died in 1926 when I was 3 years old.

My mother Reizia (Rosa) Berkovna Lashanovskaya was born in 1898 in Novograd-Volynskiy.  I don’t know anything about her life before the revolution. During the civil war she was in a partisan unit where she met my father. My mother told me what Petlura  2 soldiers were doing in their town, how one of the bandits ran after her sister, throwing his rifle with a bayonet in her direction but missed. My parents had a friend in the partisan unit. His name was Froim. He was a rabbi’s son and he left his family to take part in the revolution. He perished in 1919. His Party nickname was Efim. I was called after him. Children are usually named after their deceased relatives, but I was named by the Party nickname. The civil war left many children orphans. My mother and few other volunteers opened a Jewish orphanage in Novograd-Volynskiy. My mother was its director for some time, but then she was assigned to go to Kiev to continue her education. She finished the Jewish Pedagogical School 3. Then my mother returned to Novograd-Volynskiy and was director of a kindergarten. She worked in the institutions for children all her life as a tutor and music teacher. She had a beautiful soprano.

Growing up

When I was a child I was in the care of our housemaid. She milked the cow and gave me some milk. After my father’s death we moved to my grandmother Lashanovskaya. She also died and we moved my mother’s friend. She and her husband and her son (we were the same age) lived in the house of an Orthodox priest. His was a very big house. At that time people like him having bigger living quarters let other people get accommodation in their houses. Such was the rule at that time that did not allow people to own bigger living areas. There was a beautiful orchard near the house. We, kids, were allowed to eat whatever we wanted there and play with dogs. However, even this well off priest didn’t have power supply or running water in his house. The early 30s were the years of hunger in Ukraine. It was difficult for my mother to survive in that smaller town and we moved to Fania in Kiev. My cousin Fania worked as cashier at the railway station and her husband Boris was involved in commerce. Fania lived in a communal apartment with 18 neighbors and no water or toilet. We lived so for about two years. Then my mother received a small room as a widow of a red partisan.

I only visited my hometown Novograd-Volynskiy in summer. There is a very beautiful and picturesque river Sluch with the rocky steep banks and fast and clean water. There is a big park in the center of the town. The town was sinking in the green trees. There were big markets where farmers were selling their products. There was a big synagogue across the street from the house of my grandfather Geifman. We, kids, used to peep in there, but we were chased away. I think it functioned until the beginning of the war. The rabbi lived in a small house near the synagogue. There were many Jewish people living in this town. But the majority of the population were Ukrainian, of course.  But they all got along very well. I don’t know what Jewish people were doing for a living. I remember that Zukheli, our neighbor was dealing with salvage materials, and Pesia Harbat, our distant relative, was selling dried fruit at the market. I loved visiting her when I could eat dried apples from her bowls. Before Pesah people got together at Pesia’s place to bake matsa. There wasn’t much of it but it was fresh. Fried eggs with matsa were very delicious. They washed and cleaned all kitchenware and dishes before holidays.  Once there was a wedding at Pesia’s place, but I only remember the huppah, a very beautiful bride and a very beautiful ritual. There were about 150 people and there was a lot of noise and much fun. Pesia lived across the street from the market. Intelligentsia – dentists, attorneys, etc. – had their houses closer to the central part of the town.

I didn’t know any Yiddish. My grandparents spoke Yiddish, their Russian was poor, but they only spoke Russian with me. Although my mother worked in a Jewish kindergarten we didn’t have any Jewish books at home. We had many books by Russian classical writers. I learned a little Yiddish when I was visiting my uncle Petia in his village: they only spoke Yiddish in his family.

I went to school in Kiev. I went to a Ukrainian school (there were no Jewish schools at that time). My Ukrainian was so fluent that I even wrote poems in Ukrainian. I wrote a big poem dedicated to the anniversary of Taras Shevchenko (a famous Ukrainian poet) and recited it at a contest. I was awarded with an album and paints, although I couldn’t paint at all. There were about 30 pupils in our class. All boys (except 2 boys) were Jews, and only two of the girls were Jews: Ronia Lipshits and Olia Olgar. But we were all friends. We celebrated holidays together. Our school was located in the pre-revolution high school building. And our teachers were all former teachers in this school, all professionals, we learned a lot from them. There were no Jewish teachers among them. I was reading a lot at school. My mother and I shared one room. To be able to read at night I made a special lamp with a cap. I was also fond of photography. I also learned to play a piano for a year. She hired a teacher, but she couldn’t afford to buy a piano. I had classes at her kindergarten when the children were asleep, but it wasn’t very convenient and I gave up.

In this Jewish kindergarten where my mother worked, they taught children to read and write in Yiddish. I learned to write my name in Yiddish. I studied well at school and actively participated in the school life. I attended a history, drama and literature clubs and was head of the Kosomol unit of our class and a member of the Komsomol district committee that was great recognition for a schoolboy. I also edited our school newspaper and conducted political information sessions. In 1939 Western Ukraine joined the Soviet Ukraine and there was a parade in Kreschatik, the central street in Kiev. There were representatives of these regions wearing bright Ukrainian folk costumes.

In Fania’s family and in our family we only celebrated the Soviet holidays. However, my mother and Boris used to sing Jewish songs during these celebrations. The father of my best friend Misha Gorokhovskiy, was a carpenter. Hs Russian was very poor, but still, they didn’t have anything Jewish in their house.

In summer, besides visiting my uncle Petia, I went to pioneer camps in the outskirts of Kiev. Life was interesting there: contests and competitions, etc. We used to make a fire: it took a while to get prepared to make it high and remarkable. It happened in the evening when we all got together. Sitting around the fire we sang songs. 

In the higher secondary school my classmates and I got very fond of Western European dances. I went to a dancing club and learned to dance waltz, tango, rumba and foxtrot. My dream was to become a cameraman or producer. We were also fond of football. We went to the cinema.  “Chapaev” (a legendary Red Army commander, 1917-1923) was film #1 for us. We watched it for so many times and knew every word pronounced by our favorite characters. They also showed anti-fascist films. I remember the movie “Jew Zuss” (after a novel of the famous German writer Lion Feuchtwanger). But such films disappeared from the screens after execution of Non-aggression Pact with Hitler in 1940.

In 1940 our school was turned into a military hospital for the wounded from Finland, and we went to another school and had classes on the 2nd shift. My cousin Grisha, uncle Israel’s son, participated in the Finnish campaign. We held our patriotic spirits high, regardless of repression in the 30s. Fania’s husband Boris used to talk to me about the repression. He was critical and tried to explain things to me.  I don’t think I understood much about his stories.

My father’s comrades fell victims of repression. One of them, Anatoliy Illich Zamoschin ( his real name was Tulo Goldfarb) was like a father to me, he often visited us and helped my mother about the house and helped me with my classes. He was member of the Communist Party and held high official positions. His latest position was Executive director of the Communal Bank. Once he came late at night and told us that they were going to arrest him the next day. I pretended to be asleep but I heard the conversation. He was summoned to come to NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) and offered him to write a report on his deputy. Zamoschin refused and was arrested at the following night. His wife Klara (the wife of the enemy of the people) was sent to Siberia for ten years. She never returned and we never heard from her. Zamoschin returned in the 50s after the general amnesty after Stalin’s death. He had two legs amputated in Kolyma. We didn’t communicate with him during his exile – it was dangerous. But after he returned I often visited him. He brought few note-books with his poems from exile. All his poems were extremely patriotic, with Stalin an idol and Khruschov too, after rehabilitation. He never talked about the horrors of his life in the camp. I don’t know whether it was because he didn’t want to influence me, or was it because he thought that everything was correct.  He received an apartment and was restored in his Party membership.  But he only enjoyed 3 or 4 years of freedom. He died from the infarction. I took the responsibility to bury him, and I washed his dead body. I lost a very close and devoted person who sincerely loved me. I would have considered him my godfather if we were of the Orthodox faith. But as we are not I don’t know who he was for me. He said on the grave of my father that my father’s son would always be his son. And he kept this promise. He didn’t have his own children.

Vornovitskiy, another friend of my father, a Jew, was arrested. He was Kiev NKVD Deputy Prosecutor. In 1937, long before his arrest he went on business trip to Zhytomir.  Among others, he happened to interrogate his comrade from their partisan unit, also an officer. They recognized each other. Vornovitskiy told my mother later that the only thing he could do for his combat comrade was to let him sleep right in the office where the interrogation was to take place.  He brought him some food and cigarettes on the next day. That was all he could do for him. This comrade of his was soon executed, and Vornovitskiy was arrested. Many people around were arrested and executed, but it had nothing to do with nationality. There was no anti-Semitism then, and one could hear the word “zhyd” only from a drunken man at the market.

During the War

Our attitude towards the Germans was negative. On 22 June 1941 there was to be the opening ceremony for a new stadium in Kiev for 50 000 seats. I had tickets to the opening ceremony. They had crossed out the name of Kossior 4 (he was one of organizers of this ceremony and his name had been printed at the invitation tickets before his arrest) on the tickets.

On 20 June (Saturday) we went to the Circus. Eddy Rozner jazz band gave a concert there. They came from western parts of the country. After the concert we walked a while, and early in the morning I was woken up by the sound of antiaircraft guns. At first we decided that this was some kind of training, but then we saw German airplanes. At 12 o’clock in the afternoon there was an announcement on the radio. Boris was mobilized immediately. Fania and her children evacuated in June. Her daughter left a little chocolate Bunny. I and  my relative Dina were in two minds whether we should eat it or not. Decided not to touch - after all soon all will be finished, and evacuated returned. That we will say Firochka? We left it there in the cupboard.

On 6 July (I hadn’t reached 18 then) I was summoned to the recruiting office. Soldiers were marching from Kiev. I had a small backpack and my mother put few cookies and a jar of jam into it. Neither of us cried – we were sure that this was going to end in a month or two and I would be back. We went to the left bank of the city where we were supposed to board a train.  But there were bombing and no trains. We walked another 150 km to the town of Yagotin. We didn’t receive any uniform and my shoes were all torn. I walked almost barefooted. We got meals on our way, but we also begged food from the local farmers, they felt sorry for us and gave us whatever they could. We got few spades on our way and tried to entrench ourselves during bombings. From Yagotin we went to Donbass by train. We were divided into small groups and sent to various areas. I came to the town of Khartsizsk. Being a big patriot I agreed to go to work in the mine at first, but then after my first try I refused to work there. It was too hard work for a town guy. We all went to work at a local collective farm. It was a former German colony. The Germans, being probable fascist accomplices, were removed to the Urals. We lived in their houses and harvested what they sowed. I received a letter from my mother. I assured her to stay in Kiev, as our army would never leave the city (although I didn’t even hold any weapons in my hands). My mother was evacuated as a widow of a red partisan in one of the last trains in September 1941 5. My mother was evacuated to the Northern Caucasus, to a collective farm. She was physically strong and worked at the poultry yard.

At the end of autumn we were dismissed, I obtained my documents and went to join my mother. Somehow I managed to reach the village where my mother lived. When I got to the village the first person I saw was my mother’s friend from Novograd-Volynskiy. She almost fainted when she saw me. I did look terrible – hungry, shabby and dirty. She only shouted “Rosa! Come here but stay calm!” And my mother cried out “Fimochka!” from her house, even not seeing me.

I stayed at this collective farm until February 1942, when the recruiting office sent me to the Makhackala Military Infantry College. It was located in 60 km from Tbilisi. Upon graduation from it 588 of 600 cadets finished it in the rank of junior lieutenant, and only 12, including me, finished it in the rank of lieutenant. I was sent to Tbilisi, to the Vinnitsa Military College that was in the evacuation there. I was to be a platoon leader. I was supposed to teach cadets all subjects except for political information.  I went to the General to introduce myself and when he saw me I could read in his eyes “Well, this must be the end of Russia”. I presented a poor sight: I was short and thin and looked pale… and the one to be a lecturer at their school. But in due time I managed to gain authority at their institution.

Before we finished the full course we were given automatic guns and sent to the 4th Guards Kuban Cavalry Corps. That’s how I, Efim Geifman, turned into a Kazak cavalryman (Kazak – people in the Southern part of Russia, bordering on Ukraine. They live in villages. Their men breed horses and master the art of cavalry. They make brave, courageous and masterful cavalrymen).    They recruited people from the surrounding Kazak villages in this area to form the Corps. There could be a father and a son or an uncle and his nephew in one and the same unit.  Their attitude towards me was good. Perhaps, my knowledge of the Ukrainian language helped me. I had problems with riding a horse. Once, at the very beginning of my service the commanding officer ordered me to deliver a package to the Division Headquarters, located in 30 kilometers from our place. A mature master Kazak was to accompany me. We started in a trot, the most difficult pace for the horse and the rider.  Trot is a specific running pace, where the rider has to rise in his saddle to ease the horse. On our way the Master Kazak was giving me instructions regarding the riding techniques. When I got off the horse my legs were a pair of compasses and I was all sore. Only then I realized that this ride was my horse riding lesson. After that trip I stayed in bed for a couple of days but I never had any riding problems any more. In total I rode four thousand kilometers from 1943 before 1945, from Mozdok to Hungary, we freed Europe from fascists. At the time of tanks and aircraft the cavalry existed for a break-through in the army. We broke into the rear of the enemy, participated in the raids in the vicinity of Odessa and Taganrog. We advanced for a 100 km into to the rear of the enemy.  

For the first time I read about the Babiy Yar 6 in newspapers at the front. In spring 1944 we were relocated from Odessa to Belarus. Fania was in Kiev then and my friend and I willfully ran away to Kiev. I met there my classmate Dunia Radchenko. Before the war she and a very pretty girl Ira Mikhailovskaya lived in the same apartment. Ira and her mother (an actress) went to the Babiy Yar and Dunia was seeing them off. Dunia and I went to the Babiy Yar. I saw its sands and ravines for the first time. I have been to this place many times after the war, but I’ve never participated in any meetings. I became a member of the Communist Party when I was 19, and I feel no regrets about it. I was not just a member of the Communist Party; I was a convinced and educated Communist. Only now I realize how powerful the propaganda was.

I was wounded for the first time in the vicinity of Slutsk. But that was a minor injury. I was wounded for the second time in Transylvania, in the vicinity of Debrezen on 10 October 1944. I was sent to a hospital in the rear with my wounded leg and discharged in April 1944. I was sent to Germany to finish my service term. I had restriction of grade I for military service. Restriction of grade I is the last stage before invalidity. I could only walk with a stick and stuttered for some time. My hearing hasn’t restored up to date. In Germany I served in Dresden commandant office for two years and a half. I learned conversational German soon. I was Head of Department in the Commandant’s office. My position was industrial engineer-controller. Each department was responsible for some industry. My responsibility was optics and fine mechanics. First came disassembly – they were transporting all equipment to the Soviet Union and then it was required to fix the production process. The manufactured product was part of the reparation (reimbursement of losses to the winners). The Germans were giving cameras, fabrics, typewriters, etc. The Soviet Union sent food products to Germany. In 1946 they had problems with food and we were supporting them.  

In Dresden I married Galina Karabanova, a Ukrainian girl from Kiev. She was given birth in 1923 in the village near the Kiev. Her parents worked in the agriculture. Galina and her senior sister Katerina have arrived before the war in the Kiev to learn. Katerina finished a financial institute before the war, married, in 1940 gave birth son Kolia. During the war they were in evacuations, are afterwards returned and live in the Kiev. Katerina worked an accountant at the factory, presently it housewife, brings up a grandson. My wife’s parents have outlived war and died in 1960s in village Brovary, near Kiev. Galina had finished a financial college before the war. She stayed in Kiev during occupation and was taken to Germany in 1942. She fell ill and was put in a civil hospital near Dresden. After she recovered she became a cleaning woman in this hospital. She met a German anti-fascist girl. They listened to the news from Moscow, and then Galina sent this information to Ukrainians in a work camp.  On the eve of 1943 she was arrested and sent to the prison in Dresden. They beat her demanding to tell the names of the people she was in touch with. They sentenced her to death, but instead they sent her to the penal block in Ravensbruck. Penal prisoners had a target painted on the chest and on the back. One step aside was punished by shooting. Galina read a lot before the war. And in the camp at the end of a hard work day she retold these novels to prisoners. She enjoyed doing it. Her Czech friends had access to the card-files. They replaced her card with a dead person’s card and sent her to work at the Wolfen factory under a different name. This was a large chemical enterprise, a department of the Buchenwald camp. On 17 April 1945 the camp was eliminated and the people sent for extermination. She ran away on the way there and happened to get into the disposition of the Soviet army. She went trough an appropriate check up procedure and got a job in this same commandant’s office where I was. She was an accountant. We made friends with her and then got married. We returned to Kiev together in 1946. 

After the War

My mother returned in 1944. She had problems with coming back as one needed an invitation to return from the evacuation. When she returned Fania was already in Kiev. My mother went to the Prosecution Office to get back our room in the communal apartment. We moved into this room. My mother treated her daughter-in-law (she was not Jewish) very well, especially when she got to know what she had еще go through in the camp. We lived together for few years until we received our own apartment. When my mother turned 78 we moved to live together again. We were all in good terms. My wife’s mother was very religious. When she met me and heard that I was a Jew she said that all human beings were equal in the face of God.  She had another son-in-law that was Ukrainian. She called him the devil.

Because there was a war I didn’t receive my secondary school certificate - the archives were destroyed. So, I had to finish the 10th form in an evening school to get the certificate. After finishing it I entered Polytechnic Institute, extramural Department of mechanic equipment for metallurgical plants. I chose this department because I had already found a job related to this profession. I only studied three years at this Institute. It had to do with my family responsibilities, living conditions and my wife’s diseases. However, I was Head of a shop at the plant. I worked at this plant 30 yeas and was one of the best specialists.

Galina couldn’t find a job for a long time for the reason that she had been in the camp. The authorities didn’t trust her. They thought she had cooperated with the fascists. She decided to omit this fact when filling up application forms. This resolved the problem and she found a job of an accountant at a factory. She worked there all her life. Although my wife was very ill she decided to have a baby. Our son was born in 1948. We gave him the name Zhenia. We gave him my wife’s last name. Although I never suffered from any anti-Semitism I wanted to protect my son from any possible complications. My son wasn’t raised a Jew. However, he has many Jewish friends. My son the whole life knew that his father a Jew, he never this was not restricted and did not hide. With us vein my ma, which we always reminded of our origin, it little remembered Yiddish and sometimes prepared Jewish meal, stuffed fish, hen with prune, salad with cheese and garlic. Zhenia much liked a grandmother. He participated in making a film about the Babiy Yar, made by a famous producer Shlaen. Nobody in our family died in the Babiy Yar, but many people that I knew and loved before the war had gone there.

My wife died n 1998. My son studied in Kiev Cinematography Academy. He works as sound producer. He travels a lot to wherever he can get a job. He married a very nice Russian girl Natasha. They have a lovely daughter Lerochka. 

My Jewish identity is associated now with the Hesed. We get food and medications there. We can also get Jewish newspapers. I not mark Jewish holidays, therefore that not knows as is necessary this do. If invite in synagogue on holiday, with pleasure and interest there go. Regretfully, I have never been in Israel. It was impossible in the past. And now it would be too big an effort. It’s a pity, as I would love to see this country.

I never thought that leaving this country was a reasonable thing to do. My opinion is that nobody is waiting for us there. My cousins live in the United States, but I believe that one has to live and die where one was born.

Glossary

Efim Finkel
Chernovtsy
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
Date of interview: November 2002

Efim Finkel and his second wife Galina Maslakova live in a two-room apartment in a new district in Chernovtsy. Efim was severely wounded WWII. He was giving this interview staying in bed. He has been very ill lately and is confined to bed. Although it’s difficult for him to talk he insisted that we met. He wanted his story to be the remembrance of his family that was shot at the very beginning of the war. Efim is a tall slim man with a thin face and a kind smile.  One can tell that he is a very kind and soft man.  добрый и мягкий человек. Their apartment is modestly furnished, but it is very tidy and cozy. Galina is very fond of room plants of which she has many. Galina takes good care of her husband and keeps a Jewish atmosphere in the house.  When I came she was reading a prayer book in Russian and had another one in Hebrew on her desk. She often reads to Efim.  They both believe that they were very lucky to meet each other, even though it happened at the end of life. One can feel a warm and loving atmosphere in the family. 

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War 

Glossary   

My family background

Both my mother’s and father’s families came from Razdelnaya village, Odessa region, [80 kms from Odessa]. When a part of Russian territories was given to Romania in 1918 1 Razdelnaya became a village on the very border with Romania. There were about 900 families in Razdelnaya. The majority of the population was Russian and Moldavian. Moldavians lived an isolated life and most of them were farmers: they had vineyards and kept sheep. All residents wore plain clothes. Moldavians looked different wearing sheepskin hats even when it was warm. The Jewish population constituted one third. Jewish families mainly resided in the central part of the village. Few Jewish families were involved in agriculture. They grew wheat for sale and kept livestock. Families of former soldiers of the tsarist army or their children had bigger plots of land. Service in the army lasted 25 years, but after it was over the tsarist government gave them lands and the right to sell alcohol or a tavern, etc. Other Jewish families owned small stores where they were selling essential goods, but the majority of Jewish population was involved in crafts: shoemakers, harness makers, tinsmiths and blacksmiths. They didn't have big earnings and lived in the central part in villages where they had little land near their houses. This was just sufficient to have a small kitchen garden to grow greeneries and some potatoes. Some families had a small chicken shed in their yard. They bought food products from Russians and Moldavians at the market. However, most families had food products delivered to their homes: dairies, chicken, eggs and vegetables. There was a shochet in Razdelnaya. When the shochet slaughtered  a calf or a cow he notified Jewish families in advance to to buy meat from him.  There were no conflicts of national character. There were no pogroms either 2. There was one big two-storied synagogue and cheder beside a Christian church in the central square in Razdelnaya. On Saturday and on holidays Jewish families dressed up and went to the synagogue. They took older children with them. Women prayed on the 2nd floor and men prayed on the 1st floor. There was no established Jewish community in Razdelnaya, but people were helping and supporting one another. Women volunteered to make the rounds of Jewish houses to collect money for a dowry for a poor Jewish girl or for a funeral. Wealthier families supported poor Jews giving them food and clothes on Sabbath and Jewish holidays and inviting them to have a meal in their houses. Lonely old people were also taken care of. This was done from desire to help the less fortunate.

My grandfather on my father’s side Lazar – he used this name Finkel was born in 1860s. His Jewish name was Leizer. I don’t know anything about his family. My grandmother Etia Finkel was born to a poor family with many children in 1865. My grandmother’s father was a craftsman, but all he earned was enough just to make ends meet.  Three of my grandmother’s brothers moved to the US in 1910s when they were in their teens. They didn’t correspond with the family. This is all I know about my grandmother’s family. I’ve never seen any of my grandmother or grandfather’s kinship.  I don’t know how my grandmother and grandfather met. I know that they had a traditional Jewish wedding.  My grandfather worked for landlords during sowing and harvesting seasons. During the rest of the year he repaired agricultural tools. My grandmother was a housewife. They lived in a small house made from shell rock, standard construction material of that period in Odessa region.  They rented this house with two rooms and a kitchen. They couldn’t afford to build a house of their own: land and construction materials were too expensive. Therefore, most of families rented houses. I don’t know how much they had to pay for rent.  There was a small backyard with a summer kitchen, a shed and a toilet in the far end of the yard. There was no kitchen garden or flower garden near the house, since there was very little space because the houses were closely built. They only had most necessary furniture. Grandfather made some pieces of furniture: stools, wooden beds and shelves. There were two stoves in the house: one in the kitchen and one in a room. They stoked stoves with wood since coal was expensive.

My grandparents spoke Yiddish at home and Russian – to their non-Jewish neighbors. They got along well with their neighbors. On Saturday their neighbors came to their house to help light alamp or stoke the stove. They had six children: three sons and three daughters. Benesh, the oldest, was born in 1888. The next one – Borukh was born in 1890. Then came two daughters: Khona - in 1892 and Reizl - in 1893. In 1896 my father David was born. His younger sister Khaya was born in 1899.

All boys studied at cheder in the synagogue. They went to cheder at 6. They studied Hebrew, Yiddish, Torah and Talmud. Girls had teachers at home from 7. I don’t know any details. My grandparents were religious. They went to synagogue on Saturday and Jewish holidays. On weekdays my grandfather prayed at home. My father told me that when grandfather left home for work for a longer time, some days, he took his tallit and tefillin and prayed every morning and evening. When he didn’t have an opportunity to come home on Sabbath he joined some Jewish family for celebration. Grandfather wore a kippah at home and a hat to go out. My grandmother wore a kerchief. I don’t know whether she had a wig. Both of them wore plain clothes. My grandmother always wore a long skirt and a long-sleeved blouse.My father’s parents celebrated Sabbath and all Jewish holidays at home. My grandmother had a bronze candle stand from her parents. She lit candles on Friday evening. My grandmother made challah  for Saturday even when they were sold in bakeries. They celebrated all holidays following all rules. At 13 my father had Barmitzva ritual as well as his older brothers. The family fasted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Children fasted from the age of 5 full day, ‘from the evening star to next one’. This is all my father told me about celebrating holidays in his family.

My father didn’t tell me much about his childhood. He was very busy at work and didn’t like to be distracted.
Boys studied crafts after finishing cheder. When sending their childrento study a profession their parents usually took their wishes and desires into consideration. My father’s older brother Benesh became an apprentice of a tinsmith. Borukh became an apprentice of a carpenter. My father became an apprentice of a blacksmith. All these craftsmen were Jewish.  Jew Moshe Perelman, a tinsmith, lived not far from my grandparents’ home. He was a big, tall and strong man. He owned a forge and his two sons were helping him with his work. He always had 2 or 3 apprentices. My father said that he admired his strength and skillfulness and wanted to be like Moshe. My father asked his parents to let him study this profession. My father was an apprentice for two years. His father didn’t pay for his studies, but my father didn’t receive any payment for his work either. He was provided with meals, though. The blacksmith’s wife cooked for all of them and apprentices had meals with Moshe’s family. On Saturday the forge was closed. Upon finishing his training my father stayed in the forge as an assistant. Only in four years’ time my father began to work independently, they worked parallel. Though he stayed at Moshe’s forge since his parents didn’t have enough money to open a forge for my father – Moshe paid him for his work. My father worked at Perelman’s forge his whole life. He was a skillful blacksmith and had many clients. At that time a blacksmith had to do many things: horseshoe or fix a broken axle in a cart and make all kinds of household things like a door catch or a plough or harrow. After the revolution in 1917 3 the forge was nationalized 4. Moshe, the owner of the forge died and my father and Moshe’s sons worked there and received wages that were lower than then in the past.

My father’s sisters Khona and Reizl got married before the revolution. They married Jewish men, of course that were proposed to them by matchmakers. Khona married Shwartzman, a miller from Belgorod-Dnestrovsky, 50 kms from Razdelnaya and moved to her husband’s home. They had two children, Moshe and David. Khona was a housewife. During the Great Patriotic War 5 Khona’s husband and older son perished at the front. Her younger son was very ill and didn’t go to the army. Khona and her younger son perished in summer 1941, during occupation of Belgorod-Dnestrovsky by Germans.
 
Reizl married a tailor from Belgorod-Dnestrovsky shortly after Khona’s marriage. Reizl got some training in sewing before she got married and assisted her husband. They didn’t have children of their own and adopted an orphan  – son of a distant relative of Reizl’s husband. Reizl and her husband loved their adoptive son dearly. During the war Reizl’s husband perished at the front. Reizl and their son was shot by fascists. Germans shot many Jews in Belgorod-Dnestrovsky.

All of my father’s brothers and sisters, but Haya had traditional Jewish weddings before the revolution of 1917. Haya had a secular wedding in the yard of their house. She invited all her village friends regardless of their nationality.
My father’s younger sister Khaya married a Jewish man from poor family from her village after the revolution. I don’t remember his name. Haya’s hsband wasn’t religious. Her family didn’t observe jewish traditions. He was an active Komsomol member 6, and Komosmol struggled against religion. Komsomol sent him to study in Belgorod-Dnestrovsky and then – at an institute in Odessa. Khaya and her husband lived in Odessa. Khaya finished an accounting school and worked as an accountant at a mechanic plant. Khaya and her husband had two children Aron and Rose.

During the Great Patriotic War Khaya’s husband was at the front. He was wounded several times and died shortly after he returned from the war – in 1946. Khaya and her children were in evacuation in the Ural where the plant she worked at was evacuated. Her son was recruited to the army in 1943. Later Khaya received a notification that her son was missing. After the war Khaya and her daughter returned to Odessa. I didn’t hear from them since then. Khaya died in 1979.

My father’s brothers also got married and had children. Benesh, his wife and their three children emigrated to Palestine in 1920s. My grandparents’ family didn’t keep in touch with them since it was not safe to correspond with relatives from abroad at that time 7. I have no information about them. Borukh, his wife Rakhil. and son Leib, that was a child then, moved to Limanskoye village not far from Razdelnaya. Borukh was a carpenter before the war. During the war he volunteered to the front where he was wounded. His wife and son were in evacuation in the Ural. After the war Borukh returned to Limanskoye, where his wife and son returned from evacuation. He was a mechanic in a tractor crew.  He died in Limanskoye in 1970s. I visited them only once after the war after I demobi8lized from the army. I never saw them again and all I know about their life is what they described in their brief letters.

My father’s brothers and sisters were enthusiastic about the revolution of 1917. They came from a poor family and believed that they would have a better life in a communist country. After leaving their parents’ home they stopped observing most Jewish traditions. But they kept celebrating Jewish holidays as tribute to the old rules. I know very little about their life before I was born and my father didn’t tell me much. 

My grandfather died in 1931. He was buried in accordance with the Jewish customs. My father read a kadesh on his grave. My father couldn’t observe the mourning for 7 days since he had to go to work. 7 Only my grandmother could perform this requirement. My grandmother was shot by Germans at the very beginning of the war in 1941 when Razdelnaya was occupied by Germans.
My mother’s parents also lived in Razdelnaya. My grandfather Aron Mishulis was born in 1870s. My grandmother Leya Mishulis was approximately the same age as my grandfather.  My grandfather told me that he grew up in the family with many children, but I can remember only his older sister Golda that died of tuberculosis in her teens. My mother was named after her. I don’t know any of my mother’s relatives My grandfather Aron was a tailor. My grandmother was a housewife. They had a house. The biggest room in the house was my grandfather’s shop. There were 3 more rooms: my grandparents’ bedroom and two children’s rooms – one for the sons and one of my mother’s. There were few fruit trees near the house. They fetched water from a well. I don’t remember any details of their life – it was so long ago. My grandparents had three children: their older son Velvl,  was born in 1894. During World War I Velvl volunteered to the tsarist army and died of typhoid in hospital in 1915. My mother Golda was born in 1897 and my mother’s younger brother Gersh was born in 1899. In 1917 Gersh emigrated to Argentina and we didn’t have any more information about him.

My mother’s parents spoke Yiddish in the family. They spoke fluent Russian with their non-Jewish neighbors. My mother’s parents went to synagogue on Saturday and on Jewish holidays. They celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays. My mother’s brothers went to cheder and my mother had a teacher at home to teach her to write and read in Yiddish and Hebrew. I know no details. My grandfather trained my mother to sew and she assisted him in his work after she turned 14. After training my mother worked with her father – he cut fabrics and she sewed clothes. My grandfather didn’t make much money and the family couldn’t afford much, but they had sufficient to make their living. I remember my grandmother and grandfather. My grandfather was a comely man of average height. He had a small well-groomed beard. My grandfather wore a kippah and a casual black hat when going out. My grandmother was a short and rather fat woman. She wore long dark gowns and a shawl. She was a very kind person and loved my brother and me dearly. She always had caramel candy for us in her pocket. 

My maternal grandmother and grandfather perished during the German occupation of Razdelnaya. Germans shot them along with other Jews of the town in August 1941.

My parents knew each other since childhood. They were neighbors. My father proposed to my mother in 1916 when he turned 20. He was a blacksmith at that time and could provide for the family. My parents got married in 1917. Their families were religious and my parents had a traditional Jewish wedding. My grandfather Aron made a wedding gown for my mother and a black suit for my father. The rabbi conducted the wedding ceremony. My father’s family from Belgorod-Dnestrovsky came to the wedding. They had a wedding in summer and there were tables for the party along the street – many Jewish and non-Jewish guests came to greet the newly weds. 

After the wedding my parents lived with my mother’s parents. Both families gave them some money as a wedding gift and my father bought a small shabby house for this money. My father and his brothers removed this house and built a new one from rock shell. My parents moved to their new house before I was born. I was born on 18 February 1920. My brother Boris which name was he called – Boria,  was born in 1922. His Jewish name is Borukh.

Growing up

We lived in our house until the war. There were 3 rooms and a kitchen in the house. My parents had a bedroom and my brother and I shared one room. One room served as a living room where the family got together to celebrate Sabbath and Jewish holidays. This was the biggest room. We had only the most necessary furniture in the house: a table, chairs, wardrobes and cupboards and steel beds.  The only books we had were my father’s religious ones. There was a stove to heat the rooms. Winters in Odessa are mild and rock shell kept the warmth in the house. There was a well and a shed in the backyard. My mother had flowers planted around the house. My parents didn’t have a kitchen garden or livestock. Razdelnaya was a big village and farmers grew everything necessary that was sold at quite affordable prices at the market. There also was a big market in the neighboring village of Limanskoye. There was fish sold there and my mother always bought fish for Sabbath or other Jewish holidays. There was a shochet in the village and my mother had chickens slaughtered by him.

My mother spoke Yiddish and Russian with us. I was a naughty child and my mother had to punish me every now and then: she would give me a spank or tell me to stand in a corner for misbehavior.. My brother was a quiet and obedient boy. Our father was always busy with his work and mother worked a lot about the house. They couldn’t spend much time with us and I often visited my father’s parents. My grandparents only spoke Yiddish I liked to spend time with my grandfather Lazar that taught me many things: he told me Biblical stories and about Jewish traditions. Our grandparents often took my brother and me to the synagogue with them. When I turned 5 my grandfather made an arrangement with the rabbi to teach me Torah at home. I stopped my studies with the rabbi when I was 8 years old. My brother didn’t study with the rabbi – I don’t remember why. My grandfather was very proud of my successes. He appreciated it very much that I asked traditional questions during seder in Hebrew.
I remember the period of struggle against religion 8, but that didn’t make our parents atheists.   They went to the synagogue on Jewish holidays. They didn’t always celebrate  Sabbath since Saturday was a working day during the Soviet period and there were no exceptions for Jews.  Sometimes our father had to stay longer at work on Friday and we waited for him to return to begin celebrating Sabbath. My mother bought challah for Saturday at a Jewish bakery. On Friday morning she started making food to last for two days. She made Gefilte fish and chicken broth with farfelekh: little dough balls. She also cooked cholent with bullhead fish, (a small fish in the Black Sea). Mother put bullheads at the bottom of a ceramic pot, added potatoes, onions and spices and put the pot in the oven where it remained until the next day. When mother took the pot out of the oven on Saturday afternoon the cholent was hot and we could eat fish with its bones since they became very soft.  On Friday evening mother covered the table with a white tablecloth. There was challah bread and a silver saltcellar on the table. My mother put on a fancy dress and a shawl. We said a prayer in Yiddish.  Mother lit candles and we prayed for health and wealth of our relatives. On death anniversary of our relatives we also said a remembrance prayer. After the prayer we pronounced ‘Sabbath Shalom!’ dipped a piece of challah in salt and ate it. Then we took to a festive dinner. My father was always so busy that he couldn’t afford time to teach us. Our maternal grandfather Lazar taught us things.

We celebrated Jewish holidays. Pesach was the main holiday, of course. We began preparations in advance. Our father brought big bags with matzah from the Jewish bakery.  There was a special kosher, wine for Pesach at the synagogue that was brought from Odessa. My mother bought chicken and fish at the market in Limanskoye. There was a woman in Razdelnaya that grew geese for Pesach. She sold geese and geese fat with cracklings. All Jews bought goose fat from her. We liked matzah fried with goose fat. Mother also made delicious flour balls with goose fat. The house was thoroughly cleaned before Pesach. My brother and I were looking for pieces of bread or breadcrumbs walking the house with a candle. Breadcrumbs if found were to be burned. My mother had two boxes with Pesach dishes and tableware and utensils. Everyday dishes and utensils were taken to the attic for the period of Pesach celebration.  Mother made Gefilte fish, chicken broth with matzah and matzah and potato puddings. She also baked strudels, honey cakes and sweet pies. On the first day of Pesach my parents went to synagogue in the morning. My father’s parents invited us for dinner in the evening. Grandfather Lazar conducted the seder. I asked him traditional questions in Hebrew that the rabbi taught me. Grandparents kept the front door open for Elijah the Prophet to come in 9. There was an extra glass of wine on the table for him. My mother sang Jewish songs in Yiddish. She had a very beautiful voice.

Purim was a festive and merry holiday. Young people went from one house to another greeting Jewish families with Purim. Children in Purimspiel costumes made small performances. I didn’t participate in any performances. They got some money or treatments in every house. As far as I remember Purim was the only holiday when men could drink as much as they wanted and this wasn’t considered a sin. Only at Purim one could see a drunk Jew. People danced, sang and enjoyed themselves. At Purim my mother made hamantashen – triangle pies stuffed with poppy seeds and nuts and hexagonal flat cakes of the David star shape stuffed with jam. It was a tradition to treat friends and acquaintances to sweets. Children ran from house to house with trays with treatments that were called shelakhmones. When I had to take shelakhmones to our relatives I couldn’t help picking on them.

At Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur we fasted for 24 hours. Children fasted since they reached the age of 5. It wasn’t easy for us but we didn’t break it. I always remember the sound of shofar at the synagogue.

At Chanukah our mother lit candles. We had a big Chanukah candle stand and our mother lit one candle every day. My brother and I were given some money at Chanukah. I spent this money buying sweets and sunflower seeds.

In 1928 I went to Russian secondary school – there was no Jewish school in Razdelnaya. I stopped my studies with the rabbi.  It was a school for boys. There were many Jewish children and few teachers at school. There was no anti-Semitism and no conflicts of national character. We didn’t ever care about nationality at that time. I became a pioneer at school. We were proud to wear red neckties and pioneer caps. I believed in communist ideas and bright future of our country.

In 1931 grandfather Lazar died. This was the first time I was at a Jewish funeral. Grandfather was lying on straw in the room. All furniture was taken out of the room. Grandfather was wrapped in white cerement. There was a new ceramic pot broken and broken pieces were placed on grandfather’s closed eyes. Before entering the room people took off their shoes. They sat on the floor crying for several days. I don’t remember exactly what was happening at the cemetery, but at the egress from the cemetery an attendant poured water on the hands of everyone leaving the cemetery. 

In 1935 I finished lower secondary school – 7 years. I went to a mechanic school after finishing secondary school. I had a technical mind and wanted to continue my studies.   We studied general subjects like in secondary schools and had professional training. We were trained to operate and repair tractors and combine units. I liked what we were doing. I finished mechanic school in 1938 with honors for successes in my study and was sent to a higher mechanic school in Teplitsa village in about 30 kms from Razdelnaya where I was to study for 3 years and could come home on vacations and holidays.

During the War

In May 1941 after finishing my 2nd year at school I came home on vacation. My brother studied at the trade school of Odessa mechanic plant after finishing lower secondary school. He lived in a hostel for free since it belonged to the plant in Odessa and was planning to come home for vacation when the Great Patriotic War began.

In the afternoon of 22 June 1941 Razdelnaya was already bombed by German planes.  We knew from Molotov’s speech on the radio at noon 10 that Germany attacked the Soviet Union. We knew about the war in Europe, but it seemed to be so far away from us. The German invasion was a nightmare for us. I cannot understand how it happened that Germany was pulling its troops and armaments to the border of the Soviet Union and nobody paid any attention to this. This couldn’t have been completed in one night!  The war took us unaware. We didn’t know what to do. There was confusion in Razdelnaya on the first days of the war. In few days mobilization began. I received a subpoena from the military registry office. All draftees were sent to Bolgrad in 70 kms from Razdelnaya where military units for the front were formed. Before I joined the army I had only held a rifle few times at military training classes in lower secondary school. We had high patriotic spirit. We were sure that the Soviet army was undefeatable and that the war would soon be over and we would win the victory. Stalin’s spirit was with us as a leader and he would lead us to the victory.

My parents stayed in Razdelnaya. There was no organized evacuation. People had to take care of themselves if they wanted to evacuate. My parents, grandfather Aron and grandmother Leya and my grandmother Etia were not going to evacuate. They saw no threat and didn’t feel like leaving their homes. They were not young any longer. In few days Germans occupied Razdelnaya, but I didn’t know this at the time.

From Bolgrad we moved to the town of Renie near the Romanian border.  We arrived there in the morning and at night we participated in combat action. I was in an artillery regiment. I was a loader and learned from others looking how they were doing it.  At first I was assistant of loading soldier, but in 2 days I had to load cannons myself since my trainer was killed.

Our artillery regiment was a part of 25 division. We moved from one front to another. Our artillery unit was the first in attacks and infantry followed us. It may sound strange, but I didn’t feel any fear during the combat action. It came after it was over when we remembered our comrades that were killed. We lived in ground houses that we made by ourselves. There was a field kitchen that made meals.

I wrote home, but never received answers since field mail was not that reliable. I thought it was because we changed locations so often and field mail services didn’t know where we were. I had no information about my brother. After the war I found out that he was mobilized from Odessa and served in infantry on another front.

I was wounded in my arm for the first time near Odessa in 1942. Nurses couldn’t evacuate me from the battlefield before it got dark. I lost a lot of blood. I was sent to a hospital in the rear. I had my forearm bone splintered with a bullet. The wound healed in a short time, but I had to stay in hospital until the bone grew together. I corresponded with my fellow comrades and returned to my military unit as soon as I was released from hospital. The injury did not change my attitude, I wasn’t more afraid in combats. 

I never wanted to join the Communist Party. At the front it was customary to write application to the party before a battle. I avoided it every time. Our political officer asked me why I didn’t become member of the Party and I replied that it was a big honor, but that I didn’t quite deserve to join the rows of communists. Later he kept asking me just as a formality and left without hearing the answer that he already knew. I never cared about politics and must have contracted my father's negative attitude to  the Party. I never faced any anti-Semitism at the front and my combat awards are direct evidence of this statement of mine. People were valued for their human nature at the front and nobody cared about their nationality. Among my front friends there were people of different nationalities, including Jews. Certainly, to observe the Jewish traditions at the front it was impossible, it even in a head did not come. In 1943 I was awarded an Order of the Combat Red Banner for courage Stalingrad [present day Volgograd] battles, I was awarded several medals during the war. 

In 1944 there came a turning point in the war and it was clear that we were close to victory. In May 1944 I was wounded on my head. I had injury of my cranium and was taken to a hospital in Tashkent, Middle Asia, 2000 km to the southeast of Odessa. Hospitals for severely wounded patients were located in the rear for safety reasons. I stayed in hospital until January 1945. I was demobilized after such severe injury. The war wasn’t over yet, but Odessa region was free from Germans. I decided to go home. I received a pass from the military registry office to go to Odessa. I didn’t have to pay any fares as a military. I had to change trains to get to my destination.  In March 1945 I came home, but there was nobody there. Our house was occupied by some people whom I didn’t know. Our neighbor told me that Germans issued an order for all Jews in Razdelnaya to come to the central square with their documents and clothes.  Jewish families were certain that they were going to be accommodated at some place. All Jews were taken out of the village and told to leave their belongings in a heap. Jewish men were ordered to excavate a large pit. They probably understood then that they were making a grave for their families. Later all Jews were shot and thrown into the pit. Some of them were still alive when the pit was backfilled. Our neighbor told me that the soil was stirring for quite a while after the shooting he saw it. There were German guards with guns watching the area and nobody could approach this location.  My parents, my mother’s parents and my father’s mother are buried in this grave.  My friends and my dear ones were buried there. I also got to know that my father’s sister and her children were shot in Belgorod-Dnestrovsky. Germans exterminated all Jews in towns and villages of Odessa region.

After the War

In few years after the war I began to work on having monuments installed in the areas of mass shooting. I wrote letters to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine and to the Supreme Soviet. Most often I received indefinite answers – neither refusal, nor consent. I didn’t give up and there was a monument to the Jews exterminated in 1941 installed in Razdelnaya village of Odessa region in the middle of 1960th. There was an official unveiling of the monument, with official speech.

My family was gone and I didn’t hear from my brother. We met in 1946. He demobilized at the end of 1945. When my brother heard that our family had perished he took a warrant to Chernovtsy from a military registry office. His fellow comrade lived in this town and convinced my brother and his wife to go there with him. My brother got married before he demobilized from the army. His wife came from Russia. They met at the front. I have no information about her family. She worked as a shop assistant in Chernovtsy. My brother became a driver at a car pool office. Later he studied at the Road Vehicle Institute by correspondence and worked as production engineer at that same enterprise. He had a son Peter and a daughter, I forgot her name. His son and daughter graduated from institutes and became engineers. In 1990 my brother and his family emigrated to Israel. They like living there. Regretfully, my brother is very ill and needs a wheel chair to move – he has problems with his legs. We write letters occasionally. They have their own families and jobs and live separately. 

I couldn’t stay in Razdelnaya. I didn’t even try to take back our house – I knew that the sad memory of my parents would always be with me.  I went to Baku in 2500 kms from Odessa, the capital of Azerbaidjan where my fellow comrade lived. I couldn’t find a job in Baku. There were vacancies at oil deposits, but I couldn’t work there due to the injury of my cranium. I celebrated Victory Day on 9 May 1945 in Baku. This was the biggest holiday in my life. People laughed and cried, hugged and greeted each other. It was a happy sunny day. It seemed everything bad was behind us and there was nothing worse ahead of us. After Baku I went to Frunze in Middle Asia. I found the climate good and hoped to have more opportunities there.  I didn’t like it there and returned to Vinnitsa in Ukraine. I went to work as a mechanic at a car pool.

I met my future wife Olga Poliakova in Vinnitsa when visiting my acquaintances. We got married soon. She was Russian. Olga was born in Vinnitsa in 1916. Her parents were farmers. Olga finished Pedagogical Institute before the war. She worked as a primary school teacher. Teacher at primary school teaches all subjects but music and physical culture. During the war she was in evacuation in the Ural. Her parents died in evacuation. We had a civil ceremony and Olga took a double name of Poliakova-Finkel. In 1947 our only son Oleg was born.

In 1948 my brother wrote me that there was a vacancy at a car pool enterprise in Chernovtsy. I asked a job assignment to work there and got it.  We moved to Chernovtsy and I worked at the enterprise for 25 years before I retired. After we moved we lived with my brother and his wife in their small 2-room apartment. We stayed in one room and my brother and his wife lived in another. At leisure time we went to the cinema and theatre. My brother and I went to the Jewish theater. Sometimes our friends came to visit us.  In a year I received an apartment from the enterprise where I worked. My wife got a job at primary school. 

I liked Chernovtsy and its spiritual and cultural atmosphere. Jews had constituted half of population of Chernovtsy before the Great Patriotic War. I was told that there was a Jewish ghetto in the town during the war. Even after the war people that went through the horrors of the ghetto spoke Yiddish in the streets, went to synagogues and sent their children to the Jewish school. They were not afraid of showing their Jewish identity and found sympathy and understanding with people of other nationalities. Residents of Chernovtsy dressed in a nice fashionable manner. Men wore kippah at the synagogue only.  After the war there was one synagogue in Chernovtsy. There was a Jewish theater in the town attended by Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals. 
There were no signs of anti-Semitism that was already felt in central parts of Ukraine. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t keep any Jewish way of life after I married a Russian woman that was also a convinced atheist. At first I attended the synagogue in Chernovtsy to have Kaddish said after my family, but gradually I began to get adjusted to my wife’s way of life. Jewish traditions were out of the question in our family. I am not a fighter, unfortunately. It was easier for me to give in than insist on my own ideas. I became a nobody – neither Jew nor Russian. Olga didn’t celebrate any religious holidays. Christian holidays were as far from her as Jewish. She was a typical Soviet person that was raised an atheist and I became like her. My brother didn’t keep any Jewish traditions. I don’t know whether it had to do with his wife or it was just the spirit of the time.

In 1948 struggle against cosmopolites 11 began. The Jewish school and theater were closed. All synagogues but one were closed. There were articles against cosmopolitans – traitors of their Motherland, published in newspapers. Many renowned Jews had pseudonyms and newspapers published their real Jewish names. There were anti-Semitic demonstrations in the streets in Chernovtsy - no, but there were newspaper publications about other places.  and accusations that Jews wanted the downfall of the USSR and betrayed their Motherland and its ideals.  Such things were said by those that moved to Chernovtsy after the war since native population was sympathetic with us. This was a fearful situation – the country that had suffered from fascism so hard came to fascist slogans said by its citizens. I was a worker and a very skilled one and this situation had no impact on me, but I thought that this was a preliminary stage before something much worse began – like an artillery preparation. 

The ‘doctors’ plot ‘12 at the beginning of 1953 proved my concerns to be true. It was directly said that Jews wanted to poison Stalin. Patients in clinics refused to accept medical services from Jewish doctors. I felt accumulating hatred to Jews with my skin. Stalin’s death on 5 March 1953 put an end to it. People were overwhelmed by a mass psychosis. They were crying and grieving after Stalin and called themselves orphaned. They couldn’t imagine life without Stalin. By that time my attitude towards Stalin changed. I understood that the war was so long and blood shedding because Stalin had exterminated so many military commanders in camps before the war and that we were duped by the Stalin’s propaganda convincing us that we were unconquerable. I had many other suspicions. ХХ Party Congress 13 changed my doubts into certainty. I believed that if Party leaders began to tell the truth from their high stand life might change to better. It took me few years to realize that I was wrong again. However, it seemed to me that anti-Semitism reduced in those years.  

We led a quiet life watching TV in the evenings. We bought our first TV in the 1960’s.  We only communicated  with my brother's family and our colleagues. It was not often. We invited them to our house or went to visit them. We celebrated birthdays in the family. My wife made a dinner and we had guests. We had a good time talking and singing Soviet songs. We didn’t celebrate Soviet or religious holidays at home and didn’t travel on vacations. We didn’t earn much and when we could buy our son  a vacation in a pioneer camp we were quite happy.

I think anti-Semitism grew stronger during the period when Jews began to move to Israel in 1967. Jews could hear people saying ‘Go to your Israel’ without any reason. It was a problem to enter a higher educational institution or find a job.

I didn’t think about emigration then, though I felt jealous about other families that were going there. At the beginning my wife took no interest in moving to another country. She was afraid of any changes and hardships of different life in another country. We were not wealthy, but we had everything we needed.

After perestroika began in 1980s our life became a lot worse, almost unbearable. Perestroika brought many positive changes: we understood that we could talk freely about what we were afraid even to think about – repression during the Stalin’s time, extermination of Jews and a lot more. There were books published and performances staged in theaters. Jewish life and culture were restored, but there were negative things, too. It became easier for young people to improve their life, but older people became impoverished. We were thinking of emigration in 1980s, but my wife became ill and we had to give up this idea. I didn’t feel strong enough to start life from anew. Besides, we didn’t have enough money to pay all expenses. And we stayed here.

I do not get along with my son. My wife decided that he would have his nationality written as Russian. She convinced me that in this way he would avoid many problems that Jews usually have. I agreed, but when my son grew older he began to demonstrate with his aloof attitude towards me, pretending that we were different people and that he only had his mother to rely on. I am afraid of saying this, but it seems to me he was ashamed of his Jewish father. Oleg had his mother’s last name: Poliakov. He finished a power college in Chernovtsy and went to work at the municipal power supply agency. When he began to work he married a Russian woman and went to live with her. He worked near our house, but he never dropped by when I was at home. I can remember only once that he came when I was here. He didn’t have hot water at home and came to take a bath.

In 1982 my granddaughter Elena was born. I was willing to spend more time with my granddaughter. My daughter-in-law brought her sometimes and called us every now and then. When Elena grew a little older she used to visit us. A couple of years ago when my son decided to go to Germany he took my last name and became a Jew in his documents. I do not understand Jews that move to Germany when Germans wanted to exterminate all Jews a short time ago, but I am afraid my son doesn’t think about it. He doesn’t care about the morals. All he wants is to have things to his benefit and easy life. My granddaughter didn’t want to go with her parents. She stayed in Chernovtsy. She will graduate from the university this year. I get along well with my granddaughter. She is not ashamed of having a Jewish grandfather.

I retired in 1983 when I reached the age of retirement. I was an invalid after my cranial injury and it was hard for me to work. My wife fell ill and was confined to bed. I looked after her. Olga died in 1991.

In 1992 when a Jewish community was established in Chernovtsy I met my second wife there. Galina Maslakova is Russian. She is very different from my first wife. She had a hard childhood. She was born in Ivanovo, an old Russian town, in 1936. Galina doesn’t remember her father. He went to the front in 1941 and perished at the very beginning of the war. Galina’s mother couldn’t provide for her daughter and gave the girl to a children’s home. After Galina finished a lower secondary school Galina’s grandmother on her father’s side took her to live with her. Galina didn’t have an opportunity to continue her studies.  She went to Donbass where she worked at a construction site and lived in a hostel. From there she moved to Chernovtsy.  She worked and studied at the housing services college in the evening. Galina got married in Chernovtsy. Her first husband Anchil Plunt was a Jew from Bukovina. He was 20 years older than Galina. They lived together for over 30 years. Her husband was very religious and observed all traditions. After they got married Galina learned all rules of the Jewish way of life and followed them willingly. She speaks fluent Yiddish. Galina’s husband died in 1970s, but Galina continued to observe Jewish traditions.  She celebrated Jewish holidays and Sabbath and studied Hebrew in Hesed. We got married in 1993. Thanks to Galina I returned to the Jewish way of life. We attend clubs and meetings and celebrations of Sabbath in Hesed. I am a member of the club of veterans of the Great Patriotic War in Hesed. We celebrate Jewish holidays at home. At Pesach Galina makes traditional Jewish food. She has special kitchen utensils for Pesach. Galina follows the kashrut. She and I fast at Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. When I was able to walk we used to celebrate Sabbath and Jewish holidays in Hesed and went to synagogue, but that’s not possible now. My wife and I often talk Yiddish, although I am more used to speaking Russian. Galina is a very kind and nice person. She takes care of me and I don’t feel old with her.  We live in Galina’s apartment. I gave my apartment to my granddaughter. I hope she will get married soon and I will see my great grandchild.  Hesed provides assistance to us. We receive food packages and medications and I have a doctor available at Hesed. My life is coming to an end and assistance from Hesed and my wife’s love and care make my life easier and nicer.

Glossary
1 During the Civil War in 1918-1920 there were all kinds of gangs in the Ukraine. Their members came from all the classes of former Russia, but most of them were peasants. Their leaders used political slogans to dress their criminal acts. These gangs were anti-Soviet and anti-Semitic. They killed Jews and burnt their houses, they robbed their houses, raped women and killed children.

Esphir Kalantyrskaya
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer:  Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: August 2002

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

My grandfather on my father’s side, Abram Persov lived in Pochep, a small town in Briansk region, Russia. This town consisted of two parts: the central Jewish part and the suburbs populated by Russians that were involved in farming. Jews were handicraftsmen, jewelers, tradesmen. There was a church and a synagogue in town. People were friendly and supported each other.  My grandfather was born around 1840s. I don’t know where he was born. He got married in Pochep and lived there. My grandfather was a very good jeweler. His jewelry was in big demand of the local merchants. Even representatives of the noble circles were his customers. My father’s mother Malka was a housewife and looked after the children.  My grandfather had a big house. His shop was on the first floor.  It was a small shop. He didn’t need much space. The rest of the house belonged to the family. They had many children: their older son Pinhus and younger son Samuil and daughters Hana, Riva, Dora, Bertha and Zhenia. They were a wealthy family and could afford a housemaid and a cook. My grandfather’s family was rather religious. At least even in the late 1920s when I knew them my grandfather had a pew at the synagogue, prayed every day and observed religious holidays and traditions.

In the early 1920s my grandfather and grandmother moved to Kiev. They probably did it because the Soviet power took away my grandfather’s house leaving them one room. Besides, there was no profit from jewelry business during the civil war: neither my grandfather nor my father had any orders. They rented an apartment and my grandfather didn’t work anymore.  My grandfather and grandmother died in the early 1930s in Kiev. 

My father’s older brother Pinhus was recruited to the tsarist army and perished during the Russian-Japanese war at the beginning of the 20th century. My father’s sisters got education at home and got married in due time. Some of them lived in Pochep, some – in Pagar and other nearby towns.  I saw little of them and know very little about their life.  I know that Hana’s name after her husband was Agranovich. Her daughter Bluma and her sons Samuil, Lazar and Aron were my friends for many years. Lazar became my sister’s husband.

Hana died before the Great Patriotic War. Her daughter Bluma that lived in the town of Klintsy with her husband was killed during the war along with other Jews.  Lazar and Samuil perished at the front and severely wounded Aron died around 1948. That’s all I know about my father’s sisters and brothers.

My father Samuil Persov was born in Pochep in 1875. Like all boys in the family he went to the cheder and then he studied language and basics of mathematic with teachers at home.  My father didn’t have any document about getting education. But he was an intelligent, well-read and modern man. He followed into his father’s steps and became a good jeweler and a watchmaker.  They said in town that if Samuil repaired a watch it would serve its owner until to the end of his days. My grandfather and my father were very honest people. My grandfather’s customers became my father’s in due time.  However, my father had a different attitude towards religion from my grandfather’s. My father was an atheist although he had finished cheder. He was fond of books, read many Russian classic novels, met with young people and emancipated girls and acted in the amateur theater. He didn’t date Jewish girls and wasn’t going to get married.  When he was 32 he allowed matchmakers to find him a fiancée giving in to his parents’ begging.  My father didn’t like anyone in Pochep. He liked emancipated and educated girls. They were not to be found in the distant Pochep. Girls in Pochep had traditional education and only took interest in the family life and religion.  They brought him a girl from another town.

My father liked Bluma and they got married in 1907. They didn’t tell me any details of their wedding, but it was a traditional Jewish wedding with a huppah and a rabbi.  I don’t know anything about my mother Bluma. I don’t know whether she had brothers or sisters or what her nee name was. The reason I don’t know it is that I left my mother and Pochep when I was very young.  I know that her family was much poorer than my father’s family. My mother had no education and could hardly read.  They spoke Yiddish to one another.  However, my mother and father spoke Russian to us. My father spoke fluent Russian and my mother spoke it with an accent.  My father insisted that we spoke Russian. My mother was a very religious woman. She prayed, followed the kashruth, lit candles on Saturday, celebrated all Jewish holidays and fasted at Yom Kippur. I have dim memories of these holidays. I found it boring to sit and wait until they finish the ritual and prayer and we could start eating.  I don’t remember any joyful activities in our house related to religious traditions.  There was a synagogue in Pochep. My older brothers went to the synagogue with my mother. I was small and didn’t go with them. I don’t remember what the synagogue was like.  My mother went there every week. She always wore a shawl, but she didn’t have a wig. My parents were very different people. My father was a cheerful modern man, reading newspapers and books and having many books and my mother was a sullen woman, interested in nothing but her house, her children and the God.

My parents had a traditional Jewish wedding. After their wedding my parents lived in my grandfather’s house. In 1908 their first baby was born – my sister Luba. My father bought a part of a house for his family not far from his father’s house. 

Growing up

The children were born almost every year. Ania was born in 1911, Grigory was born in 1912 and I was born in 1913. Clara was born in 1914. My younger sister Fania was born in 1917 and my brother Iosif was born in 1918. My father earned well, and we were a wealthy family.  In due time he purchased the remaining part of the house for his family.  I remember that the house seemed huge to me. There were few rooms: a living room, my parents’ bedroom and children’s rooms. I remember beautiful dark furniture and velvet curtains. We had a housemaid, a cook and a nanny. My mother was fully absorbed in pregnancies, deliveries, children bringing up and the house.

My father didn’t change his bachelor’s way of life: he met with friends, went to restaurants and played in the amateur theater. In this theater he met a young Jewish girl Sophia Kazakova.  They were of different age: my father was 43 and she was 18. They fell in love with each other and my father left the house. I don’t know what a divorce was like in those years, but I believe they had to obtain rabbi’s permission. It couldn’t have been otherwise. In 1918 right after my younger brother was born my father divorced my mother and married Sophia.  It was a big scandal in the town. People discussed this divorce and Sophia’s conduct everywhere: at the market, in stores and at the synagogue.  My father left the house and everything in it to my mother and gave her money at the beginning.  My mother had a very hard time: she didn’t leave the house, didn’t even go to the synagogue and hardly paid any attention to us, children.

Sophia’s family couldn’t live through such disgrace that she had married a married man taking away the father from his children. Sophia’s parents told her to get out of their house. Her mother fell ill and died of heart attack. My father and his young wife rented an apartment in the Russian neighborhood of the town.  Only many years later when I grew up I came to understanding of what a hard time my father had. He defied the Jewish way of life in a patriarchal town formed throughout decades by falling openly in love with a young woman.  

My father and Sopiha lived in Pochep for a few years. The revolution of 1917, civil war of 1914-1918 didn’t impact life in our town, fortunately. There were no gangs or pogroms.  Around 1919 my father's parents Abram and Malka moved to Kiev. I believe that my father’s divorce also played its role in my grandfather’s decision to move to Kiev. They didn’t approve of my father’s conduct and sympathized with my mother. On the other hand, they understood my father’s feelings and couldn’t ignore them. However, my grandfather continued writing to my father trying to persuade him to move to Kiev. He believed that life might be easier in Kiev, considering that people didn’t know the story of my father and Sophia.  My father didn’t want to leave his children behind. He loved his children.  He often visited us and my mother allowed him to come and see us.  My father told us about beautiful life in Kiev trying to persuade us to go with him. I always looked for some explanation of why I agreed to go with my father. There must have been several reasons. Firstly, I loved my father and couldn’t imagine living apart from him and of course I must have been driven by my interest towards everything new and unknown, thirst for traveling and new impressions. 

In 1922 my older brother Grigory, my younger sister Clara, my father, pregnant Sophia and I secretly left for Kiev. My mother would have never allowed him to take us if she had known about his plans. My mother didn’t know about it. My father took us away from a walk. We left without any clothes or luggage. My father wrote my mother from Kiev, asking her forgiveness and reasoning with her that her life would be easier with fewer children. I don’t know why, but my mother never tried to find or return us. Perhaps, it was because she was hoping that our father living in a big town would have the opportunity to give us more than she ever could.

In Kiev my father rented an apartment in Podol, a Jewish neighborhood. We lived in Konstantinovskaya street, not far from my grandparents.  In 1922 Sophia gave birth to a boy – Efim and in 1924 her daughter Polia was born. Manya, the youngest, was born in 1933. We lived in a small two-room apartment. My father rented it at first and then he purchased it from the owner. One room served as my father and Sopha’s bedroom and another room was for children. My father took up any job: repairing watches, furniture, doing other repairs in the houses. Later he obtained a patent for manufacture of toys. There were heaps of fabrics, pieces of wood and doll’s heads in our apartment. My father taught us to do small work and we began to help him. Every day we glued, painted things and made doll’s clothes. My father was a very good handicraftsman. He was offered a job at the state factory, but my father refused every time he got an offer. For some reason he thought that those that worked at state enterprises were stealing, while he was an honest man.

After Sopha’s kids were born my father stopped caring for us who were born by an unloved woman.  He hardly ever talked with us and never took any interest in our life. He didn’t want to send us to school as he didn’t want to lose his workforce.  He hired teachers to teach us at home.  We actually received education equal to 4 years of primary school.

My grandfather Abram and grandmother Malka often visited us and invited us to visit them. They wanted to share their warmth with us.  They often went to the synagogue located in Schekavitskaya street not far from us.  My father and Sofa didn’t go to the synagogue. Only Pesach of all Jewish holidays was celebrated at our home. My father just loved this holiday. He baked matsa by himself, cooked delicious food and the whole family sat at the table. We didn’t know the history of the holiday. My father didn’t conduct the sedder according to the Jewish tradition. It was just a fancy family dinner.

Our stepmother treated us nicely. She was a nice woman and felt sorry for us. She made no difference between her own children and us. That was how it happened in my life that I was separated from my mother and my brothers and sisters.

My older brother Grigory and my sister Clara were very close to me. Grigory went to work at the military plant when he was very young. He became a turner apprentice and had to stand on a box to reach his lathe at the beginning. Later he finished a work school (rabfak) 1, technical school at the plant and in due time he was promoted to shop supervisor.  During the war he evacuated to Kuvandyk with the plant. Kuvandyk is a town near Chkalovsk in the Ural. He stayed there after the war. He married Nadia, a Russian girl and lived in Kuvandyk all his life. Grisha died in 1980. His daughters Ania and Luba live in Omsk.

My younger sister Clara worked few years at the same plant as Grisha. In 1934 she married her cousin Lazar Agranovich. In 1935 their son Miron was born. Lazar was recruited to the army at the very beginning of the war and perished at the front in 1941. Clara was in the evacuation with Grisha and me.  In 1942 her younger son Valery was born. After the war Clara lived in Kiev. She never got married again.  Clara died in 1999.

In 1932 I went to work at the knitting garments factory of NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs). My job was to wind the yarn onto huge bobbins. In 1933 I went to Pochep for my first vacation. I met with my mother for the first time in 11 years. I spent there almost a month. It was a happy and sad reunion. One night my mother came to my bed, adjusted my blanket and kissed me. I cried for the rest of the night. I felt mother’s care for the first time in many years.

My mother told me a lot about this period of life when we were not with her. She didn’t work in the first year after we had left. My grandfather Abram was supporting her. Later she learned to sew and took some work home. She opened a small store. Basically, she got adjusted to life. In 1933 when I met with my mother she didn’t work any longer. Older children were supporting her. That was the only time I saw my mother.  When the Great Patriotic War began my mother stayed in Pochep. She didn’t want to evacuate. Her Russian neighbors gave her shelter for some time, but in 1942 somebody gave her up. Policemen took her to a ravine in the outskirts of the town and shot. All Jews of the town were shot there.

I also met with my sisters Luba, Ania, Fania and my brother Iosif for the first time in all those years. My sisters studied at school and later they graduated from the Pedagogical Institute in Briansk.

My older sister Luba worked as the Russian language and literature schoolteacher in Pochep. Later she became director of this school. She married Mikhail Shatukha, a Russian man. After his service in the army Mikhail got a job assignment in Nevel of Leningrad region. Luba followed him. Mikhail Shatukha became secretary of the Nevel Town Party Committee.  In 1937 he was called to Moscow and arrested. He didn’t stay under arrest long. Luba said that it was Lazar Kaganovich 2, one of the Soviet leaders that contributed to his liberation. During the war Mikhail and few other members of the Town party Committee stayed in town to organize underground movement in the rear of the enemy. One of his co-workers turned out to be a traitor. He told Mikhail that he had been ordered to escort him to the partisan unit in the woods. He shot Mikhail in the outskirts of the town. In the morning collective farmers found Mikhail’s body and buried him in secret from Germans. Luba buried her husband at the town cemetery after she returned from the evacuation. After the war the monument to Mikhail Shatukha and other comrades that had perished after the war in Nevel.  Luba died in 1962. Her son Arnold lives in St.-Petersburg.

My sister Ania was also a teacher. She lived in Moscow with her husband Arkadiy Levin and their son Misha.  Arkadiy perished at the front in 1940s and Ania died in the first post-war years. Their son Misha lives in Moscow.

Our younger sister Fania graduated from Pedagogical Institute before the war and worked as a schoolteacher in Pochep. During the war she joined a partisan unit in the Brianskiye woods. In 1942 Fania was told about our mother’s death. She went to Pochep to find out whether it was true.  In Pochep a policeman saw her. He was the man that had proposed to her earlier, but she refused. So, he grabbed his chance to take revenge. He gave Fania up to Germans. They captured and shot her in the same ravine where our mother had been shot. Mikhail’s sister Maria told us about mother and Fania. Maria was in the partisan unit with Fania. Maria survived and met with Luba after the war to tell her what she knew.

My younger brother Iosif finished school and was recruited to the army. He was supposed to demobilize in 1941 when the war began. He didn’t demobilize but became a communications operator. He perished in 1943.

My mother remained religious and observed traditions until the end of her life but all her children grew up to be atheists.  As far as I know, none of my sisters or brothers observed any religious laws or rules.

In summer 1933 I visited my mother in Pochep and in the autumn of this year famine 3 began in Ukraine. I remember dead bodies near the buildings and at the entrances in Kiev. I saw them in the morning. During the day they were removed from streets. I received a food package at the factory where I was working.  Of course, I shared it with my father’s family. They had 3 children. Later I got a job at shoe factory #6. They paid more. I wasn’t a Komsomol member and didn’t take part in public life. But I had many friends: Jews, Russians and Ukrainians. Nobody cared about nationality at that time. To be a good person was sufficient.  My friends and I went to the cinema in Podol, to the beach and for walks. We always celebrated Soviet holidays: 1st of May, October Revolution Day, etc. We went to parades. Several times the factory trade union committee granted me a free trip to a recreation home. I rested at the Belaya Dacha recreation center in Irpen near Kiev. I felt very comfortable and equal to other young people staying there.  I also rested in Kislovodsk, Caucasus, and went to the sea. 

I still lived with my father and Sophia before WWII. Clara lived with her husband and Grigory went to the hostel. I could go to the hostel, too, but my father fell very ill.  He had cancer and was ill for a very long time suffering great pains. I couldn’t leave Sopha alone with him. Father died in 1938. Sopha didn’t remarry.

During the war

On the first day of war - 22 June 1941 4 Grisha’s call up notification was delivered to our apartment. At that time Grisha was at the military training near Kiev. I went there on foot to give him this call up. All employees of the military plant were exempt from service in the army. Grisha went to the military registry office and they released him from service. He went back to his plant to continue preparing equipment to the evacuation. At the beginning of July refugees from Western regions of Ukraine began to arrive in Kiev. They were living in the open air in the botanical garden. They were telling people about the Germans exterminating Jews on the occupied areas. We understood that we had to evacuate. At the end of August we, factory employees, went to dig up trenches near Kiev – Germans troops were coming nearer. One day I stayed at home because I was not feeling well. I didn’t want to go without Clara whose husband was in the army. Grisha obtained a permit for Clara and her child to go with plant. He came back and I told him that I didn’t want to go without Sopha, Polia and Manya. My brother got angry with me telling me that the plant couldn’t take all of us, but he went back to the plant to obtain another permission. He was only allowed to take Manya, the youngest. I remember myself crying when I was saying “good-bye” to Sopha and Polia. Sopha was saying that they would also go to the evacuation, but I knew they wouldn’t. She had no money for that. We went to the evacuation by train. We reached Dnepropetrovsk and it was decided to deploy the plant there. While they were unloading equipment, the Germans came very close to Dnepropetrovsk. We had left on the last train before the town was occupied. Our trip was long. We crossed the Volga on barges. Or point of destination was the town of Kuvandyk near Chkalovsk. The plant was commissioned there.

At first we were renting apartments, but later the plant constructed barracks for its employees.  I went to work at the plant. Clara, her son Miron and our sister Manya were staying at home. Life was very hard. I received 400 grams of bread and Clara and her children received 200 grams each. In 1942 Clara’s son Valeriy was born. She knew already that her husband Lazar had perished and that she was a widow. Life was very difficult, but we supported each other.  When we had nothing to eat Manya and I sang pre-war songs and recalled Kiev. Manya went to school and after school she was helping Clara to grow vegetables in the kitchen garden that we had received. In November 1943 Kiev was liberated and Manya was eager to go home. She was missing her mother and sister in all those years. We heard about shootings of Jews in the Babiy Yar 5 in Kiev, but we still had hope that Sopha and Polia managed to evacuate.  Grisha sent several requests for information to the evacuation center in Buguruslan, but their answer was that Sopha and Polia Persov were not among the evacuated. 

After the war

In autumn 1944 all of us but Grigory returned to Kiev. I was sure that he didn’t want to go back to Kiev, because he believed that Sopha and Polia had perished and that it was his fault. He failed to obtain permission for them to evacuate with the plant as members of his family.

We returned to Kiev and all our suspicions about their fate turned out to be correct. Our Ukrainian neighbors told us that all Jewish population of our neighborhood, including Sopha and Polia, went to the Babiy Yar on 29 September 1941. In few days the postman brought us “death notification” about Fima’s death. So, there was only Manya, my stepsister, left. I have always felt like a mother towards her and felt responsible for her life.

When we returned to Kiev we found our apartments (ours and Clara’s) occupied.  I turned to court. It took me 3 years to return our apartments. This issue could have been resolved sooner if we bribed an official at the executive committee. But we didn’t have any money. During the war everything that we had in our apartment vanished: furniture, clothing and my stepmother’s inexpensive jewelry. In 1946 Clara’s apartment was returned to her, and in 1947 Manya and I received one room of the two that we used to have. 

I went to work at the Kiev meat factory. They paid good salary. I had a difficult task to bring up Manya.  I realized that I wouldn’t cope alone. I had met Grigory Kalantyrskiy, a Jew, before the war. He was ten years older than me and was at the war from first to last day. He had a wife (Lisa) and a daughter (Sima) before the war.  Lisa and Sima stayed in Kiev and shared the fate of thousands of Jews – perished in the Babiy Yar.  Grigory proposed a marriage to me. I didn’t love him at all, I didn’t even like him, but I agreed. He was a butcher at the market, he earned a lot of money and he treated Manya and me well. I agreed for the sake of Manya who I loved with all my heart.  She loved me, too, and sometimes she called me “Mummy”. In 1946 we registered our marriage. We didn’t have a wedding party. My daughter Faina was born in 1947. There were four of us living in one room in Podol. After finishing school Manya finished a technical college and worked as design technician at a plant.  In 1954 she got married and moved out to live with her husband. They lived in Podol near where we were living and we saw each other rather often.  Manya was a sickly woman. She didn’t have any children. She died in 1984 after she had just turned 50.

There have been no more significant events in my life. We were “small” people and anti-Semitic campaigns in the early 1950s didn’t impact our life. Many Jews were fired from their jobs, there were articles published in newspapers against Jews. One could hear abuses addressed to Jews in the streets, transport or in stores, but we tried to ignore them. We didn’t live a happy life. I can’t remember celebrations or laughter in our house. My life consisted of work and routinely chores. My husband took to drinking and began to have rows. He had a stroke and died in 1984.

Faina didn’t even try to enter an Institute after finishing school. The doors to higher educational institutions were closed for Jews at that time. Faina finished a course of typists and went to work. Later she took a course in computer training and got a good job. She is not married.

Naum, one of my numerous cousins, moved to Israel. He described to us the beauties of this country and tried to persuade us to join him. While we were considering this option Naum died. My daughter doesn’t want to go to Germany or USA. She loves Israel, although she has never been there.  She studies Hebrew and is very concerned about the situation in this country.  I believe, she stays here, because she doesn’t want to leave me. I am very old and can hardly move. I think, my daughter will go to Israel when I die. I remain an atheist and I don’t celebrate Jewish holidays, but my daughter buys matsa at Pesach.

I will soon turn 90. I am constantly thinking about the life I have lived. My daughter is at work and I am alone at home. I can’t watch TV due to my poor sight. So, there is only one thing left for me to do; and that is – to think about the past. I have lived my life without love. Perhaps, it is not good. But what is love if it causes so much suffering as it did to my mother and us. 

Glossary