In 1940 I met David Herman, a young political officer of the Soviet army. David was born in our town in 1916. He finished the political School in Gorkiy, served in Western Ukraine and took part in the Finnish War 22. When the Finnish War was over, he came to his hometown on leave. I liked David very much, we began to see each other and he proposed to me. Our wedding took place in February 1941. I was the first one in our family to have no Jewish wedding. This was quite common at the time. Besides, my husband and I were convinced atheists, though we did have traditional Jewish food at the wedding party. Gurfinkel’s orchestra played at the wedding.
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Displaying 49021 - 49050 of 50504 results
Sarrah Muller
There I was in Starokonstantinov, when the Great Patriotic War began. On the first day of the war my husband went to the front. We hardly had time to bid farewells and he apologized for being with me for such a short period of time. He also said that the tanks and other plant were relocated for repairs and they were going to the front with rifles and about 7 bullets each. Two days later I received a message from my husband. A first sergeant brought the note where my husband wrote that he hadn’t had a baptism of fire yet and asked me to love him and wait for him. I took my husband’s watch off my wrist and send it to him along with a note. This was the last time I heard from my husband. Much later, in 1944, I received a notification from a military registration office that my husband David Hermann disappeared on the first days of the war. He must have perished shortly after we parted.
My brother Isaac, who went to work in Groznyi in1939, was recruited to the army from there. Isaac perished on the first days of the war.
I evacuated in the train for the wives and children of officers of our unit. Fira was with me: I registered her as David’s sister, or she wouldn’t have been able to join me. We arrived at Troitsk town in Cheliabinsk region, 2500 km from home. The military registry office accommodated us in a room with six beds. There were four young women with no children sharing this room with us. I didn’t have pillows or blankets with me. We stuffed the mattresses with grass and life went on. We shared food and cooked together. Some time later some women found their relatives and went to live with them and others moved to another town. Fira and I went to live with local Jews. There were only three Jewish families in this town before the war and local residents didn’t know who Jews were. I went to work in a bank and later Komsomol authorities sent me to harvesting. We also worked in a hospital washing used gauze bandages. Later I went to work as a cashier in a shop where I worked till spring 1944. I faced clear anti-Semitism here for the first time in my life. My lady boss said she would be glad to exterminate all Jews, leaving me alone, though. She was good to me since I closed my eyes to her machinations. She was selling chocolate and butter that we received for children, took and gave bribes and made a fortune by the end of the war.
I also met Jews from Kiev in Troitsk. Mostootriad, a bridge crew from Kiev with their chide Barenboim, a Jewish man, evacuated to Troitsk. I made friends with a Jewish woman who worked in the design office of this organization. We often discussed the news and our families in occupation. The first article of Erenburg 23 about atrocities of fascists was published and I understood that most likely, my dear ones were not among the living any longer.
My friends included me in the lists of Mostootriad employees, which enabled me to reevacuate to Kiev with them in March 1944. Fira was not allowed to quit her job and had to stay in Troitsk for this reason. I arrived in Kiev in April 1944. I stayed with some acquaintances in Gorky Street in Kiev. Kiev was bombed several times in April 1944.
In spring 1944 went to Babi Yar 24 with my landlords. They wanted to see where their relatives had been killed and I was drawn there irresistibly: I understood that my dear ones were lying in one of those ravines in Ukraine. We took a tram there. The slope of Babi Yar was covered with blooming trees – it was hard to believe there were thousands lying there. The ravine reminded of the tragedy: it was filled with concrete. Fascists wanted to eliminate the traces of their crimes incinerating the corpses and filling the pit with concrete.
In spring 1944 went to Babi Yar 24 with my landlords. They wanted to see where their relatives had been killed and I was drawn there irresistibly: I understood that my dear ones were lying in one of those ravines in Ukraine. We took a tram there. The slope of Babi Yar was covered with blooming trees – it was hard to believe there were thousands lying there. The ravine reminded of the tragedy: it was filled with concrete. Fascists wanted to eliminate the traces of their crimes incinerating the corpses and filling the pit with concrete.
On 16 May 1945 I arrived at Kamenets-Podolskiy. According to local residents, during the first action in 1941 Ita, her husband and children, my sisters Basia and Ena with her son and little Manechka were killed. My father was to do the town maintenance work. He perished in spring 1942, during the second action. Our house was ruined. There were our belongings scattered on the ashes: remains of my mother’s favorite kerchief, sodden photographs. I picked them and took with me. Unfortunately, only few photographs could be saved. By that time I knew that Beniamin, Basia’s husband, and my brother Isaac perished at the front. Our teacher Gurfinkel, who never left Kamenets and his daughter, the violoncello player from the Philharmonic, also perished. Of all my classmates only four survived: I, another girl and two guys who were at the front. So I was there all by myself in 1944, a 23-year old widow.
The postwar years, particularly 1946, were hard. He brightest memory was the execution of traitors and fascists in Kreshatik [Kreshatik is the main street of Kiev] after the trial in Kiev in spring 1946. There were thousands of people to watch the execution: 13 prisoners, sentenced to hanging, were standing by the gallows. It seemed strange to me that many people were crying, but probably this was a normal response to people’s suffering. One of prisoners resisted to fixing the loop on him. One of the executed fell from the gallows, though he was already dead. This was a horrifying view, but I knew that our people and I had reasons to take the revenge.
SIMA-LIBA NERUBENKO
My uncle died in evacuation in Cheliabinsk during the Great Patriotic War.
My father Srul Ratzenmar, the older son of my grandfather Itzyk, was born in 1880. He finished cheder and then followed in his father’s footsteps that was traditional for Jewish families. My father went to work when he turned 11. They often got so many fruit that they didn’t manage to sell all of them, in which case the family made jam in huge bowls that were installed on a brick stand in the garden and fire made underneath. My father also sold jam at the markets in Kamenka and nearby towns, but some of it was left for the family. There was so much of it that we really got sick of this jam.
My grandfather cleansed sheepskins and sheep wool sitting in his shabby shed. He looked old and had sore eyes since there was a lot of dust generated by wool. He wore a linen apron when working. I don’t know where he got sheepskin or who paid him for work.
My grandfather went to the synagogue every day since his house was near the synagogue. My grandfather was very religious. He prayed at home in the morning and in the evening.
My grandfather didn’t have a house of his own. As far as I can remember his family rented a room and a small kitchen from a Jewish family.
I don’t know what kind of education my grandfather had. There was only a prayer book at home.
She always wore white kerchief.
My grandmother strictly followed the kashrut. My grandmother was too old to go to the synagogue when she was living with us, but our family also strictly observed all Jewish traditions and rules and my grandmother could lead a customary way of life that she was used to. She had kosher food, celebrated all holidays and Shabbat with us and lit a candle at Shabbat as the oldest member of the family. It was a tradition in that time.
I only remember Israel of all mother’s sisters and brothers. He was born in 1897. Like all other Jewish boys in Kamenka he finished cheder and a Russian secondary school.
My uncle Israel Reznik perished during the blockade in Leningrad in 1942.
Israel observed all traditions when living in Kamenka with his parents, but after he moved to Leningrad he changed his way of life. He rarely celebrated Pesach (when he could buy matsah) and Chanukah as a tribute to old traditions.
She was a wonderful housewife. She was very inventive at cooking that was not so easy considering the kashrut requirements. She used to buy a chicken at the market and feed it until it grew to a necessary weight, took it to a shoihet and then the shoihet slaughtered the chicken in accordance with religious requirements and my mother cooked it. We had chicken broth, stew and a wonderfully delicious chicken stuffed neck. I remember jellied chicken wings.
My mother was an educated woman by the standards of our town. She could read and write in Yiddish. My grandfather taught her to read and write. He had no money to invite a teacher for her and she couldn’t go to study at cheder that was only for boys. My mother had poor Russian. She could hardly speak it. As for reading, she couldn’t read in Russian at all.
My mother was religious and followed all Jewish rules. My mother always wore a kerchief. She didn’t wear a wig since she had beautiful hair. She had a good taste in clothing. I don’t remember whether there was a Mikvah. We washed in big bowls at home. On Friday our apartment was shining of cleanliness and my mother lit Saturday candles.
My parents knew each other since childhood – Kamenka was a small town and all people knew each other. My parents dated for few years before they had a Jewish wedding with a huppah under apple trees in the orchard, with a rabbi and kleizmers. The wedding party with many guests lasted for few days. There is all I know about their wedding.
We didn’t have a house of our own and we couldn’t afford to build one – every year we moved from one house to another. In those years when my father had a rich harvest and managed to sell fruit and jam well our family used to rent a small apartment, but when there were no crops we had to stay in poor houses and sometimes we even had to live in just one room. We usually rented houses from people that leased their gardens to us. Our landlords were not necessarily Jews – they might be Moldavians or German colonists 2. Houses in Kamenka were made of brick and whitewashed. This was a special style in Kamenka. Richer houses had wooden floors and poorer houses had clay floors. When my father earned more we rented two rooms and when a year was not very successful we rented one room. We tried to rent smaller areas to pay lower rental amounts. There were no comforts in those houses. Toilets were outside. We washed in big bowls and in winter. Fortunately winters were usually mild in the south of Russia, but sometimes it got cold and there was snow this process took a while – heating water, taking turns, etc. In summer we left some water outside and it got warm on hot days.
My father was a religious man and followed all traditions very strictly. He knew all prayers and knew which section from Torah had to be read on each Shabbat and which on holidays. My father was a very hardworking man, but he took his rest on Sabbath according to the rules. On Sabbath we were not allowed even to strike a match. There was a non-Jewish man that came to do all necessary work on Sabbath. We were a poor family. My father couldn’t afford to pay for a seat of his own at the synagogue, but he went to the synagogue on holidays and every Shabbat. When my father came home from synagogue our family got together at the table. My mother lit candles and said a prayer over them, my father said a blessing and we had dinner. We had wine that my father made. On Sabbath our parents took a rest and children played in the garden or went to see our grandparents. Sometimes our neighbors or relatives came to see our parents. They talked and sang Jewish songs sometimes.
We spoke Yiddish at home and celebrated all Jewish holidays. We, children, liked Purim when our mother made delicious gomentashy pies stuffed with poppy seeds and we played with rattles. At Yom Kippur we all fasted and prayed at the synagogue, even the youngest children. At Chanukah grandmother and grandfather gave us Chanukah money that was quite an event for us. Our grandmothers also treated us to potato pancakes and doughnuts.
Before Pesach we had to remove all breadcrumbs, bread and flour from the rooms. We usually took these leftovers to our non-Jewish landlords. My father watched that all rules were followed. Matsah was baked at the special place and was rather expensive. We bought matsah at that bakery. Our whole family went to synagogue at Pesach. When we came home we sat at the table and our mother gave us clear soup made from a special chicken fed specifically for the occasion. There was a bowl of matsah and eggs pudding in the middle of the table; chicken necks stuffed with matsah and chicken fatand gefilte fish. My father said a prayer and the older son asked him questions as required at Seder.
Our father spoke Yiddish in the family, but he could also explain himself to Moldavians and Russians.
My father used to call himself “tsarist or Russian soldier”. We knew that he was a private in the tsarist army. He didn’t participate in any military activities and I don’t remember him telling us stories about his service in the army.
Svetlana was very successful with her studies and entered the faculty of physics and mathematic of the Lvov University. Upon graduation she got a job assignment in a distant village.