My younger son Matvey also went to Gomel after finishing school in 1965. He graduated from the Machine Building Institute.
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Displaying 49381 - 49410 of 50504 results
Sholom Rondin Biography
My sons were not raised Jewish, but they always identified themselves as Jews. My older son knew Yiddish since he was a child. However, they married Russian girls. I wished they had married Jewish girls. It’s hard to explain why I wanted it. Perhaps, deep inside I wished they didn’t have any misunderstanding and anti-Semitism in their families. But they grew up internationalists and cared not about nationality. They get along well with their wives and this is all that matters to me.
My older son was Construction manager. Now he is a pensioner. He might have stayed at work longer if the Soviet Union had stayed, but now nobody needs his experience, - he was manager of a big construction site.
My older son has two sons: Boris (born in 1969) and Edward (born in 1972). My younger son has one son - Eugeny (born in 1970). Our grandchildren are engineers. They married Russian girls. Only my wife and I are a Jewish family. We remember Yiddish and the way our grandparents lived. We don’t remember any traditions and don’t observe them and our grandchildren have three quarters of non-Jewish blood in them. That’s the way life is.
After the downfall of the Soviet Union each Soviet republic became an independent state and our children and grandchildren happened to live abroad in Belarus and we live in Ukraine. We didn’t see each other often before – we worked and were busy. But now with the boundaries, customs, and tickets – it is too much for us with our miserable pension and they can’t afford visiting us either. They come to see us once a year.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I was sent to the field-engineering unit in the town of Murmansk in 3500 km from Gomel. There were fortifications built on the bank of the bay in the vicinity of Poliarniy town. Our unit stayed in Murmansk to unload trains. I know what a polar night is, I saw the Northern lights and discovered the beauty and grandeur of the North. I was lucky to stay in the town. I also worked at the Red army cultural center painting decorations for the stage. I had an opportunity to watch performances. People treated us with respect. My fellow comrades called me Shlyoma and in my documents my name was written as Shlomo. I never changed my name while many other Jews changed their Jewish names to Russian ones. They pretended they did it to make communication easier, but in reality they did it to hide their Jewish nationality. Our commanding officer was a Jew and many soldiers were Jews and there was no anti-Semitism whatsoever. I never heard a bad word in my address. My service term was to last 1 year and 8 months instead of standard two years due to hardships of the North and I was looking forward to demobilization. We didn’t even think about the war.
On 22 June 1941 (4) I was a sentry on guard of a gasoline tank. My shift was 2 to 6 am. Around 4 o’clock in the morning (the sun rises early there and I saw it all) I saw planes flying low in 3 rows. I was enjoying the sight when they began dropping bombs and I understood what it was about. Our service lasted 6 years instead of 1 year and 8 months.
My wife and son evacuated with my wife’s parents. My wife notified the rest of the family that they were in Mamlyutka village in the Northern Caucasus. My wife’s father also had all equipment of his garment shop evacuated. They opened the shop in Mamlyutka and my wife went to work there. They made uniforms for the army.
My mother and her daughters Milia and Dusia also were in evacuation, but I don’t remember where. Her husband was on the front and she worked at a collective farm. I contacted my mother via my wife and I don’t know any details. We corresponded and valued every message and every day of our life.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
I didn’t have any information about my grandfather Mendel Rondin for a longtime. After the war I was told that he evacuated during the war, but his train was bombed down. I don’t know where he was buried or whether he was buried at all. All I know is that my grandfather Mendel Rondin perished in 1941.
,
1941
See text in interview
The war at the Kola Peninsula was cruel. We were holding defense of Murmansk. We were fighting side by side and paid no attention to nationality issues. We had to stand for one another or we wouldn’t have survived. I was awarded a medal “For Courage”, the first one in our battalion. We were to destroy tanks of the enemy. We crawled across battlefield under fire from both sides. Many combat engineers perished on those days. There were many Jews among mine layers, because the commandment knew that Jews were smart and cautious. During the war when Stalin was at the head of the state everything was well organized. Soldiers were well fed in the North. They had to have sufficient food, or they would have frozen to death. Once we were encircled and our planes dropped bags of dried bread and other food for us. We knew that we had to take every effort to win the victory. I was a willful soldier, but I didn’t take part in any political activities. I didn’t become a party member, either. Nobody forced people to join the Party. It was a choice of an individual. As for me, all I was interested in was my family and my work.
I followed the events on other fronts and was very happy to hear that Gomel was liberated. We celebrated 9 May 1945 with loud “Hurrah” exclamations and shooting from flare pistols - every combat engineer had a flare pistol. But our service was not over yet.
There were minefields left. I removed 837 mines from a specific area. Many miners perished after the war. My friend perished when two tank mines exploded. We carried those mines storing them at a spot, when these two mines exploded. The paradox of the situation was that these mines were rendered harmless. We stored them to blast at the end of the day. These mines exploded under the weight of a tank of 350 kg; even if a soldier stood on a mine he would have been safe. Somewhere on a side of a mine there was a secret fuse and my friend must have pressed it to his body. We gathered parts of his body to put them together to bury. At every field we left 3, 4 or five comrades buried.
I missed my wife, my son and work. Letters were delivered to us by a night train. My wife and child were in evacuation until 1946. They notified me when they returned to Gomel. I submitted an application for a leave and in summer 1946 I left home. My commanders offered me to continue my career in the army and promised promotion, but I couldn’t care less about promotions. I wanted to reunite with my family and dreamed of holding my brushes at work. After demobilization I went to Gomel.
It’s interesting that I spoke only Russian for 6 years in the army, but when I met with my wife I began talking Yiddish with her. Our son also spoke Yiddish. He stayed with his grandmother - my wife’s mother Golda Korol, and she spoke only Yiddish.
Faina’s older sister Anna (born in 1919) graduated from the Medical Institute in Smolensk, was at the front during the Great Patriotic War, worked as obstetrician in Gomel for many years.
We spoke Yiddish in the family.
Faina worked as a cashier in the grocery shop, after finishing school.
I liked the situation in the Soviet Union. I liked it that poor people had an opportunity to get free education and a job. Everybody got a chance to have a decent life. Residential restrictions for Jews were cancelled. All members of the Soviet society had equal rights. I liked how industries developed and how many factories and plants were built.
In 1940 I was recruited to the army. They ignored that I was a breadwinner in my family and that my wife had a baby. It was possible to pull some strings to avoid going to the army, but I am not the type of person to get involved into such dealing and wheeling. A law is a law.
My fellow comrades called me Shlyoma and in my documents my name was written as Shlomo. I never changed my name while many other Jews changed their Jewish names to Russian ones. They pretended they did it to make communication easier, but in reality they did it to hide their Jewish nationality.
Gomel was significantly destroyed during the Great patriotic War. I didn’t have work to do in Gomel - my profession is to do the finishing of a construction structure - and it didn’t even occur to me to do other work than al fresco.
I did my first job in Rovno. I went alone and my wife stayed in Gomel. I lied in a men’s hostel in Rovno that was not a good place for a family. Besides, my son had to go to school. Rovno is a regional town in the west of Ukraine, in 800 km from Gomel. Our crew - I knew its members before the war, they also demobilized from the army - was invited to do the finishing painting of the railway station in Rovno. We enjoyed doing our work. We painted the railway station and the restaurant at the railway station. It was beautiful. Acceptance commission that came to accept our work said that they needed us to work in Lvov. I told them that I had a family and needed a place to live. This was in 1947 when my wife was expecting our second baby.
I went to Lvov. I liked the town and found many job opportunities there. However, we didn’t get any place to live. Those people lied to us and we quit working for them. We worked in restaurants. I found a vacant apartment that belonged to a Polish family. There were many vacant apartments in the town. I obtained a residential permit for us to reside in this apartment and we moved in there. It was an old apartment in an old house, but there were two rooms and tiled stoves in it. I refurbished this apartment and went to Gomel to move my family to Lvov.
We’ve lived in Lvov since 1948. My wife didn’t have to go to work. I provided well for the family.
My wife’s parents were religious people, but their children grew up as atheists. Their parents followed the kashrut until the end of their life. They prayed every day and often went to the synagogue.
Now I realize that my grandmother got married when she was very young. They had a traditional Jewish wedding with a huppah and the rabbi conducted the wedding ceremony.
Their children also had traditional weddings. Their family was deeply religious. They observed all traditions and, celebrated all Jewish holidays and followed the kashrut. On Saturday and on holidays they went to the synagogue and my grandfather prayed three times a day before meals.
Grisha was a shoemaker, but he worked somewhere else in the town.
Their older son Girsh (Grisha) was born in 1886. He was tall, fat and spoke in a rough voice. Grisha was a shoemaker, but he worked somewhere else in the town. He had a bunch of noisy children. My mother had two older sisters: Gita and Perla, born in 1890 and 1895 accordingly. They were both married and had children. Gita and her family lived with my grandparents. I don’t remember what their husbands did for a living. They all (except for my grandfather Kalman that died in 1937) failed to evacuate from Gomel during the Great Patriotic War and perished during occupation.