In 1962 our son Boris finished school and tried to enter the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics at Leningrad State University. Here we faced anti-Semitism again. The fact is that he studied very well, he always got excellent marks for his essays, and suddenly he got a bad mark for his entrance exam essay. When he called and told me about it, I asked the Russian teacher at our school to join me, and we went to the university to take a look at the essay together. But they didn’t show it to us. They offered to accept Boris at the part-time faculty without additional exams, but Boris refused and entered the Faculty of Mathematics at the Pedagogical University named after Hertzen.
- Traditions 11657
- Language spoken 2994
- Identity 7761
- Description of town 2422
- Education, school 8443
- Economics 8745
- Work 11563
- Love & romance 4915
- Leisure/Social life 4127
- Antisemitism 4786
-
Major events (political and historical)
4219
- Armenian genocide 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
- Soviet invasion of Poland 27
- Siege of Leningrad 84
- The Six Day War 1
- Yom Kippur War 1
- Ataturk's death 5
- Balkan Wars (1912-1913) 35
- First Soviet-Finnish War 37
- Occupation of Czechoslovakia 1938 82
- Invasion of France 9
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 64
- Varlik Vergisi (Wealth Tax) 36
- First World War (1914-1918) 215
- Spanish flu (1918-1920) 14
- Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920) 4
- The Great Depression (1929-1933) 20
- Hitler comes to power (1933) 123
- 151 Hospital 1
- Fire of Thessaloniki (1917) 9
- Greek Civil War (1946-49) 12
- Thessaloniki International Trade Fair 5
- Annexation of Bukovina to Romania (1918) 7
- Annexation of Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union (1940) 19
- The German invasion of Poland (1939) 85
- Kishinev Pogrom (1903) 7
- Romanian Annexation of Bessarabia (1918) 25
- Returning of the Hungarian rule in Transylvania (1940-1944) 43
- Soviet Occupation of Bessarabia (1940) 59
- Second Vienna Dictate 27
- Estonian war of independence 3
- Warsaw Uprising 1
- Soviet occupation of the Balitc states (1940) 147
- Austrian Civil War (1934) 9
- Anschluss (1938) 67
- Collapse of Habsburg empire 3
- Dollfuß Regime 3
- Emigration to Vienna before WWII 36
- Kolkhoz 131
- KuK - Königlich und Kaiserlich 40
- Mineriade 1
- Post War Allied occupation 7
- Waldheim affair 5
- Trianon Peace Treaty 12
- NEP 56
- Russian Revolution 350
- Ukrainian Famine 199
- The Great Terror 282
- Perestroika 233
- 22nd June 1941 463
- Molotov's radio speech 115
- Victory Day 146
- Stalin's death 364
- Khrushchev's speech at 20th Congress 147
- KGB 62
- NKVD 153
- German occupation of Hungary (18-19 March 1944) 45
- Józef Pilsudski (until 1935) 33
- 1956 revolution 84
- Prague Spring (1968) 73
- 1989 change of regime 174
- Gomulka campaign (1968) 81
-
Holocaust
9595
- Holocaust (in general) 2775
- Concentration camp / Work camp 1229
- Mass shooting operations 334
- Ghetto 1169
- Death / extermination camp 639
- Deportation 1052
- Forced labor 780
- Flight 1392
- Hiding 577
- Resistance 119
- 1941 evacuations 866
- Novemberpogrom / Kristallnacht 33
- Eleftherias Square 10
- Kasztner group 1
- Pogrom in Iasi and the Death Train 21
- Sammelwohnungen 9
- Strohmann system 11
- Struma ship 17
- Life under occupation 803
- Yellow star house 72
- Protected house 15
- Arrow Cross ("nyilasok") 42
- Danube bank shots 6
- Kindertransport 24
- Schutzpass / false papers 94
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) 24
- Warsaw Uprising (1944) 23
- Helpers 513
- Righteous Gentiles 269
- Returning home 1082
- Holocaust compensation 109
- Restitution 108
- Property (loss of property) 594
- Loss of loved ones 1711
- Trauma 1029
- Talking about what happened 1806
- Liberation 552
- Military 3288
- Politics 2613
-
Communism
4462
- Life in the Soviet Union/under Communism (in general) 2592
- Anti-communist resistance in general 63
- Nationalization under Communism 220
- Illegal communist movements 98
- Systematic demolitions under communism 45
- Communist holidays 311
- Sentiments about the communist rule 927
- Collectivization 94
- Experiences with state police 348
- Prison/Forced labor under communist/socialist rule 448
- Lack or violation of human and citizen rights 483
- Life after the change of the regime (1989) 493
- Israel / Palestine 2165
- Zionism 827
- Jewish Organizations 1186
Displaying 48001 - 48030 of 50353 results
Chaya Sakhartova
I began to work only in 1958 in high school #165 [23]. It was located at the place where now some Russian Orthodox Church is being restored. I passed that church every day on my way to work, watched a tree grow on the church roof and thought that soon the building would be destroyed. We had a splendid pedagogical team at school and wonderful pupils. I taught biology, chemistry and astronomy.
Later, in the 1960s, Zalman was appointed manager of a food products’ store, we got an apartment and my parents, who had remained in Roslavl after the war, moved in with us.
Later, in the 1960s, Zalman was appointed manager of a food products’ store, we got an apartment and my parents, who had remained in Roslavl after the war, moved in with us.
, Russia
I began to work only in 1958 in high school #165 [23]. It was located at the place where now some Russian Orthodox Church is being restored. I passed that church every day on my way to work, watched a tree grow on the church roof and thought that soon the building would be destroyed. We had a splendid pedagogical team at school and wonderful pupils. I taught biology, chemistry and astronomy.
Later, in the 1960s, Zalman was appointed manager of a food products’ store, we got an apartment and my parents, who had remained in Roslavl after the war, moved in with us.
Later, in the 1960s, Zalman was appointed manager of a food products’ store, we got an apartment and my parents, who had remained in Roslavl after the war, moved in with us.
Secondly, I faced anti-Semitism for the first time [22]. When I came to see the school headmaster, I was told, ‘We don’t accept people with university education’. Though they certainly did, but not Jews.
I didn’t get back to work quickly. Firstly, I had to work at the military college in Peterhof according to my university assignment [21], but my husband revolted, saying that I shouldn’t work, since it was very difficult to get there, it was a suburb of Leningrad.
We celebrated only the New Year and the 8th of March [20] out of all the Soviet holidays, however, we did it with all the attributes of a true Soviet person: Soviet dry champagne, tangerines, which appeared in stores only before the holiday, the Salad Olivier and sausage, which was considered a rare delicacy.
I’m not religious myself, sometimes I attended the synagogue with Zalman’s sister on some holidays, but I understood nothing there.
I didn’t raise my son according to the Jewish tradition. I mean, he knew that he was a Jew, but he associated this fact only with common anti-Semitism.
In summer we lived in Komarovo, the suburb of Leningrad, we rented a summer house there and spent our summers there starting from 1949 until the end of his school studies in 1962. There Boris made friends with sons of famous actors, Tovstonogov and Kazantsev. [Georgy Tovstonogov directed the Leningrad Big Drama Theater in 1956-1989; Kazantsev was a popular actor in those times.] I was certainly against their friendship, because they were boys of a different social class, who could get anything they wanted, unlike my son. We lived a modest life.
We lived at my husband’s place on Staronevsky Prospect in the very center of Leningrad. He had a room in a communal apartment. Fortunately, we had only one neighbor, a very decent woman. However, there was neither a boiler-room, nor gas in the house. When we bathed our son Boris, we heated the stove, heated the irons on it and then put them into the bath filled with water, in order to make the water hot. Our financial situation was difficult too. I didn’t work because of the child, so Zalman had to work very hard. He worked in the sphere of commerce as an accountant.
In 1945, when I found out that the university was returning, I went to Saratov and moved back to Leningrad together with my schoolmates. But since all of them had studied during the war in Saratov and I didn’t study in Olshanka, I had to catch up on my education, which was not a piece of cake at all.
Zalman was Jewish but not religious.
During the war I married Zalman Yakovlevich Sakhartov [1905-1977].
Father – as he was a civil servant in the Tsarist Army before the war – was assigned to Tambov, the center of Russia, in 1943, to work as a manager for some light industry plant. Later he took us from the village to his place. It was in 1943. The Germans didn’t reach Olshanka, thank God, and our whole family survived the war.
My parents worked in Olshanka. I also worked in that village: as a school teacher for three years. There were two classes, one for boys and one for girls. It was impossible to work with the boys, they were out of control. I told them, ‘If you want to know about Leningrad, I will tell you about it for ten minutes.’ So they sat and listened quietly, because they certainly wanted to hear about Leningrad, as it was the cultural center of the Soviet Union, ‘the cradle of the Revolution’ [18], the city of Pushkin [19] and something beyond their knowledge, which, as they thought, mere mortals were not given to see in their lives.
The university was evacuated on 23rd February 1942 to the town of Saratov. The University operated there during the war and my fellow-students graduated quickly, they got their degree certificates. I completed my education after the war. I joined the university for evacuation with my sister and her husband. However, we didn’t reach Saratov; we were taken off the train in Vyatka, as Divora fell very ill: she caught chicken-pox, which she hadn’t had as a child. She got a rash on the train and we had to get off at a small transfer station. From Vyatka we went to the place where our parents were staying, the village of Olshanka, Tambov region – the very center of Russia. When we came to the village, we were on the brink of total starvation. We entered a peasant hut and realized that it was full of grain, up to my ankle. The grain was being dried there.
I spent the most horrible siege winter of 1941-1942 here, in Leningrad. We received a scholarship at the university, we were paid nothing else, but it was impossible to buy anything with it. At that time I shared a room with my elder sister Divora and her husband. We chose a room with windows in the archway, in order to prevent ourselves from being wounded by pieces of glass in the course of bombing. There was a lot of bombing.
On 8th September 1941 the siege of Leningrad started. Some of us were immediately sent to dig trenches, some to be trained as nurses, and some were assigned to work as hospital nurses at the Military-Medical Academy. I was assigned to work at the academy. Later a hospital was arranged at the university and we were transferred there. It was very difficult, but I worked there for a year.
I was really lucky, as our year was the last one, when Professor Karpichenko, one of the best Soviet geneticists, held lectures in genetics. He was repressed later in 1939, as his world outlook and especially the content of his lectures were contrary to the [Communist] Party’s and Stalin’s ideology. The year after that genetics was declared to be a pseudo-science. The Michurin genetics sub-faculty, which propagated Lysenko’s ideas, was established instead. This man [Lysenko] lacked even university education, thus, certainly, his ideas didn’t have any relation to the real genetics. The real genetics didn’t march in step with the ideology of the Soviet Union Party. The main dogma of the current genetics, as a science, is the statement that everything in an individual is founded initially in the genes and all individual potential, including physical, intellectual and moral, doesn’t really depend on the external environment, but rather on inherited qualities. Ideologically it means the following: not all people are equal and the slogan ‘If you cannot – we will teach you, if you don’t want to – we will force you’ doesn’t work. Certainly it didn’t match with the basic statements of Socialism and Communism. That’s why later the genetics in this country was limited to the selection and growing of best plant varieties, advocated by Lysenko. On the whole, we were taught by wonderful scientists and personalities: Dogel [14], Zavarzin [15], Takhtadzhyan [16] and others. After I finished three years of study, the war broke out.
When I came to the university for the first time, at the end of the university corridor there hung Lenin’s [13] portrait, depicting him during his external exams. I visited the university not long ago and was surprised very much, as everything has changed there. The corridor is beautifully done and the floor is nicely varnished. There are bookcases with scientific works and portraits of scientists on the walls. I had a very good impression. However, the lecture-rooms are still the same. The only difference is that there used to be a huge aquarium near the sub-faculty of biology, it was enormous, up to the ceiling, with exotic and very rare organisms, not only fish, but also jelly-fish, snakes and turtles; it was destroyed during the war.
I lived with my sister or at the university dormitory during that period. It was located in the university yard at that time and was called ‘Nauchka.’ The living conditions were horrible: 37 people lived in our room. Besides, there were rats there and they jumped on us from the wardrobes. The University Astronomical Time Service is located in that building now. Later I lived in a dormitory on Dobrolyubov Avenue, it was much better.
, Russia
The competition at the Faculty of Biology and Soils was seven persons per position, so it was not easy to enter. There were a lot of exams, not like nowadays. We took exams in political economy, various languages and many other difficult subjects. However, I passed all of them and entered.
I stayed with my elder sister Divora, who was already married to Abram Marshak by that time. They lived in the Petrogradsky District of Leningrad [today St. Petersburg]. Divora studied at the First Medical Institute to become a gynecologist. She simultaneously worked as a laboratory assistant at the State Institute of Chemical Industry. Later I lived with her during the siege [12]. We were evacuated to Vyatka together afterwards.
In 1938 I decided to enter Leningrad State University.
I remember only the trial over Kamenev [10] and Zinoviev [11] in 1935. I was grown up by that time and read newspapers. However, I certainly didn’t express my thoughts on it, as it wasn’t allowed. I remember very well the first elections to the Supreme Soviet. [The first elections to the Supreme Soviet took place in 1937.] Everybody went to school to listen to the radio, which no one had at home, as everyone wanted to hear the results of the elections. We also went to school to listen to the Second Constitution; I was already studying at that time. [The First Constitution of the USSR was adopted in 1924; the Second in 1936.
By the time I grew up, the Pioneer [9] House was organized in our town. We staged plays and performances in that Pioneer House, it was all very interesting. We became even closer friends there. I studied very diligently, so I hardly had any time for entertainment. I wasn’t the best pupil, though I had a very good command of Russian.
There was no anti-Semitism at all, either at school or in Roslavl in general. I had no friends outside of school; my best friends were Raya Shirman and Raya Ioffe. I had both Jews and Russians as friends; their nationality never mattered to me.
We had a very good teacher of Russian, Markelova, who taught us as follows: she liked to read and she read a lot to us during lessons. Later, when we were in the eighth grade, her husband had to continue our education. And we turned out to be completely illiterate, because Markelova hadn’t taught us how to spell the words. But we adored her! And from the eighth grade up until our graduation he tried very hard to make us literate [there were nine-year schools in the USSR at that time]. I loved reading most of all. Then we had this teacher, who I was really in love with, and because of whom I chose to study at the Faculty of Biology and Soils – Maria Grigoryevna Shtyrkina, an old and very intellectual Russian woman. She taught us biology. We all loved her very much, I did in particular. When I was later advised to enter the Faculty of Biology and Soils, I did so without any hesitation. After school almost all the kids from our grade entered some sort of university.
I studied at a common Russian high school. In my opinion the school was very good, we had wonderful teachers. Our teacher of mathematics, Aron Grigoryevich Karchmar, was a very good teacher. When I was finishing school, he told me that I would never pass the math exam, but I got an excellent mark. We also studied German, it was taught by an old woman. She was a bad teacher: she knew German poorly and she couldn’t establish discipline in the classroom, all pupils always yelled in her lessons. I remember her nickname – ‘Bobka.
When time came for me to go to school, I was tested on my knowledge of Yiddish and other languages, but I knew nothing except for Russian and that is why I wasn’t accepted in cheder.