There was a custom that poor students had meals with Jewish families. My father made arrangements with him to teach me at home and promised to pay him for my classes. We had two classes per week. He taught me the torah and everything we studied in the cheder and later trained me for a bar mitzvah. It was a big relief for me to have classes at home and I had time to do my homework for school and play with my friends.
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Displaying 49651 - 49680 of 50513 results
Nikolay Schwartz Biography
I had bar mitzvah when I turned 13. On the first Saturday after my birthday my father and I went to the synagogue. I read an section and out on a tallit for the first time in my life. My father had treatments for the attendants of the synagogue, and in the evening we had a festive dinner at home. There were my parents’ friends, the rabbi, of course, and the student who trained me for the bar mitzvah. Everybody greeted me and I felt myself like an adult.
There were few Zionist organizations in Vinogradov. There was Hashomer-Hatzair [4], a communist organization of young people, and Makkabi [5]. I was attracted by the Betar. It was called a fascist organization by members of other Zionist organizations, since Betar members believed that they had to defend Palestine with weapons rather than look for diplomatic ways to establish peace on this land. When I turned 13, I joined the Betar. Betar had a building with a conference hall and a gym. Our leader who came from Mukachevo [40 km from Uzhgorod, 660 km from Kiev], finished a grammar school there. There were 5 senior members in our division of Betar. Each Saturday we had gatherings in the Betar building. They were always interesting. The leader told us about what was happening in the world and spoke about the goals and tasks of Betar. There was a territorial center of Betar in Bratislava. They published journals sending them to all Betar regional centers. We received journals with articles by Jabotinsky [6] and other activists of Betar. Our leader read these articles to us. We had fencing classes in the gym, but we fenced with sticks. We had brown uniforms and military type caps. My younger sister Klara was learning sewing. She made me a nice uniform. We wore our uniforms on all holidays.
There was inflation in 1934 all over the world. Life was getting harder and Czechoslovakia was no exception. Our family was on the edge of poverty. I finished school in 1935 and didn’t quite know what to do next. It was difficult to find a job and I was happy, when our leader mentioned to me that there was an opportunity to enter the Ashtar industrial school in Moravska Ostrava in Moravia. Studying in this school was free. I agreed right away: I was eager to get a profession as soon as possible and start earning money. 2 other Betar members from Vinogradov went to this school with me.
In 1936, when I was a student of the Ashar school, the Betar committee advised me that there was a congress to take place in Vienna and offered me to attend it. We went there by a big bus. The Congress took place in the 18th district of Vienna, half a year before the Anschluss [7], Hitler’s occupation of Austria. I had my fancy Betar uniform hoping that I would need it. The trip was good. We arrived in Vienna. Most of the group had friends or relatives where they could stay. I was accommodated in a students’ hostel. I shared my room with 4 other guys from Austria and Poland who came to the congress with me. The Congress was to start 3 days after we arrived. We were to help to prepare the building for the congress. There was a lot of work to do installing stands with materials. I was the youngest participant, and they always asked me to help. I hanged big photographs of Zionist activists, posters and developed materials. The Congress was to start in the evening and we were very busy, when all of a sudden Jabotinsky and his wife entered the room where I was working with 2 other guys. . Jabotinsky asked in German: ‘Who is this young man?’ pointing at me. Hey replied that I was the youngest delegate of Betar. Jabotinsky stroked my hair and said: ‘Seier gut!’ meaning ‘very good’. He looked around the rooms and left. In the evening Jabotinsky made a speech at the opening ceremony. I was sitting on the balcony with other Betar members from Vinogradov. My friends from Betar asked me to make notes of all speeches. I put down all speeches, but when Jabotinsky came onto the stage, I couldn’t write, so overwhelmed I felt listening to him. He spoke for over two hours. He spoke German with a slight Yiddish accent. He spoke about his idea of the future of Palestine. He said it had to be a Jewish-Arab state. There were older attendants. It was hard for them to be sitting for so long and they took off their shoes to stretch their swollen feet, but it never occurred to them they could leave the room, so afraid they were of missing one word Jabotinsky was saying. Next day Jabotinsky’s friends and associates made speeches. The Congress lasted 3 days and then we returned to Moravska Ostrava.
I studied in the industrial school for 3 years. Then I had one year of industrial training at the plant. We worked 8 hours instead of 3 hours, when we studied at school. When our training was over, we received the industrial school diplomas.
I studied in the industrial school for 3 years. Then I had one year of industrial training at the plant. We worked 8 hours instead of 3 hours, when we studied at school. When our training was over, we received the industrial school diplomas.
When fascists occupied Czecoslovakia, I knew I had to leave. [Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia] [8] I knew that Subcarpathia became Hungarian [Hungarian troops occupied Subcarpathia in March 1939. The western part where Vinogradov is was attached to Hungary as early as the 2nd November 1938, together with Southern Slovakia as a result of the First Vienna Decesion.] and that Jewish oppression began there. I didn’t want to go back there. I was looking for other opportunities. Slovakia became a separate state. [After the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia the Nazi satellite Slovakia came into existence in March 14th 1939.] My friend from Tyachev [125 km from Uzhgorod, 615 km from Kiev] in Subcarpathia, started on our way to Slovakia. We managed to leave for Bratislava. After Prague was invaded, everybody had to go to the German commandant office where they issued passports with the capital letter ‘J’, Jude, typed on its cover. We obtained those passports and went to a tourist company in Prague where we got 3-month visas to Slovakia. So we took a train to Slovakia and traveled legally to Bratislava. At the border there was a luggage check. A German soldier came into our compartment and ordered us to open our suitcases. He asked us where we were heading and hearing our reply ‘To Bratislava’ he said: ‘I know you would like to go to Palestine, but we will go there, too.’
We hoped to get a job and stay in Bratislava, but there were Slovak fascists there. Persecution of Jews began in Slovakia. Jews were taken to work camps.
We hoped to get a job and stay in Bratislava, but there were Slovak fascists there. Persecution of Jews began in Slovakia. Jews were taken to work camps.
The host didn’t want to take money from me and suggested that I taught his son Hebrew and English. His son worked in a bookstore. In the basement of this store they made copies. There were no copy-machines and those were photo copies made. The Jewish owner of this store employed me and I learned to make photo copies. I worked there for about half a year. There were anti-Jewish laws [9] enforced in Hungary, but there was no particular oppression as yet. There were synagogues operating in Budapest and there was Jewish life. Later I got to know that the Jewish situation in Hungary was easier than in Subcarpathia where Jews were oppressed more.
In spring 1941 I received a subpoena for a work camp that was delivered to me where I lived. It said that I had to work there 3 months and there was a list of luggage I could take with me. From the gathering point a group of 200 people was taken to Nyiregyhaza, a Hungarian town near Uzhgorod. We traveled in a freight train with no comforts. In Nyiregyhaza we were working on making a big pyramid-shaped sand hill for shooting training to keep shells. We were there for 3 months. Then they let us go home to see our families for one month and ordered to gather in Budapest. I went home.
I was to go back to the work camp. From Budapest we were taken to a narrow-gauge railroad construction site to Transylvania by train. [The northern half of Transylvania was attached to Hungary in August 30th 1940 according to the Second Vienna Decesion, while Southern Transylvania remained Romanian.] We were to deliver carts with gravel to the track. When the construction was over, we were taken to the USSR by train. The Great Patriotic War [10] had just begun. The Hungarian army involved work battalions in the construction of trenches and blindages near the front line. Unarmed people with spades became very good targets for shooting. Soviet soldiers did not care whether this was regular army or a work battalion. Our freight train stopped for a whole hour in Poland. We managed to shave and have our hair cut in a barber’s. Then I went into a house to ask them for some hot water to get washed. I tried to keep clean and even had a folding basin for washing. I also asked those people to sell me some food. They gave me few big pieces of pork fat and a bag of flour. I exchanged my scarf, my sister’s gift, for a sledge to haul my load. The train arrived at Belgorod town in Russia, near the Ukrainian border, 450 km from Kiev. We were ordered to get off the train, lined up and walked to Staryy Oskol in about 120 km from Belgorod. It was winter and the snow covered the ground. We slept in the open air. In Staryy Oskol we were taken to an old cinema theater. There was straw on the floor. There was a field kitchen on the bank of a river, and we went there to have meals twice a day. Once, when we were on the bank, we saw a military horse-driven wagon sinking under the ice and we were ordered to haul it out of there, but nobody wanted to get into the icy water. They ordered us to line up and then told every tenth inmate to step out of the line. I was so scared that I might be one of them. I couldn’t swim. There were about 10 people stepping out of the line. They had to swim to the spot where the wagon was and drag it to the bank.
In Staryy Oskol we stayed about a week. In late autumn 1942 40 of us were taken to the work camp working for the German army in Yudino village on the bank of the Don River. The inmates worked digging trenches and removing the snow. The death rate was very high there and we were to replace the deceased. There were no residents left in the village. There were only German and Hungarian troops. The temperature was 30-35º below zero. We were told to find lodging. I stayed close to two guys from Subcarpathia. One of them was Ignac from Tyachev. I don’t remember his last name. Another guy was Henrich Singer, a tailor from Uzhgorod. We found a half-ruined hut. There were no windows or doors in it. We were allowed to miss one day at work to put the hut in order. The rest of the camp went to work on the bank of the Don. One of newcomers managed to cross the Don to the opposite bank where there were Soviet troops. His absence was only noticed when they returned to the camp. Again they ordered us to line up, selected every tenth inmate and shot them in front of the line. There, you will know how to desert to the Russians! We went to work every day to clean the snow for German tanks to attack. They were followed by the Hungarian infantry. We were at work from dawn till dark. We didn’t undress before going to sleep. We were hoping for the Russians to come each day.
In Staryy Oskol we stayed about a week. In late autumn 1942 40 of us were taken to the work camp working for the German army in Yudino village on the bank of the Don River. The inmates worked digging trenches and removing the snow. The death rate was very high there and we were to replace the deceased. There were no residents left in the village. There were only German and Hungarian troops. The temperature was 30-35º below zero. We were told to find lodging. I stayed close to two guys from Subcarpathia. One of them was Ignac from Tyachev. I don’t remember his last name. Another guy was Henrich Singer, a tailor from Uzhgorod. We found a half-ruined hut. There were no windows or doors in it. We were allowed to miss one day at work to put the hut in order. The rest of the camp went to work on the bank of the Don. One of newcomers managed to cross the Don to the opposite bank where there were Soviet troops. His absence was only noticed when they returned to the camp. Again they ordered us to line up, selected every tenth inmate and shot them in front of the line. There, you will know how to desert to the Russians! We went to work every day to clean the snow for German tanks to attack. They were followed by the Hungarian infantry. We were at work from dawn till dark. We didn’t undress before going to sleep. We were hoping for the Russians to come each day.
We got lucky and managed to escape, when we were near a village before evening. There were no Germans left in the village. There were only locals. We were let into a house. I was the only one of the three of us who could speak Russian. Of course, Russian is different from Ukrainian, but they could understand me. They said we had to move to the rear and showed us the direction. We thought that ‘rear’ was a name of a village or town. We crossed a Don’s arm over a bridge that the Russians built during their attack and moved on. Again we asked to stay overnight in a house. Though we were enemies, fascists, in the minds of local people, but they let us in and gave us boiled potatoes in jackets. They were very poor, but they shared with us what they had. However, before going to sleep they took away our knives, but they returned them in the morning. So we walked having a vague idea about where we were going. Henrich Singer from Uzhgorod was a tailor. When we came into a house to stay overnight, he fixed the hosts’ clothes to pay back for their hospitality. In one house I fixed a sewing machine. We got meals and food to go for this. We were always hungry, but we had good luck. Once, on the front line we bumped into a truck. The driver was dead. We found dried bread in his pockets. There were horse corpses around. The frost was so severe that the meat became stone hard. We cooked a piece of horse meat on the fire somehow. But this luck didn’t happen often.
Once I addressed a passer-by in a small town. He didn’t like my accent and called a policeman. I didn’t have any documents and they took me to a militia office. Of course, they didn’t have any proof that I was a spy, but where there is a will, there is a way. I had a nail sticking out inside my shoe injuring my foot. I had cheap paper backs in Hungarian in my back pack. I folded up one of those books and put in onto the nail under my heel in my shoe. This book got so ragged in my shoe that it was impossible to read one letter in it. When they undressed me in the militia and found this book they decided that it was very suspicious. They said that I was probably a spy, took me to a cell and locked the door. I was kept there for ten days. Ten a military came in and told me they would take me to a camp. We walked to the railway station and took a train. The military had a weapon, but understood that it didn’t make sense to try to escape anyway. We reached Voronezh [Russia, about 500 km southwest of Moscow] where there were other prisoners-of-war waiting for departure to a camp. There were many SS officers and Hungarians among them. We were kept in the quarantine few days, and when the group was big enough they took us to Usman [about 400 km southeast of Moscow]. There was a camp for prisoners-of-war in a former monastery.
On 9 May 1945 it was announced that the war was over and that Germany capitulated. It was great joy for us. Even German prisoners were happy that the war was over. We were hoping that we would be able to go home soon, but they only began to release prisoners in summer 1946. I don’t know what guidance the management of the camp had for releasing the prisoners.
They let me go. I went to Vinogradov, but I couldn’t bear the loneliness and memories. I was alone in the house where my family used to live.
My neighbors told me that my family was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 where they all perished. Fortunately later it turned out that some of my dear ones survived, but my parents and sister Klara with her family and her husband’s parents did perish in Auschwitz.
My friend offered me position of chief of logistic department at the mechanic plant in Uzhgorod. I had to interface with directors of other plants and enterprises. Most of them came from the USSR and spoke Russian. I started work and was doing well. My management appreciated my performance and I became a respected person in Uzhgorod.
Many things about the Soviet regime seemed wild to me. The Soviet regime waged severe struggle against religion [14]. The majority of population in Subcarpathia, Jewish and non-Jewish, was religious. Religion was an important part of people’s life. Soviet authorities were closing temples and arrest clergymen sending them in exile. There was only one main synagogue operating in Uzhgorod. The rest of the synagogues were closed. This main synagogue was on the Uzh River. Later they also closed it and it became the Philharmonic. People were confused. They were not allowed to attend the synagogue or churches or celebrate holidays. Soviet authorities might fire people from work for this. Only old people who had nothing to fear went to the synagogue. There was nothing like this during the Czechoslovakian or Hungarian rule. There was also a concern of anti-Semitism that came to Subcarpathia with the Soviet power. Of course, there was anti-Semitism during the Hungarian rule, but it was when Hungary was fascists, and nobody believed there could be anti-Semitism in the country struggling against fascism. There were only demonstrations of routinely anti-Semitism at first. However, only newcomers from the USSR could say ‘zhyd’ [kike] in the streets or in transport. Later it developed into the state level anti-Semitism. In the late 1940s Jews had problems with getting a job or going to study in higher educational institutions. Also, the blind faith of newcomers from the USSR in the infallible rightfulness of the Communist Party and Stalin was just scary. Struggle against cosmopolites [15] in the USSR in 1948 had hardly any impact on Subcarpathia, but its range was fearful. I read newspapers and didn’t understand why those people were arrested. In January 1953 the ‘doctors’ plot’ [16] began. Perhaps, the majority of doctors in Uzhgorod were Jews. Local residents of Subcarpathia ignored newspaper publications and continued to visit Jewish doctors. Whenever somebody standing in line to a doctor’s office said something about ‘poisoners’ and ‘murderers’, this somebody was surely a newcomer from the USSR.
I remember 5 March 1953, the day Stalin died. It was a relief for me. I knew from one of my friends about the scheduled deportation of Jews from Subcarpathia to Birobidzhan [17] in Siberia. I realized that Stalin’s death rescued us from the life of outcasts. There were many people crying and sobbing on this day in the streets and in offices. Of course, they were all newcomers from the USSR. I don’t think many of them suffered from losing their dear ones like they did when Stalin died. I was bewildered by it and felt like staying away from it. I felt the same about the situation in the USSR after the 20th Congress [18] of the Party. This was something that had nothing to do with me.
I didn’t celebrate Soviet holidays at home. There were banquets at work and my attendance was mandatory, but I didn’t see any sense in those holidays. I didn’t join the party. At first they told me that I needed to join the party, but that I was a prisoner-of-war might make an obstacle for it, and later they stopped talking to me about it. Anyway, I wasn’t eager to join the party and took it easy.
Nina Ivanova was born and lived in Leningrad. She graduated from Leningrad University. During the war Nina stayed in Leningrad. She survived the siege [Blockade of Leningrad] [19]. She was one of the few ones who were rescued by the ‘Road of life’ [20]. Nina was a journalist. She worked for RATAU [abbreviation for the Radio and Telegraph Agency of Ukraine] in Subcarpathia.
, Russia
Later I got to know that Nina gave our son her last name of Ivanova. She said she did it for our son to face no anti-Semitism, but it was a strong blow for me. I couldn’t feel the same love to the child that I felt before.
In 1950 my sister Yelisaveta found me. Once a woman came to see me at home. I was at work and she left a package and a note for me. There was a knitted vest in the package and the address of this woman in the note. She lived in Khust [50 km from Uzhgorod, 670 km from Kiev]. I went to see her and she told me that this was a gift from my sister. They were in Hemsjo, in a camp in Sweden together. She told me the story of my sister Yelisaveta. She was taken to Auschwitz. During a selection process she added 5 years to her age. The Germans sent her to a work camp in Auschwitz. My sister was reluctant to talk about details of this period. I know that once she was sent to a gas chamber. The prisoners were naked waiting for the gas to be pumped inside, when all of a sudden the door opened and a German officer told them to come outside. There were Polish Jews working near the gas chamber. They gave my sister and other prisoners some rags to cover their bodies. The prisoners returned to their barrack. When in spring 1945 the soviet and American armies started their attack, fascists exterminated weaker and sickly prisoners, and the remaining prisoners of the Auschwitz camp, including my sister, were sent to Mauthausen. And few days later American troops liberated the camp. My sister decided there was no way she returned home.
In 1953 I was arrested. I signed bills of lading for the goods from our storage facility. There was an OBHSS audit [Department of Struggle against Theft of Socialist Property’, a division of the Ministry of Home Affairs]. There were missing goods at the storage. Then they discovered bills of lading for these goods that I signed. According to these documents the receiver of the shipment was different from what was written in the bills. Though the signature had little resemblance with my signature, and besides, I was on business trip at the time, they arrested me. Either the investigation officer wanted to get done with this case, or those who were actually guilty bribed him – I don’t know. He didn’t listen to what I was trying to explain. They didn’t examine my signature and ignored the fact that I was away from Uzhgorod on the day of issuance of those bills. I was in Kharkov [east of Ukraine, 430 km from Kiev, 1100 km from Uzhgorod]. The case was transferred to court and I was sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment in a labor penitentiary camp. I was taken to Drogobych of Lvov region [120 km from Uzhgorod, 560 km from Kiev] to this camp. I was desperate, my life seemed to be over. When I was in the camp, I started writing complaints to the Supreme Court describing the details of the investigation process. I didn’t get any response for about a year. Then a lawyer from the Supreme Court arrived to question me about my case. After listening to me he said he would solicit for the review of my case. During a retrial the court discovered many mistakes and distortion in the course of investigation. The true culprits were discovered: an accountant and a storekeeper. In 1955 they released me for absence of corpus delicti. Later I got to know that my former investigation officer was dismissed. I was restored at work, but this couldn’t replace two years of my life that were wasted. Most of all I wanted to leave the USSR, but this was impossible in those years.
elisaveta and her husband decided to move to Israel, when they became pensioners. They moved to Jerusalem in 1986.
Yelisaveta told me the good news that our brother Earnest was alive. It turned out that Yelisaveta kept in touch with Earnest for a long time. When World War II began, Earnest studied in a vocational school in Budapest. The Hungarian fascists were more loyal to Hungarian Jews than to Subcarpathian Jews. Many Jews could stay in their houses in Hungary and were not taken to concentration camps. The only mandatory thing that fascists did was painting yellow hexagonal stars on Jewish houses [Yellow star houses] [21], though I guess, I know little about it, or what I know is what I heard from others. [He refers to the fact that deportations from Budapest were not finished as opposed to the Hungarian countryside.] When Germans invaded Budapest [March 19th 1944], Earnest and 50 other students of their vocational school found refuge in the Swiss Embassy. They were hiding there until the end of the war.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
From Budapest they moved to Romania where they tried to take a boat to Palestine. [illegally] Their boat was arrested by British soldiers and sent to Crete in Greece. They kept them for a long time there, but then Greek fishermen secretly took them to Palestine in their boats. Earnest joined a kibbutz. Then he finished a construction vocational school and returned to his kibbutz where he married Ioheved, a girl who was born in Palestine. She was a teacher. Earnest took part in the Six-Day War [22] After the war he continued his work in the kibbutz. Earnest and Ioheved didn’t have children. I met with my brother once. He arrived in Budapest like Yelisaveta since he couldn’t get a visa to the USSR. We spent a week together and then my brother returned to Israel.
I believed Soviet invasion in Hungary in 1956 [23] and Czechoslovakia in 1968 [Prague Spring] [24] as an effort of the USSR to keep all countries of the ‘socialist camp’ behind the barbed wire. Of course, the USSR couldn’t allow a single country to refuse from socialism since it might result in many followers. The USSR took every effort, even aggression, to keep all of them under control. This was like in prison: they stopped any attempt of escape so that the others stopped even considering it.
When in the late 1980s perestroika [25] began in the USSR, I was indifferent to it at first, like I was to anything related to the Soviet power. I didn’t care about their promises of a better life. I had heard them since I returned from the camp in 1947. Later I realized that many things were changing to the better. Gorbachev [26] allowed private entrepreneurship that had been forbidden for many years in the USSR. Many people started their businesses working for themselves. Many of my co-prisoners imprisoned for private entrepreneurship became successful entrepreneurs and respected people during perestroika. The freedom of speech that Gorbachev promised became a reality. There was no need to listen to western radios to hear the truth about the situation in the USSR. Newspapers began to publish articles describing our present and past life. The ban on religion was gone. People could go to church and celebrate religious holidays. However, in the course of Soviet rule people got so much out of this habit that at first there were not enough attendants for a minyan at the synagogue. Only few knew prayers and how to pray. Then chairman of the Jewish community of Uzhgorod suggested that I attended the synagogue. At first I went there to socialize and of course, to enable them to gather a minyan, but then it became a habit with me that developed into a need. In my childhood religion was a significant part of my life. When praying I recalled my parents, my childhood, my sisters and my brother. Every year I recited the Kaddish for my dear ones who had perished in the camp and for my deceased brother.
In 1987 I visited my sister in Israel for the first time. Of course, I liked Israel very much, but I didn’t consider staying there. I felt out of place, missed my home and friends and I wouldn’t manage to learn Ivrit. I can still remember a little Hebrew that we studied in cheder, the language of the torah, but it’s hard for me to understand contemporary Ivrit spoken in Israel. I haven’t visited my sister again: I didn’t get along with her husband. We didn’t like each other, and I didn’t want to cause conflicts between Yelizaveta and her husband. There was an incident in Israel that strained our relationships. My sister and her husband observed Jewish traditions and followed kashrut. Chaim Klein always had his head covered. As for me, I didn’t think it was necessary and didn’t have a kippah or a hat. Once Chaim and I took a bus. I was sitting on a seat in the middle part and he was near the driver. A rabbi came into the bus. He happened to be Chaim’s acquaintance from New York. They used to go to the synagogue together and discuss the Torah. In Israel they also met regularly to read and discuss what they had read. The rabbi saw Chaim and nodded to him, and Chaim yelled at me from where he was sitting: ‘Put on a kippah immediately!’ I didn’t have a kippah and felt very ill at ease. Even the rabbi felt uncomfortable. He turned his head away pretending that he didn’t hear. When we got off the bus, Chaim began to shout at me reproaching me for not observing Jewish traditions. I objected that not everybody in Israel wore a kippah and that if he thought it necessary he should have warned me about it. This made our relationships worse than ever and I hurried to find an excuse for going back home. I saw Yelizaveta for the last time in July 1996, when she visited Uzhgorod. In October 1996 my sister died. 3 years later her husband died too.
After Ukraine gained independence the Jewish life had a rebirth. The Jewish community became stronger. People stopped hiding their Jewish identity. However, this refers to those Jews who had moved to Subcarpathia from other areas of the USSR since local Subcarpathian Jews have been open about their identity. More people began to attend the synagogue. Frankly, I don’t believe them to be real Jews. There can be no Jew without cheder. As for those who had moved here, only Ukrainians called them ‘zhydy’, Jews. They have never been Jews for me. They don’t know Hebrew or even Yiddish, they cannot recite a prayer and they don’t know that before entering the synagogue they have to put on a hat, which is different from Christian traditions. Christians take off their hats before entering a temple. It’s good that they teach young people in the Jewish school and in Hesed. At least our grandchildren will know what the Soviet power deprived our children of. In Hesed there are classes in Hebrew, Jewish traditions and history. Many young men and girls attend them. Regretfully, my son or grandchildren do not identify themselves as Jews and do not take part in those activities. Hesed works a lot for the restoration of the Jewry in Ukraine. It also helps old people to survive. I do not leave my home. I live alone and need help constantly. My son cannot spend much time with me. He brings me food before going to work in the morning and then he leaves. If it were not for the Hesed assistance, I would not survive. A nurse visits me every day and a doctor comes to see me once a week. They deliver meals to my home and buy medications. They also bring me Jewish newspapers and magazines. I am very grateful to all those who help me.
Clara Shalenko
A common engineer could afford to travel in the Soviet Union in 1960s – 1970s I traveled a lot when I worked I dropped by a synagogue in every town I went to for pure interest.