In autumn 1939 after the Western Byelorussia was annexed to the Soviet Union we moved to Minsk. We got an apartment with all comforts in the military housing district in Minsk. There was another tenant in the apartment. There was heating, hot water and telephone: it was gorgeous. It took me 20 minutes by tram to get to the center of the town. We had a nickel-plated bed and a wardrobe that I received as dowry and a record player that my sister Ida gave us as a wedding gift. Our neighbors often came to listen to records. I studied in the Medical College in Minsk and particularly enjoyed lectures in neurology read by professor Makarov.
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Displaying 49771 - 49800 of 50192 results
Tatiana Tilipman Biography
My brother Moisey Krupnik was mobilized to marine troops in Odessa on 23 June. He only managed to pick his newly born daughter Tamara from a maternity hospital to take her home and left for the front. He didn’t even have time to unwrap her to take a look at his baby. In summer 1942 we received Moisey’s first letter that he wrote in Sevastopol on 28 July. It happened to be the last one. Moisey perished in Sevastopol. We don’t know any details.
In early July institutions began to leave the town. Chairman of the kolkhoz gave Iosif a wagon and horses and said; ‘take your family out of the town. The Germans are approaching’. My parents and I and my brother with his wife Polina left the town. We went as far as the Dnieper on the wagon. We left the horses on the bank and crossed the river. My brother was to go back to take the horses, but there were Germans already on that bank. So we had lost our horses. Some drivers going in that direction gave us rides to Poltava. From there we went to Kharkov and then to Rostov. After Rostov we came to Stalingrad. In Stalingrad we stayed at the stadium for a few days. I met my school friend Rachil there. Then air raids began. We were put on a train. Rachil and I were in different trains. Ours was a freight train. They were stuffed with people. Some slept on the floor. We got some bread or some other food in evacuation offices at stations. The train stayed two or three days at each station. German troops followed hard on our heels. In Alexikovo station near Stalingrad my father sold his fancy coat that he used to wear to the synagogue. We bought some mutton. My mother fried it and put it in a jar with fat to keep longer. I remember that this was Yom Kippur.
So we got to Turkestan station in Northern Kazakhstan. My father was smart and said: ‘Well, since we don’t have enough money to get to Tashkent, we need to get off this train some place before’. So we got off in Turkestan. We didn’t know anything about the town. We stayed in a garden at the station for almost 24 hours until the ‘Berlik’ kolkhoz sent a camel-driven wagon to pick us.
So we got to Turkestan station in Northern Kazakhstan. My father was smart and said: ‘Well, since we don’t have enough money to get to Tashkent, we need to get off this train some place before’. So we got off in Turkestan. We didn’t know anything about the town. We stayed in a garden at the station for almost 24 hours until the ‘Berlik’ kolkhoz sent a camel-driven wagon to pick us.
Since I finished 4 years of the Medical College I went to the district health care department. Its chief Isaac Markovich, a Jew, asked me what I wanted to do. I replied: ‘You know, I was a 4-year student, but actually, perhaps a practicing nurse would know more than I do’. He sent me to work as a doctor in ‘Urtak’ kolkhoz. The kolkhoz accommodated us in one big room that occupied half of a house. My monthly payment consisted of 300 rubles and 24 kg flour. The kolkhoz employed my father as a storekeeper.
I didn’t know where my husband was for a whole year. They told me in a registry office how I could get some information about him. The first letter to my husband that I sent to the front returned to me. Later I found out that I put a wrong address. I sent a request to his headquarters and received my husband’s reply to my next letter. My husband Semyon Tilipman was mobilized on the first day of the war. He served in a communication regiment, at first in the 29th army and then in first tank army. He took part in combat action near Moscow and then in Kursk battle [10], with this Tank army he took part in the liberation of Kiev and Warsaw. At the end of the war he was in Berlin. Semyon was awarded a Red Star Order and four medals. After the war he stayed to serve in Radebeul, Germany.
In 1942 Ida, her husband and their two children moved in with us. We all lived in one room. Our Uzbek hosts gave us two wide trestle beds. There were eight of us sleeping on them, but we didn’t mind it since we knew that other people lived in even worse conditions. Petia worked in the kolkhoz at first, but then he went to work in a state insurance agency as an invalid of the war.
In 1943 I was sent to work in an outpatient clinic in Turkestan. I received an apartment near the clinic. I was involved in liquidation of epidemics such as typhus and dysentery. In 1944 to Turkestan were brought some deported Chechens [11]. They were accommodated in the Hantanga mine where they were working. There was an infectious department opened there and I became its chief. I treated them well. The state punished them and I was a doctor and it was my duty to provide proper medical services to them. Our main task was their sanitary treatment since there was lack of medications. As soon as I managed to handle typhoid my patients fell ill with dysentery.
My father prayed every day. Buchara Jews and one Polish Jews were his friends.
We made a shower cabin made from branches with a barrel on top of it in Turkestan. During Sukkoth we removed the barrel and we had dinners there through 8 days of the holiday. During Chanukkah my father made us makeshift lamps from potatoes, cotton oil and a wick.
We made a shower cabin made from branches with a barrel on top of it in Turkestan. During Sukkoth we removed the barrel and we had dinners there through 8 days of the holiday. During Chanukkah my father made us makeshift lamps from potatoes, cotton oil and a wick.
I worked in Turkestan until 1945. When Minsk was liberated I wrote a letter to my college. I wrote that I was a 4-year student and requested a permit to continue my studies. They sent me such permit. In September my husband came on a short leave to Turkestan. In late September we took a train from Turkestan to Minsk.
After finishing my college in 1946 I moved to my husband in Germany. I couldn’t get a job. There were 40 doctors there. All officers’ wives were doctors. I worked in the women’s council of the army with other officers’ wives. We arranged celebrations for officers and soldiers.
When Israel was established I lived with my husband in Germany and I was more concerned about talks that Jews avoided struggling at the front. Therefore, when a woman said in my presence that she had been at the front, but she didn’t meet any Jews I felt like beating her, but I just said: ‘You know what, I wish that you have as many pimples on your tongue as many members of my family perished’.
My husband’s parents and sister Ghenia perished in Domanevka camp [12], and his brother Yefim perished at the front.
We moved from one room to another after their owners returned home. I began to apply to military headquarters to get back our apartment. I didn’t go to work and had sufficient time to spend on it. I went to see commanding officer and we received a nice big room in a communal apartment [13] for three families in a house in Pirogovskaya Street. Our co-tenants were decent people and we got along well.
In 1953, when Stalin died, I cried. His full height portrait was installed in Kulikovo Pole [a town square near the railway station]. I saw this portrait and burst into tears. It seemed to me then that this was the end of our life.
Almost every summer we spent vacations with our parents. My children enjoyed spending time with their grandfather and grandmother.
In 1962 my older son Mikhail went to school 116. This was a popular school of physics and mathematic in Odessa. Mikhail had all excellent grades and successfully passed an interview and was admitted to this school. My younger son Yevgeni studied in school #90 that taught subjects in Ukrainian and German. In 1965 Mikhail finished school #116 with a gold medal [with honors] and went to Moscow. He entered the Mathematic Faculty of Moscow State University.
My mother died on 22 June 1973. My mother was buried according to Jewish customs. A Russian woman, married to a Jewish man, made a cerement for my mother. I brought a black cover from the synagogue. When my mother died my father recited the Kaddish. I also hired a Jewish man from the synagogue. Ten months later, at the same time, hour and minute, at 4 o’clock 20 minutes, on 22 April 1974 my father Srul Krupnik died. I heard him saying in Jewish; ‘God bless the children, blessed be my children’. I called my husband. My father said: ‘Don’t give me any medications. I already want to die’. He turned his face away and died. My father lived 93 years and one week. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery according to Jewish traditions. I brought a special cloth from the synagogue. A Jewish old man came from the synagogue and we also invited our close friend’s father, a Jew. My father had two tallits, one was trimmed with silver. Another one was an old tallit where my father wrote ‘Funeral tallit’. We put both tallits in his cerement.
When our children grew older we traveled a lot with them. My husband and our son Zhenia [nickname of Yevgenii] went to Kaliningrad (today Russia), Riga (today Latvia) and Yalta. My husband spent his vacations in a military recreation center in Riga while he was on military service. I also went there alone and with my son Zhenia. I traveled to Minsk (today Byelarus), Brest (today Byelarus), Leningrad (today Russia). We liked going to the theaters: Opera Theater and Russian and Ukrainian Drama Theaters. There were interesting performances. We often visited friends. There were two-three families living in our neighborhood: the Goldshteins and Chizhyks, but on holidays I had gatherings of about 20 people at home. We celebrated New Year with our children at my old friend Yuzef Chizhyk’s home. We were very good friends. We went to the cinema together. Mr. Goldshtein had a car. We went to the cinema and out of the town together. We particularly liked the house of culture of the Polytechnic College, they always showed new movies there.
After graduation from the University my older son Mikhail stayed in Moscow. He got a job offer to work in a scientific research institute. He defended his candidate’s dissertation [15].
I spent my vacations in Moscow where I went to stay with my grandchildren for a number of years. When my grandchildren grew older they came to spend their vacations with us in Odessa. We used to rent a dacha [summer cottage] at the seashore.
Fira Usatinskaya Biography
My parents got married in Gaisin in 1923. They were both religious. They had a chuppah and were married by a rabbi. They didn’t have a wedding party because it was my father’s second marriage and his relatives, especially his brother Yudko, who lived in Lugansk were against it. It wasn’t because of my mother that they didn’t want this marriage to take place, but nevertheless my father stopped his relationship with his brother back then. He didn’t want to stay in Gaisin, probably to avoid gossip. After they got married my parents moved to the small town of Ilintsy, Litin district, near Gaisin.
, Ukraine
I was born in Ilintsy on 12th February 1924. I was named after my grandmother. My brother Srul, named after our grandfather, was born in 1926. My parents were very poor. They rented an apartment. I don’t remember anything about Ilintsy. My mother told me that it was a typical small town with the majority of the population being Jewish. There was a market and a synagogue in the center and all residents knew everything about each other’s life. My father was a teacher, but in those hard years there were few people that wanted to get education and he didn’t have many pupils. He took to any work – he was an assistant in a shop and an assistant joiner – but the family still didn’t have enough food. My older brother and sister, Beila’s children, thought that my mother was to blame for their poverty since she gave all food to her own children – my brother and I. Maria suffered from this jealousy most of all. She wrote letters complaining to Uncle Yudko in Lugansk and he took her to his family every summer. This didn’t change the situation in our family. In fall Maria returned and was even more bitter and intolerant. However, all the other children in our family got along well, and we stayed friends for the rest of our life.
, Ukraine
Our family was very religious. We strictly followed the kashrut and had special dishes for meat and dairy products. We only had meat on high holidays at the time, but we never mixed meat and dairy products. My parents celebrated Sabbath. On Fridays my mother and older sister cleaned the apartment thoroughly – there were two small rooms and a kitchen with a Russian stove [9] – and washed the wooden floors scrubbing them with sand. My mother made challah and a festive dinner: cottage cheese pudding, potato pancakes, stewed cabbage and sometimes chicken broth and chicken.
We only had gefilte fish on Pesach. My mother saved money for a whole year to celebrate Pesach. Matzah was bought at the synagogue in advance. A chicken and small turkey were slaughtered by the shochet. My mother used special kosher crockery and utensils stored in an old box – this was her only dowry. There was a dish with all the required food on the table on the holiday: eggs, potatoes and bitter greenery. My father conducted the seder wearing his tallit. He leaned back in his seat at the head of the table. This scene is imprinted in my memory. My father went to the synagogue every day wearing his tallit and tefillin. My mother joined him on Saturdays. My father always prayed at home before meals. On Yom Kippur my parents spent a whole day at the synagogue. They returned home late in the evening. We also had a festive dinner after the day’s fasting.
My mother often prayed with a prayer book that had strange, unknown letters in it. She often cried while praying. I asked her, ‘Mother, why are you crying?’, and she replied, ‘If you knew what is written in here you would cry, too’. I didn’t get to know what was written in there. My parents didn’t teach us Yiddish. They were always busy and had no time to spend with us. When I went to school and became a pioneer they tried to avoid any Jewish subjects in my presence. My parents spoke Yiddish to one another and Russian with us, children.
We only had gefilte fish on Pesach. My mother saved money for a whole year to celebrate Pesach. Matzah was bought at the synagogue in advance. A chicken and small turkey were slaughtered by the shochet. My mother used special kosher crockery and utensils stored in an old box – this was her only dowry. There was a dish with all the required food on the table on the holiday: eggs, potatoes and bitter greenery. My father conducted the seder wearing his tallit. He leaned back in his seat at the head of the table. This scene is imprinted in my memory. My father went to the synagogue every day wearing his tallit and tefillin. My mother joined him on Saturdays. My father always prayed at home before meals. On Yom Kippur my parents spent a whole day at the synagogue. They returned home late in the evening. We also had a festive dinner after the day’s fasting.
My mother often prayed with a prayer book that had strange, unknown letters in it. She often cried while praying. I asked her, ‘Mother, why are you crying?’, and she replied, ‘If you knew what is written in here you would cry, too’. I didn’t get to know what was written in there. My parents didn’t teach us Yiddish. They were always busy and had no time to spend with us. When I went to school and became a pioneer they tried to avoid any Jewish subjects in my presence. My parents spoke Yiddish to one another and Russian with us, children.
, Ukraine
In 1931 my family moved to the south of Ukraine looking for a better life. We settled down in a former German colony [10] in Nagaevo, Odessa region. Besides Germans many Jews lived there. They worked in a Jewish kolkhoz [11]. My parents had no luck there either. We arrived in late fall after the harvest. There was no work for my father in the kolkhoz. After a month or two my father and older brother went to Makeevka in Donetsk region where my father’s distant relative Beniamin Usatinskiy lived. He promised to help my father to get a job. My mother, Maria, Srul and I stayed in Nagaevo. We lived in one room in a decrepit house that we had received when we arrived in Nagaevo. We didn’t have any food and wood to heat the room. We stayed on the stove bed under feather blankets with chattering teeth. The other kolkhoz farmers didn’t like us. They even believed my father and brother to be shtreykbrekhers [Yiddish for ‘deserter’, ‘traitor’] because they left the kolkhoz. The chairman of the kolkhoz, an old Jew, sympathized with us and when it grew dark he or his daughter brought us some food. He allowed us to secretly take corn to stoke the stove. My mother and Maria made hats from straw and ropes. They got a dozen eggs, a jar of milk or a loaf of bread for their hats. At the end of summer 1932 my father came to take us to Makeevka, where he and my brother had found jobs.
Makeevka is a town of miners, about 30 kilometers from Donetsk. Its population was mixed like in many other towns in the south of Ukraine: Russian, Ukrainian and those that came from Northern Caucasus. There were many Jews in town, a big synagogue and a Jewish cemetery. We first rented an apartment in Makeevka, and in 1933 my parents bought their own apartment in the basement of an old two-storied house. There were three tiny rooms in a row and a kitchen with a Russian stove. In fall and spring our rooms were flooded after it rained. We were still very poor. My father went to work as a janitor at the bakery and that saved us during the famine in 1933 [the famine in Ukraine] [12]. My father brought us loaves of bread that had fallen apart. I don’t know whether this bread really fell apart or if he helped out a little there, but in any case this bread saved us. We always looked forward to my father coming home from work and putting gray glutinous bread on the table. My mother gave equal pieces to my older brother and sister, Srul and me. My father didn’t eat any bread at home, telling us that he had had enough at work. My mother ate a very small piece.
My brother Nuchim worked somewhere and Maria was a senior student at school. Around 1935 my brother went to Donetsk where he entered Donetsk Medical College, and Maria moved to my uncle in Lugansk for good. She finished school and entered a medical school there. My father still didn’t get along with my uncle. He never visited him and his brother never came to see him either. We hardly ever saw him.
Makeevka is a town of miners, about 30 kilometers from Donetsk. Its population was mixed like in many other towns in the south of Ukraine: Russian, Ukrainian and those that came from Northern Caucasus. There were many Jews in town, a big synagogue and a Jewish cemetery. We first rented an apartment in Makeevka, and in 1933 my parents bought their own apartment in the basement of an old two-storied house. There were three tiny rooms in a row and a kitchen with a Russian stove. In fall and spring our rooms were flooded after it rained. We were still very poor. My father went to work as a janitor at the bakery and that saved us during the famine in 1933 [the famine in Ukraine] [12]. My father brought us loaves of bread that had fallen apart. I don’t know whether this bread really fell apart or if he helped out a little there, but in any case this bread saved us. We always looked forward to my father coming home from work and putting gray glutinous bread on the table. My mother gave equal pieces to my older brother and sister, Srul and me. My father didn’t eat any bread at home, telling us that he had had enough at work. My mother ate a very small piece.
My brother Nuchim worked somewhere and Maria was a senior student at school. Around 1935 my brother went to Donetsk where he entered Donetsk Medical College, and Maria moved to my uncle in Lugansk for good. She finished school and entered a medical school there. My father still didn’t get along with my uncle. He never visited him and his brother never came to see him either. We hardly ever saw him.
, Ukraine
In Makeevka I went to a Russian secondary school. There were mostly Jewish families in the building where we lived. My brother Srul and I had many friends. I also had Ukrainian and Russian school friends since there were children of various nationalities in our school. Our teachers treated us nicely and there was no segregation at school. The children were different though. There was a group of pupils that called Jews ‘zhydy’ [kike]. Once they even caught my brother and me after classes and applied pork fat on our lips teasing us that we didn’t eat pork. I can say that I have identified myself as a Jew since my childhood.
I became a Young Octobrist [13] and then a pioneer and Komsomol [14] member at school. I took an active part in all activities: sang in the choir and attended dance and drama clubs. I also played checkers and chess. I liked studying at school, even though I wasn’t the best pupil. I was good at German and my teacher often asked me to help other children with the German language. We celebrated all Soviet holidays at school and attended parades on 1st May and 7th November, October Revolution Day [15]. On holidays my friends and I went for walks in the park and to the cinema or cultural center in the evening. We didn’t celebrate Soviet holidays at home. My parents went to the synagogue and celebrated Jewish holidays. They understood that my brother and I had other interests and didn’t impose their outlooks on us. I regret that I didn’t learn my mother tongue and Jewish traditions and customs, but when I was young I thought these to be a vestige of the past. I didn’t care about nationality and just differentiated between good and evil people. I still do.
Craftsmen and workers lived in our house. Fortunately, none of us suffered from the arrests in 1937-38 [during the so-called Great Terror] [16]. However, I remember that some of my schoolmates’ fathers were arrested. They were charged of sabotage and subversive activities at the mines where they worked. I remember a Komsomol meeting in 1939 when one of my schoolmates publicly repudiated his father. He would have been expelled from the Komsomol if he hadn’t done it and that would have been a horrible punishment. Our teachers were decent people and the atmosphere in school didn’t change. We believed everything our teachers told us and didn’t even question the correctness of the state policy or any happenings in the country.
I became a Young Octobrist [13] and then a pioneer and Komsomol [14] member at school. I took an active part in all activities: sang in the choir and attended dance and drama clubs. I also played checkers and chess. I liked studying at school, even though I wasn’t the best pupil. I was good at German and my teacher often asked me to help other children with the German language. We celebrated all Soviet holidays at school and attended parades on 1st May and 7th November, October Revolution Day [15]. On holidays my friends and I went for walks in the park and to the cinema or cultural center in the evening. We didn’t celebrate Soviet holidays at home. My parents went to the synagogue and celebrated Jewish holidays. They understood that my brother and I had other interests and didn’t impose their outlooks on us. I regret that I didn’t learn my mother tongue and Jewish traditions and customs, but when I was young I thought these to be a vestige of the past. I didn’t care about nationality and just differentiated between good and evil people. I still do.
Craftsmen and workers lived in our house. Fortunately, none of us suffered from the arrests in 1937-38 [during the so-called Great Terror] [16]. However, I remember that some of my schoolmates’ fathers were arrested. They were charged of sabotage and subversive activities at the mines where they worked. I remember a Komsomol meeting in 1939 when one of my schoolmates publicly repudiated his father. He would have been expelled from the Komsomol if he hadn’t done it and that would have been a horrible punishment. Our teachers were decent people and the atmosphere in school didn’t change. We believed everything our teachers told us and didn’t even question the correctness of the state policy or any happenings in the country.
, Ukraine
In 1940 my parents sold our apartment and bought a house. It was a modest house, but there was a kitchen garden and a garden close to it. There was electricity in the house, but there was no gas and we stoked the stove with coal. The toilet was in the yard, but this was so common in Makeevka that we didn’t consider it a discomfort. There was also a radio in the house. We often listened to concerts and literary readings in the evening. Shortly before the war we got a record player and I was very fond of listening to records. I liked Soviet songs such as ‘How spacious is my country’, ‘March of enthusiasts’, etc. [Well-known Soviet patriotic and Communist songs.]
We heard about the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on the radio. There were crowds of people near street radios at noon of 22nd June 1941 listening to the frightening words by Molotov [17] about the beginning of the war. This was one day before I received my certificate for finishing my 9th year at school. After about ten days our relatives from Bessarabia arrived: my mother’s brother and sister, their children and husbands, in-laws, neighbors and acquaintances. They arrived on horse-driven carts and there wasn’t enough space in the yard for all of them to park. They were tired and exhausted and after having a meal they fell asleep on the floor. They were telling horrible details of the brutalities of Nazis and about their escape. Our relatives didn’t stay long but soon continued their way to the East by train. Nuchim and Maria were recruited to the army on the first days of the war. Maria came to say goodbye, but my stepbrother didn’t even get a chance to see us before he left.
My parents, my younger brother and I packed, ready to evacuate. My mother made rucksacks from pillowcases for us into which we put our underwear, clothes, a few textbooks and our favorite books. There were air raids and a curfew was introduced in the town. My father made a shelter in the yard where we were hiding during air raids. We only managed to leave in October 1941. Our distant relative, the one that once helped my father and brother to find a job in Makeevka, helped us to evacuate. He worked at a large metallurgical plant and we managed to evacuate to the Ural with this plant. We traveled in a freight train with a stove in our railcar. We had food to last two weeks, at the maximum. We didn’t believe we would be gone for long. We didn’t have many essential things. We didn’t have cups or all the necessary clothes. At stations we sometimes got some cereal or soup. Our fellow travelers even managed to cook some food on the stove. It was good that we had enough dried bread. During air raids on our way the train stopped and we scattered around. For some reason I was scared most about seeing dead horses in the fields. I was very afraid from then on.
We heard about the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on the radio. There were crowds of people near street radios at noon of 22nd June 1941 listening to the frightening words by Molotov [17] about the beginning of the war. This was one day before I received my certificate for finishing my 9th year at school. After about ten days our relatives from Bessarabia arrived: my mother’s brother and sister, their children and husbands, in-laws, neighbors and acquaintances. They arrived on horse-driven carts and there wasn’t enough space in the yard for all of them to park. They were tired and exhausted and after having a meal they fell asleep on the floor. They were telling horrible details of the brutalities of Nazis and about their escape. Our relatives didn’t stay long but soon continued their way to the East by train. Nuchim and Maria were recruited to the army on the first days of the war. Maria came to say goodbye, but my stepbrother didn’t even get a chance to see us before he left.
My parents, my younger brother and I packed, ready to evacuate. My mother made rucksacks from pillowcases for us into which we put our underwear, clothes, a few textbooks and our favorite books. There were air raids and a curfew was introduced in the town. My father made a shelter in the yard where we were hiding during air raids. We only managed to leave in October 1941. Our distant relative, the one that once helped my father and brother to find a job in Makeevka, helped us to evacuate. He worked at a large metallurgical plant and we managed to evacuate to the Ural with this plant. We traveled in a freight train with a stove in our railcar. We had food to last two weeks, at the maximum. We didn’t believe we would be gone for long. We didn’t have many essential things. We didn’t have cups or all the necessary clothes. At stations we sometimes got some cereal or soup. Our fellow travelers even managed to cook some food on the stove. It was good that we had enough dried bread. During air raids on our way the train stopped and we scattered around. For some reason I was scared most about seeing dead horses in the fields. I was very afraid from then on.
, Ukraine
We traveled for a month. We left on 7th October and on 7th November 1941 we arrived in Sosedkovo, the village of the Nizhniy Tagil timber enterprise [the town of Nizhniy Tagil is located in the Ural, Russia, 2,500 kilometers from Kiev]. We were accommodated in a local house. The owners were good to us. They let us wash ourselves – it’s hard to describe how dirty we were. They put our clothes in the stove to kill the lice. We stayed with this family a few days until we got a place in a room in a barrack. There were sheets and blankets that served as partials in this room. We were lucky to have a stove in our part of the room.
My father became a janitor at the fuel storage facility of the kolkhoz of the timber facility breeding horses and cattle. My younger brother Srul also got a job there. He was someone’s assistant. My father and Srul walked about eight kilometers to work from the village. My mother and I stayed in our cold room. We stayed in bed and tried to warm each other up. We couldn’t wait until my father came home. There was a canteen for workers at the kolkhoz, where my father got some leftover food for us: soup or cereal. This was our only food for the day. We got some potatoes in the village, but they froze because even the walls in our dwelling were covered with a layer of ice. We exchanged everything we had for food and wood. My mother displayed her dresses and blouses on our bed and the locals came and took them away for a bucket of potatoes, a jar of milk or a piece of butter. Sometimes people brought us potato peels and my mother made potato pancakes from them.
My father became a janitor at the fuel storage facility of the kolkhoz of the timber facility breeding horses and cattle. My younger brother Srul also got a job there. He was someone’s assistant. My father and Srul walked about eight kilometers to work from the village. My mother and I stayed in our cold room. We stayed in bed and tried to warm each other up. We couldn’t wait until my father came home. There was a canteen for workers at the kolkhoz, where my father got some leftover food for us: soup or cereal. This was our only food for the day. We got some potatoes in the village, but they froze because even the walls in our dwelling were covered with a layer of ice. We exchanged everything we had for food and wood. My mother displayed her dresses and blouses on our bed and the locals came and took them away for a bucket of potatoes, a jar of milk or a piece of butter. Sometimes people brought us potato peels and my mother made potato pancakes from them.
, Ukraine
Makeevka was liberated at the end of 1943 and we began to pack to go home. I couldn’t get my documents – my examination record book and my certificate of secondary education – from the college since they didn’t want to let me go. I left with my parents and brother after finishing my 1st year without waiting for the permit for my departure or other documents.
Our house in Makeevka was half ruined. There was a hole in the ceiling and some walls had fallen down. There were no pieces of furniture and bed sheets left. Later, our neighbors returned some of our belongings. My friends also came back from evacuation. My older brother Nuchim was still in the army. Maria returned to our uncle in Lugansk. My brother and sister got to know our address through an evacuation agency. We corresponded throughout the war, but it took letters very long to reach us and sometimes they got lost. Our family was lucky to have survived the war.
I was a secretary at the town military registry office where I worked until summer when I went to Kiev to enter a college. I just wanted to study. I didn’t know what kind of colleges there were in Kiev or what exactly I wanted to study. I didn’t have any money or acquaintances in Kiev. I stayed with my mother’s distant relatives. I hadn’t known them before, but my mother wrote to them and they invited me to stay with them. I went to a few colleges, but they refused to accept my application since I didn’t have my certificate of secondary education and my examination record book wasn’t valid. I sent a request to Nizhniy Tagil and they sent me my documents. I was accepted for the 2nd year at the Faculty of Economics of the College of Light Industry. I also received a room in the hostel with five other girls.
Our house in Makeevka was half ruined. There was a hole in the ceiling and some walls had fallen down. There were no pieces of furniture and bed sheets left. Later, our neighbors returned some of our belongings. My friends also came back from evacuation. My older brother Nuchim was still in the army. Maria returned to our uncle in Lugansk. My brother and sister got to know our address through an evacuation agency. We corresponded throughout the war, but it took letters very long to reach us and sometimes they got lost. Our family was lucky to have survived the war.
I was a secretary at the town military registry office where I worked until summer when I went to Kiev to enter a college. I just wanted to study. I didn’t know what kind of colleges there were in Kiev or what exactly I wanted to study. I didn’t have any money or acquaintances in Kiev. I stayed with my mother’s distant relatives. I hadn’t known them before, but my mother wrote to them and they invited me to stay with them. I went to a few colleges, but they refused to accept my application since I didn’t have my certificate of secondary education and my examination record book wasn’t valid. I sent a request to Nizhniy Tagil and they sent me my documents. I was accepted for the 2nd year at the Faculty of Economics of the College of Light Industry. I also received a room in the hostel with five other girls.
, Ukraine
I finished my studies in 1949. I had a nice group of friends in the hostel. We celebrated holidays and went to the cinema, museums and parks on the slopes of the Dnieper River together. We also went to theaters that had also returned from evacuation. We like going to parades on 1st May and 7th November. After the parades we went for a walk in the city. There were many Jewish students at college, but there were also students of various other nationalities in our group. I was involved in Komsomol activities and was a member of the Komsomol committee of the college. I took part in Komsomol meetings where we discussed issues associated with our studies and in amateur art activities. I organized contests and concerts. I met my future husband at the college. However international my views were I wished to marry a Jewish man, although I didn’t observe any Jewish traditions at the time.
My husband Michael Aronovich was born to a worker’s family in Kiev in 1921. His family didn’t observe any Jewish traditions. His father Haskel Aronovich was a communist and sincerely believed in Lenin’s ideas. His mother Charna – she called herself Tsylia – was a housewife. Michael went to the army after finishing school in 1939, was at the front during the war and was awarded orders and medals. After the war he served in the occupying forces in Austria, Germany and Romania. He demobilized in 1947 and was admitted to the Faculty of Technology at my college. I liked Michael. He was a tall and strong man. He wore his military uniform and coat with the shoulder straps removed, like many other guys that returned from the front. About 1948, during the period of anti-Semitic campaigns and the struggle against cosmopolitans [18], my husband changed his name to Michael. He said that he wanted his children to have a common patronymic to have fewer problems in life. We had the same group of friends for a long time. Michael and me spent time together, but we never talked about a closer relationship. We didn’t face any anti-Semitism. We only read about ‘enemies of the people’ in newspapers and we never doubted anything published officially by the mass media.
I graduated from college in 1949 and got a job assignment [19] to a leather plant in Nikolaev [regional town, about 400 km from Kiev]. I specialized in economical leather production. I spent my one-month vacation with my parents in Makeevka. My father worked in the commercial sector and my mother was a housewife. They observed Jewish traditions as before. There was no synagogue in Makeevka, so my father went to pray in the prayer house every now and then. I thought this all to be outdated and obsolete: religion, traditions and celebration of Saturdays.
My husband Michael Aronovich was born to a worker’s family in Kiev in 1921. His family didn’t observe any Jewish traditions. His father Haskel Aronovich was a communist and sincerely believed in Lenin’s ideas. His mother Charna – she called herself Tsylia – was a housewife. Michael went to the army after finishing school in 1939, was at the front during the war and was awarded orders and medals. After the war he served in the occupying forces in Austria, Germany and Romania. He demobilized in 1947 and was admitted to the Faculty of Technology at my college. I liked Michael. He was a tall and strong man. He wore his military uniform and coat with the shoulder straps removed, like many other guys that returned from the front. About 1948, during the period of anti-Semitic campaigns and the struggle against cosmopolitans [18], my husband changed his name to Michael. He said that he wanted his children to have a common patronymic to have fewer problems in life. We had the same group of friends for a long time. Michael and me spent time together, but we never talked about a closer relationship. We didn’t face any anti-Semitism. We only read about ‘enemies of the people’ in newspapers and we never doubted anything published officially by the mass media.
I graduated from college in 1949 and got a job assignment [19] to a leather plant in Nikolaev [regional town, about 400 km from Kiev]. I specialized in economical leather production. I spent my one-month vacation with my parents in Makeevka. My father worked in the commercial sector and my mother was a housewife. They observed Jewish traditions as before. There was no synagogue in Makeevka, so my father went to pray in the prayer house every now and then. I thought this all to be outdated and obsolete: religion, traditions and celebration of Saturdays.
, Ukraine
In Nikolaev I got accommodation in the hostel located near the plant. I had a room for myself, only the toilet and kitchen in the corridor were for common use. There were hardly any other Jewish employees at the plant, but I got along well with my colleagues. At weekends my friends from the hostel and I went to the cinema or dance parties at the cultural center of the plant. I worked at the Department of Labor and Salary for a year. I had to learn many things since we had only studied theory in college and I needed to gain some practical skills. I had a good salary and for the first time in my life I could afford to buy clothes and shoes. I enjoyed it very much.
In summer 1950 I went to attend a traditional meeting of fellow students in Kiev. I met with Michael in Kiev and we realized that we were in love with each other. We spent several days going for walks and kissed in the parks, but then I had to go back to work. We corresponded for a year and in summer 1951 Michael came to see my parents in Makeevka to get their consent to our marriage. A month later we had a civil ceremony at the registry office in Makeevka. My mother made me a fancy dress of crepe de Chine, and Michael’s parents bought him his first suit. We could only afford to buy one ring – for me. We didn’t have money for a ring for Michael, and, besides, men didn’t wear wedding rings since they were considered to be a vestige of the bourgeois past. We had a small wedding party. We didn’t have a Jewish wedding. We just invited our close relatives and friends.
I had to go back to Nikolaev again, but this time I had the status of a married woman. In 1952 my husband wrote an official request to my company to dismiss me, so I could go to Kiev. My management was reluctant to let me go since I was valued as an employee and was the head of the Planning Department at that time. However, I resigned and went to Kiev. We lived with my husband’s parents in a two-bedroom communal apartment [20] in the center of Kiev. My husband went to work as a production engineer at the Metal Ware Plant. He worked there his whole life. I faced direct anti-Semitism when I came to Kiev. I couldn’t find work until an acquaintance of ours helped me to get a job at the Animal Raw Material Supply Company.
In summer 1950 I went to attend a traditional meeting of fellow students in Kiev. I met with Michael in Kiev and we realized that we were in love with each other. We spent several days going for walks and kissed in the parks, but then I had to go back to work. We corresponded for a year and in summer 1951 Michael came to see my parents in Makeevka to get their consent to our marriage. A month later we had a civil ceremony at the registry office in Makeevka. My mother made me a fancy dress of crepe de Chine, and Michael’s parents bought him his first suit. We could only afford to buy one ring – for me. We didn’t have money for a ring for Michael, and, besides, men didn’t wear wedding rings since they were considered to be a vestige of the bourgeois past. We had a small wedding party. We didn’t have a Jewish wedding. We just invited our close relatives and friends.
I had to go back to Nikolaev again, but this time I had the status of a married woman. In 1952 my husband wrote an official request to my company to dismiss me, so I could go to Kiev. My management was reluctant to let me go since I was valued as an employee and was the head of the Planning Department at that time. However, I resigned and went to Kiev. We lived with my husband’s parents in a two-bedroom communal apartment [20] in the center of Kiev. My husband went to work as a production engineer at the Metal Ware Plant. He worked there his whole life. I faced direct anti-Semitism when I came to Kiev. I couldn’t find work until an acquaintance of ours helped me to get a job at the Animal Raw Material Supply Company.
, Ukraine