The family of Starozum came from Lodz (Western Poland). Lodz is a big industrial town and center of textile industries. There was a number of plants and factories in Lodz: textile, weaving, woolen and carpet enterprises. They were well-equipped enterprises owned by Polish, Jewish and German businessmen. There were no trees or bushes in the town. Paved streets and brick houses formed a typical townscape. There was a big Poniatovskiy park outside the town. Young Jewish people from the surrounding smaller towns and villages came to Lodz to become workers and formed Jewish neighborhoods.
- Traditions 11679
- Language spoken 3001
- Identity 7775
- Description of town 2428
- Education, school 8461
- Economics 8757
- Work 11598
- Love & romance 4918
- Leisure/Social life 4135
- Antisemitism 4797
-
Major events (political and historical)
4232
- Armenian genocide 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
- Soviet invasion of Poland 28
- Siege of Leningrad 84
- The Six Day War 4
- Yom Kippur War 2
- Ataturk's death 5
- Balkan Wars (1912-1913) 35
- First Soviet-Finnish War 37
- Occupation of Czechoslovakia 1938 83
- Invasion of France 9
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 65
- Varlik Vergisi (Wealth Tax) 36
- First World War (1914-1918) 216
- Spanish flu (1918-1920) 14
- Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920) 4
- The Great Depression (1929-1933) 20
- Hitler comes to power (1933) 125
- 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) 86
- 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) 70
- 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 147
- 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
9645
- Holocaust (in general) 2779
- Concentration camp / Work camp 1235
- Mass shooting operations 337
- Ghetto 1179
- Death / extermination camp 647
- Deportation 1061
- Forced labor 788
- Flight 1399
- Hiding 587
- Resistance 119
- 1941 evacuations 866
- Novemberpogrom / Kristallnacht 34
- 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 26
- Schutzpass / false papers 95
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) 24
- Warsaw Uprising (1944) 23
- Helpers 520
- Righteous Gentiles 269
- Returning home 1084
- Holocaust compensation 112
- Restitution 109
- Property (loss of property) 595
- Loss of loved ones 1714
- Trauma 1029
- Talking about what happened 1807
- Liberation 555
- Military 3299
- Politics 2619
-
Communism
4464
- 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 928
- Collectivization 94
- Experiences with state police 349
- 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 2176
- Zionism 835
- Jewish Organizations 1190
Displaying 49981 - 50010 of 50504 results
Tobiash Starozum
People also spoke Yiddish and it was nice to talk Yiddish with someone.
My sister came for the last time in 1988 at my invitation. She didn’t insist on our moving to Israel. On the other hand, it wasn’t possible at that time. Natalia was severely ill and I had had an infarction.
I would give anything in the world to go to Israel. All I want is going to the graves of my parents. But I never managed to go there for different reasons, work or health condition. However, I have no regrets.
I am a member of the Sholem Alechem Association in Khesed. We celebrate holidays there. Nadezhda enjoys going with me. I am very interested in Jewish life. I am so glad that our people are so united. I enjoy attending events at the Khesed and happy for the people getting together.
In the recent years I noticed a change in the attitude towards the Jews. There is no anti-Semitism on the state level. The cultural life is becoming more active. Jewish theaters come on tours. Jewish folk groups come on tours and we can go to watch Jewish movies. Ad I have noticed that not only Jews attend these events. Hosed, the Jewish Charity fund plays a big role in the development of the national self-consciousness. I go there sometimes to read Jewish newspapers or to listen to lectures.
I had a neighbor. Her name was Nadezhda Sidorenko. She came from Chornobyl (Editor’s note: after disaster at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant inhabitants of Chornobyl were evacuated to various regions in Ukraine). Nadezhda and her son’s family moved to Lvov. She is Russian. She was born in 1927. She decided that she wanted to live the rest of her life with me. We have been together for 12 years. We get along well and have a good life.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Poland was a part of Russia at that time and he was recruited to the Russian army. After WWI he stayed in Moscow and Esther joined him in 1922.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My mother’s older sister Esther (born in 1887) married a very nice and talented Jewish man – Jacob Ekhlis, in 1911.
His son Shlome, born in 1917, was a composer. He managed to escape to the Soviet Union. I know that he reached Kovel and got together with my aunt Esther. We met with him in Moscow. He was a very cheerful and talented man. Shlome was in evacuation in Siberia during the war. He worked at a club and had very little food.
My grandparents were old people when Germans occupied Poland in 1939. They shared the fate of all Jews in their town. They perished, but I don’t know any details.
My grandmother spoke Yiddish, but with her Polish customers she spoke Polish.
My grandmother was selling things in the store and my grandfather watched the process sitting at a desk.
My grandparents were not rich, but very respectable people in the town.
My grandmother listened with respect to my grandfather saying a prayer. My grandmother also tended to customers on Saturday, because the law is not so strict to women and she could work, if necessary.
She was religious and observed everything our God required from us. On Friday evening she lit candles. Dinner for Saturday was cooked a day before.
I know that my grandmother didn’t have any education and couldn’t write, but she handled her customers well.
We had a very cozy and well-kept apartment.
Natalia worked as a nurse assistant in hospital. She was wounded but returned to her duties after she recovered. After the war she worked as an accountant at first and then she went to work in commerce. When it was impossible to buy anything in stores because they were empty, she could get goods that they received in their store to exchange them for different ones with her acquaintances working in other stores. We lived 30 years together. My wife was a very good housewife.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
When we met she was the only survivor in her family – all others perished during Holocaust.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
I got married in Zhygulyovsk in 1955. Her name was Natalia Markevich, a Jewish woman from Ukraine. She was born in 1922. I was 40 and my wife was 33.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I became logistics manager at that camp, too. Never I heard any curse words addressed to me. People didn’t even tease me for my accent. I have always been nice to people. I never refused to help them.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Benyum grew up and served in the army and then became a worker. He is married.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My sister still lives in this apartment. She lived with our parents. She and our father had some knitwear business.
Members of my family worked at a kibbutz in Israel. They didn’t get any payment for their work, but they got accommodation and meals at the kibbutz. They learned Hebrew there. My father did some farming and made clothes. My mother and sister worked at the canteen. When their situation improved they rented an apartment in Bat-Yam.
At the end of 1946 my parents and sister moved to Palestine.
But after they arrived, they didn’t feel welcome in Poland. Nobody wanted them there. There were no apartments available and no jobs and no future. There was anti-Semitism similar to German anti-Semitism. There were very few Jews left in Poland. It was a rough situation and they didn’t stay there long.
Poland
In summer 1945 there was a Decree issued allowing Polish citizens to go back to Poland. My family began to pack to go back to Poland. I couldn’t go with them. My job had sensitive restrictions, as our institution was within the structure of the Ministry of Foreign affairs. My colleagues respected me. We decided that my family would leave without me and then – come what may. I helped my family to obtain all necessary documents and pack. But what happened was that somebody stole their documents at the railway station. They were forced to get off the train on the border and go to Moscow. I had to put together another package of documentation for them and take it to Moscow. When employees of the Polish Embassy in Moscow got to know that my father was such a good tailor they wanted to convince him to take up a job at the Embassy. They even promised him an apartment in Moscow. My father refused. He looked forward to going back home in Lodz. They went home to Lodz.
9 May 1945 was a big holiday. People came out into streets hugging each other, crying for their lost ones, but feeling happy that the war was over.
He was a metalworker.