My grandfather only spoke Yiddish.
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Displaying 49921 - 49950 of 50453 results
Tobiash Starozum
He didn’t work in his store on Saturday. He went to shil (Editor’s note: that was how they called their synagogue) to “duvener” (Editor’s note: pray in Yiddish).
,
Before WW2
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My grandfather was very religious. He prayed twice a day with his tahles and tefillin on.
,
Before WW2
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My grandmother seemed very old to me, although she was only 55-60 years old then. She was very nice to me and always wanted to tell me things, but I was just a boy and took no interest in her stories. I felt like playing with other boys in the yard and left my grandmother to do my own things. I wish I had listened more to what she wanted to tell me. My grandmother died in 1925 when I was 10.
,
Before WW2
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I remember my grandmother Laya Starozum very well. She was born in Vydava in 1865. She was a good housewife and a devoted mother.
,
Before WW2
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Jews in Vydava only ate kosher food that they must have bought in Jewish stores.
,
Before WW2
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They spoke Yiddish in their family and followed the kashrut.
,
Before WW2
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My grandfather was religious like all other Jews in this town. My grandfather said a prayer on Fridays and went to synagogue on Saturday.
,
Before WW2
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My grandfather on my father’s side Toibe Starozum was born in a small town of Vydava near Lodz in 1863. All I know about my grandfather is what my family members told me. My grandfather was a tailor. He was sitting on the windowsill with his legs crossed sewing with a needle - he didn’t have a sewing machine.
,
Before WW2
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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.
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
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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
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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.
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After WW2
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When we met she was the only survivor in her family – all others perished during Holocaust.
,
During WW2
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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
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