They celebrated all Jewish holidays in accordance with traditions. On Friday the house was shining of cleanliness. My grandmother lit candles in silver candle stands. She put a hala baked on a previous day on a silver dish covering it with a snow-white napkin. They went to the synagogue to say the prayers that were required on each holidays.
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Displaying 49441 - 49470 of 50504 results
Sholom Rondin Biography
They also made traditional food. At Chanukah they made “latkes” – potato pancakes and at Purim – Gomentashen – little pies with poppy seeds.
At Pesach all dishes were cooked from matsah. There were few synagogues in Gomel. Matsah was made at the bakery every year and we bought matsah rather than making it. My grandmother had special dishes and tablecloths for Pesach. After they returned from the synagogue they all sat at the table and my grandfather conducted the first seder and the family got down to a festive dinner.
Motl, born in 1902, also became a shoemaker. He finished cheder. He wasn’t very educated, but he was a good shoemaker and a very nice man. He worked at home, provided for his family and supported us. If it hadn’t been for him we wouldn’t have survived at trying times. When my grandfather grew old and couldn’t go on working Motl went to work in his shop near the market. When he bought two loaves of bread at the market he left one for us on his way home, and when he had one loaf of bread he left a half for us.
My uncle Motl went to the army in 1941. He perished during the Great patriotic War.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
My father’s younger brother Neeh (Naum) was born in 1910. He finished a Jewish school and then finished a rabfak (2).
In the late 1920-early 1930s industrial enterprises were constructed in Gomel. Neeh became an equipment mechanic at a big shoe factory.
During the Great patriotic War he was evacuated to Kazakhstan with the factory. During the Great patriotic War this factory made officer boots for the front.
After the war he returned to Gomel and in 1950s he and his wife moved to Simferopol. From there they moved to Israel.
He was very religious even as child. He was constantly praying. He finished a yeshyva and knew Talmud and other religious books. He was an older son and had to go to work to help his parents to raise younger children. Perhaps that was why he didn’t become a rabbi.
My father was also very talented in making clothes. He was an apprentice and very soon became a professional tailor.
My mother’s father Kalman Levenchuk, born in 1865, was also a shoemaker. My mother’s family lived in the outskirts of the town and their customers were mainly villagers and poor families from the outskirts of the town. My mother’s family was poor. I visited them several times. I remember a big stove and reeky walls. It even seems to me now that there was only one big kitchen and no rooms in their house. My grandfather worked on a stool beside the stove wearing a black apron and a cap.
My grandfather made a break for lunch. At that time the house became very quiet. My grandfather washed his hands and prayed. Then he sat at the table and my grandmother poured a ceramic bowl of soup for him. He ate the second course that was usually potatoes with goose fat from this same bowl. I found it different from how they ate at my father parents’ home. They always laid a white tablecloth on the table and put beautiful plates for the first and second courses and always ate a second course with a knife and a fork.
My grandfather spoke Yiddish. I don’t know what language he spoke to his customers – I didn’t have a chance to hear.
My stepsisters on my mother’s side came to say “good bye” to us prior to their departure back in 1991. They live in Israel and they are very happy.
Six years ago my wife and I went to visit them in Israel. We liked it there. It’s a beautiful country. We undoubtedly would like to live there, but we don’t have much time left. We should have moved there 10 years before. Our relatives have a good life there. They receive a good pension and their children are well settled. Yes, we should have gone there. I would have been better there.
Here I lost all my saving to the money reform. I saved my whole life for our old age and for our grandchildren. I had sufficient savings to lead a good life here, but we lost them all during the downfall of the USSR. When my sisters were leaving they took their savings with them and we here were robbed, but there is nobody to complain to.
Jewish organizations invite us to various events, lectures. We watch movies and listen to music at Hesed. Hesed provides us wit medications and food packages. It is a big support – we wouldn’t manage without their help.
I am a pensioner now. I worked as a painter 44 years. I did my work well. Now nobody needs my skills. People wallpaper their apartments. Nobody wants to learn my profession. They will come to it –only it will be too late.
Life was better during the Soviet power. I believed in this power and liked it. The Soviet power wouldn’t have allowed impoverishment of old people – veterans.
I didn’t join the party – I didn’t care about it, especially that they had meetings of all kinds and other activities. I am not a public person.
But I was respectable and didn’t face any anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. I don’t see any anti-Semitism now. I believe if one is a decent person nobody would dare to hurt one’s dignity.
Ladislav Roth Biography
There was one Jewish employee there and they could employ me. I worked in a big hall. One of newly appointed officials, a fascist, often came for dinner there and he always demanded to be waited on by a non-Jew sending me away. There was another hall for Jews in the Korona restaurant. It used to be a banquet hall, but when persecution of Jews began they made it a hall for Jewish visitors to avoid conflicts. There was one Jew working there. His name was Borukh Leibush and when there were too many visitors, it was difficult to wait on all of them. There were complaints. I had hard feeling after each visit of this official and asked senior waiter to let me work with Borukh in the hall for Jewish visitors. This hall was 4-5 times smaller than the others, but it brought ten times more income.
Jews had a feeling that there was nothing good for them to expect and spent their money lavishly. The Jewish hall was always full, they ordered expensive dishes and gave big tips. It turned out that it was very profitable to work in the Jewish hall.
Jews had a feeling that there was nothing good for them to expect and spent their money lavishly. The Jewish hall was always full, they ordered expensive dishes and gave big tips. It turned out that it was very profitable to work in the Jewish hall.
My younger brother and sister couldn’t continue their studies after finishing school. When Hungarians came to power in 1939, Jews were not to be admitted to higher educational institutions. My sister became an apprentice of a hairdresser. She began to work a year after she started her training. My brother became an apprentice in a women’s clothes shop. The owner of the shop was a Jewish man whose surname was Hertzog and his wife was a Christian. Hertzog officially transferred his saloon to his wife and continued to manage it as he did before.
We never came to borrowing money to buy something. My mother only cooked kosher food at home and watched it that we didn’t bring home non-kosher products. My brother, sister and I didn’t follow kashrut outside of our home. We worked nearby. At lunch I went to a small store in the shopping center where they sold ham and delicious homemade sausage where I bought some for myself, my brother and sister that I took to their work. My mother would not probably be happy about this kind of meal, but we never mentioned it to her.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
We never came to borrowing money to buy something. My mother only cooked kosher food at home and watched it that we didn’t bring home non-kosher products. My brother, sister and I didn’t follow kashrut outside of our home. We worked nearby. At lunch I went to a small store in the shopping center where they sold ham and delicious homemade sausage where I bought some for myself, my brother and sister that I took to their work. My mother would not probably be happy about this kind of meal, but we never mentioned it to her.
In the first year of Hungarian rule there were no persecutions of Jews or attacks on synagogues, but in 1940 Jews began to fear going to synagogues. Young men with sticks waited for them in front of synagogues to beat them. Thank God, there were no bombs, but they beat Jews with sticks until they started bleeding. Then Jewish young men began to unite in groups. Before a sermon in the synagogue they also stood there with sticks and didn’t allow hooligans to come near. There were also attacks on passers by with typical Semitic looks. They were particularly mad seeing a Jewish man with a Christian woman, but I continued to see Maria. I didn’t look like a Jew, I was more like a Slavic type of man and we didn’t get in any incidents.
It went on until 1942 when I was recruited to a work battalion. Jews were only recruited to work battalions. Guys of 1922 year of birth got together at the railway station where we boarded a train and headed to the frontier with Austria. Then we were separated into groups of 20 men in a battalion. In my battalion there were 10 men from Subcarpathia and 10 from Budapest. From there we were taken to Koszeg, a frontier town. We were accommodated in barracks. There were no beds or plank beds. We slept on straw on the floor. It was October. There were 40 of us in the barrack and there was only one iron stove and they didn’t allow stoking it, though it was already cold. We threw away straw since there were many bugs in it and we slept on our coats on the ground floor. We didn’t get any uniforms and wore what we brought from home. After breakfast we went to work. Our battalion worked clearing up a forest.
We cut dry trees, removed branches and trunks making a road. In the afternoon we had a lunch break. They delivered a meal from the camp. We went back to the barrack before dinnertime. Hungarians supervised this camp. We got sufficient food. In the morning we got a cup of coffee and had a loaf of bread each for the rest of the day. At lunch we had thick soup with meat and meat with rice and beans for a second course. In the evening we got a piece of sausage and tea. Nobody was hungry.
We cut dry trees, removed branches and trunks making a road. In the afternoon we had a lunch break. They delivered a meal from the camp. We went back to the barrack before dinnertime. Hungarians supervised this camp. We got sufficient food. In the morning we got a cup of coffee and had a loaf of bread each for the rest of the day. At lunch we had thick soup with meat and meat with rice and beans for a second course. In the evening we got a piece of sausage and tea. Nobody was hungry.
We were not allowed to correspond with our families. We didn’t know whether they were alive or not. Local residents told us that in 1944 all Jews in Subcarpathia were ordered to wear yellow stars on their clothes [editors note: yellow stars – hexagonal star of David, a Jewish symbol. Fascists forced Jews to wear these stars for Jewish identification in all ghettos and concentration camps]. We didn’t wear yellow stars, but in February 1944 we were ordered to wear yellow armbands. There were Neologs and more religious Jews among us, but we were not allowed to observe any Jewish traditions or celebrate holidays. Our Hungarian guards didn’t even allow us to speak Yiddish. It wasn’t a problem for me since I was used to speaking Hungarian at home. Many Jews, particularly those from villages, preferred to speak Yiddish.
In April 1944 local farmers told us that all Uzhgorod Jews were taken to a brick factory and then to concentration camps in Poland. I asked Maria to let me know about my family and she said that had been taken to a concentration camp a long time before. Nobody knew those were death camps. We thought they were work camps.