His older daughter Anna married a Jewish young man and they moved to Israel. Now I have three grandchildren in Israel.
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Displaying 49921 - 49950 of 50504 results
Mina Smolianskaya Biography
I remember how we heard about beginning of the war at 11 am on Sunday, 22 June 1941. My husband and I were going to the market to buy me a sewing machine when all of a sudden we heard an announcement that Hitler attacked our country. We went out and there were crowds of people standing in lines to buy essential commodities.
My husband was summoned to the army. At the beginning of July he was already sent to the front. In August 1941 I received the only letter from him. I had no information about him whatsoever. I don’t even know where his grave is. Much later an acquaintance of mine that was in the same regiment with Volodia told me that Volodia was killed near Kiev back in August 1941.
I kept working at the plant and evacuated on 18 September. There were announcements in the streets: “Enemy is at the gate to Odessa! The last ship is leaving. You have to leave, as Hitler exterminates Jews”. I ran home, packed whatever little I could and rushed to the “Russia” boat. We boarded the ship, but its commandment announced that the ship was leaving during the night to avoid bombing. We left on this ship. When this ship was on the way back to Odessa fascists bombed it and it sank. I evacuated with Mirrah, the wife of Volodia’s brother Haim and her mother.
The ship took us to Novorossiysk and from there we moved on by train. We didn’t know where we were going. Our trip lasted 18 days. Once the train stopped at a small station and we went out to take a breath of fresh air. A woman came to us asking where we were going. We were dirty and hungry and the woman told us to come to their collective farm to stay there until the war was over. People thought that the war was not going to last long. So, we went to Abganerovo station near Stalingrad in 1300 km from Odessa.
Mirrah and her mother went to dig trenches. Mirrah had never seen a spade before. She grew up in Odessa and didn’t know a thing about working with farm tools.
I worked at a military unit in Abganerovo. My profession was a painter, but I did everything I was told to do: I was appointed to a medical unit and had to take patients out for a walk, give enemas or take out patients’ pots.
In winter 1942 Germans occupied Stalingrad and we evacuated again. We stopped at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, 700 km to the east.
I went to work at a construction site, because they provided bread cards for 800 grams of bread per day. Mirrah and her mother had cards of dependants for 200 grams of bread per day. We were living in a plank barrack filling chinks in the floor with moth. Life was very hard there. People were dying of cold and starvation. We didn’t have any warm clothes. I received a winter jacket at the construction site and this was the only warm piece that we had. Mirrah and her mother learned to knit.
He employed me as a shipment forwarder on trains to Karaganda. It was a big city with the population of about 1 million people in over 3000 km from Kiev. I was so worried all this time that I was working there. My shipments were valuable and I was afraid of thefts on the way. Once there were barrels with alcohol in the shipment. At a station some people made holes at the bottom of railcars looking for this alcohol. It was a good thing they didn’t find it. They would have filled their bucket and the rest of it would have been lost on the way. I was responsible for safety of shipments and I might have been punished for any losses.
He was born in the village of Radauty in Bukovina. It belonged to Rumania before 1940. In 1940 when the Soviet power was established in Bukovina he went to work at a mine in Karaganda.
Romania
When we got acquainted Aron spoke poor Russian. People in Radauty spoke Rumanian before 1940 and his family spoke Yiddish at home. We also spoke Yiddish with him at the beginning and then gradually his Russian improved.
There were not many Jewish women there and he began to date me. Soon we got married. We had a civil ceremony.
My husband lived in a hostel and I moved in with him. There were no comforts whatsoever in this hostel. There was one toilet and one gas stove for 50 families and we washed ourselves in a bowl in our room.
We were homesick and decided to move to Chernovtsy, where my husband’s older brother lived.
When we arrived at Chernovtsy my husband told me to wait for him at the railway station while he went to look for his brothers. Their neighbor told him that they had left for Rumania on the last train. They has sent invitation for us to join them there, but we didn’t receive it. We didn’t even have a place to stay overnight. My husband found an abandoned attic with no windows. There were bare walls and bugs there. It was cold and empty. My husband and I picked some wood and made a fire to warm it up a little. We had some savings that we spent to accommodate this attic for a living.
When we arrived at Chernovtsy my husband told me to wait for him at the railway station while he went to look for his brothers. Their neighbor told him that they had left for Rumania on the last train. They has sent invitation for us to join them there, but we didn’t receive it. We didn’t even have a place to stay overnight. My husband found an abandoned attic with no windows. There were bare walls and bugs there. It was cold and empty. My husband and I picked some wood and made a fire to warm it up a little. We had some savings that we spent to accommodate this attic for a living.
My husband’s brother found us wishing that we moved to Rumania. It was necessary to refuse from the Soviet citizenship and I was reluctant to do this. Some neighbors told me that if I refused from the Soviet citizenship I might be put to prison. One could never be sure what might happen and my husband and I decided to stay in Chernovtsy.
In 1995 my husband died. I buried him beside my son. I didn’t follow any Jewish rituals. I don’t know these rituals, I don’t know the details of traditions and procedures to follow. I don’t know any prayers, all I know is how to cook traditional food.
After Ukraine gained independence in 1991 the Jewish life changed. There are Jewish organizations and there are signs in town in Yiddish and Ukrainian. Jews feel protected. We receive food packages and money for medications. Old people receive small pensions and their savings vanished in Soviet banks. My husband and I worked so hard to save some money for our old age days, but I can’t get any of it now.
As for anti-Semitism, it won’t vanish. I have a neighbor downstairs that told me that I had to go to Israel where I belong. I said to him “No, I live here and I belong here”. Then another distant neighbor came to borrow some money from me. I said to her “Look, I am not a banker!” and she said “a zhyd must have money!” And I gave her some money. What else could I do. What if she gets angry and comes to break my windows or do other harm?
Volunteers from Hesed bring me newspapers and tapes with Jewish music. I got a tape-recorder from Hesed to listen to tapes.
I have good neighbors that bring me milk, meat and cottage cheese. I can manage with my pension. I also have tenants. I charge little from them, but that’s sufficient for me.
Later my cousin Adela, my uncle Shyka’s daughter, offered me to move in with her. She had two rooms. I met my first husband there. He was an electrician and came once to change fuse. His name was Wolf Ratiner. He was called Volodia that was a more customary Russian name. We got acquainted and began to see each other.
Volodia’s father was a warden at the synagogue in Odessa.
His parents were religious, they observed all traditions and celebrated holidays, but Volodia and I were atheists.
Volodia’s family was against our marriage. When he told his family that he intended to marry me his father invited his children to a dinner and made an announcement that their brother wished to marry a country wench. He asked me whether I intended to work after wedding or I shall be a housewife. I told him that I intended to work. He told me that I was not of their kind: they were well educated and had good manners while I didn’t and I didn’t read as many books as they had and was a plain girl and that he wanted his son to marry an educated town girl. When the dinner was over I told Volodia that we had to stop seeing each other. But he replied that since his mother died his father never made him a dinner and his new wife never washed a shirt of his. He said he was going to live his own life and wanted me to become his wife.
Before we got married his father invited us for the first Seder at Pesach. He was a very religious man. When we came Volodia’s father was sitting on pillows at the table. He said prayers and told me to open the door. I didn’t know any Jewish traditions and I didn’t go to open the door. Volodia’s father explained to me that I was his younger daughter-in-law and that I had had to open the door and wait until he told me when to close it. He told me that the door should be opened for Elijah (6) to come in a sip some wine. Volodia’s father began to ask me questions and I got all confused. I replied that I was a Komsomol member and was against religion. I left the house. Volodia ran after me and told me that I should obey his father and brothers. We left together.
On the following day we went to the registry office. We got married in 1934. I was 20 and my husband was 19 years old. My husband’s father invited us to dinner after the civil ceremony at the registry office. We didn’t have any money left after Volodia paid the fee of 3 rubles for the ceremony. After we left the registry office I went to a nearby store to get some food for the small change that we had. There were radishes that we could afford. We came home and I made a salad with radishes and oil. We had a meal and then went to my husband’s father. When we came his father had a dinner he wanted to treat us to, but my husband said “We are not hungry. My wife made a meal at home”.
I was very happy to be living in the room of my own: to have a bed and a cupboard and be the mistress of my own home. I couldn’t cook at all and I was learning from other tenants since we had a room in a communal apartment. My primus stove was on a windowsill in the hallway, as there was not enough space for it in the common kitchen.
We worked hard, but we also had leisure time that we spent going dancing, celebrating Soviet holidays, getting together with friends. We had friends of different nationalities, but this was a matter of no significance for us. However difficult was our life we were happy. We had a hope for a better life, sang Soviet songs and went to the cinema.
In 1940 my brother was recruited to the army. He liked it there and he sent us a photograph from the army. Joseph served in Brest Byelorussia and perished during defense of the Brest fortress on the first day of the war 22 June 1941.