Naum Baru and his father Isaak Baru

Naum Baru and his father Isaak Baru

My father Isaak Baru and I. My father knew that the attitude towards the Jews had changed. But he was a member of the Communist Party and there was no anti-Semitism shown openly at their meetings, etc. He used to tell me then that nothing changed. But things did change. If we take my father as an example - he had orders and medals at the front, besides, he was a participant of the civil war but he left the army in the rank of captain. He was never promoted further on. My father had the Red Star Order, the Order of the Patriotic War and medals "For Combat Merits", "For Vienna", etc. (he was awarded orders for the towns that he had liberated. I remember well Hitler coming to power and invasion of Poland. My father was a reserve officer and was recruited to the army in 1939 for half a year service term. He worked as an accountant, business manager and lieutenant-technician at a military institution in Kharkov. He was wearing a military uniform. He lived at home, but due to his mobilization to the army he spent a lot of time in service. I hardly ever saw him. He returned home very late. We were actually preparing for the war. Nobody knew how it would start but everybody knew that it was inevitable. Frankly speaking I saw very little of my father. When working at the plant he was leaving home at eight in the morning to return at 10 in the evening. I was already asleep at this time, as far as I had to get up early in the morning to go to school. It was basically my mother that I spent most of my time with. I knew who Hitler and Mussolini were. We had political information classes at school. I was one of the leading speakers at these classes. I also knew what a ghetto was. They showed anti-fascist films at school. One of them was "Professor Mumlock ". We used to exchange opinions on such subjects in our family. We had a radio receiver CI-25 or CI-225, I can't remember exactly. We listened to the programs and reacted to the subjects very acutely.
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