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Luckily Tashkent is a warm city and it was still warm then. We spent several days in 'sadik' [Russian for a little garden], that is, a small square in front of the train station. You couldn't sleep in that 'sadik,' not even turn away for a minute, because things were pulled right from under you at a moment of inattention. There were bands of children left without care, and adults too, ruthlessly robbing everyone. Since we had a baby with us who was breastfed - luckily my mother was still breastfeeding - a woman took us into her courtyard. There was a so-called 'tachta' in that courtyard: a type of a wooden elevation where one could sit and drink tea, as was the custom. You could place a quilt or spread on it and sleep there.
And then we were assigned an apartment, not in Tashkent itself, but as if in the suburbs, in 'posiolok' [Russian for village]. It was called Lunaczarsk, most likely in honor of Lunaczarski [Anatolij Lunaczarski, 1875- 1933, Russian philosopher and culture theorist, an activist of the Bolshevik party, the creator of Soviet educational system]. There we came across a White Guardist, honestly. He was told, with his wife and daughter, to free one room for us. It was a connecting room, which basically served them as a kitchen. We slept somewhere under the window, on the floor. I remember my mother stood a table on its side to shield us. And the man was a heavy drinker. When he was quite drunk, he took an ax, shook it, and yelled, 'Etoy nochyu ya uzhe etih Yevreyev ubiyu!' [Russian for 'Tonight I will kill those Jews at last']. A neighbor took pity on us. She was childless, her husband went to the front. She gave us a kitchen and a porch and I slept on a coal stove. Later, in Tashkent, I spent whole summers sleeping outside, on a bed made of wooden planks, out of choice. The courtyard was fenced in so I had no problem sleeping there and no bedbugs.
And then we were assigned an apartment, not in Tashkent itself, but as if in the suburbs, in 'posiolok' [Russian for village]. It was called Lunaczarsk, most likely in honor of Lunaczarski [Anatolij Lunaczarski, 1875- 1933, Russian philosopher and culture theorist, an activist of the Bolshevik party, the creator of Soviet educational system]. There we came across a White Guardist, honestly. He was told, with his wife and daughter, to free one room for us. It was a connecting room, which basically served them as a kitchen. We slept somewhere under the window, on the floor. I remember my mother stood a table on its side to shield us. And the man was a heavy drinker. When he was quite drunk, he took an ax, shook it, and yelled, 'Etoy nochyu ya uzhe etih Yevreyev ubiyu!' [Russian for 'Tonight I will kill those Jews at last']. A neighbor took pity on us. She was childless, her husband went to the front. She gave us a kitchen and a porch and I slept on a coal stove. Later, in Tashkent, I spent whole summers sleeping outside, on a bed made of wooden planks, out of choice. The courtyard was fenced in so I had no problem sleeping there and no bedbugs.
Period
Year
1939
Location
Tashkent
Uzbekistan
Interview
rena michalowska
Tag(s)