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All other members of our family - Mama, Broha, Abram and Zhenia - were in evacuation in Stary Sultanbek village, Bashkiria. My mother's sisters Rosa, Golda and Sonia and their children were there, too. Their husbands were at the front. In 1943 mMy father visited them. He was wounded in 1942. He fell ill with tuberculosis in hospital. He had only half of his lung left afterwards and was released from the army. He became an invalid. My father was a tinsmith and got a job to provide for the family. Their life in Bashkiria became a little bit easier.
In 1945 the Soviet army liberated us [from the camp]. We didn't know where to go. There were many people from Chernovtsy who said it was possible to find a place to live there. We went to Chernovtsy. Lisa wrote a letter to our parents' place in Gomel. Our house in Gomel had been bombed and destroyed. Our neighbor got the letter. She met Aunt Musia at the market and gave the letter to her. Aunt Musia wrote to Mama that we were alive. Lisa told Mama that it was possible to find an apartment in Chernovtsy.
We found an empty house in Klokuchka on the outskirts of Chernovtsy. This was in 1946. We've lived there ever since. There was only one room, a closet and a kitchen in the house, but it seemed like a palace to us. There were two plum trees in the yard and plums on the ground. I couldn't imagine anything like that in the beginning! During our whole time in the camp I had two plums and one apple, which I got from the Romanian guard and shared with my sister.
Chernovtsy was a Jewish town. People talked in Yiddish in the streets and called one another by their Jewish names. 60 percent of the population was Jewish, there were quite a few synagogues, Jewish schools and theaters. Chernovtsy was annexed to the USSR in 1939. The Jews in Chernovtsy survived the Holocaust because it was mainly a Romanian occupation zone. There was no anti-Semitism in Chernovtsy at that time. Chernovtsy had historically been a town where people of various nationalities lived.
In 1945 the Soviet army liberated us [from the camp]. We didn't know where to go. There were many people from Chernovtsy who said it was possible to find a place to live there. We went to Chernovtsy. Lisa wrote a letter to our parents' place in Gomel. Our house in Gomel had been bombed and destroyed. Our neighbor got the letter. She met Aunt Musia at the market and gave the letter to her. Aunt Musia wrote to Mama that we were alive. Lisa told Mama that it was possible to find an apartment in Chernovtsy.
We found an empty house in Klokuchka on the outskirts of Chernovtsy. This was in 1946. We've lived there ever since. There was only one room, a closet and a kitchen in the house, but it seemed like a palace to us. There were two plum trees in the yard and plums on the ground. I couldn't imagine anything like that in the beginning! During our whole time in the camp I had two plums and one apple, which I got from the Romanian guard and shared with my sister.
Chernovtsy was a Jewish town. People talked in Yiddish in the streets and called one another by their Jewish names. 60 percent of the population was Jewish, there were quite a few synagogues, Jewish schools and theaters. Chernovtsy was annexed to the USSR in 1939. The Jews in Chernovtsy survived the Holocaust because it was mainly a Romanian occupation zone. There was no anti-Semitism in Chernovtsy at that time. Chernovtsy had historically been a town where people of various nationalities lived.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
efim pisarenko
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