Tag #145577 - Interview #78117 (sima shvarts)

At that time relations between Ukrainians, Russians and Jews were wonderful. I know it because later in Kiev my mother told me that every time she heard somebody saying the word 'zhyd' [kike], she always said, 'How can they! For so many years we lived with wonderful people, Ukrainians, in Rzhischev. They even said our names in Yiddish.' For, in those times if someone was called Chaim, it was pronounced as Chaim [the Jewish way of saying it], and not as Efim or something else. So, my mother was outraged by the fact that people could change so quickly: you have wonderful relations with someone and suddenly these relations are broken.