Tag #147351 - Interview #83476 (Motel Meilakhs)

From 1927 to 1929 I was a teacher at a Jewish school. In 1927, when I was 16, I went to the regional center Uman in Ukraine and passed examinations without attending lectures to be a teacher in elementary school. I received the certificate and came to the regional department of national education. I had an interview with the inspector for Jewish schools. This was the time of the revival of national cultures. He advised me to go to Yustingrad, a Jewish settlement not far from Uman, there was a school there. I was surprised that I had never heard about the place before, although I knew the vicinity very well. I found a cart man at the local market place in Uman to give me a ride to the settlement and the cart man first dropped me at a book-store where I bought some school books with the money provided by the inspector.

The place turned out to be even smaller than my native Tyrlitsa. A terrible massacre took place in Yustingrad in 1920, and only those who hid in the neighboring houses of Ukrainian peasants survived. For two years I lived in Yustingrad and shared a rented apartment with a Ukrainian teacher working in the same school. I was paid a good salary for those times, I got over 50 rubles with all bonuses, and I spent only ten rubles for boarding – accommodation and food. Until that time I was poor and miserable, and in Yustingrad I could afford to buy clothes and footwear and even send something to my parents.