Tag #148614 - Interview #95166 (Semyon Vilenskiy)

My father’s older brother Yosif Vilenskiy was business manager of a big forestry estate. During the revolution of 1917 [1] he became chief of a forestry organization. He lived in Sharya Kostroma region [about 200 km from Moscow] where he was director of the forestry. Uncle Yosif was born in 1889 and died in 1959. His wife Rosa was very religious and his family observed all Jewish traditions. Even during the period of anti-Semitic demonstrations they baked their own matzah and celebrated Saturday. There was no synagogue or a rabbi in Sharya, and other Jews celebrated all holidays and conducted rituals in my uncle’s house secretly from outsiders. They had two children: daughter Vera and son Samuel, born in the 1920s. Their parents taught them to not mention anything about their home at school: this was the period of official struggle against religion [2]. They had prayer boos and a Torah scroll, which they kept in a suitcase. There was a mezuzah on their door.