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I met my future husband, Ruvim Gershenovich in 1940. He came from Kiev to visit his relatives, the Roizmans, the couple from whom I was renting my room. Ruvim was born in Nezhin in the Chernigov region in Ukraine in 1905. He graduated from the Financial College in Kiev. He was an ordinary man, and very nice and caring. He worked as an accountant in Kiev. He stayed in Tiraspol for a few days and then returned to Kiev. Later, he sent me a letter, writing that he liked me very much. The letter was in Russian, but he spoke Yiddish. When we got married he used to speak Yiddish to me and I addressed him in Russian. We corresponded for a year. He came back at the end of 1940 and we registered our marriage in Tiraspol. After we got married he used to speak Yiddish to me and I addressed him in Russian. He was planning to rent an apartment in the summer of 1941 so I could move to Kiev. I couldn't move to Kiev before he rented an apartment because he was living in one room with his parents.
Our plans were thwarted by the events of June 22, 1941 [the day Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union]. The war began. I remember this day so clearly. I went to the market in the morning and heard loud roaring. I thought there was some kind of military training going on. Many people thought so, too. But then the bombing of the aerodrome near town began. We still didn't know anything about the war. Then at noon we heard Molotov [18] on the radio. The war began at 5am. Two days later my husband arrived from Kiev. He told me that I had to go to his parents and that he was to be recruited to the army. There were many Jewish refugees from Poland. From them we heard about the mass shootings of Jews by the fascists in Europe. We realized that we had to run away.
We took a train to Kiev on that same day. I met his parents. His father, Oshel Gershenovich, was a tailor. His mother Perl was a housewife. They were nice old people. They only spoke Yiddish. They lived in the central part of town. My husband went to the military registry office, but they let him go due to his poor eyesight. They summoned him at the end of July. He was at the front for four long years. Kiev was bombed.
Our plans were thwarted by the events of June 22, 1941 [the day Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union]. The war began. I remember this day so clearly. I went to the market in the morning and heard loud roaring. I thought there was some kind of military training going on. Many people thought so, too. But then the bombing of the aerodrome near town began. We still didn't know anything about the war. Then at noon we heard Molotov [18] on the radio. The war began at 5am. Two days later my husband arrived from Kiev. He told me that I had to go to his parents and that he was to be recruited to the army. There were many Jewish refugees from Poland. From them we heard about the mass shootings of Jews by the fascists in Europe. We realized that we had to run away.
We took a train to Kiev on that same day. I met his parents. His father, Oshel Gershenovich, was a tailor. His mother Perl was a housewife. They were nice old people. They only spoke Yiddish. They lived in the central part of town. My husband went to the military registry office, but they let him go due to his poor eyesight. They summoned him at the end of July. He was at the front for four long years. Kiev was bombed.
Period
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Rosa Gershenovich