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In 1919 my father joined Komsomol [16], and in early 1920 he volunteered to the Red (Soviet) Army. My father wanted to get self-confident and take revenge for his father and other innocent people’s death. One summer in 1920 in Podolia [an area in Western Ukraine, east of Bukovina] my father stood night watch with Van’ka, a Russian man from Vologda province. The young man was missing his homeland in the north a lot. He didn’t like anything in Ukraine. ‘They say there are zhydy [yids] living here. They are like us, only they are so ugly: they are black and have tails. I wish I saw one’ he said. My father got angry and said; ‘Well, you want to see a zhyd? Then look!’ and he turned his back to Van’ka, pulled down his pants and showed that there was no tail. When he turned to look at Van’ka he felt sorry that he had done this; Van’ka was very confused. He didn’t mean to hurt my father.
In May 1921 my father demobilized and returned home. Grandmother Chaya was very ill. After grandfather died her left hand and then left leg grew numb. My father’s 19-year-old brother Yakov worked in Raiprodkom [abbreviation for ‘raionnyi prodovolstvennyi komitet,’ i.e. district product committee, main responsibility of which was perhaps distribution of food supplies among the population]. David was 16 and Anatoli was 12. They were desperately poor. My father went to work in a bakery. He received food packages there. In autumn 1921 all crops were gone [Famine in the Ukraine] [17]. The food packages that my father and Yakov received were not enough to support the family of five. They had about half hundred pigeons that the brothers chased away to be not tempted to eat them; the brothers were sentimental. David and Anatoli were stealing beet leaves in their neighbors’ gardens. They cut and boiled it with bran. This made their main food. My grandmother was having mental problems: she believed that her children were tormenting her providing no food. In 1922 my grandmother’s condition got worse. Her toe on her paralyzed foot turned black and she died of gangrene. She was buried in Novomirgorod according to the Jewish tradition.
In May 1921 my father demobilized and returned home. Grandmother Chaya was very ill. After grandfather died her left hand and then left leg grew numb. My father’s 19-year-old brother Yakov worked in Raiprodkom [abbreviation for ‘raionnyi prodovolstvennyi komitet,’ i.e. district product committee, main responsibility of which was perhaps distribution of food supplies among the population]. David was 16 and Anatoli was 12. They were desperately poor. My father went to work in a bakery. He received food packages there. In autumn 1921 all crops were gone [Famine in the Ukraine] [17]. The food packages that my father and Yakov received were not enough to support the family of five. They had about half hundred pigeons that the brothers chased away to be not tempted to eat them; the brothers were sentimental. David and Anatoli were stealing beet leaves in their neighbors’ gardens. They cut and boiled it with bran. This made their main food. My grandmother was having mental problems: she believed that her children were tormenting her providing no food. In 1922 my grandmother’s condition got worse. Her toe on her paralyzed foot turned black and she died of gangrene. She was buried in Novomirgorod according to the Jewish tradition.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Remma Kogan