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There was huge unemployment in our country. My mother worked at the tin food plant and confectionery for some time. My father worked for a leather craftsman and after the liquidation of the NEP 23 he couldn't find a job for a long time. In 1928 he decided to move to Tashkent hoping to find a job there. His sister, Malka, and her family and his mother lived there. My mother refused to follow him. She wanted to stay close to her parents, who often came to see her in Kiev. Finally my father left for Tashkent in 1928. At the beginning he came to see us once a year. He missed us and asked my mother to join him there. He said there weren't so many problems with getting a job there, but my mother was stubborn and didn't want to go. My father began to visit us less often and in 1939 he married a Russian woman and moved to Yoshkar-Ola.
After my father left, my mother went to study at a pedagogical school for a year. She sent me to her parents in Brusilov for a year. After finishing pedagogical school in 1930 my mother went to work at the Jewish elementary school in Brusilov. My grandparents moved into our apartment in Kiev; they sold the house in Brusilov. They probably hoped that life would be easier in the city. My mother and I lived in a small room at the school in Brusilov. There were only 35 pupils at school, the director and one teacher: my mother. Pupils of the 1st and 3rd grades studied in the first shift and pupils of the 2nd and 4th grades in the second one. Although I was only four years old, I stayed in class and listened to the teacher. I was an industrious pupil and soon learned to write in Yiddish. The curriculum in this school was no different from other schools; we studied mathematics, drawing and botanics. I believed myself to be a pupil and demanded to have my last name on the list of pupils and my documents in the files. My mother even had to file my birth certificate. Townspeople even called it 'five-year plan 24 in four years'. This was one of the widespread slogans during the execution of the first five-year plan and I was four years old. This nickname meant 'fulfillment of the five-year plan in four years'.
After my father left, my mother went to study at a pedagogical school for a year. She sent me to her parents in Brusilov for a year. After finishing pedagogical school in 1930 my mother went to work at the Jewish elementary school in Brusilov. My grandparents moved into our apartment in Kiev; they sold the house in Brusilov. They probably hoped that life would be easier in the city. My mother and I lived in a small room at the school in Brusilov. There were only 35 pupils at school, the director and one teacher: my mother. Pupils of the 1st and 3rd grades studied in the first shift and pupils of the 2nd and 4th grades in the second one. Although I was only four years old, I stayed in class and listened to the teacher. I was an industrious pupil and soon learned to write in Yiddish. The curriculum in this school was no different from other schools; we studied mathematics, drawing and botanics. I believed myself to be a pupil and demanded to have my last name on the list of pupils and my documents in the files. My mother even had to file my birth certificate. Townspeople even called it 'five-year plan 24 in four years'. This was one of the widespread slogans during the execution of the first five-year plan and I was four years old. This nickname meant 'fulfillment of the five-year plan in four years'.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
maya kaganskaya