Tag #152821 - Interview #78127 (Makhlia Khalzova)

Life was quiet and there were no conflicts. Ukrainians called Jews 'zhydy' [kikes] but there was no abuse: this was just the Ukrainian word for 'Jew'. [Editor's note: The word 'zhyd' is abusive in Russian, but not in Ukrainian. In Ukrainian villages 'zhyd' was the definition for a Jew and no other words for Jewish people were known.] My friend Catherine was a Ukrainian girl, my neighbor. We were like sisters. She liked to go to the synagogue with me. We studied at the Polish grammar school together. Half of the pupils were Jewish. There were no Jewish schools in the village, and Kosov, where there was a Jewish school, was seven kilometers from us and that was a little bit too far away.