Tag #154942 - Interview #77971 (raissa smelaya)

Gornostaipol was a small town where half of the population was Jewish. There was a synagogue and a shochet in the town. There were no conflicts between Jewish and Ukrainian inhabitants. Ukrainians switched to Yiddish when they talked with Jews. There was no specific Jewish neighborhood in Gornostaipol. My mother told me that Jewish houses were scattered among Ukrainian houses. They had Ukrainian neighbors. They were all good friends and their children played together. When mothers of families were through with their routinely work they visited each other or sat on a bench between their two houses. At Pesach my grandmother always took honey cake, strudels and gefilte fish to their Ukrainian neighbors. And at Easter their neighbor brought them Easter bread and painted eggs.