Tag #156357 - Interview #91684 (Szulim Rozenberg )

At the end of 1942 we finished our work in Komi ASRR and went to Gorki oblast [the Gorki district]. Menasze stayed, because he had a good job. At the end of 1943 I went to Moscow for the first time on business. When I was coming back I brought various things – needles, pins. So the wives of the engineers working there took them from me, round the villages and brought back a pile of money. So I left my job, because I knew that if anything happened with my brother I would be left all alone. So I decided that I will go to my brother in Krasnodar. I had a girl, a Russian girl, her name was Lena. And we went to Ukraine together, where she lived, and she stayed there. I said: ‘When I get myself fixed up you will come.’ I didn’t go back to her. And I went to my brother. When I got there, on the street I met a guy I knew from Komi ASRR. And he knew that I worked in transport there, as head of snabzhenie, so he says: ‘I got a good job for you.’ And he took me to the NKVD construction authority 30. In that district was one of the 10 most devastated cities, so there was building going on. I was head of purchasing. It was a good salary. Every morning when I come to work, the boss asks me: ‘You have money?’ So I say ‘Yes.’ ‘Dania! Bring the car!’ That was to the driver. And we went to the market, where they sold vodka in 100g shots, and he would have a drink: ‘Sashenka [Szulim] will pay.’ That was how my working day started. And I had to travel – for instance for glass almost to Chechnya. Once I brought lamps, for kerosene lamps for myself, and I sold them and earned a pile of money, and there was money to live on.