Travel

Igor Brover
Odessa
Ukraine
Interviewer: Nicole Tolkacheva
Date: December 2004

I met with Igor Yakovlevich Brover at his home. He lives with his spouse Alla, a sweet and considerate woman, in a five-storied house built in the 1960s in Derevianko Square. A small two-bedroom apartment is notably clean. Its interior is plain. There is a big photograph of their deceased daughter behind the glass. The host is a handsome black-haired man with resonant young voice, very reserved and laconic. His Russian language often sounds with a typical accent for Yiddish. Igor Yakovlevich willingly told me the story of his family. He got sincerely upset, when he had no answer to my questions. 

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary  

My family background

My paternal grandfather Samuel Brover was born in Petroverovka village [present Zhovten'] in 1878 [editor's note: Petroverovka was a small town in Kherson province Tiraspol district  (present Odessa region). According to the census of 1897 there were 1 749 residents and 819 of them were Jews]. My grandfather was a shoemaker. In the middle of the 1890s my grandfather married Udia, a Jewish girl from his town. They were probably poor since before the revolution of 1917 1, when my grandfather was already married, he went to America looking for a better life.  He stayed there a little over a year and then returned home. My grandfather knew Yiddish and could read and write in it and he also knew Russian. My grandfather was quiet, but persistent. He never served in the army. He wore common clothes. He didn't wear a hat or have payes. For a long time I thought that my grandfather wasn't religious; I never saw him praying, but when we were in evacuation during the Great Patriotic War 2, my sister Rosa and grandmother once went to my grandfather's work to come home with him. Rosa saw my grandfather and another old Jew swaying back and forth saying something in sing-song voices. My grandmother explained that they were praying. My grandmother liked the Soviet regime since he saw that there were no pogroms or attacks on Jews, but he never became a member of the Communist Party. When collectivization 3 began in 1928, in Ivanovka village of Odessa region the Jewish kolkhoz 'Schtern' ['star' in Yiddish] 4 near the Yeremeyevka station in 50 km from Odessa. My grandfather and grandmother and their 16-year-old son, my father, moved to Ivanovka and joined the kolkhoz.

My paternal grandmother Udia Brover (I don't know her maiden name) was also born in Petroverovka in the 1870s. Her Russian neighbors called her Olia. She had no education, but as my father told me, she did not only keep the house, but also had a small business, when they lived in Petroverovka. She owned a small store where she was selling consumer goods and food. I remember that grandmother Udia could do quick calculations faster than I could at the age of 18. She was smart and vivid and had an explosive character. She was also a very good housewife. When she cooked fish, it smelled across the yard, and then other housewives shouted: 'Baba Udia ('baba' is informal addressing an old woman), did you cook fish?' 'Yes, I did. Come by and try a piece.' My grandmother usually wore dark shirts and long skirts. I remember that she almost always wore a kerchief on her head. I think my grandmother and grandfather followed kashrut. They didn't celebrate Sabbath since there were no days off in the kolkhoz in summer. They celebrated major Jewish holidays Pesach and Rosh Hashanah, but I cannot say whether they followed all rules since even now I don't know them. I remember my grandmother washing the casseroles and taking them to the attic to take them down, when she had to cook something kosher for the holidays. I know that grandmother Udia gave birth to eleven children, but only my father survived. What happened to their ten children was never discussed.  I think my grandmother and grandfather lived through pogroms 5, since this subject was thoroughly avoided in the family.

My father Yakov Brover was my grandmother's youngest son. He was born in Petroverovka in 1912. He went to cheder and finished three forms at school: for his time he was thought to have got sufficient education. His mother tongue was Yiddish, but he couldn't write in it. He could write in Russian, though. My father was relatively tall, his height was one meter seventy five centimeters [ca. 5'9"], of average constitution, dark-haired. When I remember, my father worked as a crew leader in the kolkhoz, i.e., he was responsible for all housekeeping activities.  
He was energetic and hardworking and very smart since one couldn't manage Jews without certain skills. He had skills. He was reserved, not too strict, rather witty and looking for compromise; he could come to an agreement with any person. My father met my mother in the kolkhoz. 

I hardly know anything about my mother's parents. I don't know where they lived. All I know is that my grandfather's name was Isaac Popovskiy. My mother's parents died of cancer, when my mother, the youngest in the family, was 12. After their parents died, my mother, her brother Mikhail and sister Raisa went to live with their aunt, and they lived with her a few years.   Regretfully, I don't even know this aunt's name. My mother's older sister Riva Popovskaya was born in 1908. I knew aunt Riva, she lived in Komitetskaya Street in Odessa. She wasn't married and had no children. Riva perished in Odessa during one of the first air raids in 1941.

My mother's brother Mikhail Poplavskiy was born in 1910. He finished a Military Political College in Leningrad. Then he was political commander of a regiment. My uncle was married twice. His first wife Tatiana Serghendler lived with their son in Odessa. Their son Adolf and I were friends. His second wife Claudia was from Leningrad. They had a son named Vilia. Uncle Mikhail disappeared in a battle near Smolensk during the Great Patriotic War. His second wife Claudia and son Vilia live in the USA.

My mother Ida Popovskaya was born in 1912, but I don't know where. My mother went to school for three years. She spoke Yiddish, but she could only write in Russian. Like my father she came to Ivanovka in 1928. My mother was a receptionist in a milk shop where milk was processed into cream in a separator. In summer, when there was a lot of field work to do she worked in the field harvesting crops. My mother wore common clothes like all other women in the kolkhoz: a skirt, a shirt and a kerchief. She was tall and thin, had black hair and bright beautiful face. She was hardworking and restless. She had hot temper.

In 1932 my parents got married. They were both 21 years of age. They had a civil ceremony, but no religious wedding. I was born on 12 October 1935. My Jewish name was Israel, but I was called Igor. We lived with my grandmother and grandfather in a small one-storied house near the kolkhoz administration in the very center of the village. It was a lively spot with other houses and sheds. My father, mother and I lived in one room, and my grandmother and grandfather occupied another room. There was plain furniture in the house: a wooden table, stools and long bench. There was also an old wardrobe and nickel-plated beds. There was china or faience crockery in the house. There were wood stoked stoves in the kitchen and my grandmother's room. We didn't have a garden, but our neighbors had gardens and vineyards. We kept livestock: goats, cows, sheep, chickens and geese. My mother, grandmother and father took care of them. I wasn't afraid of our domestic animals and never had any problems with them since I was growing up in a village.

Growing up

People got up and took to work very early in the village. My father was the first in the family to get up. He woke up the others. My mother and grandmother woke me up and got everything ready for me to go to the kindergarten. Grandmother Udia did the housework and my mother went to work. On her way there she took me to the kindergarten. There were about twenty children and two tutors in the kindergarten. We played with toys or with one another like in any other kindergarten, and our tutors read books to us. My mother picked me at 7 at the earliest.  When we came home, my grandmother had dinner waiting for us.  My grandmother did the cooking in our family. We waited till everybody was home to have dinner together. We set the table together and together we cleaned it. It has always been like this in our family. My favorite food has always been gefilte fish and cutlets. However, we rarely had them. We usually had borshch [a traditional Ukrainian beet soup], and boiled wheat cereal or corn. We seldom had buckwheat since it was rarely available. It wasn't decent to be capricious about food. We were to be grateful for what we had.  The only thing I wasn't allowed to do was to refuse milk that I didn't like, though we had milk from our cow.  

In 1939, when I was four, my sister Rosa was born. I don't remember anything about it, but I remember that my mother always gave birth at home. There was a medical office in the village where a very good assistant doctor worked. He could provide medical first aid, do a surgery or assist at birth giving. So he came to tend to my mother. Rosa stayed at home with my grandmother before the war. When I was at home, we played in the garden. We fought at times. In the evening my mother or grandmother put us in beds, but they didn't sing or tell us fairy tales. They usually said: 'Go to bed and sleep'. 

Sometime my mother and father took us to the market in Odessa. A truck from the kolkhoz transported milk to the market regularly and villagers could drive in this truck or walk 5 kilometers and take a train to Odessa to do their shopping.  In the town my parents visited my mother's sister Riva. They always brought presents from such trips. I always looked forward to these moments in my childhood. They usually brought sweets, khalva or sausage that I liked a lot. The favorite food of the family was herring. Even when I was ill I only asked for herring.  They also brought a piece of clothing since they didn't sell clothes in the kolkhoz. My parents also brought books. My father didn't have time for reading, but my mother liked reading something to us or telling us stories.  We spoke Yiddish in the family and before school my Yiddish was better than Russian.  We spoke Yiddish with our neighbors discussion family and home matters or politics and singing songs. For example, there was a song: 'Gewoil iz Hawer Stalin' ['Be well, comrade Stalin' in Yiddish]. They praised Stalin and his acts, as was common at the time. We liked Soviet holidays. My favorite holiday was 1 May, when we could go to a mayovka [mayovka - this word derived from the name of the month of May when people organized picnics with friends and families. Schoolchildren, students and adults used to arrange such outings enjoying the food and beverages], when everything comes back to life and we could just run on the grass.   

There were about 500 people working in our kolkhoz. Probably, about 150 of them were Ukrainians and the rest were Jews.  Chairman of the kolkhoz was a Jew. His surname was Fabricant. The kolkhoz members built houses and they are still there, one and all beautiful, under the red tile roofs. They built a school. This was a Jewish school before the war. They taught children in Yiddish. After the war they switched to Russian. The kolkhoz was in the steppe and there were fields all around. There was no water reservoir and they made an artesian well, the first in this area, installed a pump and it pumped water for the whole village. We had running water in the house. Only in our village there was electricity. A generator supplied power to houses between 8 in the morning through midnight. Our kolkhoz 'Schtern' was one of the best in Rasdelnia district. There was a big orchard. Apricots were transported to Leningrad. They grew wheat, vegetables, melons and watermelons in the kolkhoz. The kolkhoz members were paid in agricultural products for each working day. While in other kolkhozes the rate was 200 grams per day, in our kolkhoz it was 2 kg. There was no market in the kolkhoz. Every family kept livestock and received food products as payment for work in the kolkhoz. Life was good before the war. However, there was no Jewish community or rabbi or synagogue.  I don't think there was one religious Jew in the kolkhoz.

Our family and the family of chairman of the kolkhoz Fabricant were friends. His wife was director of school. My parents had another friend: accountant Berkun, a Jew. We still keep in touch with their families. We got together on Soviet holidays, or they just dropped by for a chat.  They were all educated people, liked to read books and newspapers and liked writing letters. There was a library in the kolkhoz. We borrowed books from there. My parents were not religious. They appreciated the Soviet regime knowing Jewish misfortunes before the revolution.  We were an average family. Our parents worked to make our living. My mother or father never went on vacations. They worked all of their life. My mother was devoted to our family and the children. She loved us dearly. We kept closely in touch with my mother's family. Aunt Riva often came to see us and my parents visited her. They corresponded with uncle Mikhail, and he spent his vacations with us. He always brought us gifts. When the Finnish war 6 began, my father was recruited to the army. He was a first sergeant in infantry. He had his feet frost-bitten there and returned home with big red toes. 

During the War

In the first days of the Great Patriotic War in 1941 it was quiet in the village. There were no air raids. My father was recruited on the third day after the war was declared. When my father was leaving I cried not knowing when I was going to see him again. We didn't know about him for over two years until he found us and then we corresponded till the end of the war. Regretfully, my father's letters were lost. My father was in the rank of first sergeant. He was a driver for the commander of division. Then, when 'katyusha' units were introduced he began to drive one of them. He went as far as Budapest, from Budapest he was sent to Tiraspol, and from Tiraspol he demobilized in the end of 1945 and came to his village. During the war my father joined the party. 

The Jewish population of our village evacuated in early July 1941. There were only Ukrainian and Russian residents left. There were 5 of us evacuating: my grandmother and grandfather, my mother, I, Rosa and my younger sister Raisa, born in early 1941. We rode in wagons: one wagon ridden by three horses per each family. Our neighbor's family was with us. Her husband was ill and was not subject to service in the army. He and my grandfather took turns to hold the reins. On our way I saw our troops, tanks and planes. German aircraft bombed us and we took to hiding. Then, at a station we took a train, and this was my first railroad trip. We arrived at Ursat'yevskaya town in Tashkent region in Uzbekistan. From there we had a truck to take us to a small kishlak village not far from the town. 

The houses in this kishlak were built from the mixture of straw and clay. They had flat roofs where the villagers dried apricots and grapes. We were accommodated in a small room in one of these houses. Our landlords were good to us. There were no demonstrations of antisemitism. My mother worked in the field and my grandmother and grandfather were with the children.  I picked the Uzbek language promptly and even learned to curse. The houses in this kishlak were heated by burning dry cow manure gathered when the cows came home for milking at twelve o'clock. The accountant Berkun's family was in this same village, and I went to gather manure with his daughter Clara who was three years older than me. Once  an incident happened: she collected manure faster than I and I got so angry with her that I put the only dung I managed to get on her head. My only excuse was that I was so young. Clara and I still keep in touch. She lives in Israel now.

Since there was no Russian school in the kishlak, my grandfather taught me. Of course, I preferred playing outside, but my grandfather was strict and made me study. He had no books or an ABC book. He found old Russian newspapers and taught me to read. We stayed in the kishlak for about two years before we moved to Ursat'yevskaya. My mother began to work as an inspector in the financial department, I went to school, my grandfather became a janitor and my grandmother looked after my sisters at home. Our family received bread per cards. My mother worked in the financial department and received 500 grams, my grandfather - 400 grams as a janitor and we, children - 300 grams each. When I went to school, my mother made me a bag from some pieces. There were no books. I wrote on blanks that my mother brought from work. They were stapled together like notebooks. I finished the first form in three months. My grandfather prepared me well. I shared my desk with the boy whose father worked in the military registry office. I think he was a military commandant. We were hungry, and our teacher gave each of us a little piece of brown bread during an interval, but this boy had slices of bread and butter every day and he didn't need these pieces. He didn't want to study. I did his tasks for him and he gave me his bread. I ate brown bread that he had and took white bread to my sisters Rosa and Raisa at home.  They were so used to it that when I was coming home from school they were waiting by the window and seeing me they ran to me and got this bread out of my bag. Usually my grandmother took it away from them to prevent any argument and gave it to them by little pieces. 

After the War

We stayed about a year and a half in Ursat'yevskaya before we reevacuated in late 1944. We took a train home. The trip lasted a month less three days. On our way my grandfather died and we buried him in the Jewish cemetery in Kotovsk town. We sent our baggage separately. Since there were problems with salt at that time we sent a bag of salt with the luggage. Neither the salt nor our most valuable things reached us. They were stolen. We came to our village hungry and cold. Our neighbors helped us and we felt at home again. The kolkhoz gave us the same house where we lived before the war. Of course, there were no belongings left at home. We were sorry they were gone. My parents worked so hard to get them. My mother worked as director of the food and materials storage of the kolkhoz. In late 1945 my father returned and life became easier. He worked as crew leader at first and then he became manager of a mill and the buttery at the same time. Besides, we had a cow, goats and chickens. I was to take care of them. All kolkhoz members having cows had milk hauled by a truck to sell in Odessa. For the money we got from sales we bought food and clothes. In 1947, when bread coupons were cancelled I brought home four loaves of bread and everybody pounced on it, but my grandmother took it away saying: 'You need to take a little piece at a time or else you will feel ill'. So she gave us a little piece at a time.

Life in the kolkhoz was gradually improving. Almost 60% of Jews returned to the village. The Ukrainian population was the same. The former chairman Fabricant perished at the front and we had another chairman: Shargorodskiy, a Jewish man.  After the war the kolkhoz didn't have the status of a Jewish kolkhoz, but it was still very advanced.  There was electric power, running water and a radio in each house. My younger sister Raisa went to the kindergarten. Rosa and I went to school. Rosa went to the first form at the age of 6, and I went to the 3rd form. There was only an elementary school in our village and after finishing it I went to a 7-year Ukrainian school in the neighboring village of Yeremeyevka.

We studied in Ukrainian, and after finishing this school my Ukrainian writing was better than Russian. I liked mathematic and liked the teacher of mathematic in my new school.  He was an older man. He spoke Ukrainian. When somebody failed to do his problem he called me to the blackboard. There were about 25 of us in the class. About six of them were the same age with me and the rest of my classmates were 18-20 years old. I was the only Jew in my class, but I never faced any prejudiced attitudes. I shared my desk with a Ukrainian boy Volodia Basenko. Volodia lived in my village and we were friends. There were a few clubs at school, but I didn't have time to attend them. Every day Volodia and I covered 5 kilometers to Yeremeyevka and then walked 5 kilometers back home. I came home late and had to do my homework. Then it was time to go to bed. On weekends I usually played volleyball and football with other boys. We often played games, mostly dominoes, with our parents at home. My parents always paid attention to my reading and studies, though they only had three years of school education. My father could solve a mathematic problem for the 6th form. That's how smart he was. During my summer vacations I worked as the artesian well motor mechanic to support my family. I liked this job very much.

My sisters and I grew up in a Jewish kolkhoz and knew that we were Jews. Though we didn't face any antisemitism in our childhood, we were prepared for it.  My mother and father made us understand, directly or indirectly, that we might face unfair attitudes being Jews. They always said I had to be ahead of the others or else I would never reach anything in life and I always tried to follow this indication. Besides my studies at school, I had to help my father with his trips to Odessa to sell milk and other agricultural products at the market. Sometimes my mother accompanied him in those short trips. We bought clothes and shoes for the money we got from sales. In 1950 I finished the 7th form and since there were three children in the family and there was another baby expected it was decided that the oldest one had to get a profession. In 1951  my brother Samuel was born and I went to a vocational school in Odessa. 

I studied to become a mechanic in the vocational school in Mechnikova Street in Odessa for two years. I lived in a hostel. We attended lectures one day and had training on the next day.  During the first year we had training in our school shops in 12, Kanatnaya Street, and in our second year we had training at the Odessa shipyard. At that time there was rabble studying in vocational schools. After the war there was lack of workers at the plants and in 1947 - 1948 young people from rural areas were almost forced to go to vocational schools. They were mainly people without education and those who came from problem families. Such people could provoke, and they did, conflicts based on national grounds. However, there were also normal guys there and I became friends with them.  It was hard to study in such conditions.

I faced antisemitism on the state level for the first time when I was finishing my vocational school in 1953. There was demand for motor mechanic in the shipyard and our group of 30 graduates went there to be examined by a commission. Of course, I was eager to get a job at the shipyard and I got the highest point at the commission. They told us to wait for the results. Then they called everybody, but me and Odesskiy, both Jews, and two guys from a children's home. This was too much for me, and I asked them why they didn't employ me considering my highest marks. They replied: 'You are not employed and that's it'. They never explained their motives, but we understood. I remember well that this happened during the period of the "Doctors' Plot" 7, and Jews were having problems. They could say 'here is a zhyd'  [abusive word for a Jew] at the market, or 'what are you doing here, there is nothing for you here'. They were particularly rude with women. They were not so brave with men, but they frowned on them, anyway. I was sent to the shipyard to work as a mechanic. There were many Jews at the shipyard and we were friends. Many of them live in the USA now.  Since I didn't have secondary education I went to an evening school where I finished the 8th and 9th forms.  There were prejudiced attitudes toward Jews at the shipyard. Of course, promotions were out of the questions. Jews were better than many others, but there was no way for professional growth. 

In March 1953 there was information in newspapers and on the radio about Stalin's health condition. They gave the status of his health every hour. Of course, we were anxious. When they announced that he died, it was a tragedy. Women were crying and men looked dispirited walking with their heads down. We were born during Stalin's rule absorbed love for Stalin with our mothers' milk, we were raised with the name of Stalin and prayed to him, as if he had been God. It was very hard to think that he was dead and watch this mourning. That is why perhaps after the 20th Party Congress 8 I felt a real shock. We didn't know how many people were put in prisons or killed. When we got to know about it, we lost faith in the government. Though after Stalin's death people stopped disappearing, the Soviet regime always stood on people's fear.

In the middle 1950s my sister studied in Odessa after finishing school. Rosa entered the College of Loans and Economics and Raisa studied in the Technical School of Finance and Loans.  My parents, grandmother and my younger brother Samuel also moved to Odessa. We bought (I don't know the details) a small house in the vicinity of Bugayevka in the suburb of Odessa. My father worked at the leather plant where he was a package operator and my mother didn't work since my brother was small. Unfortunately, Samuel lost his hearing after a disease. He was deaf, but he could read from lips. Samuel studied in a special school at the 11th station of the Fontan [resort district of Odessa]. There was only one room in the house while there were 7 of us, so we had to install a partial in the hall to make another room. Each of us slept on a folding bed and only our parents had a nickel-plated bed. On weekends our old grandmother was at home with my younger brother, and we usually went to the cinema or theaters. My parents sometimes joined us. We liked musical comedy, but also went to operas. There were problems with books even in Odessa after the war, but we managed to get books. We liked reading. We particularly like books by Boris Polevoy 9.

There was a mandatory two-year period of work requirement after finishing vocational schools 10. After two years of work at the plant I was recruited to the Navy in 1955. At first I served in a training military unit in Lomonosov near Leningrad and then I served on a ship in Severomorsk. I didn't have any nationality-related problems in the army, basically. I was physically strong and had independent character. Besides, I was Komsomol  11 unit leader of the ship. Of course, there might have been intrigues behind the curtains, but they had nothing to do with me. When I was serving in the army, the Hungarian revolution [1956] 12 happened. All I remember about this period was the propaganda. We didn't understand things then and supported the actions of our country. I demobilized in 1959. Shortly after I returned my grandmother died. We buried her in the 3rd Jewish cemetery.

After the army I went back to work as mechanic at the shipyard. In 1960 I entered the evening department of the Machine Building College where I studied four years. I continued my work at the shipyard. We had to work in three shifts. This was hard physical work. After finishing this college I became a technical mechanic. I became a foreman and then senior foreman at the plant, but there were no further promotions because of my Jewish identity. My management told me that I was working well, that I had good knowledge and was a good tutor for young people. I had apprentices who were promoted later, but that didn't happen to me.  

In summer 1960 I met my wife to be Alla Perelman. My mother brother Mikhail's son Adik, my cousin brother, was my friend. In the yard of his house in Razumovskaya Street where he lived with his mother, there was a small shoemaker shop. Once Alla brought her shoes to this shoemaker and we met.  On 15 March 1961 we got married. We've been together ever since. Alla was born in Odessa on 25 August 1936, in a Jewish family. Her father Alexandr Perelman was a lecturer at the Flour Grinding School. Her mother Raisa Markovna was a lab assistant at a bakery and then she was a housewife. During the war their family was in evacuation in Tashkent and then moved to Omsk. Alla's older sister Valentina was married and lived with her family by the time I met Alla. Alla finished the Food Industry School and worked as lab assistant at various bakeries afterward. She was an excellent lab assistant and knew her profession well, but she was held back from promotions. She often heard: 'Where will you go if you quit? Nobody would employ you'. When we got married I convinced Alla to take a job of a lab assistant at the plant of stove units and she began to earn more. 

After the wedding we moved to her parents in Khvorostina Street. They had a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor in an old house near the town garden.  We lived in one room and her parents lived in another. My wife's family wasn't religious and we didn't observe any Jewish traditions. In late 1961 our daughter Tatiana was born. One month later my father-in-law died.  Of course, I had to take care of my family and my mother-in-law. I lived with my mother-in-law for almost ten years and we never had any conflicts. We got along very well. Raisa Markovna always supported us and we helped her. When we moved into another apartment we often visited each other. She died in 1994 and was buried near her husband's grave in the Jewish cemetery. 

I had to work a lot, but I always spent weekends with my family. We went for walks or visited my parents. My wife and I liked musical comedy. Alla was very fond of opera and had a big collection of records, but we liked musical comedy more. This was the period when Odessa Musical Comedy Theater was at the peak of its popularity. We watched performances with Vodianoy, Dynov and Dyomina - they were stars. There was a good ballet group in this theater. I knew their names, but I've forgotten them. We watched the 'White acacia' performance [operetta by the famous Soviet composer Isaac Dunayevskiy The act is about life in Odessa], and all performances with Vodianoy [Vodianoy, Mikhail Grigorievich (1924-1987) - popular theater and movie actor, Jew, in Odessa]. Once a week we went to the cinema. We watched all new movies standing in lines to get tickets before. We usually went to the movie theater named after Voroshilov 13, it was called 'Zirka' later, in Chicherina Street. There was no television at that time, and people read books. I always liked reading, but had little time for it. Besides, I had to help at home and spend time with our daughter. So I gradually got to reading only newspapers and magazines. We subscribed to 'Rabotnitsa' [Woman-worker, a monthly social and political magazine issued in Moscow], and Odessa newspaper 'Znamia communisma' ('The banner of communism', but I preferred 'Izvestiya [Izvestiya - News, daily communist newspaper published in Moscow.]

In 1967, during the war in Israel [Six-Day-War] 14, I was recruited for regular military training in Nikolaev. There were lectures about it in our unit. There were a few other Jews in my unit and we sympathized with Israel, but didn't like Arabs. We were very upset about the termination of diplomatic relationships between the USSR and Israel. This was done outrageously out of negative attitude toward Jews and to play up to Arabs. There was an incident with the radar station then. The USSR furnished a state of the art radar station to Egypt. At 12 o'clock, when all Arabs were praying, an Israel plane hooked up this station and took it away. The Arabs were horrified.  During the war in 1973 [Yom Kippur War] 15 our emotions were no different and we sympathized with Israel as we did before. In 1968 Soviet troops occupied Czechoslovakia [Prague Spring] 16. We didn't quite understand what was going on. Only much later, when there were publications on this subject, we understood that we didn't have to get involved there.  

In the 1960s my parents received an apartment in Korolyova Street. We had a nice family and we loved each other much and visited each other at least once per week. My mother and father were the first ones whose advice I looked for, but they never interfered in my personal life. They always said: 'You take care of yourselves, you are grown up people'. We always supported each other. They were doing all right, but I was always there to help them, and my father was always ready to help me about the house: he fixed our string clock and could make shelves for us. My father died in 1963, and my mother died in 1967. They were buried in the 3rd Jewish cemetery. 

Some time after finishing school my sisters got married. Rosa married Anatoliy Garyshev, Russian. She changed her surname and moved to Ilichevsk [port on the Black Sea, 25 km from Odessa, in 1973 became a city] where she worked as senior engineer in the department of capital construction. Her daughter Yulia lives in Odessa  now with her husband Yuriy Vozovikov, Russian, and their 6-month-old son. Raisa married Vladimir Gordienko, Ukrainian. They also settled down in Ilichevsk where Raisa worked as an estimator at a plant. Their daughter Vika became a teacher. She is married and has a daughter. Her daughter's name is Irina. Raisa died in 1993 and was buried in Ilichevsk. My brother Samuel finished 7 forms and became a mechanic. My brother worked for the association of deaf and mute people and then made locks at the plant of household goods. He was married, but they divorced. They didn't have any children. In 1985 he fell ill and died suddenly on his way home.  He was buried in the 3rd Jewish cemetery in Odessa.  

Our daughter Tatiana went to a kindergarten and my wife and I worked. In 1970 we received a new two-bedroom apartment in Tairovo, a new district in Odessa. That's where we live now. Tatiana studied in a secondary school, and after finishing the 8th form she entered a medical school. We raised her with the understanding that her parents are Jewish and she is a Jew. She also knew that she could face problems, but she has a strong character. When she studied in her medical school something happened showing her attitude. There were a few Jews in her group. One of them was a weak 'Mom's sonny'. One of his fellow students always pestered him.  Tatiana was a quiet girl, but once she came to the end of her tether and stood up for this boy. The offender gave her a rude reply. She complained about it to her friends living in her grandmother's apartment in Khvorostina Street. Those boys came to the school and  were most likely convincing talking to the offender since he apologized to Tatiana and her fellow students began to reckon with her.  She could stand up for herself. After finishing school she became an assistant doctor and went to work at the hospital and polyclinic.  To our grievance, she died seven years ago in 1996.

When perestroika 17 began, I was skeptical about it, mainly due to the personality of Gorbachev 18. I've always thought he was a chatter box. He started talking never knowing what he was going to say at the end. It was impossible to understand him. Of course, he gave people an opportunity to earn money, open cooperatives, travel or move abroad. This was a good thing he did. I've always been positive about the idea of emigration. Many of our friends and relatives have moved abroad, but we waited till our daughter grew up and got a profession. When she died, we thought we didn't need emigration. When cooperatives began to operate I quit my shipyard and went to work at a cooperative that manufactured stone cutting machines. I was deputy chairman of this cooperative. Unfortunately, its chairman happened to be not very decent and I preferred to quit this job. Later my friend and I rented a boat repair shop. A boat repair shop is a sailing unit dealing in boat repairs. When my friend died I became director of this shop. In 2000 they terminated our rent agreement and took over the shop, but I worked there as a foreman for some time. In May 2000 I went to work as chief of productions of a private company in Odessa. They also dealt in boat repairs.  regardless of a big difference in age  I made friends with the owner of this company Yevgeniy Vitebskiy, a Jewish man. He and his parents began to involve me in the Jewish way of life.  I worked there until late 2002 and then retired. My wife Alla retired in 1991.

Recently I've learned much about Jewish traditions. I've visited the synagogue in Osipova Street with Yevgeniy Vitebskiy several times. My family receives newspapers 'Shomrey Shabos' and 'Or Sameach' where I read a lot about the history and traditions of our people. I attend the Society of Jewish Culture and the community center. Now that I know more about traditions of our people, I begin to observe them. My wife and I try to do no work on Saturday and follow kashrut more closely. My wife and I receive food packages from the charity organization 'Gemilut Hesed'. Of course, life was morally easier before, when there was my family, everybody was living. My parents are long gone, so are my sister and brother, but the most terrible thing for my wife and me is that our daughter died. 

Glossary

Efim Bezrodniy
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Vladimir Zaidenberg
Date of interview: May 2002

Family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary 

My family background

My name is Efim Itsko-Yankelevich Bezrodniy. I was born in Kiev in 1923. I was called Froim.  My father Itsko Yankel Abramovich Bezrodniy told where our last name came from. He said his grandfather's or great grandfather's real name was Emmerman. At that time there were "catchers" in towns and villages. They grabbed 12-14 years teenagers to send them to the tsarist army. My grandfather was among those that got caught. He didn't want to tell them his name. He said that he didn't have a father or a mother and that he didn't know his name hoping that those people would feel sorry for him and let him go. But of course they didn't let him go. Instead they sent him to the cantonist school. They wrote his name as Bezrodniy. This word means "somebody that has no family" in Russian. He was a cantonist for about twenty years. Since then our family name is Bezrodniy. This story has been told throughout generations in our family.

I didn't know my grandfather or my grandmother on my mother's side. They had been gone before I was born. My grandfather's name was Abram, but I don't know my grandmother's name. I don't know what my grandfather did for a living, but I think he was a handicraftsman like my father. My father was born in Kremenchug, Poltava province, in 1878, where he lived until the civil war. My father finished primary school - 3 or 4 classes. That was all education he got. He learned to repair and upholster furniture and had his own shop on the first floor of a small two-storied house of his parents'. My father had an apprentice that was also his assistant. Although his family wasn't rich my father earned enough to lead a modest way of life and give education to their children. My father didn't tell me about the religious situation in his family. However, I believe that my father's family was very religious, because my father observed all Jewish traditions and went to the synagogue until the end of his life.

My father had a brother - Evsey Bezrodniy, born 1874. I saw Evsey once in my life when he and his wife Tsylia visited us approximately in 1935. They lived in Dnepropetrovsk and Evsey, I believe, was a shoemaker. They had a son Grigoriy and a daughter Mirrah. During The Great patriotic War Evsey and his family were in the evacuation. Evsey died in Dnepropetrovsk in 1954. Grisha and Mirrah also died. 

My mother Tuba Moiseyevna Bezrodnaya, nee Drannikova, was born in Kremenchug in 1882. Her father Mosey Drannikov had a haberdashery store. I didn't know him, as he died far before the revolution.  My grandmother on my mother's side lived until 1935, but I don't remember her at all, not even her name.

My mother had two older brothers: Emmanuil and Iolik Drannikovs. Emmanuil and his family - his wife and son Aron born in 1915 also moved to Kiev. Emmanuil worked at a shop. During the war he and his wife were in evacuation in Middle Asia. Aron finished a military college and became a professional military before the end of the war.  I don't know where he served. During vacations he often visited us. He had warm relationship with my sister Mindel. During the war Aron was in the army and came as far as Berlin. In the late 1970s he emigrated to Israel with his family. Now he lives with his son in Ashdod. His wife Fiera died long ago. Emmanuil returned to Kiev after the war. He was single and died approximately in 1960.

My mother's second brother Iolik - we called him Yulik in the family - was a worker, too. He got married late and his girl was born when he was about forty years old. Iolik Drannikov, his wife Tsylia and their daughter Mirrah lived in Kiev. During the war they all were in the evacuation with Emmanuil's family. Iolik died in the middle of 1950s in Kiev. His wife and daughter passed away, too.

My mother's brothers studied in cheder and primary school. My mother had actually no education, although she was born wise and intelligent. The family of my mother's parents was also very religious. They strictly observed all Jewish traditions. They followed the kashruth and celebrated Sabbath. My grandfather came home early on Friday. My grandmother lit the candles and my grandfather said a prayer. The family got together at the table for dinner.  Their Ukrainian neighbor cooked their Saturday dinner and served the table. The Jewish rules do not allow even striking a match on Saturday. My grandfather had all religious accessories: thales, tfillin, Talmud and he treated them with solicitude. They raised their children to be religious people. 

My parents knew each other since their childhood. Both of them were born and grew up in Kremenchug.

The families of our parents often went to the synagogue together. They were acquaintances and were good friends. As far as they knew each other well they sort of "engaged" their children good-humoredly. When the children grew up their marriage was a natural thing to happen. My mother often told me that they had a real Jewish wedding: under the huppah in the synagogue. Almost all Jewish population of Kremenchug was there, including the rabbi. There was delicious food and they received many presents. After the wedding my parents lived separately from their parents. At first they rented a small room and then they managed to save some money and purchased a small house. That was the house where my father had his shop. It was a small wooden house. The shop was on the first floor and on the second floor there were two rooms. My mother said they had eight children but four of them died when they were babies. I don't even know their names or dates of birth.

I had two older sisters and a brother. My oldest sister Dina was born in 1905 and the next was my brother Mindel, born in 1913. My other brother Alyosha was born in 1920.

Growing up

Life was quiet in Kremenchug before WWI and revolution. My father was the only furniture specialist in town and he had many customers. My mother was a housewife and was taking care of the children. Dina, the oldest, went to the Jewish school. She had teachers coming home to teach her to play the piano and French. Our quiet life ended in 1914 with the beginning of the civil war, and especially in 1917, the Great October Socialist revolution. I don't know exactly why the family moved to Kiev from Kremenchug. My mother didn't like to talk about the difficult years.  I only know that hunger and pogroms were chasing them away, there were many gangs1 in Ukraine and they were killing Jews in the first place. Poverty was all around; my father had no customers and he lost his job.

Approximately in 1921 my parents moved to Kiev. They moved in the house that belonged to Count Petrovskiy before the revolution, located in Andreyevskiy Spusk. At first my parents rented an apartment from landlord Stambovskiy, Polish. I was born in this apartment and I remember it very well. It was a very good apartment. The ceilings were high and decorated with stucco molding.   We had two rooms. One was a big 40m2 room and the second room was smaller. There was a kitchen with a Russian stove and a balcony between the rooms. We had mezuzahs on all doors in our apartment following the Jewish traditions. Approximately in 1932 the authorities installed a partial in the big room to let another family move in. But we still had sufficient space left especially that Dina was already married and was not with us any longer.

I remember well Dina's wedding, although I was only 3 in 1926. They installed huppah in our yard and there were so many guests - Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish people, rabbi and kosher food. It was a very merry wedding. A Jewish orchestra played wedding tunes and the guests danced. I have lifetime memories of this wedding. Dina married Israel Khazimov, a Jew. He owned a barber's in Mikhailovskaya Street in the center of the city. After the wedding Dina moved to her husband's house.

My parents were very religious people. My father prayed every day, putting on his Thales and tfillin. At Sabbath we had a minjan2- religious Jews came to pray in our house. Men were in a bigger room and women - in a smaller one. This pray house in our apartment lasted until the middle of 1930s until the authorities summoned my father to the NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) and forbade him to have religious people come to his house to pray. My father, however, kept praying until the end of his days. We observed all Jewish traditions at home, followed kashruth and celebrated Saturday. On Friday my father came home a little earlier that usual to pick up Abrasha, my older brother and me to go to the sauna. We were back home before the first star appeared in the sky, before Sabbath. My mother said a prayer and lit candles in the antic silver candlesticks. They didn't do anything on Saturday. Janitor Afanasiy came in on Saturday to start a fire in the oven, turn on the lights and greet us with Saturday. My father treated him with some vodka and delicious snacks. Later the whole family got together at the table to have a nice dinner. My mother served delicious traditional Jewish dishes: stuffed fish, chicken broth and stuffed chicken necks. My mother had halla - Saturday bread - baked a day before in the stove. She also made matsa for Pesah in this same stove. Delicious smell spread all around and the neighbors - Russian and Ukrainian were saying "Tania is baking matsa - there will be a holiday soon". They called her a Russian name Tania, because Tuba was a difficult name to pronounce. I have great memories of Pesah celebration in the house. We didn't have special kosher dishes and my father koshered all dishes in a big pot with boiling water on the eve of a holiday. The house was thoroughly cleaned, all garbage and bread was to be thrown away to have not even a crumb of bread left at home.  During the cheder my father was sitting at the head of the table leaning against a pillow. Before he sat down he used to put away matsa and we, kids, had to find it according to the tradition. My father said all necessary prayers and conducted cheder in strict compliance with the requirements of Haggadah (Haggadh - rules and procedures to be followed at Pesah). The family got together at dinner during the whole Easter week. We had guests: Sister Dina and her husband, my mother's brothers Emmanuil and Iolik with their families. My mother often invited our Russian and Ukrainian neighbors to treat them to delicious food and matsa. In those years there was no national discrimination, at least, in our neighborhood.  I didn't know the words "zhyd", "katsap" - slang for a Russian - or "hohol" - slang for a Ukrainian. During Christian Easter our neighbors treated us to their Easter bread and painted eggs and we liked those a lot.

We celebrated all Jewish holidays at home. My parents and older children fasted before Yom-Kippur. At Purim my mother made triangle pies with poppy seeds - gomentashy. During Hanukkah we had a special Hanukkah candle stand with eight candles burning and ate sweet doughnuts with jam and potato pancakes, and the children got some money for a gift. I liked these holidays a lot, because my father told us about the history and origin of every holiday and where all traditions came from. Sometimes we spent holidays at Dina's home. I remember celebration of "Simhat Torah" in 1940. On this day Jewish people finish their annual reading of Torah and begin it again from the first page.  I remember rabbi in kippah carrying the Torah scroll along the street. People around were singing and dancing and enjoying themselves. This holiday was a lot of fun.

We lived a frugal life. My father worked as an interior decorator in the Comborbez shop. The word Comborbez was an acronym that meant Communist struggle against unemployment. This shop was located in Gostinniy Dvor at Podol (Gostinniy Dvor is an ancient administrative building in Podol, a historical district of Kiev). My father often worked at weekends to earn a little more. My mother was a seamstress at the factory. I didn't go to the kindergarten. I stayed at home with older children - Dina and Mindel. Mindel was called Bella at home.

In 1930 I went to school. There were Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish schools then. I spoke fluent Yiddish, as it was the main language we spoke at home. But I liked Russian and wanted to go to a Russian school. My mother took me to comrade Urman, Head of the Public Education Department - he enrolled children on the lists of different schools. He showed me his watch asking me to say what it was in Yiddish. I answered and he put me on the list of the Jewish school without even asking me what I wanted. At that time children could choose a school to their preference. Their parents were supposed to obtain a letter from the department of public education. The official representative of the department issued such letter addressed to the school that parents preferred to send their child to. However, in my case comrade Urman happened to be a Jew and he sincerely thought that it would be easier for me to study at the Jewish school in my own language. Besides, there were not enough children studying in Jewish schools (many wanted to go to Russian schools) and he sent me to the Jewish school.

I went to the 8-year Jewish school. We studied mathematics, language, history and geography. We didn't study any special subjects related to the Jewish history or culture. The only difference from other schools was that we studied all subjects in Yiddish and that all children were Jewish.  My educational process was long. There were long intervals. I had a congenital hip dislocation, but nobody noticed it when I was a baby. In 1935 I had a surgery and had to stay in plaster for a year. I went to school a year later than all other children. I had to walk with crutches. Schoolchildren didn't tease or laugh at me; they were good to me. They even asked me "Froika, can you give me your crutches to hop a little?" I didn't suffer much that I missed a year of classes. But the surgery was not performed and in 1938 I had five surgeries within several months. This time I stayed in bed for almost two years and finished school in 1941 before the war. Other children were my friends; they visited me and brought me my home task from school. We didn't our home task together and they were helping me with my classes. Although I was ill for several years, had several surgeries, and over lived pains and inconveniences I enjoy recalling my school years. I had many friends of different nationalities. I was a young Octobrist3 and then a pioneer. We enjoyed many things: the 1st of May parades and the first Soviet movies. I remember how we went to watch the movie "Circus" with the Soviet movie star Lubov Orlova. We condemned racism that was derided in this movie. People of all nationalities - Jews, Ukrainian or Polish - were equal, we believed.   During the war in Spain we wore proudly the "Spaniard" caps.  I made one for myself. We were Soviet children brought up as young communists and Lenin followers.

Our family combined love to our own people, respect of its religion, history and culture with our interest to everything that the new way of life brought: construction sites, collective farms and five-year plans.  It must have been similar to many other Soviet Jewish families. Even famine of 19334 did not seem to overshadow our joyful existence.  I remember little rolls that we received at school as additional ration. My sister Mindel (Bella), an accountant, went on a two-month business trip to a village from her work and brought back potatoes and some other products. My father had some earnings on the side. After work he went to work for different people that paid him with bread or other food products.

In the middle of 1930s arrests and repression began5. Some of our neighbors disappeared, too. They were arrested at nighttime.  My parents never mentioned any arrests. I remember my older brother Abram agitation about the arrest of director of his school. My father told him that it was none of our business and everything had its reasons. Once my father didn't come back from work. He didn't return the following day either. My mother kept crying saying that we would never see him again. But he was taken home the following day. He didn't tell us where he had been. Only later we got to know that he was kept at NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs). He had to sign his consent to spy and report to the authorities on suspicious individuals. My father worked as a carpenter at the "Continental" hotel for foreigners and he had to watch them.  After that religious Jews stopped coming to our house, and I think they were one of the reasons why my father was temporarily under arrest. After that my father grew old quickly. He was often sad and couldn't sleep at night.

Mindel married Efim Galker, a Jew and a jeweler in 1938. There were many gusts at their wedding. There was music and people enjoyed the party very much. However, this wasn't a Jewish traditional wedding.  This was a different time6. Bella moved to her husband's apartment. He was a very well to do man.

There were my parents, Abrasha and I left in our apartment. He was my brother, my friend, my advisor and protector. After finishing school Abram worked at the shipbuilding yard and studied at the technical school. In 1940 he was recruited to the army and sent to serve on the border with Poland.  When the war began in June 1941 Abram was at his frontier post and he perished there on the first day of the war. 

The war was a complete surprise for all of us.  Although we read newspapers, listened to the radio and knew that Hitler came to power, but after the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact7 people calmed down and believed that the war was not a threat to our country any longer. 

During the War

On Sunday of 22 June 19418 my father collected his tools and went to do one of his side jobs. He returned in two hours' time and told us that the war began.  At twelve o'clock Molotov9 spoke on the radio with the announcement of the war and appeal to the Soviet people. My mother burst into tears saying that Abrasha perished. My father tried to console her, but he probably didn't believe what he was saying.

The husbands of Dina and Bella were recruited on the first days of the war. They both perished on the first months of the war during defense of Kiev. The story of Bella is described below.

Our family had no evacuation plans. We all thought that the war would be over within several weeks in our victory and that Germans would not reach Kiev. But then rumors began spreading that Germans were killing all Jews on the occupied areas. The authorities began to evacuate enterprises and governmental bodies from the city. My mother didn't want to evacuate. She said that if Abrasha were alive he would be looking for them in Kiev and that she had to stay and wait for him. 

My sister Bella was working as an accountant at the NKVD office and NKVD employees and their families were the first to be evacuated. We left Kiev on 3 July 1941. My mother left a letter to Abram on the door to our apartment. She still hoped that he would come back. We convinced my mother that we were leaving for a short time. The seven of us - my mother, my father and I, Bella and Dina and her son Yuliy and daughter Raya) got on the special train for evacuation of the Town and Regional Party Committee, NKVD and Public Prosecutor's office employees' families. Everything was very well organized for this trip. People got meals - one hot meal per day and one packed meal. Although we had little luggage, my father took his Thales, tfillin and Talmud with him. He was praying during our whole trip. He made only one concession to his daughter Bella. He did not put on his religious accessories, because Bella felt embarrassed about what her colleagues would think about it.

We arrived at Stalingrad and settled down at the stadium. This was in summer, it was warm and sunny. We lived on the football ground. There were tens of thousands of people like us around. I was just a boy and everything that was happening to us seemed an exciting adventure to me. We stayed two or three weeks in Stalingrad and realized that although the front was still quite at a distance the war was going to last for long time and we had to move on. We boarded a boat and sailed up the Volga to the north.  Now we were traveling among other common people. And this tour was different from when we were traveling as a family of an NKVD employee. We got no meals and we were left on our own. We couldn't stay in Kazan or Kuibyshev - they were overcrowded with evacuated people. We stopped at the town of Tetyushi Tatar SSR. We rented a room from a local family in the house on the hilly bank of the Volga. My father got a job of a docker. He received some food products for his work and we all shared what he brought home. We stayed in Tetyushi until autumn 1941 and realized that we had to go where it was warmer, as we had no winter clothes with us. We got on the train to Uzbekistan. It was a long trip. My father got off at the stops to get some food in exchange for clothes. On one of such stops my father missed the train. We met again in Tashkent. He managed to get there even before we did. We headed to Fergana from Tashkent. We had been starving for quite some time and when we saw the market in Fergana - apples, water melons, melons, bread, smelling deliciously, we decided to stay there. We met an elderly woman there at the market. She was a Tadjik Jew and we rented a room in her house. It was a small room but it was dry and clean.

My father went to work as a loader at the station. He worked until late and he came back exhausted and went to sleep right away. We were all sleeping on the floor. Dina got a job of an accountant at the commerce department and Bella became a cashier in the cinema theater. I got a job of a shoemaker. Our life was gradually improving. We received some food for our food cards and got some food in exchange for our clothes at the bazaar. But there was not enough food anyway. Dina's children fell ill. Yuriy had dystrophy and abscesses; Rayechka was feeling ill and coughing. In April 1942 my father fell ill. He had a suppurative inflammation on his leg. He was staying in hospital. They didn't have enough bandages or gauze even for the wounded and they didn't have sufficient medical supplies.  On 15 April my mother came from the hospital crying and said that Papa died.  This was the first death that I faced in my life. My very dearest father died. I was crying all the time before and after the funeral. My father was buried on the Jewish cemetery in Fergana. He was wrapped in the cerements. One of the Jews that was in the evacuation there read a prayer. In few days after the funeral this same man talked to me. He said I was the only support for my mother and sisters and that I had to pull myself together to be able to provide for them and become the head of the family. By that time we understood that my sisters' husbands either perished or were missing, as we received their last letters in September 1941 from the vicinity of Kiev. In September 1942 Dina's daughter Rayechka died and was buried near my father. The girl actually starved to death. She was 7 years old.

I worked at the garment factory for some time. I remember Max Neimark, a German. He was a foreman at the factory. Once he didn't show up at work. It turned out he was arrested only because he was German. He was charged of cooperation with fascists, although there were no fascists in that region whatsoever. Nobody saw him again. Later I finished a course of accountants for agriculture crediting. I got a job assignment in a little town at the border with Afghanistan, but there was no work there. And I returned to Fergana. I was offered to work as cash messenger although I was lame and had to walk with a stick. But they offered a good salary and I agreed. I worked as cash messenger until the end of our stay in Fergana. I made the rounds of various town and regional institutions - sometimes I got a car and sometimes I walked escorted by two men, received the money and took it to the bank. This was a hard and dangerous work, but it was well paid and helped our family to have a better life.  At this same time I became a Komsomol member10.

At the end of 1944 I was called to the Town Komsomol Committee and ordered to accept a job assignment of a cash messenger in the Western Ukraine liberated from fascists. I was to go to the town of Stanislav - Ivano-Frankovsk at present. I received two thousand rubles, permission to move all members of my family there and free tickets. I realized how dangerous the situation might be there. There were many nationalistic gangs that hated and killed representatives of the Soviet power11. And the job of cash messenger was twice as dangerous. However, I couldn't help accepting this job offer. But it happened so that circumstances resolved this problem. Sister Dina fell ill with spotted fever on the train. She was sent to hospital in Kiev. As we were in contact with her we were ordered to stay at home. Our apartment in Andreyevskiy Spusk was occupied by others and we were allowed to live in a smaller room. Later we had to turn to court to resume our rights for the apartment. 

After the War

I sent a letter to the Public Prosecutor office explaining that I couldn't go to Stanislav to take my position there due to my sister's illness. I was worried about having received the money and not arriving at the place. The Prosecutor assistants told me to stay in Kiev as long as needed. They said that the authorities that assigned this money to me should claim it. So I stayed in Kiev and sent the money to Fergana at their request in 1949.

I went to work as a welder at the Kiev plant "Red excavator", manufacturing agricultural equipment. He worked there for 35 years until I retired. I met my future wife Sophia Mitrofanovna Savchuk at this plant.  She was born in a Ukrainian family in Vassilkov, Kiev region, in 1922. By the time we met all her family had passed away. I only know that they were farmers and lived in a village. Although we were of different nationality and cultures, we fell in love with each other and got married in 1948. My family was not against this marriage. They understood that we loved each other and they liked Sophia. We were both living at the hostel at that time. So after we had a civil ceremony at the registry office we received a room as a family in that same hostel.  We are a typical Soviet family. We celebrate Soviet holidays and have family gatherings. We do not celebrate Jewish or Christian traditions in our family.

In 1951 I became a candidate for the CPSU - Communist Party of the Soviet Union - membership and a member of CPSU in 1953. I became a member of the Party strongly believing in the ideals of communism. I felt hurt when they delayed my admittance to the Party for two years instead of one. They didn't explain any reasons to me. I think this was reflection of the state anti-Semitic policy - struggle against cosmopolitism, the "doctors' case"12, etc., although I didn't know anything about it at that time. Finally I was admitted to the Party as workers had privileges in this respect. The policy of the Party was to admit one intellectual against 10 workers.  When Stalin died in 1953 I cried sincerely and stood in the sentinel of honor near his portrait. That is why denunciation of the cult of Stalin on the ХХth Congress13 in 1956 was an unexpected blow to me like it was for many other members of the Communist Party. Only with the flow of time when more and more information was revealed I understood that Stalin was the cause of many disasters in our country and with our people.

We have two sons. Yuriy was born in 1950 and Michail - in 1954. In 1966 when Yuriy came of age to receive his passport I decided that he should choose his mother's nationality. It was impossible for a Jew to enter an Institute or get promoted at work. To eliminate any suspicions about the nationality of our son I decided to change my name so that my sons didn't have a typical Jewish patronymic - Froimovich. I might have betrayed my father by changing my name but I was more concerned about our son at that time. I got acquainted with director of the registry office and she agreed to have me change my name, patronymic, last name and nationality. Of course, I had to pay her. I felt ashamed of myself for changing my name given to me by my parents.  They suggested that I took the name Fyodor Yakovlevich, Ukrainian. But I changed only my first name to Efim. I did this for the sake of my children. I wanted them to be able to get a higher education. My wife, to her honor, didn't put any pressure on my choice. 

Yuriy got educated at Kiev radio engineering college. He works as an engineer. He married a Ukrainian girl Nadia and they have a 30 year old son Volodia.

Our second son Michail got educated at Kiev engineering and construction institute. He received a red diploma. He speaks fluent English, works on the computer and is an expert in construction materials. He works for a big private company and earns good money. He has three children. His older son is adopted by him. He married a woman with a child. His son Andrei is 12 and his younger son Alyosha was born a month ago, in 2002.

Although my sons are married to Ukrainian women and their nationality is written Ukrainian in their passports they sincerely identify themselves as Jews. They don't go to the synagogue or observe any traditions, but they are aware of their origin and feel proud of being Jews. We've never had any discussions about nationality in our family. We get along well and love each other. We watch closely the development of events in the Middle East and we are very concerned about the war imposed on Israel. A few years ago we even considered moving to Israel. But my wife got in a car accident. She was severely injured and became an invalid. We didn't dare to emigrate and the children didn't want to leave us here.  

My mother Tuba Bezrodnaya died in 1959. She remained very religious until the end of her life. She went to the synagogue, lit candles on Sabbath and prayed. But she never forced us, children, in this respect. We lived our own life. Sisters Dina and Mindel (Bella) didn't get married and worked as accountants at various enterprises in Kiev. Dina died in 1994, Mindel - in 1989. Yulik, Dina's son, studied at Moscow physic technical institute and worked at big research institute. In the late 1970s he emigrated to Israel. He lives there with his wife Raya and son Victor.

Aron, the son of my mother's brother Emmanuil, lives in Israel. When he was leaving in 1970s he took my father's Thales and other religious accessories with him. Aron became a religious man. Although he is a former colonel of the Soviet army, he prays and goes to the synagogue and celebrates all Jewish holidays. I have not been a religious Jew - this is the way it happened in my life.

Glossary

Raisa Roitman
Kishinev
Moldova
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: July 2004

Raisa Roitman lives near a large park, in an old, beautiful district of Kishinev [Chisinau in Moldovan] built in the 1960s. The yard of the so-called Khrushchovka 1 is very green. Raisa’s two-room apartment is well-furnished. She lives with her son now, and the apartment is too small for two adults. Raisa Roitman is a buxom woman. She is very polite and reserved. Raisa has taken out a lot of old photographs. There are a lot of pictures, and all of them are very interesting. Raisa comes across as quite standoffish. She is reserved and rather tacit. Her answers are curt. She is not willing to say much and she avoids answering certain questions that refer to her private life. Nevertheless, in the course of the interview, Raisa comes to trust me more and we part as friends. A couple of weeks later, I find out from one of the employees of Kishinev Hesed 2 that Raisa had immigrated to Israel shortly after our meeting. She didn’t tell me anything about her intentions.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

My family background

Rubel was the surname of my paternal great-grandfather. The surname, which looked more like a nickname, was passed on to my grandfather, then to my father and then to me. Great-grandfather Itsik Rubel was born in the 1840s in the town of Rezina [80 km from Kishinev]. He lived there all his life. Itsik was involved in agriculture and mostly in viniculture. He had a large vineyard with vintage variety. Great-grandfather worked mostly by himself, occasionally hiring workers during the harvest time. He made wine and then sold it to the marketers from Kishinev at a wholesale price. Itsik had his own house, though it was rather small and modest, not to say poor.

My great-grandmother Charna was a housewife. She was a tall beautiful woman, always dressed in a dark skirt with an apron, blouse and a neckpiece. Grandmother also wore a crocheted headkerchief with lace trimming. Itsik was a good match for Charna – a tall and handsome tanned old man with a wrinkly face and a spade-like beard. He always wore a broadbrim hat or a kippah when he went to the synagogue. He also had tallit and tefillin. He never worked on Sabbath, even in the busiest times. My great-grandmother was a housewife, she raised the children and helped Itsik with work in the field. Her hands were parched because of the sun and with the dirt ingrown in the skin. Charna was also religious, observed Sabbath, the kashrut and raised her children as true Jews. I don’t remember Great-grandfather Itsik very well. He died in 1930, when I was a small girl. Great-grandmother died later, in 1939.

Itsik and Charna Rubel had many children. I know hardly anything about them. I know that the eldest one, Monysh, was also a vine grower and lived in Rezina, in Itsik’s house. He died in 1920. I don’t know what happened to his wife and children. Out of all the siblings of my paternal grandfather I knew grandfather’s sister Perl best of all. She lived in Rezina with her husband David [Roitman], who worked from morning till night, and her son Nahman. She was a housewife. With the outbreak of World War II 3, she and her husband went into evacuation on foot. They reached Rybnitsa, where Grandfather’s younger brother Gedali Rubel lived and worked. They didn’t walk far and were chased down by the Fascists. All of them – Perl with her husband and younger son and Gedali with his wife – were brought to a ghetto in Transnistria 4, in the town of Balta [Vinnitsa region, today Ukraine, about 250 km from Kiev]. All of them perished there during one of the actions against the Jews. Perl’s son Nahman, born in 1920, was drafted into the army in 1941. He was in the labor army 5 and when World War II was over, he came back to Kishinev.

My grandfather Abram, born in the 1870s in Rezina, was Itsik’s middle son. He got married rather early, which was traditional for Jews. His wife Nehama was also from Rezina. She was even younger than Grandfather Abram. My grandmother’s maiden name was Torba. They [her parents] had many children, but I only knew Uncle Yankel and Aunt Haika, who lived in Kishinev. Yankel had four children. All I know is that they left their parents’ home at a young age. They were members of an underground Communist organization. They were often imprisoned in Romania. Yankel died at the age of 94. Haika lived a long life as well.

Grandfather Abram finished cheder. I don’t know whether he got any further education. I think that his education was rudimentary. He could read and count, which was necessary in his work. Abram was a forwarding agent. He accepted cargo at the railway station and then forwarded it to the clients, who were rich victualers and owners of stores. This job wasn’t stable. Besides, it didn’t yield a sufficient income. It took a lot of money to support a large family.

Abram and Nehama had nine children. I only knew my father’s eldest brother Yankel. I remember the names of the rest – Nahman, Srul, Revekka, Golda, Lena… The thing is that in 1913 Grandfather Abram left for Argentina to look for a job and a better living for his children. Some of the elder children left with him, and Grandmother Nehama with the rest of the children joined them in a couple of years. That is why I never met my grandparents, my uncles and aunts. Only the eldest son Yankel, born in 1892, and my father Shapsha were so much against the departure to Argentina that Grandfather Abram got upset with them and left without his elder sons. Father and Yankel also were frustrated that they parted with the family and didn’t keep in touch with them for a long time. Only ten years later did they start to correspond with the family.

Father and Yankel had already been working when their family left. They were loaders at the creamery since the age of 13. Yankel lived in Rezina. He got married rather early. His wife was a Jew called Pesya. They had four children – a boy, Monya, born in 1922, and the daughters Golda, born in 1917, Revekka, born in 1924, and Leya, born in 1926. Yankel worked really hard to provide for such a large family. He worked two shifts at the creamery. On 12th October 1935 my uncle died as a result of the collapse of the ceiling in one of the creamery premises. During his funeral the coffin wasn’t open so that the relatives wouldn’t see Yankel’s dreadful remains.

For two years Pesya and her children lived on the money given to them by my father and the kin from Argentina. In 1937 they received an invitation from Argentina and Pesya left with her children. I loved them a lot, especially Revekka and my peer Leya. We took a picture together before they left. That was the last time I saw them. Before 1940 we received letters from Argentina and then the Soviet regime was established 6 in Bessarabia 7 and it was impossible to write to our relatives abroad 8. We couldn’t correspond with them after the war either.

I found out from my distant relatives, who lived in Israel, that neither my relatives who left with Grandfather, nor Yankel’s children ever became rich. However, they had a decent and good life. They didn’t respond to my letters that I sent after perestroika 9, when it became possible to keep in touch with relatives abroad. I know that Grandfather Abram and Grandmother Nehama died in the 1960s, and both of them were over 90 years old. Yankel’s children are still alive and have their own families with the exception of Leya. She was the only one who remained single. Unfortunately this is all I know about my father’s family.

My father Shapsha was born in 1894. He studied at cheder until he turned twelve. He began working at the age of 13. Father didn’t go to school. In spite of the fact that he was self-taught, he was a very literate man. He knew Russian, later he studied Romanian. Besides, he had an aptitude for Mathematics. He was able to add, deduct and multiply up to three figures. After Grandfather Abram’s departure for Argentine, he and Yankel lived with their Grandparents Itsik аnd Charna. Maybe for the reason that they were the bread-winners of the family neither my father nor Yankel were drafted into the Tsarist army during World War I.

Father worked as a loader at the creamery. He loaded milk and butter and delivered it to the sales agents. Owing to his intelligence and good sense he became the assistant to the owner. During one of his trips he met Moishe Lerner, the owner of the creamery located in the small town of Vad-Rashkov. He invited him to come over to his house. Shapsha was rapt by the beauty of Moishe’s daughter Tabl and began to make frequent trips to his colleague from Vad-Rashkov, [90 km from Kishinev]. In a couple of months Shapsha sent a shadkhan to Moishe and in 1924 my parents got married.

My mother’s parents, Moishe and Sura Lerner, born in Vad-Rashkov in the 1870s, had a modest living. Grandfather’s creamery was the only income source for the whole family. Although the yielded income wasn’t high, it was enough for the Lerners to get by. The creamery premises are still preserved in the town. Moishe had an adobe [construction material made from clay and thatch] house, consisting of three rooms. The members of this large family usually gathered in the largest room during family reunions on Sabbath, on Jewish and family holidays.

Grandmother Sura was a housewife. Her mother, my great-grandmother Haya was helping her out. She was born in a Moldovan village, and there were only two Jewish families there. She was equally fluent in Russian and Moldovan, but she preferred Yiddish. Great-grandmother lived to be almost a hundred years old, preserving a clear mind and a great sense of humour, being kind and benevolent. Haya had an ear for music and a melodic voice in spite of her age. She used to sing beautiful Jewish songs to her great-grandchildren and grandchildren. She was also good at knitting and embroidering. The ladies of our family looked very nice in her handmade laces. Haya had a calm death as if she just fell asleep. She passed away at night, on 8th May 1940.

Moishe and Sura lived the way other Jews from small towns did. They observed Jewish traditions, celebrated Sabbath, went to the synagogue, even raised their children in a Jewish spirit. Finally, at the end of the 1930s Grandfather was severely afflicted with leukemia. He died on 9th May 1941.

Moishe and Sura raised five children. Ousher, born in 1899, was the eldest. He lived not far from my grandparents, with his wife Klara and three daughters – Fira, Feiga and Mara. Ousher was a peasant. His wife and children did their best to help him with work, but their family still lived from hand to mouth. On 8th July 1941 Klara and the youngest girl, Mara, died during the bombing. Ousher, his daughters and Grandmother Sura were captured by the Germans on their way to evacuation and happened to be in Kishinev ghetto 10. Here Grandmother and Ousher died of hunger in the first hard winter. The girls survived. Feiga has terrible memories of the war times. All of her fingers were amputated as a result of severe frostbite. Fira and her daughters have lived in Israel since the late 1980s. Feiga was married to Magelman and lived in Soroca [130 km from Kishinev] with two sons.

The next son, Leib, born in 1901, owned a small bakery. Apart from the ordinary bread, Sabbath challah, Purim hamantashen and white loaves were baked there. Leib’s family was so indigent that Reizl had to learn how to sew. It helped the family budget. Leib and Reizl had three children – the daughters Ida and Sonya and their son, Pinhus. During World War II all of them were in evacuation in Andijon [today Uzbekistan, 3500 km from Kishinev]. Leib died from typhus fever on 23rd March 1943. Reizl and her children came back to Moldova and settled in Soroca. She worked very hard as a seamstress for her children to get a good education. She died in 1967. Her children left the town with their families. Ida is currently residing in Israel. She took back her maiden name of Lerner after her husband’s death. Pinhus and two of his daughters are in Chicago. Sonya Vougsdorf [married name] also lived there. She died in 1998.

Mother’s younger sister Feiga, born in 1907, was a very beautiful woman. She got elementary education. She was married to Shneer Kleiman, who worked as a steward in the store owned by his rich relatives from a small Jewish town, located not far from Vad-Rashkov. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the town. Feiga and Shneer had two children – Rimma, born in 1928, and David, born in 1930. Feiga was a housewife. She took care of the household and raised their children. Feiga’s family was also evacuated to Andijon. When she returned to Moldova, she settled in Soroca, not far from Leib’s children. Feiga didn’t live a long life. She died in 1951 from liver disease. Her children got university education. Rimma was a therapist. She died a couple of years ago in Kishinev. David was an engineer. He lived in Moscow and died in 2000.

The youngest in the family, Joseph, born in 1910, is still alive. He is still of sound mind and body. He is currently residing in the USA. His wife Fira died three years ago. Their twin daughters Mara and Raisa have families – children and grandchildren. Sometimes they send me New Year’s greetings.

My mother, Tabl Lerner, born in 1904, wasn’t the most beautiful, but she was the most intelligent out of all the children of Moishe and Sura. She was able to express reasonable thoughts and make wise decisions. She was the head of our family. Father followed my mother unconditionally. She was often the ‘judge’ in many moot questions addressed by friends, relatives, neighbors. Usually those were issues concerning reconciliation of some quarreling spouses, raising children, keeping a family budget, seeing a doctor. Mother was an intellectual person, though she only had elementary education. She was very good at Russian as she studied it at school, and later on she was fond of Russian literature. She knew the works written by Pushkin 11, Lermontov 12. She was also attracted to Lev Tolstoy 13 and Fyodor Dostoevsky 14. My mother was self-taught. She had an insatiable appetite for learning. When Bessarabia became Romanian territory 15, Mother learned Romanian rather quickly.

Mother had many friends and admirers. But she liked Shapsha, who called on her father all of a sudden, at once. When my adolescent parents met, they soon began dating. Father came to Vad-Rashkov, and Mother used to come to Rezina. On 11th November 1924 they got married. I have a picture of the gorgeous newly-weds. Mother was dressed in a posh dress and Father in a new suit. The wedding took place in the synagogue in Vad-Rashkov under a chuppah. There were a lot of bride’s and groom’s relatives. Mother said it was very merry. Klezmer music was played and the guests danced till dawn. The tables were abundant in delicious dishes, mostly cooked by my grandmother and great-grandmother Haya. The bride had a dowry. I don’t know what amount was given to my father, but it was enough to buy a small house in Vad-Rashkov, where Shapsha and Tabl settled.

Growing up

I was born in that house on 21st April. I was given the Jewish name of Ruklya, but I was registered with a more modern Russian name 16 – Raisa. My parents called me Raisa, only Great-grandmother Haya called me by my Jewish name. In 1930 my brother Motle was born. I remember the day when my mother was giving a birth to my brother. Farther was going to and fro. The moans and screams were heard from the bedroom. Then I heard the cry of the baby. I remembered it for ever. I loved my brother at once. I had a kind of adult and maternal feelings for him.

I remember my childhood very vividly. I recollect our house – a small adobe low-set house, consisting of two small rooms and a kitchen. There was a stove in the kitchen, which was heated with firewood. It was used to cook food. Later on we had a Primus [Primus stove: a small portable stove with a container for about 1 liter of kerosene that was pumped into burners], and Mother used the stove only for heating purposes and during preparation for Sabbath, when a lot of dishes were supposed to be cooked and kept warm for the next day. Mother usually started cooking festive Sabbath dishes since early morning on Friday. Friday and Saturday were special for our family, because Father worked in Rezina and came home only on his days-off. Early Saturday morning my parents left for the synagogue. When they came back, the dinner cooked on Friday was still warm. On Sabbath we often went to Grandfather Moishe. All the children and grandchildren got together in the drawing-room. The table was laid with such festive dishes as gefilte fish, chicken broth and tsimes. Challah and wine were in the center of the table, and Grandfather was saying a benediction. After that, I, the favorite granddaughter, came up to everybody with a wine carafe on the tray and everybody was supposed to sip wine from that vessel.

We also observed the kashrut. There was a shed in the backyard of our house. Firewood and other household things were kept there. Father made a coop here for chicken and ducks. We didn’t have a kitchen garden, because the whole yard was the size of a room, but poultry was a big help for us in nutrition. Mother took chickens to a shochet. I often went with her. When I grew up, I went to the shochet by myself. I observed the butcher putting the fowl on hooks so that the blood would seep into a special tray. Only after that the chicken was considered kosher. After that, Mother plucked feathers from the chicken. She disemboweled the chicken and scorched chicken at home. The meat was also made kosher. There was a special cutting board with the notches placed at a certain distance from each other. Salted meat was placed there and blood would seep from the notches. Meat was made kosher within an hour. There were separate dishes for meat and dairy, as well as differently marked knives and cutting boards.

Since my early childhood I went to the synagogue with my parents. There were several synagogues in our small town. I remember four of them. Maybe there were more than that. The synagogues weren’t classified in terms of the craft. Synagogues were attended by the Jews who lived in the closest vicinity. There was a rather large synagogue not far from our house. It was a one-storied building, though men and women prayed in different halls. On Saturdays Father put on his tallit and tefillin. I carried his prayer book to the synagogue. Sabbath was sacred to my father, though during the rest of the week he was a secular Jew. He didn’t even cover his head all the time. What I liked the most in our synagogue was the place where the Torah was kept – adorned with gold and velvet. I liked to listen to the singing of the cantor and chorus. It was spectacular.

Synagogues were crowded in our town. The population of the town mostly consisted of Jews. There were a few rich people. I remember the owner of the manufactory store, Tsenner, and the owners of the grocery stores, the Goldenbergs and Fainsteins. The shoe-store belonged to Gonikman. There were also several doctors and a lawyer. The rest of the population lived very moderately, not to say indigently, counting every kopeck. My family was one of those. There were neither class nor national divisions among children. All of us were very friendly – Moldovans, Jews, the children of the rich, middle-class and poor people. Jews respected the poor ones. On Sabbath and holidays there were always indigent Jews, who where sitting at our festive table. 

I had a lot of friends, mostly among boys. In winter the Dniestr was frozen and we used it as a skating rink. I didn’t have my own skates. I usually borrowed them from some boys, who helped me skate on ice. In summer, I liked to stroll in the central park, located on the bank of the Dniestr, on the picturesque turn under the hill. There was a large and nicely decorated Orthodox church on the central square. The bell toll of the church was very beautiful and we liked to listen to it. I also liked going to the market, located not far from the church. The counters were full of all kinds of vegetables and fruits of different colors. There was also a wholesale of grapes. Father always bought grapes from one and the same Moldovan. He also made wine for us, which was kept in our cellar. Mother liked to haggle. How could she do without making a bargain? The sellers from the market went shopping to the stores to buy the things they needed as well as presents for their children. The peasants liked bagels most of all. They bundled bagels on the thread and put it over the neck. Jews and Moldovans treated each other as neighbors. I can’t say it was a cemented friendship, but at least there were no insults.

Jewish traditions were observed in the house of Grandfather Moishe. I learnt from my neighbors about the Jews, their mode of life, traditions and holidays. The rabbi and his wife lived in front of our house. They didn’t have children and they loved me very much. I was a welcome guest almost every day. I am sorry that I fail to remember the names of such close people to me, who taught me the Jewish traditions. The rabbi’s wife taught me the ethics of the Jewish family life, housekeeping. She was always wearing nice dresses, wigs and kerchiefs tied in an eccentric way. She taught me to be dressed up in the house, for the family, so that the husband enjoys looking at his wife, not only the outsiders. She also taught me how to cook a variety of Jewish dishes in accordance with the holiday traditions. She and I baked hamantashen for Purim, potato fritters and doughnuts for Chanukkah. She also taught me how to place all Paschal products mentioned in the Haggadah on the dish and cook bitter herbs.

I liked holidays very much. The fall holidays of Sukkot and Simchat Torah appealed to me the most. They were after Yom Kippur, when our parents were fasting and attending the synagogue, and we, the children, were forbidden to have fun and chatter. I began fasting rather young, at the age of six. During other periods of time I couldn’t fast, but on Yom Kippur, I was as if choked and got over the fasting rather easily. I also enjoyed the ceremonious Rosh Hashanah, when they blew the shofar in the synagogues.

I liked Sukkot for its being so peculiar. There was a festive table laid in the sukkah, built by Grandfather Moishe. The sukkah was decorated with tree branches. I liked the mirthful holiday of Simchat Torah, when the Jews were carrying the Torah scroll with dancing and music. The parade, carrying a hollowed-out-pumpkin lantern with the candles inserted inside, was descending from the mountain to the central park and walking along the town. Like many other children, I remember Chanukkah, as I was given money by Grandfather Moishe. My mother’s brothers also gave me money.

We were looking forward to the joyful Purim. First, there was a pageant procession in the town. When I was in my teens, I also took part in it. Children got together in the rabbi’s house, where a Purimshpiel was organized. As a rule I was Esther, the heroine of the Jewish peoples. Apart from hamantashen there was also a white loaf, baked only in the rich houses. It was made of dough with honey and nuts. Not everybody could afford such a luxury. In the evening the Jews could be seen with trays, taking shelakhmones to each other. There should be no less than two presents. As we had a lot of relatives, my mother would start baking the hamantashen in the evening. She also used to make homemade sweets and cookies. My brother and I used to take those presents. We also were given delicious shelakhmones. We knew the way each lady baked, and we could tell with the eyes closed whose present it was.

Pesach was the king of all the holidays. We started getting ready for it right after Purim. I liked the fuss in the house. We were cleaning things, moving the furniture, beating carpets, whitewashing the stove, putting dressy curtains on the windows, and a lacy cover on the table. Even the chicken coops were cleaned. Father came home beforehand and brought presents for all of us – Mother usually got a nice shawl or fabric for a dress. I got patent-leather shoes or a dress, my brother was given boots or a coat. Though our garments were pretty nice, we were looking forward to getting new pieces. The chest with beautiful dishes was taken from the loft. Those dishes were used once a year for a week.

Chametz was banished from the house on the eve of the holiday. Father was walking around the house with a goose feather and sweeping out non-existent crumbs. Starting on that day only matzah was used. Sweet or sour keyzels, kneydlakh for the chicken broth were also made from matzah. Even gefilte fish was made with soaked matzah flour. Mother always baked nut cake for the dessert with the following ingredients: 100 nuts, whipped egg whites from ten eggs, matzah flour and lemon.

Father would always carry out the seder. First, I asked the four traditional questions about the origin of the holiday. Then my brother Motle took over. Our neighbors, the Tkaches, were always invited to sit at our festive table. They used to be rich, and then they went bust and became very poor. They had a large family of eight children. For the second seder we usually went to Grandfather Moishe. Grandmother Sura, who loved me best of all, always demonstrated special attention to me. She gave me the best presents and let me lay dishes on the table. So I felt that I was her favorite granddaughter.

In 1934, I went to a Romanian elementary co-ed school. I was good at my studies, ranking top of the class and getting the first and the second prizes. At the end of the year we were given prizes, usually these were books and backpacks. The teachers treated me very well. They had an equal attitude towards Jews, Moldovans and Russians. Jewish children were exempt from the course of Orthodox Christian religion. They were taught Jewish history. It was so interesting that Orthodox children cut their classes to attend our lectures. I liked such subjects of natural sciences as botany and zoology. I was also good at such crafts as knitting and embroidery. At the end of the year there was an exhibition organized at our school. The students’ works were exhibited there and my works were always in the most conspicuous place.

Grandfather Moishe asked me to embroider him a night shirt. Back in those times men went to bed in long night shirts. I had been procrastinating all the time, and didn’t manage to embroider the shirt for my grandfather. On 9th May 1941 Grandfather Moishe passed away. Great-grandmother Haya had died one year before. My grandparents were buried in accordance with the Jewish rites. They were covered in a shroud. I didn’t go to the cemetery. It was not traditional for the Jews to take those children to the cemetery, whose parents were still alive. I remember the period of mourning. We took part in it as well. We sat on the floor with our relatives. I was walking without shoes, just in my stockings. Our neighbor, the rabbi, read a prayer for the deceased.

I studied in Vad-Rashkov for four years. I had to go to another town to continue my studies, as there were no other schools in our town. I studied in Vornicheny for two years. The town was 18 kilometers away from us. I shared the apartment with two girls from our school. Our landlady was a Jew, Sima. We had bed and breakfast. She fed us very well. All of us lived in one room and got along with each other. On the eve of Sabbath, viz. on Friday we went home. We also went home for Jewish holidays. By then I wasn’t as delighted by the holidays as I had been in the period of my childhood. I was just paying a tribute to tradition. Besides, I didn’t have other things to do other than observing Jewish traditions.

The Fascist organizations of the Cuzists 17 and Legionnaires 18 were established. Jewish youth adhered to two opposite camps – Zionists 19 and Communists. I was indifferent to either of them. When I came for a visit to Uncle Yankel and Aunt Haika I heard their delightful stories about the USSR from their Communist children and their dreams about justice and equality in the society of the future. I, being calm and well-bred, and respecting traditions and the existing mode of life, wasn’t carried away by their ideas. I didn’t participate in the Jewish Zionist organizations either.

When in the late June of 1940, Soviet peace troops came to Bessarabia, my family wasn’t meeting them with admiration, the way many other Jews were. Moreover, we were plagued by the feeling of uncertainty. Father even locked the door. Nothing bad happened. We weren’t affected by repressions and sequestration, which started a couple of days later. We heard about those things from other people. There were few rich people in our town, and all of our acquaintances and relatives were poor. Father was employed at some sort of an enterprise. In late August I left for Rezina and entered the eighth grade of the Soviet school. I turned over a new leaf. My life was more interesting now. I was an excellent student at school as always, in spite of the fact that subjects were taught in Russian and it was rather difficult for me. I became fluent in Russian rather swiftly. The main difference between the Soviet and Romanian school was that now children of the poorest strata of society were able to study at school, before that it had been unaffordable for them. The atmosphere was also more democratic. I lived with my father’s aunt Perl. I made friends with her eldest son Nahman. We spent a lot of time together. It was a puppy love with him. I had a lot of friends. We became pioneers 20 and had a lot of new events for us – pioneer meetings, workshops, PT, but it didn’t last long.

During the War

In June 1941, I passed final exams for the eighth grade and was supposed to go back home on vacation, but I stayed in Rezina for a couple of days as I didn’t want to part with Nahman. At 12am on 22nd June we found out about the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War from Molotov’s speech 21. That was the last time I saw Nahman before leaving for evacuation. As it turned out, he was drafted into the Soviet army 22 in the first days of the war. There was panic at home. Father insisted on evacuation, Mother still had doubts whether to leave or not to leave. On 8th August the town was bombed for the first time. We stayed in the town for another week. Almost all the Jews left for the evacuation – some people left on carts, others went on foot. Some Jews, especially the elderly ones, weren’t in a haste to leave as they thought that the Germans would do no harm to them.

On 16th July my parents decided to leave, right after Kishinev was occupied. Mother thought that things would be settled down within a couple of days and we would be back home. She only took some documents and money. She even left her modest jewelry at home. Mother locked the house and gave the keys to the Moldovan neighbor, asking her to watch over the house. We didn’t take most of our belongings, we just had light luggage. Only Motle took his favourite thing – his backgammon. I still keep it. I don’t remember how we met our relatives on our way to evacuation. Soon the families of my mother’s relatives joined us. These were Leib, Feiga and Joseph. So, our big family left the household for nowhere.

We walked along the road together with other fugitives. There were frequent bombings and we had to hide in the field or in the forest. There was screaming and sobbing. There were wounded and killed people. Sometimes we went to the Ukrainian villages. The hosts were very hospitable. They let us take a bath in the bathhouse. We stayed overnight in their house. They also fed us, gave us milk and clean clothes. Kind Ukrainian ladies asked us to stay with them. They were sorry for my mother, me, and especially for my little brother. We carried on like that for a month. There was no way we could return home. In each village we came to, we got together by the radio at 12am to listen to the news round-ups. We found out how rapidly the Germans were penetrating and moving forward in our land.

On 25th August 1941 we happened to be in the town of Bataysk, Rostov oblast [today Russia], about 1000 kilometers away from our home. We took locomotive trains and moved further to the east. There were people evacuated from different towns and villages of Ukraine and Russia. There were crowds of people, but everybody was given a chance to get on the locomotive. There was hardly any food. We managed to get some boiled water at the stations, sometimes some food. We didn’t know exactly where we were going. All we knew was that we moved eastwards. It took us almost a month to get to the town of Andijon in Uzbekistan.

Father, together with other men, went to the evacuation point right away. They went to work as loaders in the vegetable warehouse. We found a lodging the same day. We rented a small house, where our family settled. We were starving at first. Though, owing to Father’s work at the warehouse he got potato and beet skins and semi-rotten cabbage leaves. We were fed once a day in the evacuation point. We were given some porridge made of water and grains. Usually the neighbor boy, who was lame, cried to us: ‘Porridge is given out’ and we would dash to the evacuation point with our plates. There were long lines of people. The most important thing was that we were given 400 grams of bread daily. It was military, underbaked, sour bread, but it seemed a tidbit to us. I went to the ninth grade in Andijon. I worked after classes during the second shift. I did my homework at night.

In 1942 Father, my uncles Joseph and Shneer were drafted into the labor front. They were sent to build the metro in Moscow. Father sent us letters. Sometimes he sent us money as well. It made our life a little easier. I worked as a loader at the cotton oil factory. Before I left the factory I was allowed to soak my clothes in cotton oil. I put as many clothes as possible and soaked them in oil very well. The members of my extended family were waiting for me by the entrance. There was a considerable lack of fats in our diet, so they had to suck cotton oil from my clothes. I was standing there and crying. Almost all the factory workers were taking the cotton oil the way I did, and there were other people close to us, who were saturating in oil like my relatives. Mother used to cry a lot because I worked very hard. I tried to leave some oil for my little brother. Motle took the hunger really hard.

At the beginning of 1943 my little brother and Uncle Leib got afflicted with typhus fever. I was surprised that the rest of our relatives, stuck together in our poky place, didn’t catch that disease. I was immune, as I had had this disease in 1936. No matter what we did we couldn’t save my brother Motle and Uncle Leib. They died on 23rd March 1943. They were put in the cart and taken to the cemetery. They were buried in a common grave for the afflicted with the typhus fever. I kept the backgammon of my brother Motle as a precious thing.

In spite of working hard, I finished school with honors in 1943. Father sent me some money. He insisted on my continuing my studies. I went to the town of Osh, located at the border of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Rostov University was evacuated there. I submitted my documents and was enrolled without taking any exams, because I was an excellent student. I entered the Chemical Agents Department. I settled in the hostel. A new stage in my life began. I became a student. I had studied at Rostov University only for two months. In late October there was a terrible explosion in the laboratory of our university and a couple of our students died, many students were evacuated with severe scalds. I didn’t tell my mother about it, but Mother had a hunch that something had happened. Mother came to Osh, and having found out that I had remained alive by a miracle, insisted on my leaving the institute. I always listened to my mother and left Osh, in spite of liking my studies and having friends there.

I was transferred to the Tashkent Medical Institute, where I studied until 1944. I have never regretted that, because I understood that medicine was my calling. There, in Tashkent [today capital of Uzbekistan] I made friends with Jewish girls from Moldova 23, with whom I lived in the hostel. Gradually our life was getting better. I received an increased stipend and was paid for knitting, so I had the opportunity to send some money to my mother. What made me rejoice the most was that Nahman had found me via the bureau of the evacuees. We started to write each other tender letters. In late 1944 Father came back from Moscow and began working as a digger. He was grieving over his son’s death, but he tried not to show that to my mother. Mother couldn’t forgive herself for Motle’s death. She thought it was her fault.

After the War

In late December 1944, right after the liberation of Bessarabia we left for home. Of course, our way back home seemed much shorter to us. We had to change trains and on 3rd January 1945 we arrived in Kishinev. The city was dark, devastated and dilapidated. Father decided that we should stay in Kishinev, as Vad-Rashkov was also devastated. From our pal’s letters we found out that our house was demolished as well. So we didn’t go back to our town. There were a lot of unoccupied basement and semi-basement premises. We took one large room and began settling in.

Father started work at the creamery. Mother was a housewife. Shortly after my arrival in Kishinev, I applied to the newly-founded Medical Institute and was accepted in the second year. I was happy. Here in Kishinev I met Nahman. He barely participated in any battles. Like other Bessarabians, Nahman was demobilized from the lines in a month, as the Soviet regime didn’t trust people from the newly-annexed lands. In Buguruslan [today Russia] he entered the History Department at the Teachers’ Training Institute. In 1944, Nahman was among the first graduates. By that time he had become an active Komsomol 24 member, the secretary of the Komsomol committee of the institute. [Editor’s note: Komsomol units existed at all educational and industrial enterprises. They were headed by Komsomol committees involved in organizational activities].

Nahman came to Kishinev with other graduates of the institute right after the liberation of the city. Nahman moved in with us, being our relative. His close relatives died. His mother Perl and brother Gedali perished in a ghetto. Nahman and I became more and more close. Soon he proposed to me. It happened on Victory Day, 9th May 1945. Nahman and I were in Odessa on that day 25, strolling along a beautiful maritime boulevard. It seemed to us, that the entire population of Odessa was in the street. Unacquainted people were kissing each other, rejoicing in our victory and hoping for a bright future.

In spring 1946 Nahman and I got married. We had a hard life. Bread was given out by cards 26: there was neither provision nor essential commodities. But we were young, we loved each other and hoped for the future. I sold my bread card and bought my dream – nylon stockings. I also put on a skirt made from burlap and a patched blouse. That was the way I was dressed to go to the state registration office to register our marriage. In the evening our relatives got together in our dark room. We had tea with rye bread and sweets made of colored sugar and water. Then we danced to the gramophone and had fun.

We kept on living with my parents in their poky room. We made a kitchen from the small corridor, where Mother cooked on a Primus stove. We didn’t feel the lack of space. Our relatives came over often. We kept late hours, having tea and they stayed overnight. Some of them were sleeping on the table, others on the floor. There wasn’t enough room for everybody, but we had a good time anyway. I brought up my first-born son, David, in this room. He was born in 1948, and in 1952 I gave birth to another boy, Boris.

I didn’t quit my studies when David was born. It was difficult to combine my studies at the Medical Institute with sleepless nights, laundry and changing swaddles. My parents helped me a lot. I became a Komsomol member at the institute and even found time for social work. Nahman became a member of the Communist Party after graduation. He began to teach at the Teachers’ Training Institute, then at Kishinev University. When I was graduating from the institute, state anti-Semitism became commonplace. It was the year of 1949, famous for the overthrow of the anti-Fascist Committee 27, and then the Doctors’ Plot 28. I graduated that year.

In spite of having graduated with honors, I wasn’t accepted for the post-graduate studies, after I submitted the documents and passed all exams with excellent marks. They told me that I was to practice medicine first. But my Moldovan friend was easily accepted. I got my mandatory job assignment 29 to a distant Moldovan village, but they had to let me stay here, as my husband was working in Kishinev, and besides I had a small child. I was sent to the department of preventive care of the health care ministry and was employed as a therapist part-time. It was dreadful to practice medicine during the sensational Doctors’ Plot. I came across such a case: the patient whom I was calling on, shut the door right in front of me. She didn’t tell me anything, I understood everything by her grouchy look. It was hard for me to go to see other patients on that day.

When I addressed this case to the head of our department, he told me that patients were entitled to refuse to be treated by certain doctors and concocted a kind of a petty accusation for me. Jews were always criticized. In spite of being calm and reserved, I cried all night long. My husband was comforting me and saying that all that injustice would be over soon. He had the power to predict and at the same time to have a fair opinion on the reality. Either this was a feature of his character or his profession of a historian made such an imprint on him. Anyway when Stalin passed away in 1953, he wasn’t mourning like the rest of the people, he was one of the few ones who were almost glad. He said that now justice would prevail. I, being influenced by my husband, had a clear mind and took the death of the leader rather calmly. But my parents, especially my mother were grieving over it and crying.

Mother was ill at that time. Her health was undermined when she was working hard in Andijon. The years of starvation also affected her. Mother had liver cancer. In 1956 she died, being a little over fifty. She was buried in the Jewish sector of the Kishinev cemetery. Father read a commemoration prayer. It was very hard for me to get over my mother’s death. She was the dearest person to me. Father did many chores, trying to help me about the house. He went shopping, to the market, cooked and looked after the children. He was so complaisant and reliable that it helped me to overcome a hard period of grievance.

I have always had two jobs since our financial situation wasn’t favorable. I had to raise two children. The salaries of doctors and teachers weren’t high. I never got a promotion and remained in the same position. However, in 1956, after the revelations about Stalin’s personality cult, I had a new feeling of the wind of change. But in reality things didn’t change that much for the Jews. My husband was a talented historian. For several years he had been working on his dissertation 30, but he couldn’t defend it as it was declared outdated. Then he wrote another thesis, on a different topic, and he was told the same. He remained an ordinary teacher till the rest of his life.

Our children were growing up like any other Soviet children: nursery, kindergarten. When they were ill, my mother often looked after them, and when my mother died, Father would help out. In 1959 we got an apartment, and finally moved out of that basement. I am currently living in that apartment.

My sons were excellent students, both of them finished school with a golden medal. [Editor’s note: the golden medal was the highest distinction in USSR secondary schools. A student was supposed to have straight excellent marks (100%) to get the golden medal.] We paid a lot of attention to our children and tried to bring them up as civilized people. We used to discuss the books, read by our boys. They read almost all the Russian and foreign classics. They also knew Sholem Aleichem 31. At that time he was the only Jewish writer, whose works were published in Russian.

We were theater-goers. We also liked to attend symphony concerts, go on excursions to Moscow, Kiev. One of our vacations was totally devoted to Leningrad, its palaces and museums. We went to the seaside, to the Crimea, the Caucasus. I can say we had a full life. Of course, we were not rich: we didn’t own a house or a car, but at least we had a well-furnished apartment. We also could afford good food, clothes and recreation.

Jewish traditions were always kept only by my father. Of course, my husband and I were atheists. Nahman was a member of the Party. We worked on Saturdays, as Saturday was a working day, but Father always observed Sabbath. He attended the synagogue while he could walk. The kashrut couldn’t be observed, as it was hard to get any food products not to mention kosher ones. There was always matzah for Pesach. Father waited in a long line to get it in the synagogue. Father cooked traditional dishes for the holiday.

David and Boris always felt themselves to be Jewish and were interested in the long Jewish history since their childhood. Father told them many stories. He told them about the town we lived in, about Jewish traditions. I think he plied them with love for the Jewish people. Father lived a long life and died in his sleep in 1988, at the age of 94. He was buried next to my mother in the Jewish sector of the city cemetery in accordance with the rite. He was buried in a shroud. The warden of the synagogue, an elderly Jew, read a prayer.

My children got a wonderful education. The elder one, David, entered the Physics department of [Kishinev] university. He was an excellent student and graduated with honors. He worked for many years as a theoretical physicist. After perestroika the institute he worked for was closed down and David remained jobless. He decided to become an entrepreneur and founded his own company on sales and installation of computer equipment. His company is prosperous now. David was married, but got divorced. He keeps in touch with his son and helps him. My grandson Pavel, born in 1983, graduated from the police academy. He is currently living and working in Kishinev. He has a two-year-old son, my great-grandson Dmitriy. My son David left the apartment to his wife and lives with me now.

My younger son Boris followed in his father’s footsteps: he graduated from the History Department of Kishinev University. He is married to a Moldovan lady, Lidia. They have a wonderful family. They have two children – Polina, named after my mother-in-law Perl, born in 1985, and their son Sergey, born in 1987. Their children are grown now. Sergey is finishing school. Polina left for Israel to study. I visited her in Israel. We had a good time together. Israel is a marvelous country. I admire it, but I am always nostalgic about my motherland. Polina doesn’t want to leave Israel. She has become a real Israeli citizen. She observes all the traditions there. She has a lot of friends. Polina wants to serve in the Israeli army. She sees her life only there and I am happy she has found what she sought.

We always implicitly supported Israel, even during those years when it was officially stigmatized as an aggressive country. It was hard for my husband, as he worked in an ideological atmosphere, and he had to take part in the conversations and listen to accusations towards the young Israeli state. When the immigration started, most our relatives left for Israel. Neither my husband nor I wanted to leave, as we were attached to out motherland, Bessarabia. We were born and raised here, being part and parcel of it.

My husband died in 1989 from a heart attack. I have been by myself for many years now and I still can’t get over his death. He was a remarkable man – intelligent, thoughtful and kind-hearted. I was barely affected by perestroika and the foundation of the independent state of Moldova. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to live on my pension, but my children are helping me out as they have their both feet firmly on the ground. Besides, Hesed is assisting me a lot as well as other Jews. I receive food and what is most important, I have some moral support. I have a lot of friends among Hesed’s clients. We celebrate Jewish holidays and Sabbath together. I am not religious, but I became a member of the women’s club, where Jewish traditions are studied. I can say that perestroika brought about a revival of Jewish traditions, which is wonderful.

Glossary:

Isak Avram Levi
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interviewer: Dimitar Bojilov
Date of interview: September 2004

Isak Levi is a tall and big man with an impressive sense of humor. Despite the fact that he is advanced in age, he strictly observes the traditions; he also visits every day the ‘Bet Am’ Jewish community center to have lunch with his friends. Punctuality and correctness are qualities of extreme importance to him. As he claims, it is out of question for him to enter into an engagement and not to fulfill it. In the last several years he has devoted himself to mapping the houses inhabited by Jewish families in Sofia in the first half of the 20th century. Isak Levi is a member of the Board of the Sofia Synagogue, as well as of the Bnai Brith Jewish organization.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

It is known from history that 380,000 Jews were expelled by Ferdinand and Isabela during the 15th century. [Editors note: It is hard to estimate the number of Sephardim expelled from Spain and Portugal; according to the Encyclopedia Judaica a number of 250,000 subsequently settled in Ottoman territory, North-West Africa, Italy and Western Europe.] They left via the Mediterranean, some of them landing on the Italian coast, but they were not welcome there and thus they moved to the Balkans. [cf. Expulsion of the Jews from Spain] 1.

At that time the Balkans were subject to a lot of changes – for more than a hundred years Bulgaria had already been enslaved by the Turks. The Jews landed on the scattered islands [along the coastal line] and were accepted by the Turks. At the beginning the Jews settled in the cities of Salonika and Adrianople [today Edirne, Turkey].

Except for the language, we, Sephardic Jews 2 differ from Ashkenazi Jews in terms of some cultural characteristics. Our art, our customs and our ‘character’ are more lyrical, while the Ashkenazi Jews are more resolute; I would call them more ‘emerald.’ We have kept the soft vowels in our pronunciation – ‘e’ and ‘i’ – which are predominant in our manner of speech, on the account of the hard ones – ‘o’ and ‘a.’

Ten years ago I was in Dublin, the capital of Ireland, where the Jews are Ashkenazim and I visited the synagogue there. I met the people there and I wished to recite the Kaddish, which is repeated ten times during the service. So I asked to be allowed to recite the last Kaddish, which is usually given to foreign guests. I recited it and everyone was astonished as I did it the way I had learned it – with the soft vowels.

However, the difference between our old Spanish language, Ladino 3, and contemporary Spanish is not that great, therefore we can easily understand contemporary Spanish.

My family background

My father’s kin is from Salonika. As far as my father has told me, there were many rabbis, religious figures, as well as artists. [Having an absolute Jewish majority, Salonika was the ‘capital’ of the Balkan Sephardim up until the Holocaust.] Yet, they didn’t have many opportunities there to advance and my grandfather together with his brothers and their families decided to move to the north. [Both Salonika and Gorna Dzhumaya were Ottoman territories up until the First Balkan War (1912). The borders separating the two cities were drawn after the Second Balkan War (1913) when Macedonia was divided up in between Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria.]

Besides, Spain is a ‘high,’ mountainous country – the average height of its plateaus is about 2000 meters. Moreover, the climate there is very severe. After being chased from Spain, the Sephardic Jews arrived in Greece [The Ottoman Empire] by sea and settled in the southern part of the [Balkan] peninsula. Many of them couldn’t get used to the climate, and then they learned from travelers that there was a place to the north with four seasons, just like in Spain.

In Greece, especially in the south there are only two seasons – summer and winter. The winter is very humid and unpleasant, while the summer is unbearably hot, therefore many of the families moved to the middle part of the Balkan Peninsula – Bulgaria, in the region of Dupnitsa and Gorna Dzhumaya. The winter is nice here and the weather is comparatively cool here.

[Editors’ note: The reason for migrating from the Aegean littoral to the Balkan inlands was probably for economic rather than climatic reasons. Sephardim being typically engaged in textile production in Salonika and textile trade to Central Europe settled in cities en route towards the Danube, connecting South-Eastern and Central Europe. Gorna Dzhumaya and Dupnitsa are located in strategic positions in the valley of the Struma River, on the way from Salonika to Sofia, and further to the Danube.]

And so, my paternal ancestors moved to Dupnitsa. Most of my father’s uncles and aunts were tailors and shoemakers. All of them were ‘Judaikos,’ that is, people who professed Judaism. This means that the perfect Jew should observe 613 bans, that is, things which are forbidden, and respectively there are 613 rights, that is, things which he is allowed to do. [Editors’ note: According to the Rabbinic tradition the full number of mitzvot (commandments, including both prohibitions and precepts) is 613, that is, taryag mitzvot.]

My father’s grandfather was a rabbi, but his children did not keep this tradition and oriented themselves toward crafts – shoemaking and tailoring, while my grandfather was involved in the goldsmith’s trade as well.

My father devoted himself both to trade and tailoring. He started dealing with trade, yet simultaneously he led a strict religious life. At that time it was a rule for every Jew to visit the synagogue three times a day for a prayer – in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. It was observed by everybody and that is how my father got started.

My father, Avram-Nissim Levi, was born in Dupnitsa in 1865. He graduated from a school with extensive studies of the French language. And if I know a little French, I owe it to him, as he was my first teacher.

He and his two brothers used to live for some time in Dupnitsa and after that they moved to Gorna Dzhumaya. He got married there, but his wife didn’t bear him any children. He was one of the prosperous traders in Gorna Dzhumaya. He used to sell manufactured goods to people from the neighboring villages, as well as medicines known at that time, without actually being a pharmacist. People knew and trusted him.

It is interesting that in the period while he was living in Gorna Dzhumaya, he learned Turkish very well. [Gorna Dzhumaya was a part of ‘European Turkey’ until 1912.] Even much later, when we moved to Vratsa people realized that he knew Turkish and in the café, where they used to gather, they made him talk in Turkish to them. My father used to buy bread from a baker who was a Turk, and my father loved chatting in Turkish with him. They were very pleased with that, as though he was their teacher in Turkish. He only spoke it though, he couldn’t write a single letter.

[Editor’s note: The Latin script in Turkish, that made writing easy, was only introduced in the Turkish Republic after WWI. Before that the Arabic letters were used that made the writing in Turkish difficult and as a matter of fact relatively few people could master it.]

Until 1912, the First Balkan War 4, the town of Gorna Dzhumaya was held by the Turks. This war was considered a liberation war by the Bulgarians, as Bulgaria fought for its territories. Then the Turks were chased from the town of Gorna Dzhumaya but before leaving it, they burned it down.

The house where my father used to live was also burned to the ground. Then he raked up the ashes and found there a gold medallion with a diamond. From the strong fire and the high temperature the gold had melted into leaves but the diamond was preserved.

In accordance with the custom my father fixed a stake into the ground where he had found the diamond and from that place of one square meter he took the soil, which was considered to be the ashes of his wife, who burned to death during that fire, and thus he buried her. That diamond was a gift to her from him.

My father was 48 years old at the time. He decided to look for a new wife and therefore he came to Sofia. Before that he gave his shop to his assistant.

My mother, Rashel Levi, was born in Sofia. Her father is from the Behar kin. The Behars belong to the Jews who had lived here as early as Roman times. According to the legend the Jews who left to Europe in Roman times left posts of theirs at every one hundred kilometers; around these posts people started settling and thus towns were formed. In Bulgaria there was such a post around Ruse and Jews settled there.

The Behar kin was Sarah’s kin, the wife of Tsar Ivan Alexander [a Bulgarian tsar from the beginning of the 14th century], who gave birth to Tsar Ivan Shishman [the last Bulgarian tsar before the medieval Bulgarian state fell under the Ottomans in 1392]. I know this from my mother’s stories. Her father belonged to that kin, while her mother was from the Sephardic Jews.

My maternal grandfather was called Isak Behar, and I was named after him. Yet, my mother and her brother, who was two years older than her, were orphaned at an early age and were raised by their aunt as her own children. She herself had seven daughters and two sons.

My mother had attended school, she knew how to read and write. When she grew up, a young guy, a sandal maker from a good family saw her and wished to marry her, and she agreed. He was a Jew from Dupnitsa, who had come to Sofia and there he noticed her and proposed marriage to her. She accepted and married him, and thus she went to live in Dupnitsa at his father’s place.

Her husband was from the Pilosof kin. They lived together from 1910 to 1911 but in 1912 the war started [First Balkan War]. He went to fight in the war, and she was already pregnant. He left for the front line and never came back. Meanwhile she gave birth to a girl, my sister Oro.

Unfortunately, as it often happens in such cases the boy’s parents wanted to get rid of her. She wrote a letter to her brother and he took her back to Sofia together with the baby.

My father, Avram-Nissim Levi, learned about her when he went to Sofia and he proposed marriage to her. At first she didn’t agree but her brother’s wife – as he was already married and she used to live at their place – told her, probably because she wanted to get rid of her, ‘Well, he is the right man for you and you should take this chance!’

And so she accepted despite the great age difference: she was 23 to24 years old, while my father was 48; she could have been his daughter. And she got married to my father and they settled in Gorna Dzhumaya. I was born after nine months, in 1914, on 6th December during the Chanukkah holiday. I am my father’s firstborn child and my mother’s second one.

After that my mother gave birth every two years. Two years after I was born, in 1917, she gave birth to my brother David; after that, in 1919, my brother Mordechai was born; in 1921 my sister Adela was born; in 1923 my mother had a miscarriage, and in 1925 she gave birth to my youngest brother, Yosif. Our age difference was ten years.

Growing up

We had a hard, yet interesting life. We created such incredible relations and we have so many memories, a life-time unforgettable. I remember us, five kids playing in the yard and suddenly having an itch, and all of us scratching ourselves. A neighbor came then and told my mother to smear us with sulphur vaseline. And then we got undressed – the boys and the girls in separate rooms… How can you ever forget such a thing!
 

In the course of time, I, being the eldest among them, gradually turned into something like a ‘third’ parent for them, as my father was already 60 years old when my youngest brother Yosif was born.

Our mother tongue was Ladino. My mother initially talked to me in Ladino. When I turned two, my father started taking care of me and he began talking in Ivrit to me. At the age of five, I was already able to write from right to left and read fairy tales in Ivrit. Then I began to get ready for school. I studied both Bulgarian and Ivrit at the Jewish school.

Later, when I went to the Bulgarian school it was a little difficult for me there as I didn’t have the basis for the Bulgarian language that I used to have in my earliest years with Ivrit. We used to speak only in Ladino at home. Even for my father it was sometimes hard to talk in Bulgarian. My mother spoke Bulgarian better, yet it was difficult for her also.

In Gorna Dzhumaya we lived in comparatively good conditions. My father had fixed the house, which had once burned and we used to live in it. It had four rooms. We lived separately in it. We kept very friendly relations and always got on very well with the Bulgarians in the town.

I was born in 1914, and in 1915 the war started [cf. Bulgaria in World War I] 5, which lasted until 1918, and I remember that we lived on the ground floor of the house, while some officers used to live upstairs. We had a fountain inside the house linked to the town’s water-main.

For a certain period of time maids from the [neighboring] villages used to help my mother with the housework. They were treated in a very good manner. My father even used to help them a lot, especially with their weddings when they got married.

I used to study in Gorna Dzhumaya till the fourth grade, the first and second class at the Bulgarian junior high school, and then we moved to Vratsa.

In the 1920s my father’s business started declining because after 1918 the country’s territory was re-allotted. Bulgaria lost lots of territories, which were annexed to the territories of Yugoslavia and Greece. The clientele withdrew and my father decided to change his subsistence.

Therefore he decided that we move to Vratsa where he applied to become a rabbi. At that time my mother was pregnant with Yosif – that happened in September 1925. Local people there had to find a home for us. They found us lodging in a basement, and in this basement Yosif was born.

In a year we moved to some sheds where there used to be a church beforehand. And there we lived – all in all, we spent eight years in Vratsa. There I studied in the high school, like all my brothers did. Yosif studied only in the first grade.

Generally there weren’t any anti-Semitic movements at that time. Only two times synagogues were burned – in 1910 in Vratsa and in 1903 in Lom. It was done in most of the cases by strangers [people from other villages], who were later isolated by the local people and chased away in the end.

I was the only Jew in Vratsa’s high school and I had many good friends among the Bulgarians. Yet, there were several anti-Semites, who had come from other towns and they assaulted me, beat me and bothered me. The whole town used to gather in the central square and those anti-Semites used to threaten me there also, yet my friends shielded me from both sides and even walked me home.

In Vratsa my father began to perform all rituals during the holidays. Actually, my father never cut his hair, never shaved and always had a little beard, just like his brothers as well as his friends. My father visited the synagogue so regularly that he also attended courses for slaughtering in order to be a shochet, too. In Vratsa my father was very good at his job. He made friends with all Christian priests, too.

My father used to check the knife’s sharpness by passing a nail over its edge, no roughness had to be felt. Usually the knife’s edge for birds was around a span long, while for bigger animals it was longer.

In Vratsa I used to help my father by preparing the stamp put on the animal in order to mark it as being kosher. I used to take a rubber and hollow a few millimeters out in it with a little knife, so that the three letters in Ivrit, which mean ‘kosher’ [kaf, shin and resh], would stay protruding. The letters had to be written backwards in order to be printed correctly. This rubber is dipped in an ink-soaked inkpad. When the Jews came to the slaughtering house, they wanted to see if the meat had such a stamp and only then they bought it.

After the basement we set ourselves up in rooms. We lived in a room and a kitchen. My father and my mother inhabited the room. At that time she was breast-feeding Yosko. My two younger brothers used to sleep in the same room when they were little boys. I, and later my brother Yosif as well, used to live on a wooden bed in the kitchen, where we used to light a fire at first with wood and later with coal. It was cold there, there was no heating, yet we covered ourselves and got warmer. My sisters used to spread out on the floor and there they slept.

We were a family of eight people, occupying a very narrow space and we were a very united family. There was neither crying nor quarreling between us. There was never enough food, as we were many children. It was difficult for our parents to raise us, yet we grew up with a lot of joy also.

We lived on the outskirts of Vratsa, just where the town’s territory began. The climate there is wonderful and the place is known for its hard Balkan water [i.e. mountain water from the Balkan Mountain], very harmful for the health. Yet people have lived for many years there.

We had a lot of stones in the yard and when we were old enough we gathered, moved away all the stones and planted vegetables there. Thus my mother became a tiller for the first time. We also had a hencoop at home and the cocks used to wake us up every morning. You should never leave one hen per cock; they should be at least four hens because if it is only one, he might kill her.

At the age of 18 I was involved in some kind of conspiracy. A strike was organized by the northwestern schools in Bulgaria. Its leader was Zhivko Trapkov Oshavkov, who was the first teacher of social sciences in Bulgaria. For example, Zhelyo Zhelev [former Bulgarian president, 1990-1998] and Petko Simeonov [Bulgarian writer, journalist and politician] are students of his. The strike was directed at improving the conditions at school.

Oshavkov made a big mistake as he invited also representatives from Pernik, Vidin and Lom. All school representatives came and we gathered in the water-mill of Vratsa. The representative from Pleven said that he had to leave the meeting earlier because his mother was sick. So he left the meeting and in half an hour the police came. It turned out that he was an agent and had betrayed us.

We were moved to Sofia together with him, we were arrested and investigated. We were interrogated by Nikola Geshev. He was a former communist, who later turned on them and knew all their secrets as a result of which many people became his victims. He was a very clever and talented cop. When he saw that I was only 18 years old, very young and with no connections, he released me under the condition to let him know in case of future activities of that kind. He wanted us to become his agents but it didn’t happen.

I studied in Vratsa until the seventh grade, but seeing how difficult it was for my father to provide for our large family, I realized that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to continue my education. I envied the students who went to Sofia in order to study. When I understood that my parents wouldn’t be able to provide for me to continue with my studies, I quit high school in the seventh grade, and the last high school grade is the eighth one.

I left and enrolled in the local two-year textile school in Vratsa. I attended it for one year and simultaneously I studied as a private student and took the exams for the seventh high school grade also.

While we still lived in Vratsa, I used to go to Sofia as I had practice in the textile factories. Together with that I prepared well and took the second-year exams at the textile school and in 1932, at the age of 18, I went to Sliven and later to Sofia in order to work as a textile worker.

It was a good job, a well-paid job and I took care of the whole family. When they worked, my brothers got a salary of 1000 leva, which was a very low salary at that time. Being a textile worker I got 6000 leva. Yet, I had a large family to provide for, and, to give you but one example, my friends were able to order suits for themselves at the age of 18, while I couldn’t afford it until my 25th birthday.

However, I was pleased with my situation because I had fulfilled my duty and my siblings grew up thanks to me as well. I owe very much to my mother. She supported me in everything. She was a martyr, a saint, because it was she who built our decent family.

In Sofia I had very good masters. Actually, I was an absolute beginner in the job of a textile technician, as I took the degree very quickly and it happened so that I had to catch up with the others in the actual work process. I became an assistant to a very good master, whom we became friends with.

And so, in two years and a half, he and I were already colleagues in the ‘Ruse’ silk factory in the ‘Poduene’ quarter in Sofia. We split the sections and I managed very well. There were great machines in the factory, exported by Italy and Germany.

In 1933 we moved to Sofia. My father was already quite old then and hardly worked. First we settled in a shed. I remember we moved from one place to another six times or so. Most of the lodgings were on different floors, others were on the ground floor, yet we lived happily.

In 1936 my sister Oro got married and we had a wedding. As she was our half-sister, she was different from us. She was darker and not very good in school.

I learned the Jewish traditions from my father. When we were in Gorna Dzhumaya we visited the synagogue very often. That wasn’t the situation with Vratsa, where our visits got rare as there were less Jews there and the Jewish cultural life was not as rich as in the other towns. I have had greater opportunities for development in comparison with my brothers.

When we arrived in Sofia my brother Yosif was seven years old, and I gave him his first lessons in Ivrit. We enrolled him in the second grade of the Jewish school. Still, on the first school day he came back home crying and he wanted to go to a Bulgarian school. But in the end he graduated with a six [the highest mark in the Bulgarian educational system], while those who laughed failed at the exams.

My brother enrolled directly in the second grade, as he had finished the first grade at the Bulgarian school in Vratsa. In Sofia he had to catch up with the other pupils with the Bulgarian subjects and he had to start learning Ivrit from the very beginning, as the rest of the students already knew it. He put a lot of effort into studying and he succeeded. Now he is grateful to me for not moving him to another school, as that would have given his personality a totally different direction.

The two-floor building of the Jewish school in Iuchbunar 6 was on Bregalnitsa Street. Next to it, at the corner of Pozitano and Osogovo Street, the modern building of the Iuchbunar synagogue was built. The room, where the ritual slaughterer, the shochet, used to slaughter the birds brought by the Jews, was situated in a little shop at Osogovo Street.

The slaughtering ritual was very interesting. Before performing the ritual the shochet always read the prayer. It says: ‘Be careful, this cock (or this hen) will be slaughtered and his (or her) life will be passed to you and you will live your whole life in happiness.’

The shochet also slaughters herbivorous animals: sheep, calves, buffaloes. He takes his well-sharpened knife and his assistants, also slaughterers, hold the animal down. He bends over the animal and counts its cervical vertebrae, and he would cut it in such a way so that he would leave one more vertebra from the side of its head. He makes the section and marks the place where the animal should be slaughtered, and then he steps aside and leaves his assistants to finish the work. They have to slaughter it, skin it, hang it on the hooks and package it.

In the meantime the shochet carefully examines its internal organs and decides whether it is a healthy one and if it is good for eating. First he examines the epidermis, than the liver and after that the other internal organs. He assesses the situation with the animal according to the color of its organs as well. If there is even the slightest sign of damage in the tissues and the organs, that means that the animal was sick and thus not kosher and couldn’t be served as food to Jews.

According to the Torah it is absolutely forbidden to use blood for food. Therefore when slaughtering the animal, it should be totally blood-drained, then the meat should be brought home and lavishly salted as salt drains the entire blood. Then the housewife must wash it well and finally prepare it. Using blood is a great sin for the Jews.

We used to live right at the corner of Opalchenska and Positano Street. Our house was destroyed and a new one, a larger one, was erected in its place. We spent our whole life in lodgings, we never owned a house. We never had normal living conditions that others had, such as living-rooms, writing tables. All of us studied simultaneously and shared our common knowledge. The teachers, who came to our place to visit us, used to say how sorry they were that we had to live under such conditions.

I, my little sister Adela and my brothers David and Mordechai were born in Gorna Dzhumaya, while my sister Oro was born in Dupnitsa. My second brother got ill and could not further develop, while the other one, Mordechai, became a good printer in the state printing house. My sister Adela used to make glasses.

My youngest brother Yosif graduated from high school and then he graduated in law, became a lawyer, but meanwhile he was accepted in the police. In fact he retired as a police employee. At first he was an ordinary policeman. Yet, for a very short period of time he advanced in his career taking higher ranks, but I don’t know exactly what kind of a job he had.

The Jewish holidays are connected with history, earth and seasons. All celebrations were organized by the synagogue. On Pesach special bread is prepared only of flour [matzah], because the Jews had spent in the desert 40 years without having salt in order to salt their bread. They used to grind the flour manually and thus they prepared the bread they ate.

I think that Christianity was copied exactly from Judaism. I think that Christians believe in non-realistic things: for example, the Immaculate Conception and the Resurrection.

When we were better off materially, we had special dishes for Pesach. Every year we took them out especially for the celebration and then put them back in the cupboard. They were used in the course of eight days, as long as the festival took place. But when our financial opportunities deteriorated and we had to cut back, we used the ordinary dishes only.

During the War

I got married in 1942, during the Holocaust. When the internments 7 started in the 1940s my wife [Dora Levi, nee Avram Ronko] and I were interned first to Kyustendil, then to Pazardzhik and finally back to Kyustendil again. Before our internment we sold everything we had in Sofia almost for nothing. During the Holocaust we suffered a lot and in the material sense the Jews were deprived of and lost much. The restrictions were great and we had no financial resources.

In Kyustendil we were accommodated at our relatives’ place. Upon our arrival a cousin of my wife came to meet us. But we remained at their place only for a few days. We didn’t get on well, they made our life unbearable and we moved to a Bulgarian lodging. Out landlady’s name was Linka and she helped us a lot. At that time my father was ill.

During our internment to Pazardzhik, in order to provide for ourselves, we did some agricultural work. We dug gardens, planted cherry trees and gathered grapes. The wages were miserable, but we had no other choice.

At that time I realized that my wife had been arrested. So I went to Sofia in order to see what the situation was, we got married on the second day, and I returned immediately. I was punished, detained for 24 hours, but later they set me free. My service was from June to 5th December, until it started snowing.

My wife was arrested before 9th September [1944] 8 as a Jewish activist. There was a Jewish UYW 9 [i.e. only with Jewish members], which struggled against fascists. She was arrested because she collected money for the partisans. Nikola Geshev [a popular policeman and chief of a State Security department in the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s at the time of the pro-Hitler regime in Bulgaria] interrogated her personally. He applied his own methods, yet it was already too late.

When he saw that she was a young girl, he tried to recruit her in order to get some more information about the others through her. Yet, in 1943-1944 the political situation had already changed, the Soviet troops began their attacks, so did the USA and England. Therefore Geshev’s methods – although he was a very bright cop – were not as effective as before.

In Pazardzhik there was only one textile enterprise, in which clothes were being made out of jute and sacks were being sewed. Some good people recommended me to the owners and thus I started working. My wife also joined me there as a weaver, and so did twelve more Jews, who were interned like us. They were very grateful to me for that.

So the winter of 1943 finally came to its end. During the next spring I received an instruction to go to a forced labor camp 10. All young men were mobilized. We were sent to the village of Gabrovenitsa, 10 kilometers away from Pazardzhik. We were accommodated in sheds and we started digging.

Yet, the chief engineers from the textile factory decided that they needed me. After I had been in the camp for two days one of the factory’s owners, Sotirov was his name, together with the local colonel went to the camp’s superior and asked him to release me. He agreed and thus I got back to work.

The other Jews were both happy about me and envied me. I was released from the forced labor camp because the order said that if there were more than three brothers in a [Jewish] family, one of them had to be liberated [from the forced labor camp].

At that time my wife got ill. I sent her to her parents, who were interned to Kyustendil and in a few months I joined them. I did mostly agricultural work there. We helped local people to cultivate the earth and gather the crops. I am a technician and whenever it was necessary to maintain a machine, I was asked to fix the problem. Our relations with the Bulgarians were very good but the payment was very low.

After the War

And so, 9th September came as well as the end of the war. We returned to Sofia and found out that other people had already settled at our place. We started searching for another lodging. We settled temporarily at the place of some relatives of ours, who had a three-story house in Iuchbunar, on Straldzha and Paris Streets, which has already been destroyed and no longer exists. They gave us two rooms – one for my wife and me, and the other one – for her parents.

I got back to my old job in the silk textile factory upon my return to Sofia. There I worked in shifts until May 1945. Thus my work as a technician ended after 15 years.

During the same year I enrolled in the party school 11, which prepared its organizational cadres. I attended the school for seven months and finally I took the exams. In 1946 I graduated from the school and started working for the [communist] party. At that time the preparation for nationalization was set forth. I was involved in the preparation process and was appointed director of a big enterprise in my capacity.

In the course of three years I was director of a large textile enterprise. Yet, a problem occurred, as a result of which I was fired. In the process of textile production there are strictly specific requirements. Water steam at fixed temperature is being used in order to dye the textile. There was a problem with this steam. So, in order to be economical, the enterprise started using steam at a lower temperature. Thus the coals used for preparation of the steam were economized.

However, I did not agree and protested against it, I even ordered on my own responsibility the steam temperature to be increased for the colors to be fixed better in the textile. Yet, this was considered by the higher circles of the Bulgarian Communist Party 12 to contradict the party’s policy and I was fired as a factory director, as well as expelled from the BCP.

In these times I was impressed by the fact that very often people with no professional experience and qualification were hired for leading positions in the production. They were former partisans and active anti-fascists. For example, in our enterprise a nice young girl was employed, who used to be a partisan for some years, she was awarded several times and was declared a hero. Therefore no one cared whether she was good at her work or not. This is only one example of the tendency that existed back then.

The case with the steam and me being fired illustrated the same idea. Some incompetent superior party official had decided just like that, that the textiles could be dyed with less steam and had ordered the coal deliveries to be lessened. My disapproval was interpreted as disapproval of the party’s policy. I was even subject to a trial for letting the steam out, but finally I was acquitted. In a year I was rehabilitated, my membership in the party was reinstated and I was offered a new job as a consultant.

There were textile enterprises in the light industry and I became instructor there. In the co-operatives there were textile enterprises, where I worked not as a chief but as an employee. Those were a kind of workshops, small factories. I have been a member of the party for nearly 60 years and I am still a member.

Later I was invited to join the Technical Progress Committee as a textile specialist. We were sent as a delegation abroad in order to buy textiles. Thus I have visited Norway, France several times, Germany, I have also been to Russia several times, and then came the time for me to retire. After my retirement I collaborated with many enterprises.

As far as the attitude of Bulgarians to Jews is concerned, I can say nothing but the best. Because when there was anti-Semitism worldwide, when there were murders everywhere, there weren’t such things in Bulgaria. Bulgarians and Jews have been living for more than 400 years in an atmosphere of mutual understanding.

There were two great events in the 20th century. The first one is that 100 million people were killed, this was the most war-loving century. And at the same time there was a small nation, which saved 50,000 Jews. It’s a small thing, yet it’s a great thing.

You feel free as long as you have good friends. Even though they were fewer, there were Bulgarians, with whom we got on very well. Every year in the course of ten years we went on excursions – from 1981 to 1990, even during the new regime [the period after 1989].

Within these 45 years after 1944 we became less ‘Jewish’ because of the Party’s attitude. Some very refined restrictions were introduced and the Jewish schools were closed. I was raised as a Jew up to my 25th year of age. The first language I spoke was Ladino and at the age of five I was already speaking Ivrit. Generally we became estranged with the holidays. I kept visiting the synagogue because that comes from my kin and I belong to my kin. But not everyone was like me.

My daughter Ema was born in 1952. She graduated from high school in Sofia, she got married early and she devoted herself to looking after her children. She was  married twice and has three children. She has two girls from her first marriage, Teodora and Mariola.

The older one, Teodora, went to Switzerland in the 1990s and currently lives there. She is dealing with interior design. The other one got married in Sofia and has a very successful marriage. She is expecting a baby now.

My grandson’s name is Borislav, he is finishing high school and playing basketball in the Jewish organization’s team in Sofia. My daughter is currently dealing with a real estate agency.

I received letters during the wars in Israel. We were six children – three of us in Sofia, and the other three – there, in Israel, and my mother suffered a lot. She was worried for all of us. I was able to see my relatives in Israel only after we had been separated for 30 years. They already got children, who had married in their turn, they already had grandchildren.

That was the only time I went to Israel. I visited my sister [Adela], who grew up under my protection, as I supported the whole family and was like a parent to her. I also visited my nephews. I stayed there for two months and a half. My sister passed away in October 1981. I left for a week and stayed there until 15th January 1982.

I didn’t have any problems regarding my departure. I think that at that time no one who wanted to visit Israel had actually had any problems with obtaining a permit. In the beginning [after 9th September 1944] we were restricted, but later [in the 1980s] the authorities realized it wasn’t necessary.

When I went there something interesting happened. When they took my passport they doubted my name. All passengers were aboard the plane and my passport was the only reason for delaying the flight. They let me get on board, the plane took off, made a lap and landed again. We all wondered what was going on and my passport was required again. It occurred that my name coincided with the name of some terrorist.

We arrived in Israel. There, after the passport control, all passengers were allowed in except for me. I was detained for two hours and after the authorities realized that I wasn’t a terrorist, they released me. On my way back I was detained again and the whole thing repeated.

During the events in Hungary in 1956 13 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968 [Prague Spring] 14 we didn’t have much information and we didn’t know what exactly was going on. Those were rude mistakes and a lot of good comrades were killed in this common mess, yet gradually they resumed the balance and now they live well.

I was convinced that it was not right to do the things in this way [through military power]. That was Stalin’s way copied by everyone, which failed in the end. Tito 15 didn’t let it happen in Serbia [i.e. Yugoslavia]. The Chinese didn’t let it happen, and neither did the Vietnamese. They took their own way. All of us referred to it [the communist idea] as per absolute truth. There is no absolute truth. We ignored the most important fact – the economy, and that we should do everything in accordance with it, as it feeds the state. The ones who produce, should prosper.

During my retirement I became guest lecturer in historical grammar at the Faculty of classical and new philologies at Sofia University 16 in the specialty ‘Spanish Philology.’ Following my idea, the Professor of Spanish philology, Kanchev, initiated a course for studying the different Jewish writings. I examined the basic kinds of ancient scripts, which Jews used to write in – such as Meruba, Rashi 17, and first of all, Solitreo.

Solitreo resembles the Turkish alphabet and it was practically used in Bulgaria till the 1920s. My father used to correspond with his friends in Dupnitsa through this alphabet. It is interesting that Solitreo was also spread among some Bulgarians, who needed to have some knowledge in it in order to trade with Jews. There are around 600 documents preserved in the National Library in Sofia in Solitreo.

During the course we exercised converting texts in Latin letters into Solitreo. I have an article entitled ‘Ladino in Three Alphabets – Latin, Rashi and Solitreo.’ The most difficult thing in reading Solitreo comes from the various writing out of the vocals in the different countries.

Lately I’ve devoted most of my time to taking care of my wife, who is confined to bed. Every day I visit the Jewish center and the synagogue, where my brother Yosif Levi works. Every Saturday on Sabbath and during holidays we gather with my compatriots in the synagogue.

I also spend a lot of time on my research of the old Jewish neighborhood in Sofia. I map the places in Sofia, where Jews used to live or live nowadays including information on their names and kinship ties as well.

Vera Erak
Zemun, Serbia
Interviewer: Klara Azulaj

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

My family background

My name is Vera Erak and I was born in 1925 in Zemun. My father, Ilija Erak, was born in 1890 in Zemun; and my mother, Edith Erak (nee Bondy), was born in 1903 in Zemun.

We lived in Zemun in a beautiful one story house, which, unfortunately, did not have a garden, only a small courtyard. It was a three-room house and my governess and our maid lived with us. My parents had a mixed goods store where they both worked, so that the governess took care of me and we had a maid that cooked and cleaned the house. I remember that we had two big dogs, Dobermans, who were my best friends. When the governess had work to do in the house, she let me stay in the courtyard with them because they took care of me and followed my every move. We did not keep kosher, but we celebrated all Jewish holidays. Mother regularly went to synagogue, and when I grew up a bit she regularly took me with her. My father, even though he was not a Jew, respected my mother’s desire to observe the Jewish regulations, and to raise me in that spirit.

My maternal grandfather and grandmother were Ashkenazic Jews. Grandfather Markus Bondy and his parents came from Hungary. He was born in 1866 to a very prosperous family. When they moved to Zemun, they bought a one story house and a big store. Very quickly he became widely known as a capable and honest merchant. He had a fancy-goods store and in it he stocked quality goods which came from Paris, Vienna and Budapest. Grandfather Markus attended the Commercial Academy and he spoke German, Hungarian and French perfectly. I do not have any pictures of him, but my mother described him as a slim dark man with a thick black moustache. As a respected citizen, he was elected to be a deputy in the Magistrate of Zemun in 1912. Documents concerning this are on display at the Native Lands Museum of Zemun and Surroundings. At the outset of World War One, my grandfather enlisted in the Serbian army, voluntarily, because he was a great patriot. Unfortunately he was captured by the Austro-Hungarians and taken to a prison in Prokuplje, where he died of typhus in 1916.

My mother’s mother, Minna Bondy (nee Weiss) was born in 1880 in Vrpolje, Croatia. She was a blonde and was considered one of the most beautiful girls in Zemun. When she married my grandfather Markus, she helped run his store. Since the store was very big, there were always two assistants and two trainees. While she was in the store, their four children were watched by the governess, Olga, who at the same time took care of the entire house with the help of one maid. In the family they celebrated all the holidays. Grandmother and Grandfather also went to synagogue.

Grandmother Minna was considered a big benefactress. Every Pesach she dressed poor children from head to toe, regardless of whether they were Jews or not. She had a bad gallbladder and had it operated on at the Zivkovic sanatorium in Belgrade. Soon after that she developed a blood sugar problem and died of complications from diabetes in 1920. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery. The cemetery caretaker was a German named Geringer, who described my grandmother’s funeral. He said that a large number of the citizens of Zemun came to pay their respects. Incidentally, it is because of Geringer that the Zemun cemetery was protected from destruction. In the old part of it are the remains of the grandmother and grandfather of Theodore Herzl.  The remains of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies killed at Sajmiste (editor’s note: a German run concentration camp just outside Belgrade) are also buried there.

The eldest of my grandparents’ four children was Jakob, nicknamed Zaki. My uncle Jakob was born in 1901 in Zemun. He attended a Jewish elementary school and a gymnasium in Zemun and he graduated from the Economics Faculty in Belgrade. He worked as the commercial director of the Ta-Ta commercial company in Belgrade. He lived as a tenant. At the outbreak of World War Two, a proclamation arrived which stated that everyone had to register in their place of residence before 1918. Jakob registered in Zemun, and at the same moment they took him into forced labor. He worked on cleaning up the debris from the bombing of Zemun (from the German air raids of April 1941). In mid-1941 he was taken to the Jasenovac concentration camp, from where he did not return.

After Jakob, Robert Bondy was born in 1902 in Zemun. He went to a Jewish elementary school and then to a commercial secondary school. He was employed by the bookstore owner and publisher Geca Kohn as a traveling salesman. At the beginning of the war in 1941 he was taken to forced labor in Zemun and from there sent to Jasenovac. From there all information about him is lost. (Editor’s note: according to the memoirs of German-born Kafka and Herzl biographer Ernst Pawel, who spent the late 1930s in Belgrade, it was Kohn who brought Europe’s best literature to Serbia and ran a penny a day lending service.  Kohn and his family were murdered in Sajmiste).

My grandmother Minna and grandfather Markus’s youngest child was my aunt Greta Bondy. She was born in 1905 in Zemun. She attended a Jewish elementary school and continued her studies in a commercial school in Belgrade. She spoke German, French and English. Before the war she worked as a secretary in a private firm. From 1938 to 1941 she lived in a rented studio apartment in Belgrade. She did not marry. I liked to visit her during my vacations. Her apartment was nicely furnished. She had central heating and hot water in the apartment, which were not common in those days. When the war started, she and her friend Edith Weiss (who was not a blood relative despite the last name), went to Vrpolje to stay with her uncle Weiss. He was my grandmother Minna’s brother, but I cannot remember his name. He was a lawyer and the owner of a mill called Roza Paromlin.

We received information that at the end of 1941, Greta was taken to the Djakovo concentration camp (editor’s note: run by the Croatian fascist Ustasha) from where she did not return.

My mother, Edith, was the third child, born in 1903. She went to a Jewish elementary school, and after that she attended a school for girls. She played handball. She went to a boarding school in Vienna in 1915, where she studied music and painting for a year. In Vienna she learned of the death of her father Markus, and she came back to Zemun in 1916. After the death of her mother, Minna, she went with her sister, Greta, to her uncle Weiss in Vrpolje. The two of them helped him in his law offices and his mill. She stayed in Vrpolje until 1925, when Ilija Erak came to her uncle’s to ask for her hand in marriage.

My father Ilija Erak was born in Zemun in 1890. He attended primary school and commercial school in Zemun. When the war began, he was a member of a youth organization for resistance against the Austro-Hungarian government and for the liberation of Zemun. In 1915 when that organization was discovered, the Austro-Hungarian government published a list of names of its members who should be captured. Among the names was my father’s. To avoid capture, he headed for Serbia, together with his parents, who did not want to separate from their only son. My father enlisted in the Serbian Army in the Moravian division. At the same time a refugee convoy for civilians was formed, which my father’s parents joined. When the Serbian Army met their demise, the people from the refugee convoy and the army pulled back through Albania together. When they passed through the Albanian mountains and came to Skadar, my father’s mother, my grandmother Zorka, died from exhaustion and hunger. In 1915 she was buried in the Skadar military cemetery. The day after the death of his wife, my grandfather Stojan woke up entirely gray-haired. The military and the people from the refugee convoy continued towards the Adriatic Sea, and embarked on boats which sailed towards France. When they arrived in Marseilles, my grandfather Stojan, unable to get over the death of his wife, took ill from grief and died. He was buried in 1915 in the military cemetery in Marseilles.

While they were passing through Albania, the detonation of a bomb ruptured my father’s eardrum, so that he became deaf. Because of this he was unable to continue with the military, so he stayed in Grenoble and continued his education. He attended the Commercial Academy, and to fix his material situation, he worked at the same time in a sawmill. While he was working there, a saw cut off part of his right thumb. He received cash compensation, and when he finished the Commercial Academy in 1919, he used that money to return to Zemun. He settled into his father Stojan’s house, and he bought a mixed-goods store right across the street from the building where my mother, Edith, lived. Very quickly they met each other. They date their love back to those early days. When he found a place to live, he sought after Edith in Vrpolje to ask for her hand in marriage.

In January 1925 they married. The only person who was against the marriage was my uncle Jakob. He could not accept the fact that his sister was married to a non-Jew. He never again went to visit his sister, and he never met me.

Because of my father Ilija’s bad health, we moved to Dubrovnik in 1928. My father sold his house and store, and with the money he received he bought an apartment and two stores, one in Dubrovnik and the other on the island of Lopus. The license for both of the stores was issued in my mother's name. My parents sold souvenirs in their stores, and all sorts of things that were useful to the many tourists. They sold handmade fabric rugs, Konavljanski embroidery, Turkish coffeepots, bathing suits, photo equipment, etc. During the summer, the store on Lopud worked at full capacity. My mother Edith ran it. During the winter the store was closed, because there were few tourists. The Dubrovnik shop was run in the summer by my father Ilija and in the winter by my mother. After a short period my father took up photography, and he opened a small photo laboratory.

Using the treatment his doctor prescribed for his kidney stones, my father had a full recovery. Every morning he had to drink two small glasses of sea water and one small glass of olive oil. He never had any other problem with his kidneys.

Growing up

I began elementary school in 1932. The school was called Pucka School. In Dubrovnik there was no Jewish school. After elementary school I enrolled in the first grade of the gymnasium.

My parents regularly went to synagogue. We observed all the holidays. I remember that the Jewish community and the synagogue were well attended. The rabbi, who was also the ritual slaughterer, came from Trebinja. The president of the Jewish community was a prominent merchant called Tolentino (editor’s note: the last native Sephardi Jewish family in Dubrovnik, survived into the 1930s.  Their house was actually attached to the synagogue, and they entered by a secret door.  Their father was the city’s last rabbi, appointed in the early part of the century.  His three children, one daughter and two sons, never married, and ran the synagogue service each Friday night and Saturday morning until they died).

Already in 1938, intolerance towards Serbs and Jews had begun in Croatia. On one occasion the windows on my father’s store were broken. My family was no longer able to survive in Dubrovnik and we accepted an invitation from my mother’s distant cousin Josef Kronstein who lived in Novi Sad and owned three movie theatres named “Apolo,” “Odeon,” and “Rojal.” We moved to Novi Sad in 1939 and my father accepted an offer to run the Rojal movie theater. I enrolled in the second grade of the gymnasium. I had a lot of Jewish friends. Lia Stark, Egon Stark, and Vera Schlosberger were my best friends. Vera Schlosberger survived the war and became a famous pianist in Yugoslavia. Egon Stark was president of the Jewish community of Novi Sad until not long ago. He held that position continuously for almost 10 years.

During the war

We lived quite normally until the outbreak of World War One. The Hungarians issued a declaration that all residents of Novi Sad who had moved there after 1918 had to immediately return to their birthplace. On April 30, 1941, my father, with two suitcases, my mother and I went on a ferryboat to Petrovaradin and there we embarked in a wagon. On May 1, we arrived in Zemun. My father’s cousin, Pavle Todorovic, who had a pastry shop on Main Street, took us in. After some time we became subtenants.

Every day my mother and I had to go to register at the Kulturbund. The Kulturbund was the German Cultural Federation and was backed by the SS. They were very strict. We had to go regardless of the weather conditions, and we waited if necessary through the hardest of rain storms so that we could sign in. I remember that Rudikka Teibl and Albrecht controlled us. Rudikka Teibl , whose father was the owner of a big hotel in Zemun, and Albrecht, whose father had a well-known furniture store, were members of the Kulturbund. They were both only about 20 years old, but they were famous for their brutality. They greatly mistreated the Jews of Zemun, who had to come to register at the Kulturbund everyday. Rudikka and Albrecht wore red suits and armbands with swastikas. We wore a yellow arm band with a star of David on our arm. We stayed in Zemun until August 1941, until the moment that we heard that the border with Croatia would be closed. We knew that they intended to collect all the Jews, and that is why we moved to Belgrade. In Belgrade we registered in the Commissariat for Refugees. To hide my mother’s Jewish name Edith, my father registered her under the name Zorka Erak. After two days we went by convoy to Pozarevac. The Commissariat for Refugees lodged in the Hotel Balkan, and then with Mrs. Agica Jankovic. We lived with Mrs. Jankovic free for some months and she treated us very correctly. She was not a Jew, but she treated us as if we were her family. Not wanting to be too much of a burden on her, we rented a small room.

In Pozarevac, I continued the fifth grade of gymnasium. Since I spoke German fluently, I signed up at the Red Cross so that I could work on correspondence between the citizens of Pozarevac and the surroundings, including their relatives who were prisoners in different German camps. At the time I was a member of the SKOJ (Federation of Communist Youth). Working at the Red Cross provided me with a cover, because I received a document which stated that as a Red Cross activist I could freely walk around the city from 8 to l2 and from 14 to 18. This gave me the opportunity to do work for SKOJ. However, the organization was uncovered and I and some other members were locked up in a Chetnik prison. The head of the Pozerevac district was the famous Chetnik, Kalabic. (Chetniks formed a non-regular army in Serbia under the control of Draza Mihajlovic, a general of the Royal Yugoslav Army. At the beginning of the war they were important as fighters for the liberation of Serbia from occupiers, but they quickly joined the Germans. Most frequently they went around Serbia in groups of three, and slaughtered followers of the partisans and innocent residents. General Draza Mihajlovic was captured, but he committed suicide before being sentenced.) There they seriously mistreated me. I constantly screamed that I was innocent, that I did not know anything, that I only went to school and that I did not know anyone. Because of lack of evidence they released me.

I finished the 6th grade of gymnasium. In September 1943, I joined the Partisans in the Second Southern Moravian Unit, which on February 4, 1944 became the famous 7th Serbian Fighting Brigade. (The Seventh Serbian Fighting Brigade was famous because its fighters participated in battles from Djerdap to Belgrade. The brigade was among the first to reach Belgrade and its fighters devotedly fought for liberation.) On the 15th of October, 1945, my brigade liberated Pozerevac. We remained there five days, then merged with the 23rd division and went to liberate Belgrade. After almost four years, on October 23 1945 at 5:00 PM I set foot in my liberated Zemun.

After the war

I did not have any contact with my parents until the liberation of Pozarevac. All the war, my mother hid herself, almost never leaving the house. The neighboring villagers helped her and my father, sometime giving them a kilogram of flour or a little meat. After the liberation of Zemun, I rented a small truck and went to get my parents. We took the few things we had and moved to Zemun to the small apartment we were given. After demobilization I finished my schooling.

After graduation in 1946, I became employed in the military firm Planum. There I met my future husband, Pavle Ruman, and we got married in August 1946. I enrolled in the journalism/diplomacy school. I kept my own last name so that I would not have to change all my documents from Erak to Ruman. At that time you could do this at the time of marriage. We lived in the house of my paternal uncle, Milorad Jovanovic’s, who moved to Novi Sad.

Our son Branislav was born in 1947. He used his father’s name, Ruman, until he became an adult, and afterwards to fulfill my father’s wish he took the last name Erak, because my father did not have a son to inherit his name. In 1951 we had a daughter, Vesna. We had a good marriage, which ended in the tragic death of my husband in March 1952. In the firm where he worked he was hit by a broken high voltage cable and was killed instantly.

After the firm Planum I began working at the Military Post 44/45 as a personal referent. I did not manage to finish the journalism/diplomacy school. I transferred to work in the municipal government of Zemun and in the meantime I had three heart attacks and four bypasses. I retired in 1981 with 39 full years of work experience. They also recognized my three years and nine months of fighting experience.

Even though I was a single parent, with the help of my parents, I managed to educate the children. Branislav attended a two-year electrical college and Vesna a two-year medical college.

My father Ilija worked as the head of Izgradnja’s Warehouse, and in 1967 he died of a heart attack. My mother worked for a short time as a clerk and then dedicated herself to the home. She died in 1983.

After the war I helped to rebuild the Zemun Jewish community. Its first president was Albert Weiss. Working together, we gathered information concerning the Jews from Zemun who did not return from Jasenovac, and that list was given to the curator of Jasenovac. After that, Albert Weiss went to Nuremberg as the representative for Yugoslavia on the prosecuting committee.

Aleksandar Frank became president of the Jewish community, and he maintained this position for a long time. The Jewish community entirely revived itself and my children went with the other Jewish youth every summer to Hvar, Korcula, etc. In 1990 I organized the women’s section in the Jewish community, and I am still the president of that section. In 1995 I helped to establish the youth section.

Parallel to my work in the Jewish community of Zemun, I also work actively at the Red Cross. I am the recipient of many awards for my humanitarian work.

Ihil Shraibman
Kishinev
Moldova
Interviewer: Nathalia Fomina
Date of interview: November 2004

Ihil Shraibman is an old man of medium height, with thick gray hair, gentle features and shrewd eyes. He turned 91 this year. It takes an effort for him to move around his two-bedroom apartment. His sweet-looking and energetic wife Marina, who is much younger than him, is always by his side. She treats him tenderly and sweetly calls him Ihilenka. I admire Marina: she is a real writer’s wife. Marina is Russian, but she’s learned Yiddish to understand her husband’s creative works and assist him. She knows the history of the Shraibman family very well, and when Ihil has a problem with remembering something, she comes to his help. The spouses often switch to Yiddish. Yiddish is Ihil’s mother tongue and he switches to it when he can’t remember a Russian word. Ihil and Marina live in a nicely furnished apartment in Botanica, one of the central districts in Kishinev. Marina is a great housewife. She keeps the apartment ideally clean. We have our meeting in Ihil’s study. There is a desk with a computer on it, a bookcase, a cozy sofa and a portrait of Markish Peretz 1 on the wall. Beside it is Ihil’s portrait, made by Mihay Greku, an artist in Kishinev. Ihil is used to giving interviews as a writer and some of my questions like, for example, the one about his grandfather Zusia’s appearance surprised him. Answering my questions Ihil often referred me to his creative works: ‘I wrote about this a long time ago.’ When I asked him to describe the Jewish holidays in his family he smiled: ‘Don’t you know about celebrations?’

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

My paternal grandfather, Ihil-Avrom Shraibman, came from Vadul-Rashkov in Bessarabia 2. There are two towns called Rashkov: Ukrainian Rashkov and Vadul-Rashkov in Bessarabia, located on the bank of the Dniestr River. When in 1918 Bessarabia became Romanian territory 3, the Dniestr formed a border between the USSR and Romania and there were no more boats sailing across. We used to say: the Dniestr has been closed. Vadul-Rashkov had no more communications with Odessa port, the railway station was a long distance away and the town grew poorer. Jews resided in the central part of the town, and the Moldovan, Russian and Ukrainian population lived in the suburbs. The streets were narrow and curved and one-storied cottages were close to one another. There were sign boards: ‘Butcher’s’ or ‘Tailor’s’ on some of them. In spring and fall the streets were impassable. There were four synagogues, a cheder, elementary and talmud torah schools in the town. My grandfather Ihil-Avrom was a cantor. He died six years before I was born. This happened in the 1900s. I was his first grandson and was named after him.

My grandmother Hana was very kind like all grandmothers, and very smart. I can’t remember her maiden name. She owned a small grocery store where she sold tea, coffee and cereals. She also sold kvas [a kind of beverage] and dried sunflower seeds, popular with Jews and Moldovans. The store was in the house and the house wasn’t big. There were two rooms and a kitchen with a big Russian stove 4. The house was lighted with kerosene lamps. The house was plainly furnished: there was a square table, a few chairs, a bedroom and a wardrobe. My grandmother had many children. I remember almost all the names. They were religious like all Jews in the town. They celebrated Sabbath, followed the kashrut and went to the synagogue.

I remember my father’s older brother Shapseh very well. Uncle Shapseh was tall and handsome. He had beautiful black eyes, but he was blind. Shapseh lived with Grandmother. He made his living by lotteries. My uncle and his old companion traveled to smaller towns with lottery tickets and rewards: clocks, samovars or silver cups. They sold their lottery tickets for five lei [the national currency of Romania] each. After selling tickets they returned home, invited a few residents of Rashkov and arranged the lottery. They wrote the winning numbers on paper strips and the rest of paper strips were blank. Then the winnings strips were picked and my uncle and his companion delivered the rewards to the winners’ homes. When I was eight, my uncle fell ill suddenly during one of his trips, died and was buried in some distant town: relatives failed to come to his funeral. 

My father was the second son in the family and after him came Meyer. They said in the family that Uncle Meyer was going to study in the yeshivah, but this dream of his wasn’t to come true. He had to help Grandmother with the store and take care of the younger children. However, Meyer spent every free minute reading his books. When his time came, he married Zisl, a Jewish girl from our town. He got some training to become a shochet, moved to the faraway village of Shepteban’ and worked as a shochet for the rest of his life. In the 1960s a Jewish woman from Shepteban’ told me that Uncle and his family wanted to evacuate during the Great Patriotic War 5, but Germans captured them before they managed to cross the Dniestr. Uncle Meyer, his wife Zisl and my cousins Malka and Tsylia were beaten to death with sticks with sharp ends.

Uncle Zusia was my father’s youngest brother. His wife’s name was Tuba. They had a son. His name was also Ihil. Uncle Zusia died before the war. Tuba and Ihil were killed by the Fascists during the war. When my grandmother died in 1931, my father and his brothers argued about the inheritance grandmother had left. It wasn’t much, but the brothers never restored their good after that. 

I also remember my father’s two sisters. One of them was Feige-Beile. She was very beautiful. She married a Jewish villager and moved to live in his village. She and her husband occasionally visited the town, I remember. She died from consumption when I was about ten.

There is an interesting story about my father’s other sister Reizl. I remember her. She was very beautiful. This happened on the other bank of the Dniestr at the time of the Civil War 6 in Russia, when Ukrainian Jews were looking for rescue from Petliura’s 7 pogroms in Bessarabia. It happened in winter, when the Dniestr was covered with ice. I even remember Mama giving food to some refugees in the kitchen. They were heading to Kishinev from where they were hoping to move abroad. One night two guys from the other side of the Dniestr knocked on the door, pushed it inside and entered the house. Everybody was asleep. One of the guys said, ‘Erez Yisroel’ [‘Land of Israel’ in Yiddish]. Grandmother and her daughters woke up, ‘What’s the matter?’ The guys were wearing military uniforms and this scared my grandmother, but they happened to be no militaries. At that time people wore whatever they could get. One of them, Ovsey Zayatz, saw Reizl and stayed to live with them. I think he lived in Rashkov for about two years. He married Reizl and opened a store. Later they moved to Bucharest, looking for a better life. They stayed there for a year or longer since Reizl visited us once. She stayed a week in Rashkov and then they moved to Canada. Ovsey was a nice person. He worked in Canada as a private teacher. Later some of his former students lent him some money to open a grocery story. He did well and became a rather wealthy man. They had children. They wrote to us and even used to send their relatives ten dollars as a gift during the Romanian rule.

My papa was born in the 1880s during the tsarist rule. He could read and write in Yiddish, but he had no profession. He also knew Romanian and some Russian. He had to support the household after my grandfather died. In winter he went around villages working for tobacco producers. He sorted out the tobacco, had very little sleep – two or three hours per day. He came back home in spring before Pesach. Papa was very kind, taciturn, reserved and not a merry person at all. I thought he was handsome. I remember him with and without a beard. I liked him, when he didn’t have a beard. He looked younger then. He always covered his head. He didn’t go to the synagogue on Sabbath, but he did on holidays. He and my mother were neighbors and fell in love with each other. Mama always said they were very much in love and had married for love.

I remember my maternal grandfather, Zusia Chokler, very well. He was born and lived in Vadul-Rashkov. He took over any job at hand to support his numerous household. During the tsarist rule he was a ferry man on the Dniestr. On the days of fairs he hauled wagons, Moldovans, Jews, bulls and chickens from one bank of the river to the other. Grandfather Zusia also dealt in lotteries, but the main occupation of his life was architecture. Grandfather Zusia designed and constructed houses. My grandfather built one of the four synagogues in town. This was the synagogue for the commonest people in the town, who had no craft. There was an open book made on the front wall of the synagogue with two lions with their forelegs up on both sides of the book. Over the lions there was an engraved inscription in Hebrew: ‘By the effort of rab Zusia Chokler’. When my brother Isrul was born, Grandfather Zusia put me on one knee and him on another to tell us fairy tales that we could listen to for hours.

My grandmother’s name was Yenta, but I can’t remember her maiden name. I remember her. She was a housewife like all Jewish women at the time. She was short and always had her head bandaged: she suffered from frequent headaches. Grandmother Yenta stuffed pillows with feathers. There was white fluff everywhere in the house. My grandfather’s household was kosher and they all celebrated Sabbath like all other Jews in the town: they had a festive dinner and lit candles. They went to the synagogue on holidays and fasted on Yom Kippur. My grandmother and grandfather had four children. My mother had a brother and two sisters. 

My mother’s older brother Srul died young. I can hardly remember him. My brother, born in 1920, was named after him. My mother’s older sister Ida was a spinster and lived with Grandmother Yenta, helping her to stuff pillows. Ida wore her hair in two plaits. She died before the war. The other sister, Dvoira, married a man from Kodyma [today Ukraine] before the Russian Revolution 8 and lived in the USSR. I never met her. When Bessarabia was annexed to the USSR in 1940 9, we received a letter from them, but then the Great Patriotic War began and we never met.

My mama Reizl was born in Vadul-Rashkov in 1892. She finished elementary school and two grades of secondary school. Mama was beautiful. She had long thick hair, blue eyes and extraordinarily soft skin. She had a good sense of humor and laughed a lot. Mama loved my father and us, her children, and always said that love was most important of all things in life.

My parents got married when they were 19-20 years old. They had a Jewish wedding with a chuppah. They rented an apartment. After the wedding my father opened a store and Mama was a housewife. I was born in Vadul-Rashkov in 1913. We often changed apartments and I remember four-five apartments that we rented. There were usually two rooms and a kitchen in these apartments. Then one acquaintance moved to America and sold his house to my father for a very low price. There were two rooms, a kitchen and a cellar in the house. However, we didn’t live there long. It was in a quiet spot and too remote for the trade to go well. My father built another house near where Grandmother Hana lived. We moved into this house with two rooms and a store in it. The former house was ours, but nobody lived in there. My parents had ten children. After me my brother Isrul, named after Mama’s brother, was born. Then came Iosif, Buzia, Feiga, Shapseh, Luba, Zisl [Zina], Hana [Anna] and Ida. Shapseh and Luba died in infancy, Feiga died at the age of ten, when she was at school and even wrote poems.

We celebrated Jewish holidays at home. I remember Vadul-Rashkov before Pesach, when there was a lot of sunshine in the town. The windows in the houses were open, some people were engaged in whitewashing their houses, some were dusting their beds and the others were digging around the trees. Mama always did a general cleanup before Pesach. She cleaned the windows and doors, whitewashed the kitchen and burnt out the crockery. When the house was clean she took out the Pesach crockery. All I remember is that all children had little wine cups with handles. Mama made keyzele, the matzah pudding, gefilte fish and chicken broth. She baked latkes from matzah flour. We bought ordinary wine for Pesach. My father conducted the first two seders, reclining on cushions and according to all the rules. He followed the rules of the Haggadah where they were described in detail. It also contains di fir kashes, the four questions and the answers to them. Initially I posed the questions, being the oldest and then my brothers took over: ‘Mah nishtanah halaylah hazeh mikol halaylot’ in Hebrew. My father put an afikoman, a piece of matzah, away and we were to look for it. However, I don’t remember getting a gift for it. We didn’t have guests on seder – just ourselves.

Shavuot came after Pesach. Mama only cooked dairy food on Shavuot.

We fasted and went to the synagogue on Yom Kippur. On Rosh Hashanah Mama made round-shaped challah and we ate apples with honey.

The children loved Chanukkah. And I remember it well. We lit chanukkiyah on this holiday. We cut out the inside of a potato, poured oil in it, inserted a wick and lit it. Every day another candle was added. They were on the window sill. We, the kids, were given some money, a little bit, of course, considering that there were so many of us. We also received a dreidl. Mama also made potato latkes.

Growing up

I was born on Purim. I remember how hamantashen and fluden were made. My wife Marina always makes hamantashen on Purim. Jam and nuts were to be prepared in advance. We also took shelakhmones around, but this was not as colorful as Sholem Aleichem 10 described, when children and adults took gifts to their relatives and acquaintances. However, there were no purimspiels, though my father told me that in his youth there were real performances in Vadul-Rashkov.

I went to cheder before I turned six. My teacher Dovid-Iosif was short, hunchbacked and very old. He never raised his voice. He taught us the aleph-beth, reading and writing. After finishing cheder I went to the Jewish talmud-torah school, also an elementary school, but more secular than the cheder. Then I finished a Romanian elementary school. The director of the school was Jewish and there were Jewish pupils in it. Then I finished two grades of a secondary school. There was a public library in Vadul-Rashkov. I liked reading in Yiddish, Romanian and Russian. There were books in Hebrew, Yiddish, Romanian and Russian in the library. The Romanians closed it at some time, but later they reopened it. I was about nine years old then. I remember that day well. I was waiting for the library to open, sitting on the stairs. I was the first one to come in there and register. I went to the library to borrow books almost every day. Within a few years I read all the books in this library. I remember the librarian advising the visitors who had a problem choosing a book to read: ‘Ask the boy over there’ and I recommended them a book to read. 

On 13th March 1926, when I was to turn 13, I was to have my bar mitzvah. Bar mitzvah is an important day in the life of a Jewish boy. On this day he becomes a man. He has one square leather box with philacterias inside wrapped upon his arm, and anther one placed on his head. On bar mitzvah the boy is supposed to say a speech in Hebrew about the Jewry and his faith in God. My seide [‘grandfather’ in Yiddish] Zusia prepared me for this most important event. I remember him visiting us – we lived in a basement then – to teach me my speech. However, literally a few days before my bar mitzvah my aunt Ida ran in agitation and woke up my parents: my grandfather had died. Mama and Papa put my brother Isrul and me into their bed and went there. They came back at dawn and took Isrul and me to our grandfather’s home. Little Buzia and Feiga stayed at home. When we came, my grandfather was lying on the floor wrapped in takhrikhim under a black blanket. There were candles on the floor. There were people all around him crying. My brother Isrul and I were standing and not crying. Then I remember he was carried to the cemetery. Then we walked back home. On our way we stopped by a stream. My father said, ‘Well, Grandfather isn’t here any longer’ and started to cry. I cried, too. After a while we went on home. My father loved Grandfather Zusia dearly. He was very smart. The adults sat shivah, but I didn’t. I made my speech by myself.

When I turned 14, I took up teaching in the village of Shestachi, 15 kilometers away from Vadul-Rashkov to help my father support the family. I had four pupils: three boys and a girl and three adults, their parents. One had two children and the two others had one each. They agreed to accommodate me during the winter: I stayed and had meals during a specified time period with each family. I taught them reading and writing in Hebrew. The boys were older than me and weren’t quite eager to study. They made me tell them fairy tales and stories. Every Friday afternoon I walked back to Rashkov and on Sunday morning I returned to Shestachi. On my way home I was plotting stories for the boys. I earned a few hundred lei in this season. 

At the age of 16 I went to the seminary in Chernovtsy [today Ukraine]; it trained teachers for the Tarbut school 11 in Hebrew. There were such schools in every town in Bessarabia. However, I already became a leftist. It resulted from my reading: if one read Itshack Perez 12, one became a leftist for sure. In my opinion, the Jewish literature was leftist, rather than Communist. In Chernovtsy I didn’t hesitate to join the ‘Krasny Shkolnik’ [Red pupil in Russian], an underground youth organization; it was some sort of Komsomol 13 for pupils. We had secret meetings and distributed proclamations. I remember bringing some to the seminary where I gave them to the first-year students. One of them reported on me to the director. Our director Mark, chief rabbi of Bukovina 14, taught us religion. The next day Mark told me to come to his office after classes. He took a proclamation out of a drawer: ‘Is this yours?’ – ‘Yes.’ – ‘You must know who you give them to. Don’t be stupid again.’ He could have expelled me, but he didn’t. He never touched upon this subject again. I also remember Doctor Porat, our literature and language teacher. The students loved him.

However, I never finished the seminary. The Siguranza [secret police of Romania] arrested me and a few others three months before we finished the third year. I was taken to the jail in Chernovtsy. There were 28 inmates in the cell. Most of them were young people. The jail was for the prisoners waiting for a trial. I was released before the trial and went home to Rashkov before Pesach. Families were hiring tutors for their children at this period and I went to teach in a few houses. I stayed in Rashkov for a few weeks between Pesach and Shavuot. On Shavuot the gendarme chief arrested me in the street. He kept me in the cell till late at night. He had received an order from Chernovtsy to send me out to the trial and had no right to arrest me, but he rather wanted to get his one hundred lei. My father brought him the money in the evening and the gendarme released me. The next day he sent me over to the station on a horse-drawn carriage. My parents were seeing me off. However, when I arrived at Chernovtsy, my comrades decided that I shouldn’t go to court. They collected some money and sent me over to Iasi [today Romania]. Somehow I wasn’t looked for.

When I turned 19, I was conscripted to the army. I served in a regiment in Iasi. However, the Romanian power didn’t entrust rifles to Bessarabians. We were doing drills. On the eve of 10th May, the national Romanian holiday, we took the oath of loyalty to the King [King Carol II] 15, and participated in the parade. On 11th May we were ordered to give back our uniforms, took our old clothes from the attic and were sent to do field work 10 kilometers from Iasi. If somebody could afford to pay 1000 lei, they could stay at home. There was a halutz camp nearby. The campers were preparing to move to Palestine. They were trained to do agricultural work. Many young people adopted Zionist ideas in the camp. One acquaintance of mine from Rashkov moved to Palestine then. To move there one had to obtain a certificate from a Zionist organization.

When my army service was over, I moved to Bucharest from Iasi. I stayed a while in a dormitory. Its director was my acquaintance from Rashkov. Then I went to work as a prompter at the Jewish theater. This was when I heard the name of Avrom Goldfaden [Avrom Goldfaden (1840-1908): Jewish playwright (Hebrew and Yiddish), founder of the Jewish theater in Russia and the USA. Comedies ‘Wizard’, ‘Two Duffers’, ‘Schmendrik’, plays ‘Sulameth’ (1880), ‘Bar-Kohba’ (1882), the father of Jewish theater]. Avrom Goldfaden arrived in Iasi from Russia and was going to publish a magazine. He met the ‘Broder zinger’ [Brody singers’] group and created the first theater in Romania on the basis of this choir. Our theater staged Jewish plays: Sholem Aleichem’s, Mendele Moykher-Sforim’s 16 plays, Rappoport’s play ‘Gadibuk’ staged by Yevgeniy Vachtangov [Vachtangov Yevgeniy Bagrationovich (1883-1922): Soviet producer and writer] at the ‘Gabima’ Moscow Jewish theater, the play was translated by Bialik 17 for the theater. There were also numerous rag plays in Yiddish. I wasn’t that interested in working for the theater. I started writing.

I had started writing back in Vadul-Rashkov. Itshack Perez was my idol. I showed my first works to my friends. In Bucharest I had my first publications. In 1936 I sent my first story to the ‘Signal’ magazine in America. It was published in Yiddish. The title of the story was ‘Erscht tretn’ [First steps]. I also wrote two short stories. However, I wasn’t even aware that they were short stories. I thought it was poetry. Unrhymed poems were in fashion at that time. The first miniature was entitled ‘Lign schtein in dem hant fun sculptor’ [Lie stone in sculptor’s hands], and the second one was ‘Testament.’ I thought I would adopt a genre based on what they published. They published the story and miniatures and since then I’ve written stories and miniatures.

I married Olga Kalyusskaya, who came from Vadul-Rashkov, in my second year in Bucharest. She was a midwife. We met at one of my friends’ place. I don’t think she was interested in me, when we had seen each other before living in Bucharest: she was a damsel and I was still a pup. Olga was eight years older than me. She was born to the family of Yefim Kalyusski, a farmer. Olga’s father had died and I could hardly remember him. Olga left Rashkov after finishing school and finished a midwives’ course in Bucharest, I think. She was an extraordinarily kind person and people liked her. She had many friends. Actually, we didn’t register our relations, but started living together. Later, when the Cuzists 18 came to power we registered our marriage in the town registry. I continued working at the theater and writing. I had my stories published in newspapers in Warsaw and America. My first book of short stories and essays, ‘Meine Heftn’ [My notebooks], was published in Bucharest in 1939. This was an edition of 1000 copies and I paid for the publication. I was planning to have ten such notebooks with general page numbering and later have them bound to have one thick book and I left 500 brochures of 1000 for this purpose, but it didn’t work. I only managed three notebooks, when in 1940 repatriation to Bessarabia began. I didn’t consider staying in Romania since nobody stayed. Firstly, there were already German officers in Romania. Germans had one foot in Bucharest already. And, secondly, the Iron Guard 19 already persecuted Jews. The Iron Guards pinned swastikas on Jews if they bumped into them in the streets. They beat Jews brutally, if they resisted.

In 1940 Olga and I arrived in Kishinev and rented an apartment. I liked the town a lot. It was beautiful, an old Jewish town: there were many Jews living in the town and there was Yiddish heard everywhere. However, there were no publications in Yiddish in Kishinev besides the ‘Word of cooperator,’ a small newspaper of a cooperative association. Romanian authorities had closed the ‘Undzere Tsayt’ [Yiddish for Our Time] Yiddish newspaper back in 1938. I had my works published in the ‘Der Shtern’ [The Star] newspaper in Kiev. My first story, ‘Happiness,’ about our departure from Romania was published there. It also published three other stories that I wrote. Olga worked at the Jewish hospital. This hospital is still there. It had belonged to the Jewish community, but at that time this was the state owned hospital #4. The Jewish community was no longer in Kishinev.

On my first days in Kishinev I met the Jewish poet Yitsyk Fefer [Fefer, Yitsyk (Isaac Solomonovich) (1900-1952): a Soviet Jewish poet.]. He was a captain and was mobilized to the army service in Kiev. He had heard about me from a girl in Orhei; she had met me in Bucharest. He also wrote in Yiddish and was interested in my writing. Fefer suggested that I organize a creative meeting and we appointed the day for the meeting. There was another young Jewish writer who had arrived from Bucharest. We had met in Bucharest. His surname was Kishinevski. I didn’t see him after the war. He must have perished during the war. I was admitted to the Union of Wof the USSR [creative public organization of professional Soviet literature workers, established in 1934]. I became a writer and didn’t have to get a regular job.

I believed in the Soviet Union and if some things were wrong we believed them to be temporary difficulties. There were, for example, Red Army soldiers selling watches in the streets: it made a bad impression. Shortly after the establishment of the Soviet regime food stores started running out of food products. There was an earthquake in Kishinev in fall 1940. We jumped outside through the windows. However, only old and worn buildings were damaged or collapsed. In early 1941, residents of Kishinev began to be deported. None of my acquaintances suffered from this, but I heard about such occurrences. One morning I saw trucks with people. They were taken to the railway station at night and put on trains to Siberia. On 21st June 1941 the Union of Writers organized a meeting dedicated to the 1st anniversary of the establishment of the Soviet rule in Kishinev. It was conducted at the conservatory on Saturday. The meeting was opened by Bukov [Bukov, Yemilian (1909-1984): a Bessarabian poet, wrote prose after the war], chairman of the local department of the Union of Writers of the USSR. I read my story in Yiddish, it wasn’t the best one, but it was about the revolution.

During the war

The next day Kishinev was bombed: the war began. I was mobilized to the army and the following night I slept on the floor at a school building. Early in the morning we walked to Vadul-Voda. From there we moved across the Dniestr, Ukraine, heading to the east. I met Liviu Delianu, a Moldovan Jewish writer, in this group. We kept together. Though we were mobilized, we weren’t sent to the front line forces. We were moving to the rear of the country. Later I got to know that the Soviet commandment didn’t trust the Bessarabians, as they were former nationals of Romania. We reached Dnepropetrovsk and the front line was moving after us. From there we moved to Zaporizhzhya and then reached Transcaucasia where we worked in a kolkhoz 20 for a few months. When the German troops approached the Caucasus we moved on to Central Asia.

So I happened to be in Uzbekistan. My wife Olga found me in Tashkent [today capital of Uzbekistan]. In the evacuation agency we obtained an assignment to the kolkhoz named after Stalin of the village of Savat kishlak. There were three Stalin kolkhozes in this district. However, we couldn’t go to the kolkhoz since Olga fell ill. She was taken to hospital. There was a chaihana inn [tea-house in Uzbek] in the district town where kolkhoz workers could stay when they visited the town. Olga happened to have caught fever that resulted in pneumonia. She was dying. I went to Tashkent to get sulfidin [a sort of medication]. I bumped into Sidi Tahl, an actress of the Jewish theater, whom I had known since Bucharest, at the railway station. Sidi and her husband helped me to get two packs of sulfidin. This saved Olga’s life.

When she recovered, we went to the village. Olga had her head shaved in the hospital and she wore a white kerchief on her head. Though she was still weak, she went to work as a midwife in the kishlak [Central Asian village]. She picked up the Uzbek language promptly and the Uzbek residents understood her. I was sent to work at a school, but this was an Uzbek school and I couldn’t teach there. All I could do was work as a secretary. The huts in the village were made of straw and clay. They had flat roofs where the locals dried grapes and apricots. These huts were called ‘kibitka.’ Olga and I rented a hut from an Uzbek woman, whose husband was at the front. There were other people in evacuation from the Jewish kolkhoz 21 from near Odessa. They were mostly children, women and old people. There were also Ukrainian and Russian people in evacuation.

My father, mother and sisters Zina, Hana and Ida also found us in Uzbekistan. Some time later a crew was formed from those in evacuation and I was appointed its leader. At first we worked in the field harvesting wheat. I was provided with a donkey, being a crew leader. Early in the morning I was the first one to show up in the field. My donkey was loaded with two linen bags full of flat bread cookies. I measured field sections for each crew member and also one for myself. I also worked with a reaping hook. It was 40 degrees above zero. The heat was oppressive. There was a little hut in the field. Starting from about 11 o’clock we took shelter in this hut. At 4 pm we went back to work, when the heat reduced. We worked till dark.

I wrote in the evenings in our kibitka hut. I wrote the book ‘Dray zumers’ [Three Summers]. It contained short stories describing our life and work in the evacuation. This was a good book that I wrote in my own manner without taking into consideration the specifics of the ‘Soviet style.’ I sent a few short stories from this book to the ‘Der Emes’ [Truth in Yiddish/Hebrew] publishing house in Moscow. Shortly afterward I received a letter from the secretary of the Bureau of Jewish Writers at the Union of Writers of the USSR, Peretz Markish. He wrote that he liked the ‘Chaver Brover’ [Comrade Brover] story from this book and he wanted to publish it in his almanac ‘Tsum Zig’ [Towards Victory]. This big almanac was published in spring 1944 and my story was one of the first in it.

Olga gave birth to a baby in this kishlak. It died and we buried it in the kishlak. In 1944, when we moved to the Ursatievskaya railway junction, our second son Edward, Edik, was born. By that time I had submitted my book ‘Dray zumers’ for print. Peretz Markish invited me to a creative meeting in Moscow. There was a train to Moscow via Tashkent from the Ursatievskaya station, but it was impossible to get tickets. No tickets were sold, and that was it! People stood in lines and begged, but no! A week or two later we finally managed to get on a freight train with other passengers to Moscow. It took us a whole month to get to Moscow. The meeting in Moscow was a very interesting one. I read stories from the book ‘Dray zumers.’ There were at least 50 Jewish writers at this meeting. Markish was chairman of the meeting. He opened it. The other writers also spoke and said many warm words about my book.

In fall 1945 we returned to Kishinev. We arrived on 8th November. I remember the day because we ate white bread sold on 7th November 22. We were told there was a parade in the town on this day. The town was in ruins. There were ‘No mines’ signs on many buildings. Another family resided in our apartment. I showed them my passport with the residence address stamp 23, but it didn’t work. We were temporarily accommodated in the corridor of the Union of Writers. There was a wide sofa where Olga, I and our little son Edward slept. Edward was one year and nine months old. The board of directors had its meetings in the room a few stairs up from the corridor and we occasionally attended the meetings, standing on the stairs. 

Mama, Papa and my sisters also returned to Kishinev from Uzbekistan. My brothers Isrul and Buzia also arrived in Kishinev. They had worked in the evacuation in Uzbekistan. Iosif went to the army at the end of the war and came as far as Berlin. Zina, the oldest of my sisters, went to work as a cashier and got married soon. Hana entered the Teachers’ Training College and Ida, the youngest, went to medical school. My brother Isrul, who worked as a crew leader at the furniture factory, helped Papa to get employed by the factory. Iosif worked as an accountant and Buzia was a foreman at the carpet shop where Moldovan carpets were weaved. Our family lived in Kishinev. My brothers got married and had children in due time and so did my sisters Hana and Zina. Mama and my father lived with my childless younger sister Ida and her husband. Papa and Mama observed Jewish traditions after the war. They always had matzah on Pesach. They fasted on Yom Kippur and went to the synagogue.

After the war

We resided in the corridor of the Union of Writers for about six months. There was an army kitchen facility near our former apartment. When this facility was vacated, the family living in our apartment notified us promptly. We moved into this facility before the other willing incumbents did. There were two rooms and a kitchen there and we lived there till we received an apartment from the Union of Writers two years later.

In 1946 my book ‘Dray zumers’ was published in Moscow. This was my first book published in the USSR. In 1948, after the murder of Mikhoels 24, the anti-Semitic campaign of struggle against cosmopolitism 25 began, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee 26 was dismissed. Many writers, who I knew and corresponded with, were closely linked with this committee. In 1950 I was accused of nationalism and expelled from the Union of Writers. I expected arrest since many Moldovan Jewish writers had already been arrested. Rivkin, one of them, died in prison and the others were released after Stalin died [1953].

This was a horrible time, the time of fear that I can still feel. This was the fear, when one was even afraid of mentioning it. You know, if you are afraid, it means that there are grounds for you to be afraid. There were books written about famine: Hamsun [Hamsun, Knut (1859-1952): Norwegian writer, winner of the 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature.] wrote the book ‘Sult’ [The Hunger, 1890], and other writers… But nobody wrote a book about fear. I’ve never read one. Fear is a terrible thing! The hunger goes away, but not the fear. I was deeply depressed and had to stay in a mental hospital for six months. My wife Olga never left me. She was the kindest person. She was a faithful and reliable friend and she always supported me. She was always my first reader.  

On 12th August 1952 a group of Jewish writers was executed: Dovid Bergelson 27, Peretz Markish, David Gofstein [Gofstein, David Naumovich (1889-1952): a Soviet Jewish poet], who lived in Kiev, Lev Kvitko 28, Yitsik Fefer. Many representatives of the Jewish intelligentsia were executed. Then there came the period of the ‘Doctors’ Plot’ 29. There were rumors that echelons for sending Jews to the Far East were prepared 30. Rumors said that Stalin wished to deport Jews to save them from people’s anger. I cannot tell how true this was, but there were such rumors. When Stalin died, this was over, but I felt no relief. I cannot say that I heard about Stalin’s death with joy or relief… However, I think he was a merder [murderer in Yiddish]. He can be called so even for his execution of writers and Soviet intelligentsia. There were hundreds of thousands of camp prisoners 31, tens of thousands of them never returned home, and these processes started in 1937 32. He issued orders for all of these doings. In 1953 I was restored in the Union of Writers of the USSR. The 20th Party Congress 33 in 1956, and Khrushchev’s 34 speech was nothing new to me, everybody knew something, but none of us imagined the extent of these crimes. We had hopes for improvements in the future then.

I wasn’t a Zionist, but when Israel was established in 1948 I was glad for Jews. I knew how important it was for Jews to have their own country. However, I wouldn’t say I was a great supporter of Israel, but my sympathy was growing in the course of time. I was particularly worried about the liberation wars in Israel: the Six-Day-War 35, the Yom Kippur War 36. So many victims! There are still victims in Israel. In the 1970s first mass departures started in Kishinev. There were meetings conducted where those people who decided to move to Israel were declared traitors in public. My acquaintances also started moving, but I never went to the railway station to see them off. My wife did, but not me. I’ve never considered departure to Israel, America or elsewhere. I didn’t want to leave here.

Khrushchev’s thaw was truly a thaw. Since the 1960s the situation in the country and the attitude toward people was changing. The 1960s was a good time. The situation of the Jewish writers in the country was improving. The ‘Sovetskiy pisatel’ [Soviet writer] publishing house was publishing books in Yiddish: five books per year at the most. In 1961 the ‘Sovietische Heimland’ magazine was established. Its chief editor was Aron Vergelis [Vergelis, Aron Alterovich (1918-2001): Soviet Jewish writer]. My miniatures were published in the first issue on 1st August. Three-four years later I was assigned to the editorial board of the magazine. Members of the editorial board were to gather twice a year in Moscow. Besides, other writers were involved in editorial board meetings to reach a wider audience. Manuscripts of new books were sent to members of editorial board for review and references, so to say.

Everything was fine at my home. My beloved son Edward was a cheerful and quiet boy. He went to the kindergarten since we both worked. At the age of seven Edward went to a music school. I wanted him to become a musician. My friends recommended me the best violin teacher for younger children in Kishinev. His name was Veschkautsan. He auditioned Edward and said he was a gifted boy. He taught Edward for four or five years before Edward went to study with another teacher. He spent a lot of his time playing the violin. His first teacher demanded that he played a few hours per day. I had to sign up his timetable and his teacher made sure that he followed it. Edward had all excellent marks.

Olga and I often spoke Yiddish at home and Edward can speak and write Yiddish. However, I didn’t specifically teach him Yiddish. At that time I still had the fear of being arrested. If somebody got to know that I taught my son Yiddish they might have formalized the accusation of nationalism made to me earlier. After finishing school Edward entered the conservatory in Kishinev. Olga died in 1967. Her death was a hard blow for me: I lost my wife and a faithful friend. We buried her in the Jewish cemetery. We buried her in a coffin and I didn’t order the Kaddish. I didn’t want to follow the ritual at the time. After Edward finished the conservatory he was offered a job at the Moldovan State Symphonic Orchestra.

I wrote a lot in the 1960s and often went to work to the Creative Houses of the Union of Writers of the USSR [specialized recreation homes to create conditions for creative work]. One of the most popular of these was located in Maleyevka near Moscow. I went there for a few years in a row in March. Each writer could have a room on his own. There were nice doctors in these centers. I met many famous writers from Moscow and other Soviet republics. I have many bright memories and books in many languages that the authors gave me. In summer I worked in the writers’ creative house in Yalta. I also went to Dubulti near Riga. In the Creative House in Pizunda [town and cape on the Black Sea in Georgia] I met Arkadiy Raikin [Raikin, Arkadiy Isaacovich (1911-1987): a popular Soviet actor, director of the Soviet Theater of Miniatures], he stayed in the House for Actors nearby. I often walked with him and his wife. He liked to speak Yiddish to me. He was a wonderful person. I wrote most of my works in Creative Houses. My three novels were written there: the trilogy ‘Zibetsnyorike’ [The Seventeen-year-olds], ‘Veyter’ [Further] and ‘Zibn yor mit zibn hadoshim’ [Seven Years and Seven Months]. They are based on my biography. You know that every writer writes about himself. Whatever he composes it’s still about himself. In other words, if he doesn’t have himself in his mind, he has nothing to write about. And if he has his life inside, all events and details, they make material for his works. So, the main material for a writer is his life. Even if he narrates it on behalf of his characters.

On 25th June 1968 I met Marina in Pizunda. I was staying in the Creative House in Gagry [town by the Black Sea in Georgia]. She came on vacation to Gagry with a group of teachers from the Ural. They had stayed 18 days, when one day, when the weather wasn’t so good, they decided to go to an organ concert in a cathedral in Pizunda. They were going back to Gagry on the boat of the Union of Writers when we met. Marina was under 30, she had thick auburn hair, bright eyes and an astonishing smile. When we met, we held hands and never parted since then. She stayed in Gagry and from there we traveled to Sochi where Edward came on tour. We stayed in Sochi for a month. Then Marina went back home to Kurgan in the Ural and I returned to Kishinev, but I wrote her three-four letters per day. We parted in August, and in October Marina visited me in Kishinev. I went to visit her on New Year’s Eve and stayed for three months. Marina was a solfeggio and music literature teacher at a music school. She also studied at the extramural Department of Choir Conductors at the Cheliabinsk College of Culture. We got married in June 1969. I was happy. The only thing that saddened our joy was that it was hard for Edward to accept Marina. He loved his mother so much.

From the first minute of our acquaintance Marina asked me to spell her name in Yiddish. This was the start of her acquaintance with the culture of my people. This was the first time she met a Jew. She studied Yiddish to be able to read my works and now she knows it better than many Jews. We speak Yiddish at home and she is my first reader now, like Olga was in the past. She tells me that when I work and when I read my works to her she lives the happiest moments of her life. I value her opinion more than that of many critics. I think I’m very lucky: I met two wonderful women: Olga and Marina.

Edward married Zhanna Kucheruk, a Jewish girl, much younger than him, in 1970. Their marriage didn’t last: they belonged to a different social class and our families were incompatible: hers belonged to business people. Edward and Zhanna got divorced. He remarried 13 years later. His second wife, Inna Shoichet, was Jewish. She was a student of the Polytechnic College, when they got married. She obtained an engineer’s diploma, but she never worked in her field of specialization. They lived with us for a year, but then we exchanged our apartment for two. Edward was working in the Opera Theater Orchestra and later he worked on the radio and TV. The Opera Theater toured all over Europe. In 1984 his daughter Olga was born. She was named after Edward’s mother. In 2000 Edward and his family moved to America. They settled in Miami Beach. My brother Buzia had moved to the USA in 1992. My sisters Hana and Zina also live in Florida, USA. Edward is a violinist and the director of a chamber orchestra. He also gives solo concerts. He thinks he has a more successful career in America than he would have had here. My granddaughter Olga finished school in America very successfully and entered the University in Palm Beach where she has a scholarship.

My mother died at the age of 89, in 1980. My father had died eleven years before her. The summer three years before she died something happened that we all remembered. I described this in a miniature. Mama was seriously ill and bedridden for a few weeks. My sisters attended to her. One day she turned very bad. She was lying with her eyes closed, her face grew very pale and she turned yellow. Ida screamed, ‘Mama!’ Zina and Hana joined her, ‘Mama!’ and then Mama opened her eyes and asked, ‘What happened?’ She lived three more years after this. We buried her at the Jewish cemetery beside my father’s grave and I recited the Kaddish.

When Perestroika 37 began, I had positive feelings about it, but then the situation changed and the results were not quite as expected… The Jewish life has revived and improved since the start of Perestroika. The society of Jewish culture was established in 1989 and I was a part of it. My students, the Kishinev writers Boris Sandler, Mikhail Lemster and I were among its organizers. There are other writers, who think I am their teacher: Mikhail Felzenbaum, a very good poet, Zicia Veitzman, Jean Krivoy. The Jewish newspaper ‘Nash golos’ [Our Voice in Russian] was established in Kishinev then. It was published in Russian, but there was one page in Yiddish and I had Yiddish publications in this newspaper.

Thirteen years ago the Yiddish center at the Kishinev Jewish Library [1991] was established. I was elected its chairman. We gather every month. I read lectures about Jewish literature and writers. Besides, I was acquainted with many writers I lecture about. I never write essays about the writers I don’t know in person. I only write about those, with whom I was friends. We conduct our meetings in Yiddish and only those whose Yiddish is not sufficiently good make speeches in Russian. Hesed 38 Jehudah provides assistance to me like it does to many other Jews. My wife and I receive food packages. I often make speeches, when Hesed invites me to its events.

In 1997 I published the ‘Schtendik’ [Always] book in Yiddish in Israel. I was invited to visit Israel on this occasion. This was my first trip to Israel. It’s hard to describe my first impression. It’s still vivid in my memory. Is it possible to find words to describe the excitement any Jew feels standing by the Wailing Wall? Marina and I left little notes there like everybody else did. We met with my brother Isrul’s family in Ashdod, who came to Israel in 1995. My brother died shortly after their arrival. We spent three weeks in Israel. We had meetings with writers in Israel, but my meetings with my readers were the most significant ones for me. Presentations of my book took place in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Rehovot, Richon LeZiyon, Ashdod…  I was given a warm welcome at those meetings. What I read was received with great attention. I remember a woman in Ashkelon. She and her husband drove us to the station from where we were to leave for Jerusalem. She said with tears in her eyes, ‘We’ve never had such writers before.’ My books were read by former residents of the USSR and nationals of Israel. Hebrew is the state language, of course, but Yiddish is also our national language. There are wonderful books in Yiddish and it shouldn’t disappear from the life of Jewish people.

I was invited to foreign countries several times, but the most memorable was the Yiddish festival in Berlin in 2003. Four other writers: Boris Sandler, Mordhe Zanin, Gennadiy Eistrach and Lev Berinskiy and I were invited. Before going there I was asked to inform the organizers which works of mine I was bringing there. I sent them about 30 short stories for them to select at their discretion the ones they wished me to present at the festival, but they selected all of them. Marina and I were met by director of the festival. The evening in Berlin was brightly lighted and he took us around the town and showed us the most beautiful places. The next evening I read my short stories to the public. Lev Berinskiy read his poem before it was my turn. I read my short stories in Yiddish and then the director of the festival read their German translation. It took us a while to read 30 short stories and then 30 another time, but the public wasn’t tired. They were a success, a great success.

Glossary

Molka Mirskaya
Kishinev
Moldova
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: July 2004

Molka Mirskaya lives in one of the greenest and most beautiful parts of the Kishinev [Chisinau in Moldovan] city center. She resides in a ten-storied building, constructed in the 1970s. Molka and her husband live in a two-room apartment with all the modern conveniences. There are a lot of books on the bookshelves and in a bookcase. The walls are adorned with reproductions and engravings. Molka Mirskaya is a pretty fair-haired voluptuous woman with big gray eyes. She is still beautiful. She meets me affably and shows me into the drawing-room, where her pictures were laid out for me. The way Molka met me and started her story testifies to her keen interest in our work and the willingness to contribute to the revival of the Bessarabian 1 Jewish history.

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

I, Molka Mirskaya, nee Vaksman, come from a common family of Kishinev Jews. My paternal grandfather, Khuna Vaksman, born in Kishinev in the 1880s, finished cheder, which was traditional for poor Jewish families. He didn’t continue his education. Khuna started earning his bread and butter early in his adolescence. He was an apprentice at a bakery, and subsequently became a baker himself. Khuna never had his own business. No matter how hard he tried to tuck away a nest-egg to open-up his own business, it never went beyond his reveries. My grandfather always worked for a well-heeled Jewish bread chandler, Goldman.

My grandmother, Khuna’s wife Motl Vaksman – I don’t know her maiden name – was several years younger than my grandfather. Her name seemed to be odd, as usually this name was given to boys. Grandmother was a housewife. As far as I remember my grandparents used to rent an apartment on Keleyevskaya Street. It was a dark and indigent apartment, consisting of two rooms. However, Grandmother took pains to embellish the apartment for it not to look so poor. There were snow-white starched doilies on the table and sideboard. The oven was always impeccably cleaned and lime washed. Grandmother, wearing almost one and the same clothes – a long black skirt and a long blouse – used to scurry around the apartment taking off the inconspicuous dust. She wore a kerchief on her head so that one could see her ears. I thought she did that in order to hear better. Only now I found pictures in the magazines of Jewish photographs showing the same way of wearing a kerchief as my grandmother did. Grandfather also dressed the way other elderly Jews did – a long jacket suit and a black hat.

On Fridays Grandmother changed her attire. She would dress up in white instead of wearing a dark blouse. That was the way she dressed for the holidays, when she went to the synagogue with Grandfather. My grandparents were practically illiterate, though Grandmother knew how to put her signature in Yiddish. Grandfather couldn’t even do that. My grandfather’s family was religious, but they were no zealots. Khuna and Motl observed the kashrut, Jewish traditions, celebrated Jewish holidays and went to the synagogue. But I don’t remember them praying, and they never idled on Sabbath, they used to work about the house. Of course, they brought up children according to the religious traditions, but they failed to make them truly religious.

They had two children: my father Yoyl and his younger sister Rosa, born in 1908. Rosa got married early to a local Jew called Shepshel Khalfin, and bore three children in a row. But she was unhappy. Rosa’s husband died from tuberculosis, leaving three orphans. Rosa, who knew how to sew a little bit, became a seamstress. But she wasn’t able to keep her three children. That is why she gave the oldest son Vevl to a hospice. The other two, Avrum and Ruklya, who was called Raya, stayed with their mother. They were very poor, and my father always used to give some money to his younger sister from our pretty skimpy budget.

In 1941 Rosa was evacuated with her children and wasn’t in touch with us. Only after the Great Patriotic War 2 was over, my father found out that Rosa and Avrum were killed during the bombing of their echelon. He found his niece Ruklya in the Russian town of Ivanovo, where she lived in the orphanage and went to a weavers’ school. My father took her in and she stayed with us until she got married. Rosa’s elder son Velvl was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1941 and was reported missing in action during the first war months. No matter how we strove we didn’t manage to find out anything about him.

My father, Yoyl Vaksman, was born in Kishinev in 1906. After he finished cheder he was a cobbler’s apprentice, and then he became a cobbler himself. By the time of drafting into the Romanian Army he became a cobbler of the fifth grade and this was written in his military pass. I don’t know who nurtured Communist ideas in my father, and when, he always used to sympathize with the Communist Party, though he himself was not a member. He also used to call upon the Soviet mode of life, taking part in the strikes, and Romanian authorities were after him. He was frequently arrested for dissemination of Communist literature. He was put in jail, beaten up, but always released. Once the craftsmen, who were on a strike, were taken away and punished by having freezing water poured all over them in the cold. After that Father got ill rather often.

My father met his future wife at the birthday party of her friend, it happened in 1928. They liked each other at once and started dating. Then they understood that they would never part. It was the time when my father was drafted into the army. They arranged an engagement to be certain that they would stay together. My father was in the army for three years, and my mother was waiting for him. When Father was on leave in Kishinev, he decided not to go back to the army. My father was so head over heels in love with mother that he couldn’t part with her. He was found, arrested and returned to his military unit. They made him serve an extra year. Mother had to wait for my father for four years, and she was faithful to him.

My maternal grandfather Elek Alterman was a cobbler. He was born in Kishinev in 1870. Grandmother Charna was born in Orgeyev [Orhei in Moldovan] in the 1880s. As an adolescent girl, she was noticed by my grandfather, Elek Alterman, who came to a huge Jewish wedding in Orgeyev, being the groom’s distant relative from Kishinev. He saw Grandmother and fell in love. In several weeks he proposed to my grandmother. Their wedding was truly Jewish: with a chuppah, rabbi, klezmer musicians, numerous guests and scrumptious food. Charna left for Kishinev after the wedding. The firstborn came in a year. Elek and Charna had six children. Though one of them died as an infant. I don’t remember his name. All children went to cheder, and then their father gave them for apprenticeship to the craftsmen, for them to help out their parents with maintaining this big family.

The eldest was born in 1902 and given the rare Jewish name Nysl. He was also a cobbler, making uppers. He had a wife, Feiga, and two children. The elder, born in 1934, was named Ella after my grandfather Elek. And with the birth of a boу in 1937, their wealthy neighbor, the sponsor of the synagogue came. He had buried his father Hershl not long before that. Since the neighbor didn’t have his own children and didn’t hope to have any in the future, he offered them big money to sponsor the child under the condition that they give him the name of Hershl. I don’t know if the rich man kept his word, but my cousin was named Hershl. During the Great Patriotic War Nysl was evacuated with his wife and children to the town of Guryev [today Kazakhstan], not far from Astrakhan. He died in 1987. Now Hershl with his family have a happy life in Tel Aviv. We are in touch with Ella Sharf [her marital name], who lives with her family in Kishinev.

Then my mother was born, a boy, Shloime, followed her – a fly in the ointment – as they say. So in a common family of working people, Elek and Charna, a bad egg was born, who didn’t care for study nor work, he just took to the bottle, having fun and sometimes fights. Shloime wasn’t married. When the Great Patriotic War broke out, he went to the front as a volunteer, and we don’t know what happened to him. He could be living somewhere in Russia, or maybe he was killed in battle.

Mother’s younger sister Feiga, born in 1913, became a seamstress. She didn’t get married in Kishinev, besides there was nothing to do there, and she decided to leave for Bucharest. She rented an apartment there, and worked as a seamstress at a sort of factory. She married a Bucharest Jew. I don’t know his name, since she was married only for a couple of months. When in 1940 the Soviet regime was installed in Bessarabia 3, Feiga left everything and came back to Kishinev with her husband, as she was afraid to be separated from her relatives, when Fascism flourished in Bessarabia. During evacuation Feiga and her husband were reported missing. That is all we know about them. They must have died during the bombing of their echelon like my father’s sister.

The youngest in the family, Avrum, born in 1918, became a tailor. He evacuated with our family when the Great Patriotic War started and then at the beginning of the war went to the front as a volunteer. Avrum was severely wounded, and lost his arm. When he came back from the hospital, he settled in Kokand [today Uzbekistan] with me and my mother. We returned to Kishinev together. After that Avrum married a Jewish woman, Basya, and adopted three children: Charna, named after Grandmother, Tsilya and Molka. They all currently reside in Israel. Avrum’s daughters have their own families. His senile wife Basya is at a hospice, and Avrum stays with each of his daughters in turns.

My mother, Tsivia Alterman, was born in Kishinev in 1906. She went to a Russian school for a couple of years, and then she learnt to become a seamstress. Grandfather Elek bought her a ‘Singer’ sewing machine, which my mother took great care of. She lubricated and cleaned it.

The family of Elek and Charna was more religious than my father’s family. My grandfather Elek used to think that one could do without food for the entire week, but for Fridays and Saturdays there should have been a feast. He went to the synagogue on Fridays. The synagogue was located not very far from our house, at Asiatskaya Street. Grandmother laid a festive table, lit candles and the whole family got together to celebrate Sabbath. 

After getting acquainted with Father in 1928, my mother waited for him for four years. My father was supposed to return from the army in January of 1932. My mother was excited to see him. Things were ready for the wedding. But there was a tribulation on the eve of my father’s arrival. Grandfather Elek died and when Father arrived, he saw Mother and Grandmother Charna mourning. The wedding was put off for several weeks, then for some more time, as Grandmother Charna insisted. And when Grandmother broke the subject of shifting the date of the wedding for the third time, Father went to the rabbi for advice, and he said that the wedding couldn’t be postponed for a third time. Thus, my parents went to the synagogue under a chuppah. When I was a child, I enjoyed looking at a beautiful picture of my mother in her wedding dress and my father in the frock coat. Unfortunately this picture was burned during war times. According to the Jewish rites the wedding was modest, considering Grandmother was mourning.

After the wedding my parents moved in with Grandmother Charna. I was born on 19th January 1933, in the Jewish hospital, which was free for poor Jews. I was called Molka, but I don’t know whom I was named after. We lived in a small three-room apartment, rented from a Romanian, Domna. The house was one-storied, with a long veranda, with two apartments – the landlord’s and ours – facing each other. During the first months after the wedding our family lived modestly, not to say poorly. There was a cutting table and my mother’s sewing-machine, our bread-winner, in the first room. The second room was my parent’s bedroom. My grandmother and I stayed in the third room.

Growing up

I have memories of myself since the early age of three. My grandmother always stayed with me. My mother used to work hard. The problem was that even after getting married my father didn’t stop being overwhelmed with Communist ideas. He was an instigator, and participant of the strikes, that is why he often lost jobs. There were few owners of shoe workshops and factories in Kishinev, and soon they got to know my father very well. They didn’t want to employ him and would say: ‘You are a good worker, but a big mouth!’ Of course, Father was not a lazybones, but he never had a steady and well-paid job. My small, slender mother with strong hands and will was the bread-winner of our family. She said facetiously that Father was playing in revolution.

My mother sewed all ladies’ dresses, suits and even coats, as well as children’s clothes. She also mended and remade things, which was so important. Mother’s clients were common Jewish women, our neighbors, the same as my mother and grandmother. My mother, coming from a cobbler’s family, had an immaculate taste. Since my early childhood my mother dressed me up, and she dressed to the nines, too. When I was going outside, my mother would take a break from sewing to see how I was dressed. Sometimes she made me change my clothes, or use different ribbons to match my dress. They said I was a cute child with gray eyes and fair hair, braided in rolls. I wore a snood over my braids to keep my hair in. I was a poor trencherman, and my grandmother was following me with a plate in the yard to feed me, asking me in Yiddish, ‘What are you going to eat tomorrow?’ Tomorrow, or today, I didn’t want to eat anything but hominy [corn flour meal] with fried fish.

I had a wonderful childhood. My mother and grandmother loved me very much, and my dad just adored me. Every morning he used to kiss me while I was asleep and said that we would go for a walk in the evening if I ate well and behaved. I was looking forward to the evening. My father came back home, had lunch, and the three of us, dressed up – my dad in a suit, my mother in a frock, and I with the ribbons in my braids – used to go to an ice-cream café, owned by a Greek. There were tented tables in this Greek café. There were no less than 30 kinds of ice-cream, and my father bought me a new one each time. Then we walked along the thoroughfare and went to the park. Sometimes we went to the sausage store, which belonged to a Russian merchant, and bought tasty sausages, which were packaged in a parcel with a bow. I liked carrying that parcel home. However, my grandmother and I didn’t eat those sausages, as she observed the kashrut. My father wasn’t religious, he would even eat pork fat at work. Sometimes I used to eat a piece of tasty sausage from Father, if my grandmother Charna wasn’t close by.

Apart from the Greek owner of the café and the Russian ‘pork-butcher,’ Jews owned most of the stores, small shops and restaurants. The Jewish population made up 80 percent of the population in Kishinev and almost all of them lived in the central part of the city. Our family kept in touch only with Jews, and it seemed to me in childhood that there were no other people. Yiddish has always been my mother tongue. My parents, grandparents, relatives and my childhood friends spoke that language. Jewish families lived in our yard, a Jewish girl named Klara and I used to play with dolls and with paper wraps. I was worried about Klara’s fate after evacuation. I used to wonder where she was, and whether my blue dress, which I gave to her, had been kept. After the war there was neither Klara nor the dress. Probably her family just didn’t return to Kishinev.

I was friends with a boy called Izya. He was my age. His father was an accountant, which was associated with wealth, as compared to our families of common craftsmen. Izya’s mother Zhenya dressed to the nines, and usually hired a cab. Izya’s family was also famous for having a refrigerator – it was an unseen luxury back in those times. It was called ‘Glacier.’ Aunt Zhenya treated me very well, often asked me to come and visit them. Then my mother dressed me up even more meticulously. Izya’s mother gave me chocolate and the tastiest homemade cookies. She talked to me as she would to an adult, and it flattered me. When I caught scarlet fever, and my mother was with me in the quarantine, the so-called ‘contagious’ hospital, Aunt Zhenya and Izya came to my ward, all dressed up, and brought me oranges. It was very important for my mother. Years passed, and my mother still remembered about those oranges. Izya and his parents were reported missing during the Great Patriotic War.

There were no more friends but Klara, Izya and my cousin Ella, often brought by my Aunt Feiga. My grandmother was my greatest friend and confidante. She was always neat, in a snow-white kerchief. She used to have her hands full about the house – dusting, cleaning, washing and ironing and at the same time she was teaching me, perceiving my childish curiosity and worries. She scrubbed the apartment before Sabbath, even washed the walls. There were starched napkins on the table and on the chairs, old and darned, but clean. Grandmother lit candles, and there was freshly baked challah and wine on the table. My father was present, too. In spite of him not being religious, he respected Jewish traditions, and he let Mother and Grandmother observe them. On Saturday he usually went out, either to see relatives or acquaintances.

Jewish holidays were always celebrated in our family. There was a chest in the bedroom covered with a rug, containing paschal dishes. I was looking forward to Pesach, for the beautiful dishes to be removed from the chest along with the crockery and goblets, even my special little blue cup. When Grandmother kneeled by the chest, trying to unlock it, I asked to take out my blue cup in the first place. Before Pesach Mother even stopped working and helped Grandmother clean the apartment. Just before the holiday, matzah was brought from the synagogue. I don’t remember the rite of ousting chametz from the house, but I remember that there was no bread in the house during this holiday. During seder there was the most scrumptious Jewish food cooked by my grandmother: chicken stew, gefilte fish, casseroles, matzah dishes. My father didn’t observe seder the proper way. All of us just sat at the table, prayed and started eating. Sometimes my grandmother took me to Uncle Nysl for other seders. He was religious, and carried out seder sticking to the Haggadah. We went to Uncle Nysl during Chanukkah, too. I was given Chanukkah geld. Grandmother made delicious potato scones and doughnuts with jam.

Since my early childhood I remember Yom Kippur. I was astounded that my mother and grandmother were fasting. I recall how my mother took me to see my grandfather Khuna and grandmother Motl, for them to chat to me and get distracted from hunger. I didn’t know the reason for their fasting. During the Doomsday holiday my mother and grandmother went to the synagogue. I remember that they left me with the neighbor. I wanted her to take me there, and my mother said that during that day a special prayer was read, and those whose parents were alive were not supposed to listen to it. My mother promised to take me to the synagogue for other more festive occasions. She kept her word and took me there for Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Chanukkah and Pesach. There was a small one-storied synagogue not very far away from our house. But it seemed very beautiful to me. It was the place where the Fascists shot Jews later, during the occupation. The building of the synagogue was burned during the Great Patriotic War.

During Sukkot holidays they built a sukkah in the neighboring yard. My family had dinner with my neighbors over there. I was cold, and I even remembered a Russian saying: ‘As cold as in a sukkah, but I didn’t know that I had to dress warm for the sukkah; however, I liked it anyway. I liked the merry holiday of Purim, and especially how we got ready for it. My mother and grandmother would bake hamantashen with poppy, honey and nuts, fluden, waffles with honey and nuts, which were put in packages. In the morning, a mentally retarded lad came from the synagogue, running an errand. He took shelakhmones and gave it to relatives and acquaintances. Later on, there were presents from them. Later on my mother and grandmother used to discuss Aunt Feiga’s hamantashen, which were better than Aunt Basya’s. When I grew up a little bit, my mother took me to purimshpiels in the Jewish lyceum. 

There were female and male lyceums in Kishinev, as well as a Jewish hospital, health care community, orphanages and hospices for the children from poor families, almshouse, charity canteens, in a nutshell: a great network of ordinary and charitable institutions. Zionist ideas were very popular at that time 4, i.e. the idea to create the Jewish state. Zionists had their organizations, viz. professional schools and sports organizations – Maccabi World Union 5. I was not of age to be enrolled there, but I learnt from my parents that those organizations existed.

At the end of the 1930s, inter-community relations deteriorated with the foundation of the Fascist party of the Cuzists 6 and legionaries 7. They used racism and anti-Semitism in their rhetoric, but there were no open collisions and pogroms as there were in Germany. There were cases of moral anti-Semitism, and my mother had to go through that. There was one tram line in Kishinev along the lengthy Armyanskaya Street to the city cemetery. My mother was in the tram car, fashionably dressed in a coat, wearing a hat and gloves. There was a Romanian officer sitting close to her. An ill-kept and poorly dressed elderly Jew got on the tram at one of the stops. He took a seat next to the officer. Then the officer started demanding that the Jew should get up and leave. The old man didn’t get to say a word. Then my mother sat down between the officer and the old man. The officer took off his gloves, hit the old man with them and turned him out of the tram, telling my mother that the old man smelled. Who knows how the officer would have acted if he had found out that my mother was a Jew.

In 1939 mother gave birth to a son. My brother was named Shepshel after my Aunt Rosa’s husband. In June 1940 I joined a professional girls’ school, Tarbut 8. I was trained for a certain time, along with getting compulsory education. But I wasn’t able to study there. On June 28th 1940 the Soviet Army entered Bessarabia and the Soviet regime was established. My father was rejoicing. He put on a dressy suit and went out to the central street, where Soviet tanks were placed, with the soldiers communicating with people. He came back very happy, showing Mother a simple huge Soviet watch that he swapped with the Soviet soldier for an expensive Swiss watch given to him by Grandfather Khuna. When Mother dared to tell Father that the swap wasn’t fair and equal, he said that the most important thing was that the watch was Soviet. Then he went to the photo shop straight away to get a picture taken with his new watch.

Our Romanian landlord Domna escaped to Romania the same night, taking only precious things with her. Her well-furnished apartment was given to two Soviet officers and their wives. They became our neighbors. These officers’ wives, who had never seen beautiful clothes and lingerie in Russia, put on laced chemises of the Romanian lady, and wanted to go out in them, mistaking the underwear for evening gowns. They didn’t care and were walking in these chemises along the street. The officers and their wives were running amok with such an exuberance of grapes, wine, delicious products and fruit, sold dirt cheap by the peasants. They had never seen anything like that. Hardly had three days passed, everything vanished from the stores: caviar, tasty fish, smoked meat, cheese. Even bread became rare. Then repressions started. Many of those, who were connected with Zionist movements, as well as the remaining rich and well-off people were arrested and exiled. We were lucky to be beyond that. The Soviet authorities took no interest in us. My father was disillusioned. The Soviet regime didn’t meet his expectations. He even said in despair that they were not so-called brothers, but cousins.

During the war

In September 1940 I was supposed to go to a Russian school. But I caught measles, missed the beginning of the school year, and my mother decided that I should go to school the next year. My happy and carefree childhood lasted for another year: Father still went for a walk with us in the evenings – my parents paid a lot of attention to me, teaching me to read and count. I knew the Russian and Yiddish alphabet. And on 22nd June 1941 the Great Patriotic War broke out. My father was demobilized in several days. I remember seeing him off. Father kissed me saying that the war wouldn’t last long. The Red Army was very strong and would defeat the Fascists, so he would be back home in a couple of weeks. He was not the only one to believe that. Many people didn’t even think of evacuation. Grandfather Khuna said that he had lived with Russians, Romanians, and Communists and will be able to live with the Germans. He was flatly against evacuation. My grandparents stayed in Kishinev.

Kishinev was bombed real hard. Mother and Grandmother decided to leave. We left for the neighboring village on foot, holding my little brother in our arms. My parents had some Moldovan acquaintances there. We stayed there for two or three days, as the host told us that the Fascists had retreated and we could go home. Kishinev was on fire, before the Red Army retreated. Mother could hardly pack some things. My mother and grandmother left the city, holding me and Shepshel tight. I remember things burning and collapsing. It was hideous. My mother covered my eyes with her hand so I wouldn’t get scared. We met Uncle Avrum and Aunt Feiga on our way.

We were walking for several weeks. The bombing gradually weakened. It was hard to walk as it was stifling in the daytime, and cool at night. We were also caught in the rain a number of times. Mother went to some Ukrainian village to get a rest and get dry. A beautiful Ukrainian woman was very hospitable. She brought us some warm water and gave us food. It was so good and warm that we decided to stay. Then in a couple of days the scared neighbor rushed in and said, ‘Tsivia, leave. The Germans are ten kilometers away from the village!’ So we ran again. We walked on a road full of fugitives. Sometimes people were sorry for us and put us in a cart, then we went by a truck. Then we went by train a little bit. Mother washed at the railway stations using process hot water, coming from steam trains. We had nothing to eat, we just picked up ears of wheat roots, boiled maize, we ate seeds.

This way we reached Rostov-upon-Don. I was eight years old, and all those things are mixed up in my memory. I remember that we stayed in Rostov for some time and then in a Cossack village near Rostov. This is how we spent the first war winter, but I can’t recall everything clearly now. When the Fascists approached Rostov, we moved on. We reached Stalingrad [now Volgograd in Russia, 1200 km north-east of Kishinev], and came to the evacuation point. We stayed there no longer than a day, were given some sort of soup and dispatched to the railway station. The city was on fire and the fugitives were sent away immediately.

I remember how a soldier lifted me up and put me in the car, he did the same with my brother. They put us in the locomotive. After that my brother got ill and I had an outbreak of furunculosis. When we arrived in Astrakhan [today Russia], we were put in hospital, my brother was in the infectious department as he had measles, complicated by a cold, and I was in the surgery department. My brother died in the hospital. And I learned about it when I was discharged from the hospital. I don’t remember how we went across the Volga, and moved forward. We were brought to Tashkent [today Uzbekistan, 3500 km east of Kishinev], and from there we went to a collective farm 9 near Kokand [today Uzbekistan].

The evacuated were lodged in a club. There was nothing to sleep on, so my grandmother, mother and Feiga picked up grass, dried it and put it on the floor. In several days collective farmers brought some simple trestle beds that we used. We starved, the food provided by the collective farm was not enough. Other Jewish families were our neighbors. There was one family from Kharkov [today Ukraine], another family was from Poland. I went out with other children, looking for food in the collective farm. We managed to find apricots, carrots and beets. Uzbeks let us pick things up from the ground, without taking anything from the tree. Uncle Avrum walked to the military enlistment office, located in Kokand, to go to war and not to starve. My mother and Feiga worked in the collective farm, picking cotton. It was cold. The evacuees used an oven from the club for heating purposes. We filled it with cotton waste and started the fire with coal taken from Uzbeks, as we had no matches.

I remember how in 1942 Grandmother was asking me at night, ‘Feigele, I would like to have some tea to get warm. Take the coal and make me tea, I am so cold!’ My reply was that I was afraid to walk around at night and I asked Granny to wait until the morning. When I woke up, Granny still hadn’t got up. When Mother and Feiga came back from work I told them that Grandmother was still asleep. She died at night, and I being next to her, didn’t even notice it. Mother and Feiga buried Grandmother behind the cemetery fence. Uzbek Muslims didn’t let Grandmother be buried in their cemetery. Then Feiga left. She was told that her husband had been seen in some city, and she left there to look for him. She left and went missing. I never saw her again, and know nothing about her. She must have died in 1941, otherwise, she would have definitely come back to us or sent us a letter, but I don’t know how she perished.

My mother and I remained by ourselves. There was no news about my father and uncle Avrum, and our hope was forlorn to see them ever again. We had a hard life in the collective farm. Mother decided to move to the city. One early morning we packed our few things and walked away. It took us a day to reach Kokand. My mother asked for help in broken Russian. The policeman that we came across first took us to the railway station. That was the place where we could stay overnight. We went to the evacuation point in the morning. We were given food and taken to an apartment. The Uzbek owner of the apartment made our beds in the corridor between two rooms. We had to go to bed after everybody had fallen asleep, otherwise there was no way they could open the door. But it was a wonderful and warm lodging as compared to the collective farm. Mother went to work for the military plant, where valenki [warm Russian felt boots] were made for the front. She worked for two-three shifts without a break for me to survive and not die of hunger.

After a while we received a letter from my father. He found us through a notice he saw in Buguruslan. My mother and I cried from happiness. My father wrote that he didn’t go to the front; he was mobilized to do physical work for the army 10. He worked at the military plant in Ulyanovsk. He enclosed his picture in the letter – unfortunately, my mother didn’t keep the picture, she tore it up and threw it away after war. Father asked us to write and send him our pictures. We went to the central photo shop to have our picture taken. Both of us were unrecognizable, having swollen bellies from starvation and I, having a bald head. Those pictures were sent to my father together with the letter, where Mother wrote about our ordeals and losses – my brother’s and grandmother’s deaths. Father told us after the war that he couldn’t believe his eyes, when he was looking at our pictures, and his friends were laughing at him and telling him that he had lied to them when he said that his wife and daughter were beautiful. They also said that my mother was illegitimately pregnant. Certainly, my father didn’t believe the gossip. He used to write to us and even sent a package with provisions, containing sugar, rusks, canned meat. It was a real joy and treat. We exchanged canned meat for four loaves of bread.

I turned nine, and still hadn’t started school. I was ashamed of my illiteracy in front of my coevals. Our neighbor, a Jew from Kharkov, taught me the letters. I started writing. Then I went to school without feeling ashamed. I was accepted in the third grade. However, my name was changed. When my mother began to process my documents – my birthday certificate had been lost – she was told that the name of Molka didn’t exist and they suggested naming me Maya. There were many other problems, and my mother agreed to it even without arguing. At the end of the day it wasn’t important what was written in my documents. I became Maya then.

My life was getting better. I remember how we were exulting when we heard the news about the liberation of Bessarabia and Kishinev. We understood that the victory was coming, and soon we would be able to return. At the end of 1944 I caught dysentery. I wasn’t fed at the hospital, they decided not to waste precious food on such patients and I was on the brink of death. Uncle Avrum showed up in my ward like an apparition. It turned out that he was decommissioned for being wounded and sent to the hospital in Tashkent. Here he found my mother and me via an enquiry bureau. One of his arms was an amputation stump. He took me with his only hand as I was so feather-light and took me home. I was fed at home. Uncle brought food, and I was getting better. Avrum sold on rustic tobacco and rented a better room for us. Soon he was called to Kishinev. He had the right to come back there as he was at war, and he registered us as his family members. In April 1945 we went home. Of course, our way back home was much shorter as we took the train as passengers with tickets.

I couldn’t recognize my native city. It was devastated. The central part was in shambles. Our pre-war apartment was also destroyed. A Moldovan lady leased a small room to us, where the three of us stayed before my father’s arrival. During the first months after our arrival my mother and I went to the place, where my grandparents Khuna and Motl used to live before the war. Their Moldovan neighbors told us a terrible story about how they perished. After the Fascists occupied the city, they brought all Jews together out of town. They also came for my grandparents. Grandfather, being seriously sick, couldn’t walk and fell in the yard and Grandmother bent over him. Then a Fascist shot them at once. They died immediately without much agony. The neighbor said that they didn’t want to remove the corpses, and they stayed in the yard for a long time as a warning for those who wanted to help or hide Jews. When the bodies were taken away, the blood stains couldn’t be washed for a long time, and were removed later with snow. My mother couldn’t listen to the details of her parents’ death. So she left rapidly and never came back to that place again.

I remember how we rejoiced during the victory day in May 1945, one month after our arrival. Uncle Avrum went back to work, and my mother found clients and took up sewing again. Father wrote to us and even sent us money from Ulyanovsk. In fall I went to school, to the fifth grade. My life was getting much better. In the summer of 1946 Father came back, which made me really happy. We didn’t want to leave him for a minute. The three of us laughed and cried, clustered together. Father couldn’t get over my brother’s and his parents’ death for a long time. Uncle Nysl came back from evacuation with his family. He also became disabled. His leg was amputated after he was afflicted with diabetes. Father and my legless uncle found a small deserted house and began fixing it. They looked for old construction materials, ransacked the shambles and finally were able to fix two little rooms in the house. One of those rooms was taken by Nysl’s family, and the other by my family and Uncle Avrum.

After the war

Soon, our family got bigger. My mother got pregnant, and my parents decided that it was a godsend. They thought if this were a boy, they would stop mourning over Shepshel. But in 1948 a girl was born. They named her Musya. My parents and I loved her very much. In 1947 Father found his niece Raya [Ruklya], the daughter of his perished sister Rosa. He went to Ivanovo and took her from the orphanage. Raya settled in with us. So, there were six of us sharing one room. My parents and little Musya slept on a big bed bought at the market. Raya and I shared a trestle bed. Avrum slept on the floor. Soon Avrum got married and went to live with his wife. Raya, who was my close friend, got married at the age of 17 and left our house. She was always a dear friend to me, and a sister to my mother. Rayechka had a wonderful life with her husband. They had two sons. Unfortunately she died young from cancer. Her sons with their families moved to Israel in the late 1970s. I don’t keep in touch with Raya’s sons.

Father worked at a shoe factory as a shoemaker. He was well-respected and became a foreman. My mother spent the whole day sawing as she did before the war. I helped her about the house, looking after my little sister. I finished seven grades of school. I was a good student. I was keen on literature and was an avid reader. I went to the library every other day. They didn’t exchange books earlier than that. I was glued to books and ‘gulped them up.’ I read while walking, in a tram. They knew me and loved me in the library. My parents advised me to find a job after I had finished seven grades, as it was hard for them to keep me and my little sister. I talked about it in the library. The head of the library offered me a job there. First I was taught how to distribute books on shelves, hand out books, work with catalogues and soon I became a competent librarian. I finished evening school while I was working. The head of the library recommended me to enter a librarians’ school, located in the town of Soroki [Soroca in Moldovan], not far from Kishinev. I passed the entrance exams successfully and I was enrolled for the second year of the extramural department. I worked in my library, and still read books in bouts. I took exams twice a year. After obtaining a diploma, I was appointed the senior librarian.

I had many friends, but I was particularly close with Ella, my cousin. I remember how we were getting over Stalin’s death in the year of 1953. When his death was announced, thousands of Kishinev people rushed to his monument, depicting Stalin in a military coat with the stretched out hand, which was located by the Patria cinema on the central city square. There was a long line of people, who’d been waiting there for hours to bring flowers to the monument. We were also in the line, sobbing. There was mourning in our library. When at the 20th Communist Party Congress 11 Khrushchev 12 dispelled the myths behind Stalin’s personality cult, it was another blow, as our idol was crushed. We had worked for many hours in the library. We had to look through every book. If we came across the mention of Stalin’s name or his picture, we were supposed to mar those books by crossing out his name and tearing out his picture.

I kept in touch with my school friend Lusya Baum. She studied at the railway school, and invited me for a New Year’s party in 1957. There were a lot of boys in her company. There were few girls in that school. My mother made a new dress for me to celebrate the New Year. As always, she chose the fabric and the style. I asked her to make a detachable dress that was in fashion. But she didn’t listen. She sewed the way she found appropriate, being frugal and taking into account the eternal need of the Jews to remake and reuse things. And now she remade a dress by adding beautiful frilling at the bottom, making me the best-dressed girl there. It was ‘bring your own party,’ so everybody had to take a dish. My mother made potato patties, which everybody enjoyed. That was a Jewish company, and there I met a lad whom I liked. In spite of the fact that my boyfriend was in the army at the time, we started seeing each other. I had to listen to my mother’s stories about my mother’s and father’s love for each other, about how my mother waited for my dad for four years. They disapproved of my precipitancy, but my heart could not be forced.

My beloved, a Jewish guy called Aron Mirskiy, was born in Bucharest in 1932. His father Uscher was a locomotive mechanic and his mother Perl was a housewife. Aron was an only child. In 1940 his family moved to Kishinev like many other Jews. Uscher went to the front from here and perished during the Great Patriotic War. His single younger brother, who survived the war, married Perl when he got back. When I met Aron he was a student of the Lvov Polytechnic Institute. We got married after he graduated from university in 1957. Our marriage was registered on 24th December, and our modest wedding was held on the 31st. The celebration took place at home with rather modest food and with gramophone music. At that time Jewish traditions weren’t observed in our families, so nobody even mentioned the possibility of having a Jewish wedding. We moved to the house of Aron’s mother and his stepfather. Their house was built in the suburbs of Kishinev after the war.

In 1958 our son was born and we named him Alexander. I was a young mother and kept working, but my husband insisted that I should enter the institute. I went to Moscow to enter a Bibliographic Institute. I passed the entry exams and studied extramurally for three years. In 1963 I got very ill. I had a dreadful diagnosis – cancer. The doctor told me that I had only five years to live. I quit the institute, I couldn’t even think of studying. Then it turned out that they were mistaken with the diagnosis, I had no cancer. I don’t even want to recall that terrible year, thinking that I was lethally ill. My parents and husband helped me get over it. My colleagues, who treated me very well, were also very supportive at that time.

In 1970 we received a good apartment, where we are currently residing. We never came across anti-Semitism. I was promoted at work. After my husband graduated from university, he was offered a leading position in the Ministry of Automobile Transport. We were pretty well-off. We owned a car, though we didn’t have a country house. In the summer time we went to a wonderful facility of the Ministry of Automobile Transport for rest and recreation. Sometimes we went to the seaside. There was a pioneer 13 camp where Alexander spent the whole summer.

My son experienced explicit anti-Semitism, when he served in the Soviet Army in Odessa 14. My husband and I visited him rather often as Odessa was close by. Once I came to see my son in the summer. He was given a leave pass and went to the beach. My son didn’t want to undress, and I made him do that. Then I saw bruises all over his body. I took pains to make my son tell me the truth. It turned out that he stood up for a Jewish boy, who was circumcised during childhood. Other soldiers teased him. Then anti-Semites went after my son, beating him black and blue. No matter how Аlexander asked me not to leak a word of it, I went to the commander and told him everything. He promised to punish the offenders, but when I came back, nothing had changed. Then I wrote to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow. After that my son was transferred to another unit by Kherson, but the bullies weren’t even punished. My son entered the automobile vocational school and then started teaching driving in the training facility. There he met a wonderful Jewish girl. Her name was Tuba Nerdinskaya. They got married and they had two children in a row: Mikhail, born in 1985, and Irina, born in 1986.

In 1985 my father passed away without having a chance to rejoice in a great-grandchild. In 1994 my mother died. She had been afflicted with cancer for a while. When my mother got ill in 1990 I had to quit work to look after her. My husband and I didn’t observe religious traditions during the Soviet times. However, we went to my parents for Pesach. My mother always had matzah. My mother used to light candles on Fridays, and fasted during Yom Kippur. My parents always spoke Yiddish, so I know my mother tongue very well. I buried my parents at the Jewish cemetery according to the Jewish rite. An old Jew read a prayer.

I always wanted to be close to my kin. I knew that my true name was Molka. When in 1991 Moldova got its independence, and there was a passport exchange, I was given a certificate in an archive and changed my name from Maya to Molka. Now I am Molka again, both in my passport and in my other documents. I like my name Molka more than Maya, because it is connected to my people, my childhood and my parents.

I always took an interest in the fate of our people, Israel. During those years when Israel was spoken about as a hostile country, I got in touch with dissidents and read literature about Israel. I worshiped this country, and dreamt that one day we would live there. My husband was always against immigration. He loved Moldova and Kishinev, so I had to submit. However, my son’s family immigrated to Israel in the early 1990s. I often go there. My son works in the field hе is specialized in. His wife has also settled in.

Our grandson Mikhail serves in the Israeli fleet. When he was about to be drafted I told him to come to Ukraine to escape army service. Then my son had a talk with me and said that in Israel army service was honorable, and he was happy that Mikhail would serve Israel. He believed Israel needed them, and that was the reason for their immigration. My son is a real Israeli patriot. My granddaughter Irina entered the university this year. My sister Musya also lives in Israel. She didn’t go on with her higher education after finishing school. She got married, and then divorced. Her second marriage with a Moldovan Jew, Shunya Weinstein, turned out to be very happy. Musya and Shunya left Israel at the end of the 1970s. Musya has a daughter, Lilia, who works as a teacher.

Now we live in independent Moldova. Many people took the breakup of the Soviet Union very negatively. But I think there is something positive in it. After gaining independence, we have the conditions to develop our Jewish culture. We have Hesed 13, the association of the Jewish organizations, which unites all Jewish organizations. I also found my purpose there, working as a health visitor and a kindergartner. I liked my job. My deteriorating health made me leave it. Now I am a Hesed client. My husband still works. He is the head of the automobile department in a Polyclinic. We often attend Hesed’s events, celebrate holidays with our Jewish friends. Symbolic as it may be, after gaining independence and getting my original name back, I turned to the Jewish life and remembered my roots.

Glossary:

Victoria Yosif Almalekh (nee Levi)

Varna

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Svetlana Avdala

Date of interview: August 2006

I like Vicky’s emotional commitment. I think that in this respect she is like me, although she always introduced me to her friends like that: ‘This is Svetlana Avdala – she is from a mixed marriage’. And that was how everything took its own place. Someone had told me: ‘Vicky… Oh, she is the most Jewish of all the Jews in our community in Varna, because she has always worked towards the purity of the traditions.’ Vicky responded immediately after our first conversation on the phone in which I told her: ‘I am coming to Varna tomorrow! Can we do the interview?’ ‘Yes, of course, I feel it as my duty.’ And now, as I’m writing these lines, I can almost hear her youthful bubbling voice, her clear articulation, her elevated way of talking! I didn’t know for sure when I was going to be in Varna. The appointments we made were unclear, but she was eagerly waiting for my phone call. She was feeling very committed indeed… We entered her sister’s apartment. All the recollections of the beloved Rebeka, who died 14 years ago, took hold of Vicky and she burst into tears… Some people may say she overreacted! But I understand her. I understand this excess of love and responsibility which makes things become part of you. And everything you are separated from leaves you feeling torn, dismembered, extorted… I understand how difficult changes could be for people like her. When they have to turn the leaf and go on as if nothing had happened, they just can’t do it…

I was born in Vidin 1 on 10th March 1931 and I am a nurse. I had a sister – Rebeka Yosif Levi (1933-1992) who was a chemical engineer. She was single. My husband’s name is Yosif Samuil Almalekh and he was an economist. Our child is Samuil Yosif Almalekh (1956) and he is an electrician. He is single. I used to live in Sofia. Now I live in Varna [a resort city on the Black Sea Coast in Northeast Bulgaria].

We are Ladino Jews 2 on both maternal and paternal sides. I can’t say almost anything about my parents’ families because when I was born only my grandmother Vintoura (Vizourka) Isak Levi (1870s – 1956) – mother of my father Yosif Isak Levi (1892 – 1979) was still alive. Her husband Isak Sabitay Levi had died in the 1920s, some time before my father’s marriage. The only thing I know is that my mother’s father Sason Haim Pinkas used to be a corn trader in Vidin. He had 3 brothers – Moushon, Pinkas and Mazal and he had died before 1931. His wife Rebeka Pinkas died in 1931, before I was born.

The family of my father, Yosif Isak Levi, used to live in Sofia. He was also born in the capital. I can’t say where his father, my grandfather Isak, was from. The only thing that my grandmother Vintoura (his wife) had related about him was that he used to work in a grocery, which he didn’t own. Because of working there he had a nickname – Bakalov (grocer). My grandmother Vintoura used to tell me that at the time of the Liberation [Russian-Turkish Liberation War (1877-78)] 3 she was only six years old. At that time they settled in Sofia after they had run away from the town of Ferdinand [then Koutlovitsa]4. She didn’t know whether she had been born in Ferdinand. The only thing she remembered was that they had moved to Sofia on donkeys. She never told me how she had married my grandfather. She never told me anything definite about him. All I know is he died in Sofia a little before my father’s wedding in 1924.

My father finished the Jewish school in Sofia as well as the junior high school there. He was a goldsmith by profession, this was his main occupation. He used to work in Sofia but when he was still quite young he got the well-known vibration disease. This is a disease of the peripheral nervous system. It is typical for people making the same moves all the time in their job, like goldsmiths. It causes hand-tingling which makes working impossible. Of course in those days there were no professional disease clinics so the vibration disease was practically incurable. The easiest thing my father could do was to change his occupation. So he became a medical goods dealer. He started providing pharmacies with finished and semi-finished medicines such as drugs, different kinds of syrups, pills and powders. For instance some pharmacy would need a bottle of davilla tincture whereas another one would buy only 25 grams of it, because this is the quantity needed for a certain kind of syrup. They would also order some ethyl alcohol, cotton, bandages etc. So he was supposed to have certain knowledge which he had gathered during the Second Balkan War 5 when he was a health-officer. He served under the leadership of professor Racho Angelov – the first Bulgarian Minister of Health after 9th September 1944 6. What he had learned there was of great help in his job.

My father didn’t have his own home in Sofia. He married my mother by matchmaking. How did they meet? One of my aunts (Soultana – my mother’s sister) used to live in Sofia near Ekzarh Yosif Street and the Synagogue [The Great Synagogue] 7. [Jewish neighborhoods in Sofia] 8 She used to live in lodgings, which was synonymous to poverty. She was the poorest in the entire family. So this aunt of mine was a friend to a cousin of my father’s. She introduced my mother Rashel Pinkas-Levi (1893-1977) to my father and they got married. The not so short distance between Sofia and Vidin didn’t matter. What did was that there was someone who did the matching. Otherwise people stay single like my son and my sister. I can’t say for sure if my parents married for love. Their marriage was arranged. But they stuck to one another till death parted them and the different generations at home were always on good terms. My father moved to Vidin with my mother, because he didn’t have his own home. Both he and my grandmother Vintoura moved to my mother’s paternal house. In Vidin my father found not only that they owned a private home but also a store that belonged to my mother.

My father was already not incapable of working as a goldsmith when he arrived in Vidin from Sofia. The last occupation he had in Sofia was as a merchant of medical goods. Vidin is a town significantly smaller than Sofia and people already had taken up all the available positions. So he immediately started working in my mother’s store. She used to sell manufactures – sewing cotton, necklaces, combs and other small goods. This store was in the middle of the market, on the same line with the municipal shops. No one could buy anything there unless you knew Romanian. This market was located by the Danube and a lot of Romanians used to go shopping there as well.

I remember my father as a serious person. He never talked too much and on top of that he stammered. He had started stammering at school after being beaten by a teacher. I remember him reading a book sitting on his chair in our big living-room. He used to read books by Dostoevsky and Tolstoy 9. He always said 'That’s not for you'. and he would read us Mayne Reid 10 or Jules Verne. He used to take books from all kinds of places. During the Holocaust finding something to read was an achievement. But he managed to do that by using the little doors that connected the houses. Although he didn’t talk much he was good at communicating to people without a needless waste and overuse of words. I remember that at the market place he only communicated with two or three other merchants.

My mother, Rashel, was from a wheat-trader’s family – her grandfather and her father Sason were intermediary wheat-traders. They didn’t use to plough or mill the wheat but to trade with it. It had to be kept in big warehouses built only of ashlar. Their windows were right under the roof. At first the wheat had to be bought and kept there until it was sold. Warehouses like those supplied carriages and ships. The plain of Vidin is quite fertile and besides the Danube is a convenient navigable route.

After finishing a Jewish school and junior high school my mother was the last one to get married. She knew Ladino and Ivrit, which she had probably studied at the Jewish school. She was the youngest child in the family. Her brothers and sisters – Sara, Soultana, Haim and Yosif were already married and everybody had settled down in a different house. My mother was very devoted to the house and when my father joined the family he paid off the shares to the other inheritors from her family. My father started living there with his mother – my grandmother Vintoura. I can’t imagine how much ethics the family had in order to let the two mothers, the in-laws, live under the same roof. I mean my maternal grandmother who owned the house and my paternal grandmother who came to live in the house later. I used to joke with my father that he brought his mother – granny Vintoura, in the house as a dowry. My mother had prepared her trousseau. As a matter of principle a Jewish girl’s trousseau must include some underwear for the bride, household linen, pillows, blankets, bedspreads, pyjamas and a shirt for the groom. Everything was supposed to be washed and starched. Ironing the trousseau is called Utilitar Elashugar and is a real ritual. Women from both families gather together and start ironing the stuff. The ironing is actually an occasion to take a look at the trousseau and it was accompanied by giving treats to the ladies. After that the washed and ironed stuff was spread in a special room so it could be seen in its entirety. The trousseau (Ashugar) sometimes included silver tableware. I’ve never seen jewelry. Jewelry is given by the mother or the mother-in-law during the wedding ceremony.

My mother’s Ashugar is still at home. Take a look at it. Look at the outline embroidered on the pillow-case. When I look at it I always remember my mother. And this sleeping pillow has a monogram - Rashel Pinkas. I cherish these highly. No one sleeps on them. I’ve left a lot of things for my son so he would know who his grandmother was. She was an extremely neat lady - big, massive and beautiful. We all looked like midgets next to her. She was so hard-working – could do the job not of one and two people, but of four people together. Even nowadays I wonder when she was sleeping. I don’t remember her complaining to be exhausted or to say she was unable to do something or not to know how to do it. She used to deal with so many things. At that time we didn’t have socks. Some unbelievable things would be unknitted so that the wool would be used for knitting socks. I learned how to knit socks at the age of twelve. Whenever she managed to take wool from the villagers she would knit me a sweater, a bodice or something else. She was busy all the time – either sewing, knitting, ironing, or soaking laundry in some indescribable lye mixtures. That procedure was important because the laundry could be seen from the other end of the street so it had to be snow white no matter that it was heavily patched up. She also used to help my father at the store as well. And this continued till we were old enough to leave the house and the town of Vidin after finishing high school. When I got married in 1955 every single thing in my trousseau chest was starched. She used to work a lot without preaching to us and giving us unwanted advice. After high school I went to the Nurse School in Sofia and I finished it. My sister came to Sofia after high school, too. The love for our home was so big that whenever I had a free day and a half (for instance – after being on duty), I would take the train to Vidin in the early morning.

During my childhood we were surrounded with love. I’m the eldest child and I was born in the seventh year of my parents’ marriage. My sister was born three years later. The children had come relatively late to our parents. Probably this is the reason for us to get so much love. All that’s been said in connection to my late birth was that a woman met my mother on her way to her shop. She told her that a childless neighbor got pregnant after going to the baths in Ovcha Kupel. My parents went there immediately. My mother got pregnant with me and my twin brother right away. My twin brother died from pneumonia at the age of six months on 28th August – my mother’s birthday. From then on my mother never celebrated her birthday until her 80th anniversary. Only when she turned 80 a friend of hers and I offered to organize a party so we had a great time.

We were always together with my sister Rebeka Levi (1933 – 1992). The situation didn’t change although the time was passing. She used to follow me everywhere. We were said to look alike (especially as adults). We were carrying the same genes and shared the same way of living. She was a woman of exceptional intellect. She had a great heart. Half of the people in the world could find a place in her heart but she died alone. Obviously the leading principle in life is not only to meet people but to miss those meetings as well… She was a gentle, good and confiding person. She went through her entire length of service in the Devnya Factories 11. I remember she was born at home with the help of a midwife. My grandmother Vintoura (my mother’s mother-in-law) and Sara (my mother’s aunt) assisted at the birth. It was in December and it was very cold. I’m two years and ten months older than her. I was waiting in the other room with my father. When the baby was born and while they were giving her a bath they called us to see her. In the living room (the salad-salon – in Ladino – as we used to call it) the stove was burning very hard. My grandmother was holding the baby in her arms. I ran to her. They all gave an exclamation, put her in my arms and said ‘You will always take care of her’. But I couldn’t. And that is what I can’t forgive to myself. She died from cancer.

The house where I was born (my mother’s house) was built in Ottoman times. It was a one-storey house built right on the ground. Its floor was made of wood and there was a basement. The boards were about 35 cm wide. When we turned seven or eight we started helping our mother in the housework. Every Friday evening in order to prepare for meeting Sabbath mum would ask us to clean the floor with caustic soda. She was a huge, plump woman and bending down was difficult for her. She would remove the dirt after us so we wouldn’t burn our hands with caustic soda. In our good years we used to have some washing soap, but during the years of war [WWII] we didn’t have any so we used caustic soda and lye in the cleaning water. We used to bring water from the Danube. It was softer.

Our windows had vertical iron bars. The house was built in Ottoman times when windows had two pieces – interior and exterior on both sides of the bars. It sounds strange but that house survived till 1966 when my parents moved here, in Varna. From the door you would enter a small hall which had no plumbing, but a tin container full of water. We had a sink under it to gather the water. Usually we would cook in that hall in warm days. We used to cook on a brazier. We also had a cooker with a cast-iron plate and circles. The cooker had an oven as well. From the hall you would go into a big living room which looked more like a big hall. We used to invite our guests, study, have meals and spend most of our time in this room. We had a four-meter long seat made of nailed boards. We used to lay mattresses and pillows filled with wool and rags on it. My grandmother was fond of saying that if that seat could talk it would tell all kinds of stuff, because we all would take a seat on it and talk. There was something like a small table under the windows where my sister and I used to keep our textbooks. Next to it was my mother’s sewing-machine. The cooker was on the other side so the steam could go out as fast as possible. We cooked there in very cold weather. My paternal grandmother Vintoura used to cook only twice a week during winter days, because the weather was cold and food could be preserved for longer.

People didn’t use to have refrigerators in those days. In warmer days we would keep food either in the well between two neighboring yards or in a side northern room which was as big as a larder. We had a big dining-table. On the right of the living-room there was a door leading to my parents’ bedroom. Next to it there was a door leading to my grandmother’s room which had a door leading to our bedroom. My sister and I would only sleep there. We would spend most of our time in the living-room.

The house was surrounded by a fruit-tree garden, a vegetable garden with a water-pump in the middle. The privy was outside, too. We used to have chickens in the yard. The pump was located in the middle on purpose. Everyone passing by would wash his hands, face or eyes with water from it. It was no good for drinking. The taste of the water was bad. We used to take drinking and cooking water from a fountain at the end of the street. Water for washing clothes and the floor we used to take from the Danube. In hot summer we would take the laundry to the Danube so that it wasn’t necessary to carry water from the river. We would wash with as much water as we wanted there. The water from the Danube was very soft so our laundry was always crystal clean. After that we would fill buckets and baskets with laundry and if the three of us (Mom, Beka and I) couldn’t carry it home at one time one of us would stay by the Danube and wait. The other two would bring some of the laundry home and come back for the rest. That was the way of life in those days. Now if I tell that to my son, he would be speechless.

One of Vidin’s peculiar features which I remember is mosquitoes. Before 9th September 1944 the wall of the Baba Vida Fortress 12 was surrounded by moats full of water. They weren’t cleaned or maintained regularly and they were like mosquito farms. Ducks would often swim in the water, because they could find food in there. On the surface of the water there was this plant called ‘lechovina’ – birds’ favourite food. Local boys used to collect it and bring some home. They would mix it with corn flour for feeding birds.

Anyway there was no escape from the mosquitoes. My grandmother used to prepare some solution of salt, water and vinegar and rub my sister and me with it before bedtime. She looked after us like a guardian angel. Mosquitoes could cause malaria. It was widespread in Vidin and it was like a curse from God. I suffered from malaria when I was 13 or 14 years old in 1944 during the Holocaust. I was ill for three years. A funny thing about malaria is you get fever only if it is summer. After that some medications were imported and they were distributed at school for protection.

I lived with my grandma Vintoura Levi till 1956. She lived with us (my mother, my father and my sister) in Vidin and is a standing image from my childhood. She had an unshakable authority in the family.

She was rather tall and thin, but she was well-built. She always wore black as a widow. That’s how I remember her. Her main task was to prepare Erev Sabbath, to cook all the meals, to take a bath, get dressed and go to the synagogue. Mum would invariably stay at home to make Sabbath. My grandmother used to stick to absolutely all of the norms when cooking - always kosher, always on her guard not to mix dairy products and meat. If somebody by accident mixed up the saucepans and put dairy products instead of meat, the saucepan itself would be thrown out, can you believe that? They were even different in colour. That was no game for her. We weren’t rich, but that’s how it was – the saucepan would be thrown out. We used to go to the public bath every Friday. There was an old Turkish bath 13 in the Jewish neighborhood, which was within the fortress walls. The people working there were Bulgarian Muslim women, from the so-called ‘pomatsi’ [Bulgarian Mohameddans]. I have a hazy recollection of rush, hasty preparations… For instance, I remember my father had a separate bath-towel. It was still at home about 20 years ago, but it isn’t here anymore. It disappeared somewhere…

As a matter of principle at the end of the winter every Jewish or Bulgarian house must be thoroughly cleaned, but the chores performed at home during Pesach can be narrated as a myth, because they can be described as extreme. For instance, in winter all clothes were regularly washed but during Pesach the so-called Simans di Pesach [the Weeks before Pesach in Ladino]. This means at least two weeks before Pesach granny would make mum take out all the night wear and underwear which was put in order in the wardrobe, wash it and iron it. The wardrobe would be emptied from A to Z and everything would be washed and sterilized. We used to have some huge copper vessels (about 100 kilos each). There was no way for anyone to lift them by himself. A bonfire would be started in the garden… All of this would be done outside. And all the clothes were sterilized in lye. We would take ash from the stoves for the lye. We had separate crockery for Pesach. No one would have meals in them during the year and we kept them aside. But on the last day it had to be sterilized as well. Nowadays I wouldn’t do such a thing even if they kill me. And I’ve never done it since I have my own home and a family.

Granny Vintoura used to keep a close watch on the order at home, because my mother was always at work helping my father with the store. Their store was at the market place. I remember when I was seven or eight years old my sister and I used to bring lunch to my parents. My grandmother used to cook the meals. She used to wrap the meal in a white cloth – meat, bread, salad, etc. As it was said above there was a distribution of duties in our family. Grandma would cook and deal with the chickens and vegetables in the yard, mother would do the laundry and clean guided by granny’s instructions. Granny used to grow flowers in the yard – we had beautiful roses. My sister and I used to help her. We accepted the requirements my grandmother had to us for keeping everything in order as something absolutely natural and never as a burden. Yes, she would observe the order, but I can’t say she’s ever been severe to us. She even would help us get away without getting our bottoms spanked by mum. We always knew the safest place is behind granny. And she had an unshakable authority in the family. Now I think, she probably had some misunderstandings with my mother. But this was never revealed. Grandma had the unshakable authority. I remember a case like that. My grandmother was completely illiterate. Even her Bulgarian wasn’t good. But she felt it was her duty to check how we prepared for school. One day I saw her giving an exam to my sister with the textbook upside down.

A part of my granny’s image is how she used to make rooster soup. Not only did she use to do the cooking but she also grew the necessary vegetables as well as the animals. Rooster soup was cooked once a year – when a new rooster entered the household. Usually this happened at the beginning of the summer when the old one was slaughtered. That time of the year would be the time when green plums would form their pits, celery and lovage would come up. Those used to grow in our little vegetable garden in the backyard. Actually it was not much of a vegetable garden. What kinds of vegetables Jews would grow for God’s sake. It’s more of a joke than vegetable production proper. My grandmother learned how to grow vegetables from her Bulgarian neighbors, not from handbooks and manuals. Probably they also taught her to take a bag of ash and to sprinkle tomatoes and peppers with it. She had vegetables enough to help herself with early morning cooking if the market hadn’t opened yet. She would just pick a couple of tomatoes and peppers. The garden couldn’t sustain our household and grandma always said: ‘This is your pastime’.

Rooster soup was quite greasy. I remember grandma used to put it to boil at dawn so it would be ready at noon. But, what can I say, up to now my home has never smelt of such soup like the soup my grandma used to make. She would also put dried tomatoes in the soup. No one would make tinned food in those days. We hadn’t dreamed of such stuff, we had never made any. Tomatoes used to dry split under the sun. After that they would be brought in and put into cheese-cloth bags. The green plums I’m talking about were put in the soup as they were, absolutely fresh. After that we would form an entire brigade. Grandma, my sister and I would form it to split those green half-ripe plums that had just started changing colour. They would be still sour but already with their colour changed. We would sit and split them one or two times each and arrange them on wooden trays. Grandma would keep the cheese-cloth bags till the next summer. Plums were used for sour seasoning of different meals. Because the soup I’m talking about used to be made in springtime when plums hadn’t ripened yet, it smelled of fresh plums, fresh lovage and fresh celery that was picked from the backyard. It used to be cooked with home-made noodles. Yes, fideus. It could be used for pilaf as well. The whole house would participate in making fideus. Grandma was not strong enough to roll out twenty to thirty sheets of pastry a day. She was already old. My mother used to roll out thin fine sheets. The entire house would be covered with white bed sheets so the pastry could be spread on them to dry a bit. After that the pastry sheets would be rolled up and grandma would slice them into really thin (about 2 mm wide) pieces. And that stuff would already be noodles after being sliced. After that the noodles would be spread on the same bed sheets. They would be left for a couple of days to dry out completely so they wouldn’t get mouldy. Then they would be put into cheese-cloth bags. We would have enough noodles for a year.

For all the time I’ve known grandma she had never had good eyesight. But she taught me how to knit socks, to reprise, to crochet, to plait my hair etc. A girl shouldn’t walk around without her hair plaited.

The family used to gather together for breakfast. We didn’t have a radio till 1946. But mum, although she was extremely busy with her everyday chores, would tell dad early in the morning the news she had already heard. I used to be quite choosy as a child but all of us had to be at the table in the morning and for dinner. No one would sit down before my father. I don’t remember a Sabbath with the table set before my father returning home. And it was not only for Sabbath. That’s how it used to be till I got married and left the family. Somebody to sit at the table before my father… That was out of the question. Usually he would read something on his chair and he had to stand up and sit at the table so all of us (the rest of the family) might sit. We weren’t allowed to eat before he did no matter how hungry we might have been. And we never rummaged in the cupboards to eat not at the right time. There simply was order. The only food that had to be hidden at home were candies. And this used to happen in the war years when there wasn’t a box of chocolates at every corner. I last had some chocolate some time in elementary school and lost tracks of chocolate all the way to finishing the nurse school. There was none. The only thing that used to be hidden in those days was chocolate. The most common treat in those years was a spoon of jam and some cold water. That wasn’t bad but those things had passed by and there were supposed to be some chocolates in case somebody was to drop by. You should have something to put on the table. My parents would even talk in Romanian about where the chocolates were hidden. We used Ladino, Romanian and Bulgarian at home.

Although there was some order I wouldn’t say our family was too patriarchal. We felt quite free. I knew other families where what the children were reading, who they were friends with, which houses they went to was under strict control. My sister and I were free to choose whom of our friends to invite to our place and whom to pay a visit. But despite that the spirit in our family was quite patriarchal. Both my father and my mother were really devoted to the family. The most precious things for them were we – their daughters.

Despite the daily grind every Sunday the entire family would go on picnic in the nearby village of Sinyagovtsi (15 km away from Vidin). There was this carter who would give us a ride in his cart. The inside of the cart was covered with beautiful rugs. There were wooden stools placed on the rugs for us to sit. On reaching Sinyagovtsi we would take out the food that we had prepared in advance. In summer we used to go to Sinyagovtsi again but stayed longer – ten to fifteen days. Mamma and Papa used to look at the houses in the village beforehand to choose the one in which we would put up.

The house where I was born was the house in which my mother was born. It was in the Jewish neighborhood right in front of the synagogue [An imposing building constructed in 1894 which impresses with its interior design] and near the Danube. Only few compatriots have stayed to live there nowadays, but in those days there were a lot of us living there. 200 metres away from the synagogue door was the Jewish school. Our street was on one of the sides of the synagogue and there were only Jewish houses there; on the other side there was another street – and there were only Jewish houses there, too. Behind the synagogue was the mezamel’s house – this was the person who was taking care of the synagogue and was guarding it. Right next to the street with the Jewish houses was the Vidin Prison. At the place where the building of the prison ended, from the houses there started the Kale – a neighborhood which could be entered through large gates called Kapii... So after crossing those two streets we would reach the Kale and go staright to the Danube… Apart from the Bulgarians and the Jews there were also Turks, Wallachians, Armenians and gypsies living in the town. There were no strictly differentiated neighborhoods. For instance in the Kale most of the houses were Jewish and near the synagogue, there was also a mosque. Some of my classmates in the junior high were Turkish girls. Some of my sister’s friends were Turkish girls, too. We were on very good terms with them. We cared for each other a lot and even nowadays we keep in touch with these girls. I remember for instance there was an old Turkish woman, who had two daughters. They used to have buffalo-cows and to supply us with buffalo milk. It was like that even during the Holocaust when such relationships could cause them trouble. In the beginning we had only Jewish neighbors. Gradually Bulgarian families would move to the Jewish neighborhood. This process started before 9th September 1944.

Most of the Jews were merchants. There were also exceptions – a sandal-maker named Bouko Farhi, a pharmacist – Izidor Lidzhi, two or three professional dressmakers whose workshops were in their houses. I remember the full name of one of them – Rebeka Moreno, but only the first name of the other – Bouka. There were a few physicians: Dr. Arie, Dr. Besan, Dr. Kokhinov-Koen. Sofka Pinkas is still alive and she’s in Sofia, God bless her. She is a second generation physician and Dr. Kohinov’s daughter-in-law. Dr Besan married one of Dr. Kokhinov’s sisters. There were also some tinsmiths. My cousins’ family name is Vagenshtain – they were tinsmiths. All the Vagenshtains in Bulgaria were tinsmiths.

I remember their shops. The shop of the sandal-maker was at the market place in Vidin and I can still see it in my mind. We were friends with the master’s daughter. The shop faced the big street which led the peasants to the market. The shop was their first step in business so to say. The owner had started a highly profitable business and had filled a market niche as we would say nowadays. There was an optical shop owned by Sara and Raymond Koen – the only opticians in Vidin. One of my cousins had a barber-and-hairstyle salon in the building of Izidor Lidzhi’s pharmacy. His name was David Moreno. Some people still continued with grain-trade. Anyway Vidin is a port and is located on the border and there were some Jews interested in grain-trade. But the big grain-trade families like my mother’s were no more. I don’t know why.

We were on good terms with our neighbors. We used to boil tomato puree or some kind of jam – from plums or apricots in our yard. Usually we would make 50 kg at least. My mother, my sister and I weren’t able to deal with all the stuff for one day by ourselves. So we would ask our neighbors for help. On the next day the brigade would move to their yard and would start cooking there, too. For instance I had never seen neighbors arguing for something or being on bad terms. I don’t have such a memory from my childhood, even those people were in one and the same business sphere, no matter what the competition theory claims. Now people would kill each other for nothing. I don’t remember such things. We were often visited by different people, but mostly relatives. For instance, on a big holiday everybody would come to our house after attending the synagogue, because we lived right in front of the temple. Mom usually couldn’t go to the synagogue, because she had to prepare everything. Grandma would be one of the first. She used to have a paid seat (one of the best). She had always insisted on that. Papa was the one who would pay for it. In most cases mom would stay at home on some holidays like Erev Sabbath. Rosh Hashanah was an exception. So when they got out of the synagogue after Erev Sabbath, for instance, they would come to our place. They wouldn’t have dinner at our place because everybody had already cooked dinner at home, but they would have a boiled egg, drink a glass of rakia 14, and wish Sabbath Shalom to each other.

I also remember the roses on Shavuot. Mom used to grow some beautiful roses in our yard. On a holiday she would get up at 8 a.m. put them in separate vases while they were still dewy and wait for the relatives to come from the synagogue. On Shavuot we used to have some rice-pudding at home at all costs. We were far from rich, and every rite was performed for decency’s sake! My parents always found ways and money to keep the ritual. A Shavuot with no milk was no good. The Chanukkah coincided with my sister’s birthday. This was a great holiday at home for me and my family. The Jewish calendar is a Moon calendar so the Chanukkah floats. But exactly on Chanukkah we used to celebrate my sister’s birthday, although we celebrated 8th December as well. The chanukkiyah would be placed on the wall next to the window and to the synagogue. And later when Bulgarians moved to the neighborhood we would light the chanukkiyah and leave it so everybody knew that it was a glorious holiday. Beka’s birthday would be celebrated on the day of the Chanukkah. I already told you mom and grandma were excellent cooks. Wonderful dinner would be cooked and some halva (flour halva) 15 would be made for the holiday. My father would always tell a legend for the holiday on the day it was celebrated. So I’m saying that without being fanatically religious we used to observe the traditions in our home. My grandmother would always light the first chanukkiyah, my father – the second one, my mother the third one. Then it would be our turn. Each day another one must be added.

On Pesach the Haggadah would be related from the very beginning to the very end at the holiday table. Although we were children we were never bored. Even more, we always eagerly waited to sing the song about the little goat. It is written in one of the Haggadah books, or we used to sing the song about the origin of the Jews. It’s in Ladino and it goes like this: 'In understanding and knowledge let us praise our beloved Lord', and then – 'The Creator was first – he is One, blessed be his name. Moshe and Aaron are two…' and so on. Those were very beautiful songs and we used to eagerly wait to sing them. A piece of ‘matzah’ would be hidden and we would wait and see who was going to find it, you know. On Purim we would always be delighted with the Mah Purim – a present of money, given to every single child. If there was a young bride in the family, her father-in-law was supposed to prepare a Mah Purim - something precious for her in order to make her happy. During the Purim celebrations in the Jewish school where I studied from 1st till 4th grade we used to wear masks. Usually we would perform a little play about the story of Tsarina [Queen] Ester [The holiday coincides with the early spring] during the celebrations at school.

I had a lot of relatives so we were able to gather together either in my house or in any other house. But it was a tradition for all my relatives and people close to the family to pay us a visit after attending the synagogue. They would have some rakia, get a flower from mum or have an egg on Pesach, either baked or preserved in the oven; this used to be a tradition for all my kith and kin. Do you know those old tin cookers? You haven’t even dreamed about those. After boiling the eggs, nobody of a Jewish origin was allowed to deal with fire on Sabbath. A neighbor would come to light the stove. In most of the cases this would be a Bulgarian woman because grandma would let neither mom nor one of us (although we were old enough) to do it. We were able to light the stove. But she wouldn’t let us. A neighbor had to come. And they did it with pleasure. They would of course have some coffee with us and hear most of the stories about the respective holiday. It was a pleasure for them to visit us. Well, we survived the Holocaust thanks to the Bulgarians. Let me tell you - Bulgarians used to come to our place with a handful of maize-flour so mom could make us some malai for breakfast. [The word malai comes from the Romanian word mamaliga – maize. Malai is a maize loaf. First the flour used for the loaf has to be put into boiling water. It has to be mixed till it turns into dough. The loaf has to be baked till it becomes yellow like gold and after that soaked in sugar syrup]. Such unbelievable poverty. Can you imagine they had to go through five or six houses to hide so they could bring it to us? In those days no one had the right to help Jews. People would come with a handful of beans so mom could feed her children. What do you think? How can one not feel indebted and forever devoted to those people?

We used to communicate a lot with Bulgarians. And Pesach was the exception. There were some Bulgarians who persuaded their children not to go to Jewish houses, and who were these people? They were the rabble. Intelligent people wouldn’t even think that Jews killed Jesus. You know, Pesach and Easter are related. Those were the rabble. Otherwise all the other people – our closest neighbors would come to congratulate us with the Pesach. They would come on Easter with the Easter cake and the eggs, too. What did this mean? It meant that the holiday itself was celebrated. And if someone asked who saved the Bulgarian Jews I would have only one answer – Bulgarians did. They can write whatever they want. And they can build as many monuments as they want because those people deserve it… For all the Bulgarian people has taken care of us... They’ve kept the property of the interned 16 for years. And there was not a single rag missing. Does that deserve gratitude? Of course, it does… Why don’t Serbians boast the same? They lost all the Jews in Serbia. The ones who managed to escape through the border from Serbia to Bulgaria, only they managed to go to Israel and die there. I have some friends amongst them and they were saved by Bulgarians as well, because they managed to enter Bulgaria. Yugoslavian (then Serbian, Serbia was not Yugoslavia yet) ones were taken to the gas chambers.

I don’t live in Vidin anymore and I haven’t been there recently. Lately I have heard from my friends from Vidin and read in a Jewish paper that all that is left from the majestic frame of the synagogue was four walls. It’s the same situation with the synagogue in Varna as well. I have a family memory about the Vidin synagogue. It was completed in the year in which my mother was born – 1893. It used to be the most beautiful one on the Balkans – designed by an architect from Vienna. I can’t say what his name was. My mother was a newly-born child. The family name of the cousins is Vagenshtain. Every Vagenshtain in Bulgaria used to be a tinsmith. My mother’s brothers (my uncles Haim and Yosif) were 12 and 14 years old. And an unexpected baby was born in their house. They said: 'We already have three sisters – Buena, Sara, and Soultana. What do we need a fourth bed-wetting girl for?' And they took the bathed and diapered baby and ran up the scaffolding of the synagogue to the roof with the intention of throwing her down from the roof. But one of the cousins of Vagenshtain worked on the scaffolding. He saw my uncles and said 'Uncle Sason’s boys are carrying something. What are they doing on these scaffoldings?' And he stood on their way. 'Where are you going? What are you carrying?', 'Well, we’re carrying Rakhinata.', 'Well, why?', 'We’re going to throw her down from the roof. We already have three sisters so what do we need a fourth one for?' This cousin grabbed the baby from their hands and took it to my grandmother and told her: 'These fellows want to get rid of their baby sister.' Afterwards, when they were grown ups if there was a way, they would carry mum on their arms. But at that time they wanted to throw her down from the roof. And that’s why my family remembers that mom was born in the year when the synagogue was completed.

The synagogue was extremely beautiful. On the sides of the entrance there were two big marble slabs. On one of them was the Torah – the Ten Commandments, on the other one there were the names of the contributors. They were written with golden letters on the pink marble. The entrance was leading into a very big and very high hall. The ceiling was domed and had golden stars on a blue background drawn all over it. It had three chandeliers which were Czech. Every year before Pesach the chandeliers were taken down and each of the lusters would be soaked in lye. They used to take us from school, it was probably in the third grade, to the synagogue before Pesach to wash and dry the parts of the chandeliers.

Down the hall there was the gallery where the seats for men were. Everybody felt it as a duty to buy nice seats in the gallery. I think I’ve already told you grandma had one. Mom also had a seat but in most of the cases she would meet guests from the synagogue to our house. The tebah [a higher place in the synagogue where the divine service takes place] was made out of ebony. This was the place for the rabbi; this was the place for wedding ceremonies, this was the place where the brit milah would be done [a ritual done on the boys on the eighth day after their birth – the circumcision connects the Jewish boy with God and with the Jewish tradition. There is a similar ritual for the girls called bat milah – days after the birth of the girl her father is obliged to go to the synagogue, to announce the birth of his daughter so that she could be given a name].

I’ve been to a lot of rituals at the synagogue. I remember my cousin Zafira’s wedding. Before marriage comes the engagement. This is a beautiful Bulgarian word – godezh (engagement) which means that the future newly-weds engage each other, before getting married. During the engagement ceremony both sides negotiate when the wedding is going to be, where the young family will live, what the dowry that the bride will bring will be, which side will give what, etc. This practically means laying the economic foundations of the new family. After that, during the period of engagement, they date like engaged people – they’ve already vowed to each other. They date like betrotheds – they have dinners, lunches with kinsmen, without kinsmen, preparing the trousseau. People gather together a week before the wedding to iron the trousseau. It’s being ironed and shown to everybody. The two families gather together in full array. Not only mothers, brothers and sisters, but some of the aunts come, too. The entire trousseau is allegedly taken out although it’s already ironed and starched. It’s ironed and rearranged one more time which is an occasion for everybody to take a look at it. If the groom’s mother decides this is not enough she declares her requirements. This happened sometimes. I’ve heard because I was a curious child. I’ve heard old women talking about a certain mother-in-law who asked for more bed sheets and said that the underwear was not enough.

After the Ashugar comes bathing the bride and then comes the day of the wedding. These two things must be done in a week. The bride would be bathed and looked at from women from both families in the bathroom. I was too young to be invited to Zafira’s (my cousin) bathing, but I was a curious child. Something kept gnawing me from the inside. And what do you think I did. Since my mother was busy with the preparations and couldn’t keep an eye on details I slightly pushed a copper ice-bucket with my foot. Ice was needed for the event. The women panicked – somebody had to bring in the ice bucket and I got into the Turkish baths. I couldn’t get in otherwise. I was nine or ten years old. Women from both families were already naked in the baths. And that was the most favorable occasion to take a look at the bride. She had to be given a bath. On getting out of the bath the women would take seats in the locker room and have treats of jam and syrup… And if it happened to be Fruitas [Tu bi-Shevat] 17 and water-melon time they would slice cold water-melons as well, but that happed in winter. There was some jam, syrup, biscuits and stuff like that. Everybody should give their best wishes on the occasion, but the idea for all those women was to take a look at the bride. Where else would they have the chance to see her if not while bathing. They would greet her, wish her good things, but in fact they examined her – a bride was to be healthy with no faults or scars on her body. Imagine a woman with a surgical incision… And she’s only twenty years old. What lurks under that incision? Those things must be known. In most of the cases people lived in the same neighborhood, they communicated, they knew what was going on, but sometimes the newly-weds were not from the same town and people wanted to know what kind of person would join their family. I don’t have the slightest idea how the man was examined. I don’t remember such a thing. But in Vidin there was a family like that. Their relatives married them before they had a sexual intercourse. And she got a sexually disabled man. Despite everything they lived together till the end of their lives. That man didn’t suffer from lack of attention. She was a beautiful woman – big and juicy – like a painting… What she usually used to say when this was mentioned was 'This was my luck.' Of course, the family didn’t have any children. Later the word of his deficiency spread in the Jewish neighborhood. But they didn’t divorce although they both had the right to file for a divorce. Only the clerical council had the right to allow a divorce in the Jewish community. In Ivrit [Hebrew] it’s called 'Home of the Law' – the members used to sit and discuss complaints of the incompatibility between husband and wife; the good and bad sides of the marriage in question and finally took a decision on whether to grant a divorce or not. But that woman, she never asked for their advice, never filed for divorce. She accepted this as her destiny; she accepted they would live without children and they passed away quite old – more than 70 years old.

Let’s go back to my cousin’s wedding. First the groom had to go and officially take the bride from her house, but that was only a mockery. Her father would take her out and the groom was accompanied by his parents. So they headed to the synagogue, lead by the bridesmen, carrying the wedding candles. You can see them on the picture. On reaching the synagogue they went to the tevah. Two people chosen from the family were present by the tevah. In modern weddings they are called best men. They were present at the vows exchange. When the rabbi announced and blessed the marriage those two people were holding the two ends of a tallit and they threw it over the newly-weds. It was the symbol that came to show that the marriage was a fact. Wedding rings were then exchanged. Then a chorus or a duet (depends on what the synagogue had) sang the Mendelssohn march and the sexton who’s behind the tevah – would break a glass for good luck and say 'Let this be a good sign' in Ivrit. That was the sign that the marriage was a fact. In those days there were no more ketubbahs – wedding contracts. The wedding took place around 1940. However, mum had a ketubbah. She got married in the same synagogue.

At the entrance (this beautiful entrance that I have already told about) there were some girls waiting with trays full of matsapan [a typical Jewish sweetmeat made from crushed almonds and sugar syrup, served on holidays] and, first of all, when the bride walked through the synagogue doorstep a bowl of candy and rice was spilled. It was a symbol of the wish their happiness to be as multiple as the rice seeds and as sweet as candy. And then these two girls gave treats of matsapan to the guests and the ones who brought flowers could present them. 1940 was quite a difficult year and on top of that no one would go to a restaurant in wintertime. Wedding lunch usually would be held at the groom’s mother’s house. So that was the custom – engagement should be held in the bride’s home, and lunch, dinner or whatever they’ve decided to give – at the groom’s mother’s home. In some cases there was no honeymoon, because things were quite mixed-up economically and politically.

The school was located near the synagogue - less than 500 m away, in the same neighborhood. My mother, who was born in Vidin, had studied in the same school. One of the ends of the schoolyard was the end of the neighborhood. The other one reached the barracks and the Baba Vida towers. The last time I saw the school building was in 1988. I don’t know if it still exists. I remember we went together with my classmate Benko Koen. We met in front of the school. That’s how the small things are. They bring so many memories and cause such excitement. The school was a very old two-storey building. We started learning Ivrit in the 1st grade. We had a female teacher in the Bulgarian subjects – a Jew – a siser of Benko Koen’s mother. Her name was Sara Koen but our first teacher was Ernesta Benyozef. Her son ended his days in Sofia as well but his wife was Bulgarian. So our teacher Ernesta taught us some 1st grade Bulgarian subjects such as reading, writing and algebra. Those days no other arithmetic but addition, subtraction and multiplication would be learned in primary school. Arithmetic was a junior high school subject.

The building was a two-storey one and classes were both for boys and girls. There were nine of us in my class whereas my sister’s class consisted of seven students. She started three years after me. She finished only the second grade and I finished the fourth grade. We used to study the Torah as well as Bulgarian subjects and Ivrit but those weren’t religion lessons. You have no idea how bad I feel because I lost my Torah and Ivrit textbooks during all my migrations. The Ivrit textbook was a piece of art. That’s right, it was an artistic ABC book. It started with the Ivrit alphabet and the first words: mom, dad, grandma, grandpa. We used to learn all of that. In the beginning of studying Ivrit we would mark vowels with dashes and dots. Later when we learned the language well we would stop using dots and dashes for the vowels and we would write only consonants. Sometimes there’s a mark for a vowel which has to be turned into a sound. Without the dots below reading turned out to be a puzzle of connected words. This helps reading.

We had also a Torah textbook. It would be open lengthwise from right to left. On the first page there was a picture of Abraham with the donkey. Believe me, it’s before my eyes. I’m sorry I didn’t keep it. I’m pretty sure this made me Jewish as well as learning manners at home. The first page is Abraham with the donkey and the staff. And the Torah goes like this: 'Let it be the First day when God created the World for seven days…' etc. It was written what He created in each one of the days and it was graphically illustrated. We would get to the Jewish generations; we would get to The Flood and Noah’s Ark, to the legend for the Tower of Babel etc. All of that we would learn from that Torah textbook. We had a teacher in Ivrit who we used to call Adoni [Mr.] Haim. Our teacher in Torah was Adonim Bito. He had arrived in Vidin from another town, but I can’t say which one. Our textbooks would be at home. Most likely our parents bought them from somewhere. I can’t say where, because they were not for sale in public bookshops. I think so, because we were only few children and textbooks were probably ordered all at once for the whole class. My mother knew how to read and write in Ladino as she studied Ladino in the Jewish school in Vidin. Papa knew how to read and write in Ivrit (he finished Jewish school and junior high school in Sofia). There he learned some Ivrit. He would help us if we had any difficulties. So that’s why even nowadays I say that traditions and Jewish school turned me into a Jewish woman with Jewish consciousness. All I’ve been through nowadays I’ve been through in a different way from other people. That’s true in any meaning. I even think our perceptions are a bit different. In this connection I would like to cite by memory a poem by Gracia Albuhaire which says that a mother would teach her daughter that whatever she did she might not forget she’s Jewish. I’ll tell you what I mean. I have a lot of Bulgarian friends. They’ve always told me as we speak: 'Vicky, I don’t find you different.' That’s where I’ll answer: 'The fact that you expect to find me different has already made the difference.' We have different manners. I wouldn’t say manners are a matter of pedagogy. Manners could be acquired even through the skin. I’ve already said that. Even when grandma would hand me a cup I would feel love. And when I left the family, where I had been surrounded with so much love, adjustment to other people, to people I didn’t know, would be so hard for me. They would never give me that much love. And why should they. All this reflects in life. I know that every parent loves his or her children. But if a baby was born on the Jewish street four houses away from ours, everybody would be happy. That’s because everybody lived in the same neighborhood and everybody was close to each other. Everybody would be expecting the brit milah, the celebrations and the joy, because another Jew was born. And people would think what present to give to the family and how the celebration would be held. They would feel involved. The community would feel involved. Those were the excitements of a small community of people.

In Vidin communities had different types of organizations. The organization of women – WIZO 18 had charity designations. That’s why only rich women were members and my mother wasn’t. Besides she didn’t have the time for this type of activities. She wouldn’t leave the store so she could go to rich people’s houses to collect donations. My father wasn’t a member of the board of the Jewish Municipality either. But he had always given Tzedakah – charity for the poor. The money-box for Tzedakah was placed in the synagogue. In this connection there is a Jewish proverb which I remember 'Rich ones should give to poor ones. Poor ones should give to poorer ones. The poorest ones should collect their crumbs and feed them to the birds.' My father was quite a work-worn person and had no time for organized social life. After the workday ended he would be busy dealing with bills and calculations.

We weren’t exactly middle-class people. We were lower-middle-class people. We were not poor either. I’ve never eaten in a public soup-kitchen although there was one for the poor in Vidin. There was an announced poverty level. There was also an ethical level which would stop a parent from announcing his child as a poor one no matter where. There was some pride and people knew it would cause economic constraints in their families, so it wasn’t that simple to go and tell someone to write down your child was poor. My sister and I had never been registered in a social refectory for poor people or in such a school although we were not rich.

There used to be Maccabi 19. I was a member of Hashomer Hatzair 20. My father had been a communist since 1918. In 1978 people from the communist party in Varna came to the neighborhood to honor him as one of the oldest members of the party. His activities in the party had never been discussed at home in the presence of the children for safety reasons, but I’d always known that he used to go to meetings. During the Holocaust he would give clothes and food to partisans and political prisoners. He had been arrested twice. I understood well that he was going to bring food, because of the big amounts of food that were being cooked and the food would be cooked inside the house instead of in the yard although it was summer because it had to be done in secret. I remember my grandmother would bake peppers inside the house and this was a type of activity normally done in the yard. Mom knew about his activities. Actually it has always been impossible to hide something from her. Her senses reached everywhere. She showed him understanding and empathy in what he was doing.

I inherited my love for reading from my father. I remember in summer we would get together with the neighbors to do handiwork. We would sit on some tiny chairs and knit or embroider and my father would read us Emil Zola, Mayne Reid, Jules Verne etc. There was no way for me to come from a family with such Jewish consciousness and not get into Hashomer Hatzair which was the most leftist organization. I couldn’t even say that anyone had ever told me my place was there. I think that the environment made me become a member of Hashomer Hatzair. But this was after 9th September – from 1944 till 1948. I was too young before 9th.

And so we used to live well on the Jewish street before the war started in 1941, the flood in 1942 and the outburst of scarlet fever in 1943. In 1942 the Danube froze over, because it was very cold. This closed the German floatable route to the Eastern front. They started bombing the bottleneck at Zhelezni Vrata to open it. The ice dollops started floating down the stream and made specific noises. We could hear them at night and mom said she had been through a lot of years with the Danube frozen, but noises like these meant that something unusual was going on. The next morning we heard there was some heaping of ice dollops at the village of Archar, which is a little after Vidin. There is another bottleneck there. This was the reason for the flood. On the night of 2nd March mom took us to a tailor to take our coats. On our way back some people met us and told us the Danube was overflowing. We were walking down the streets and water was coming after us. Our neighborhood didn’t get flooded because it was on the highest place. When the water receded we had to be evacuated because there was a danger of epidemics and we went to Sofia to my mother’s nephew Rebeka Beraha. We stayed there for a month. Despite all the measures there was an outburst of scarlet fever in Vidin after the flood. My sister and I were in the Jewish school. I was in 4th grade and she was in 2nd grade. I had started school a year before.

During fascism – in 1941 all the Jewish schools were closed. In 1942 I started studying in a Bulgarian junior high school. The big flood in Vidin from 1942 took place after my first year of my junior high education. The epidemics of scarlet fever occurred after that. It broke out all over Vidin. So school was closed firstly because of the flood, secondly because of the outburst, thirdly when the anti-Jewish laws [Law for the Protection of the Nation] 21 became effective and we no longer had the right to go to school. So I lost the third year in junior high. As a matter of fact until that moment I had never felt I was different. I felt the difference when we had to put on the yellow stars 22 during the Holocaust. This was in the beginning of 1943.

My father was too old to go to a labor camp 23, but they closed his shop. So not only a Jew wouldn’t have the right to work in his store, but on top of that they would take all the goods on stock, having before that visited the shop and put an inscription 'Jewish shop' on the store. Those were the moments when you would definitely feel different. We were deprived of the means to earn a living.

So they took the goods but my parents found a Bulgarian carter who was a friend of theirs. They loaded up as much stuff as they could hide in his cart and brought it home. In those years there were no plastic bags so they put the stuff in kegs and buried some in the ground… some went under the mattresses… others were put at the bottom of the wardrobes where a second board had been placed. This way it couldn’t be seen. Some people would come to check whether any stuff had been hidden. My mother would work during the night so they couldn’t see her, because she was not allowed to work. She would make men’s shirts and pants from unbleached calico and sheeting and in this way she earned some money. The only paint on sale in the shops was yellow. They would paint the shirts and pants yellow in the morning so they could sell them to the peasants. Peasants didn’t want to wear white. They would get to our house through the tiny doors leading to our neighbors’ yard, buy some of the stuff, made by my mother and bring back some provisions.

In the summer of 1943 the big family of aunt Soultana Koen and her husband Marko arrived after being interned from Sofia. They had four children – Adolf, Sason, Rebeka and Soloucha. Adolf arrived with his Bulgarian wife – Tsvetanka. Soloucha was alone and Rebeka brought her husband Albert Koen and her two children – Izi and Marsel. They all moved to our house. As if that wasn’t enough one fine day my mother met a woman with two children on her way back from the post-office. Her name was Redzhina Sidi. The woman asked my mother about the way to the Jewish school in the Jewish neighborhood. My mother showed some interest in the reason why this woman was asking about the Jewish school. She understood they were interned and would be accommodated in the Jewish school, because there was no room left in the private homes. When mom understood that the woman was a widow with two children she invited her home. And imagine how this house where the five of us lived accommodated all of the people listed above. We would also have to share the provisions which we were getting from the peasants with everybody living at home.

The tragedy with the people interned to Vidin was probably a tragedy for all the Jews and the situation was very hard. There was too little space. Things got a little bit more organized after some time anyway. We had only one lavatory – in the yard. So we, the elder ones, started to get up at dawn. Afterwards one by one we all could go to the privy. Some night-pots were put in the corners for the little children. In the entrance-hall where we cooked we would put a brazier with more charcoal and every one of us would warm up some water in his own pot or cup before going to the bathroom to freshen up. Taking a bath was quite a story, because going to the Turkish baths was not that simple. That’s how it was – 'The Jewish hour' would come. But all of this is another story.

Let me tell you how we shared the living space. My father, my mother and her sister with her husband shared my mother’s bedroom. My parents weren’t that old. Probably they needed some privacy, but that’s how it was. One of my cousin’s children slept on the couch in front of my mother’s beds. The widow Redzhina, her two boys, my cousin’s older son and one of my aunt’s sons shared the hall. There wasn’t enough space in this big room for her other son so he had to sleep on a big wooden bench in the entrance-hall. A mobile board was added to the bench. It would be removed during the day but it used to make the bench wider during night. A mattress would be laid on it so my cousin could sleep on it. My cousin Rebeka slept with her husband in grandma’s room. My sister and I shared our room with granny. I don’t know what to say, all of us managed to live together.

There wasn’t enough food for everybody. The time we could spend out of the house was restricted. You would not to be allowed to be out on the street at nine in the morning. We had some coupons for bread, but what could we use them for when we couldn’t reach the bakery. And what kind of bread we would eat. It had two crusts as dark-brown as this blouse. It was round and heavy with something like mud-pulp in the middle. And what would my mother do. She was really afraid not to make us ill. So she would take the two crusts – one for me and one for my sister, and split them for three meals. And then she would knead and roll the mud-pulp from the inside into some corn-flour. This she would cover with some newspaper and put into the oven. It couldn’t be baked, it was mud and it could only dry out. After that she would share it between grandma, father and herself. If a neighbor would bring some white flour she would make something for the children. And we would celebrate if somebody brought a handful of walnuts. They’re quite a nutritious kind of food. The amount was enough for dinner. When mom pounded them up they quenched our hunger. We would have two stoves burning during winter. One would be the cooker in the so called hall. The other one would be in grandma’s room.

When spring came each family used to take out a saucepan and a brazier in the yard. Do you know what are braziers made out of an old greased saucepan and three bolts, heated with some live coals or plain charcoal? Everybody from the community used to have one and if a child smelled your delicious cooking you would definitely let him have some. Even nowadays I wonder how came no conflicts occurred under those circumstances and we separated with love. I can’t say how this was possible. There was another drama in our home: until the moment when people from Sofia moved to our house none of us had ever heard about bed-bugs. These families brought some luggage including some blankets, mattresses and some plank-beds and I don’t know what. So the entire house got full of bugs thanks to those old things. The house was old and all of the eaves, floors and sashes were wooden. Everything got full of bugs. Can you imagine when they were gone? You won’t believe it if I told you – in 1945 when the DDT appeared.

The war with the bugs was a real epopee. This used to be Egyptian labor because the only things that could make the bugs go away were fire and petroleum. We would take out everything. Our beds were with metal bed-springs and panels. We used to make petroleum-soaked pieces of wick and put them into the empty spaces of those beds and strings. We would set them on fire afterwards so the bugs were forced out. After they burned and burned we would spread some petroleum on the edges. It stank but you would be okay with it, because nothing would be biting. We had some rashes with pimples as big as lentils grains. We were just children and we couldn’t fall asleep. Despite this horrible menace we didn’t get into a conflict. That’s how Jewish people used to suffer. That’s why I’m saying I don’t have the right either to forget it or to stop telling the story about it while I’m alive. That was the suffering of the Jews. It was a great suffering, but it is over. The victims we gave were the political prisoners – no one else.

My father was a communist. One day he headed through the wickets to a meeting-place to bring some clothes and bed-sheets. They were collecting some to use them as bandages. They had found a wounded partisan and he needed some clothes and bandages. Fortunately, they saw only the back of the man who went out with the stuff, but they caught my father anyway: 'Why were you talking to a Bulgarian in the evening? Come with us.' The police-station was downtown, some tough thrashing followed. Well, my father had been stammering since childhood anyway. Policemen couldn’t know he did. So he could barely talk. And because they couldn’t understand what he was saying they let him go. He only got some thrashing. He didn’t go to court and he didn’t go to jail. I’ve already told you the prison was in the neighborhood.

The adults used to talk about deportation and concentration camps, but all of that used to pass somehow around me, because I was young. Later on I realized the entire horror that was ahead of us.

The 9th September 1944 came. The Soviet army entered from Dobrich in the first days. They remained in Vidin for about a week after 9th September. My sister and I heard some big noise coming from the prison around noon, but there was no one to tell us what was going on. We were at home. In those days everybody used to wear pattens. There were no shoes – only pattens. So we put on our pattens and went to the prison at the moment when political prisons were being released. Their relatives had heard they were being released and went to meet them forming a line. People started singing songs. I can’t remember the songs, but one of them was in Russian. The line headed to the square for a rally. They took over the police-station, which, I told you, was on the square. We the children, fools that we were, followed the line of people to the square. They took the police chief out and different people started making speeches. We stayed there till 9 p.m. it was dark then and we went home. In the meantime mom had gone mad, because the last ones who saw us told her we went to the prison – two little girls. They already knew there was a rally on the square. How could they know we would be there wearing our pattens on our feet. Oh, boy, what happened when we got home? While I’m alive I will always remember what a spanking I got from my mother. She was beating mostly me, because I was the older one and I was responsible for Beka. She thought I was supposed to keep that in mind and not go there. So 9th September was the last time I got beaten.

9th September came – the war ended. 9th May came, but poverty didn’t end – postwar years. What do you think we used to wear for sandals? You would cut a 1.5 cm thick board into the shape of your foot. This board would be covered with leather. After the board was covered with leather you would put a leather strap on it. The strap would have been previously cut to be bendable. Each board would get a nail and there would be your sandal. That’s good, but the problem was that the wood was not good enough to hold the nails. So whenever I got to the end of a street the nails used to start giving me a stabbing pain. My feet aren’t big now, and in those days they were tiny. So I used to stop, bang the nails back with a rock or something and then continue my way to the high school. That’s good, but what about the rainy weather and all the mud. I didn’t have shoes and there was no place you could buy any. So, I used to put on a pair of old galoshes belonging to my mother. But a galosh has no collar – nothing. Snow easily comes in. You have to put them on with a pair of bootees on your feet. My regular trick was to stay in school with my wet feet in those galoshes. And only when I got home I would take them off. And during all that time we used to say 'We survived anyway.' That’s why I’m telling you there is a dividing line in my life – before and after the Holocaust.

My father’s store was taken away. [On 27th December 1947 in State Gazette was promulgated the Act for the Nationalization of the Industrial and Mining Enterprises according to which the state had to start the liquidation of the private sector. The next step was the promulgation of the Act for the Nationalization of the Banks again in December 1947. In the following year was accepted the Act for the Nationalization of the big, covered, urban real estate – with these acts started the establishment of socialist economics]. We had no financial funds. We had some stuff left from the hidden reserve. My parents adjusted the pram of their grown children and placed a door on it crosswise. So they went to the market with the pram with what was left from the shop. Besides the yarn and the textiles there were also some beads, some village ear-rings, some combs and sewing needles. After that they placed the stuff from the pram on the board as on a street-stall and started selling. In those postwar days people didn’t have anything. God forbid you learn what poverty is. I don’t wish you that. There was nothing. There was no sewing thread, for instance, but since no one had any money no one could buy a whole pack, if there was some for sale. There was enough money to buy a couple of needles only. We used to stick them two by two on a piece of cardboard. We used to unwind big skeins of thread and wind some on smaller skeins, so people could sew a button. Three or four years we lived thanks to that pram.

In the meantime trade developed. Obviously other people had also hidden some things. My father started going from Vidin to Sofia with a small briefcase for some stuff, because what we had hidden we sold for about a month. So the pram and its door used to feed us for four years this way.

After that came some years of prosperity. A carpenter told us he could make a covered stall for us and he made one. My parents placed it on the market. They were finally in the lee. And this was prosperity – there was a cover, there was a roof over their heads. Snow was no longer on them. They brought up me and my sister with that.

After 9th September I went directly to high school. I don’t even want to remember how I got to draw level with my Bulgarian classmates. There were some really great people in the school. What did my teacher in Literature – Roza Popova and my teacher in Mathematics – Sevastitsa, whose family name I don’t remember - owe me? They both used to stay with me after classes only to help me catch up with my classmates. No one paid them extra. No one made them do so. Boys and girls used to be in separate high schools – a boys’ school and a girls’ school. There were thirty children in the class and six or seven out of them were Jewish. This was after 9th September. We all had caught up with our friends by the end of the first term. Our teachers had the good will to help us achieve that. If they had left us alone we wouldn’t have reached the same level as we did with them. That’s why I always say – I’ve had big luck twice in my life – I got lucky with parents and with teachers from the beginning to the end. I was lucky with the teachers even I started studying in the Nurse School.

As I told you, from 1944 till 1948 I was in Hashomer Hatzair. It was horrible. There were no uniforms. We used to be twelve or fifteen children and we gathered together in the Jewish school. We used to study Ivrit. The goal of Hashomer Hatzair was to prepare for the life in Israel. The year was 1948.

After finishing high school in 1948 I went to Sofia to study in the Nurse School. I missed the admittance exams, but I went with my father to meet Racho Angelov – the first Minister of Health. He gave my father a piece of advice: 'There are two profiles – for obstetricians and for nurses, but the obstetricians are sent to villages immediately after they graduate.' He looked at me. I weighed only 40 kg. He continued: 'Your child is not for a village. You must get her to the Nurse School if you want her to work in the city.' In those days people were assigned which means that they were ordered by the authorities to settle down and start work in a place the authorities had chosen. So I became a student in the Nurse School with the Red Cross 24. There I was on a state allowance along Red Cross lines. In other words I was on board and lodging. The place where today Pirogov Hospital is was the Hospital of the Red Cross I had a place to live in. Scraping a living was not a problem. It was the time of coupons. They used to take good care of us in the boarding-house, because of the support from the Red Cross. In other hostels there was tuberculosis. It was the years after the war and there was a coupon system. For instance, I had never eaten leeks with rice, but in those days we used to have such a meal in the free refectory. I used to have some bread with some salt and the leeks I used to give my food to the other girls. I couldn’t eat it. The second school for nurses was on the other side of the Russian Monument. Now it’s the hospital of the Ministry of Interior.

After graduation I was assigned to the Red Cross Hospital. It’s in the yard of the Pirogov Hospital. There was a three-storey building in there. If you were on tram number 5 you could see the operation rooms in the hospital. I had worked there for four complete years when suddenly, in the fifth year, some children from Korea arrived for training. This was during the Korea War. For those new needs a child-section was opened in the hospital. I started working there. I married my husband and came here – to Varna.

I couldn’t visit the Jewish Home during my study in Sofia, because I was in a boarding-house. After starting work I didn’t have much spare time. I used to take some night shifts and I could go to the Jewish Home only once in a while for a discussion or a concert. I used to go with my friend Souzi Vidas.

In 1948 all my relatives moved to Israel 25. My father insisted on our remaining in Bulgaria. He was a real communist and thought he would participate in building the communist system. He thought that we, his children, were going to live in socialism. After 9th September I was a member of Hashomer Hatzair and my sister – of BCP 26, but I can’t say exactly since when.

My sister also became a student in Sofia in 1950. She used to live in lodgings while I was living in the boarding-house. Her place was on the corner of Georgi Kirkov St. and Bratya Miladinovi St. this was quite close to the Zhenski Pazar [Women’s Market]. Tram number 4 used to stop exactly opposite her place. In those days SofZhilFond [A shortened version of Sofia Housing Fund – a department in Sofia Municipality whose aim was to operate with the housing fund – the vacant flats and houses. After the nationalization of the covered urban real estate Sofzhilfond was responsible for accommodating the citizens of Sofia in different places for living. Later on, after 1960, the department started the building of new flats.] used to give rooms for rent. There were four more rooms on the floor where my sister lived. She lived in one of them. The chief of the post office at that time Albert Koen lived in another one. The daughter of aunt Sarina and uncle Leon lived in the third one with her Bulgarian husband. Three students shared the fourth one. I used to visit my sister quite often.

Albert Koen’s family were friends with my husband’s aunt. They had seen me coming to visit my sister and they knew I was working in Pirogov Hospital. They liked me for their nephew and decided I was a good match for him. He was an officer in the Navy in Varna. They arranged me a date with him in the house where my sister lived. I had to take a night shift in the hospital the same night. I had to wash all the tools after the shift. I set up palette and opened all the windows for ventilation because it was March. I poured some spirits on the palette and scratched a match. At the same moment the door to the hall opened. There was a draught, the fire broke into flames and caught half of my blouse and my hair. So I lost some hair, my eyelashes and my eyebrows. Everything was singed. I went to meet my future husband like that. Despite the accident I had given a promise. The date was at 10 p.m.

My sister used to be a beauty too. My matchmakers (if I have to be more specific – Albert Koen’s wife Berta) decided to hide her. She asked her not to show up while we were on our first date. 'We settled this job for your sister. When you become of age we’ll think of you as well.' She was a second year student at that time. When I understood I got angry and decided they shouldn’t hide my sister. I remember the only things we had on the table on our first date were some pounded up walnuts and some peanuts. On the table we were with Albert and Berta Koen, my husband’s uncle and aunt – Yona and Bucha Adzhiman, Yosif Almalekh (who they were dating me with) and a friend of his named Eliezer Moskovich. We were drinking lemonade. I was irritated because they had hidden my sister and without rhyme or reason I said 'I have a younger sister. I’m going to introduce her to you.' When I turned my back to call my sister my future husband told his friend 'What a nice ass.' I felt insulted. I don’t think his first comment about me should have been that. He was such an earthly and calm person.

We met on 10th March – my birthday in 1955. On 29th April we got engaged in Sofia in the presence of relatives of his and mine. Our wedding was in Varna – my husband’s home town. We were married only before the registrar with no ketubbah, no Ashugar and no Ravni. In those days my parents used to live in Vidin. They came a day before and spent the night at their in-laws’ apartment. The same night my mother-in-law made a grand scandal, a real hell for me, for reasons I don’t want to relate now. That day was really indicative as from then on our living together passed under the banner of scandal. This continued for 23 years - this was the time during which my husband, my son and I lived together with my parents-in-law. It ended when my husband and I could afford a house of our own and started living separately due to my firm insistence.

I got married on 29th April and on 1st February I gave birth to my son Sami – Samuil Yosif Almalekh. At the time when I was pregnant it wasn’t possible to see the sex of my future baby. I couldn’t imagine giving a birth to a girl and naming it after my mother-in-law. I had warned my husband: 'We have had a lot of wars in the family, but if you start a war about the fact that I won’t name my future child after your mother – this will be the last war.' Thank Goodness it was a boy. It was clear that he would be named after my father-in-law and I didn’t mind. We had to do his brit on the eighth day. It could be done only in Sofia in those days. My mother-in-law raised hell again. She thought it wasn’t necessary to do the brit: 'Who does a brit nowadays? Where are we going to find money to call a mohel from Sofia?' Then I told her: 'This child is your first grandson and has your husband’s name. You accepted me as a Jewish woman in this house. I came to you to find a Jewish family. I took a circumcised Jewish man for a husband. How much money have you made for your life? It’s less than 20 stotinkas [0.2 leva]. So you will not talk about money. Your son who has a son and has become a father has his responsibilities. He will find a way.'

We didn’t do the brit on the eighth day, because the baby got ill. I also left the maternity hospital with a lot of complications. We did it on the thirthieth day. It was performed in our home in the presence of a mohel from Sofia, whose name I can’t remember. He arrived in the morning on the day of the brit and left in the afternoon, because otherwise he had to spend the night at home and there was no space. They counted on me as a nurse to take care of the baby’s wound. David Levi and his wife Dora (a professional obstetrician, who used to look after me through the entire period of pregnancy besides the consultations) became a sandak and a sandaka. A sandak is a man chosen by the family who has to hold the baby during his circumcision. A sandaka is his wife. She has to take the baby from the mother’s arms, to take him to the place of the circumcision and deliver him to the arms of the mohel who accomplishes the act of circumcision. It’s the act of uniting with God. After the brit the sandaka takes the baby once again and delivers him in his mother’s arms. My father-in-law and my mother-in-law were present at the brit as well. My father-in-law announced the baby’s name to the mohel. They had placed some gauze with some cotton soaked in wine in the baby’s mouth so he couldn’t feel pain during the circumcision. I had run away to the end of a large balcony at the end of that floor so I wouldn’t listen to the baby’s cry. It was March and spring was coming. Seagulls had started showing up. Some were flying and croaking above the balcony and I felt like that was the baby’s cry. This twenty-minute period felt like it’s never-ending. I don’t know how I didn’t go berserk. After that they called me when they removed the wine from his mouth. I was almost unconscious. I took the baby to my breast immediately and he threw up his mother’s milk. I didn’t take into consideration he was full of wine. I should have left him throw up the wine first.

When I moved to my husband’s family there was already a big change in celebrating Jewish holidays. My mother-in-law used to go to Bet Am 27 for the holidays, but I think she was too lazy to celebrate at home. They had their excuse – they were communists. There was no place where you could buy kosher meat any more. My mother-in-law used to bring and eat pork. My parents never put pork in their mouths.

My husband Yosif Samuil Almalekh was born in Varna in 1923. He was a marine officer – chief commander in politics (CCP). In December of 1955 he suffered the Geneva dismissal – the first dismissal in the army after 9th September. He was out of work and got hired as a manager of two of the hotels in the Druzhba resort [Some big and famous sea resorts built at that time – Drouzhba, Albena, Golden Sands, Varna, Sunny Beach]. He worked there for two years and a half. When Sami was a year and a half old – in other words the summer of 1957 – they set him up. They accused him of obstinately going to dinner with the ambassadors of Switzerland and Israel, who were guests at the hotel. In a week he was fired from Balkantourist [a state business enterprise established in 1948 with the main task to organize the international tourism in Bulgaria and the trips of Bulgarian citizens abroad] and expelled from the [communist] party. He was unemployed for thirteen months. At that time I hadn’t started working either. I was looking after my child. My husband didn’t earn anything because he was chased away, fired and expelled from work. I don’t know what to tell you – we went through a difficult period. At one point an acquaintance of my old father-in-law’s from the harbour found him a job in the cereals warehouses, which were across from the harbour. That’s how he started dealing with accounting as an economist. He changed a few places afterwards. He worked as an economist till the end of his length of service.

My husband was earthly, calm and funny by nature. He never strained for anything in this world. So God has never sent him to a straining job and always sent straining jobs to me. In this world I’ve never got a 20-stotinki bun without working hard for it, but I’ll go to Kingdom-come with my debts paid, without a single one left unpaid.

On 31st November 1957 I started working in the Workers’ Hospital in Varna, where I retired in 1986. For my forty-year length of service I have never been felt any anti-Semitic moods. Only once a hospital attendant, who was not a Bulgarian lady, but a Serbian one, called me ‘chifutka’ 28. She had come with the Yugoslavian children between 1944 and 1950. So she came with those Yugoslavian children, got married and stayed. So this woman, who everybody used to call Mara-the-Serbian, called me ‘chifutka’. At that time the chief doctor of the hospital that I worked in was a Jew. His name was Hari Kaponov. I went to see him and I told him. He promised he was going to call her but he changed my opinion by saying: 'Nurse Almalekh, it is beneath your dignity to waste your time on Mara-the-Serbian.'

When Sami reached the age of six months my sister also came to Varna after graduating in chemistry. She started work in the factory in Devnya. At first she was on probation, but they liked her a lot and hired her on a permanent contract. She was accommodated in a hostel in Devnya. She used to visit us often in Varna. When she decided she spontaneously jumped on the train – we would eat together, she would see the child, we would talk and then she would go back to Devnya. Later she hired an attic room here in Varna. There was a common wash-room with a common lavatory. There was no bathroom. When Sami turned six the winter was very bad. We were afraid how our parents were going to live through it. My sister sheltered them in that small room. So that’s how three people used to live in those poor conditions for three years until my sister got a house from the factory. The house in Vidin had been left empty for two years until they decided they could no longer live there. They sold it in 1962 and in 1963 they settled down in Varna. My mother died in 1977 and my father – in 1979. They were buried according to the seven-day Jewish ritual, despite the fact there wasn’t a rabbi. The prayer must be read by the closest male inheritor. That turned out to be my son. All of them were buried in white bed-sheets in covered coffins. That’s how we buried my sister in 1992 and my husband in 2000, too. That’s how my father-in-law was buried in 1976 and my mother-in-law in 1988. In December 1977 my husband, Sami and I moved to a house of our own.

I used to have some relatives in Israel. My first real contacts with them started in 1961. Till that moment we couldn’t write letters, because my husband was an officer and our correspondence was always checked. In 1965 was the first time when I went to Israel despite the fact I wasn’t keen on going. They refused to give a permission to my husband three times, because he was an ex-officer. One day he boiled over. He was quite a patient person but when things went beyond all tolerable boundaries he would fall into a fit of rage. He went to the militia and said 'All right you won’t let me go. Will you let my wife and my child to?', 'We will.' He immediately wrote an application without thinking how much money we have and, on top of that, some time passed before his coming home and he forgot to tell us.

After some time there came a message saying that Sami and I were permitted to go. At that time my son was nine years old. I didn’t want to go without my sister. She also managed to get the necessary papers and we went on a ship after some very short preparations. At the moment the ship was out of Galata [a suburb of Varna by the sea] we all got seasick. Only my sister could go to bring some water. So until reaching the harbor in Haifa we hadn’t got out of the cots. It was the same and even worse on our way back. It was so bad that my husband had to get on the ship to take Sami out in his arms. He was so seasick he couldn’t get out of the ship. In Israel they told us that a fellow-student of my sister’s went to see her relatives in Israel and stayed there, because she didn’t want to go through the seasick horror once more. I met all of my relatives. I hadn’t seen them for seventeen years. They were very happy. There was a cousin of mine living in a kibbutz –Vida Pinkas and I spent ten days with her, Sami and her child. We were surrounded with so much care. They would organize walks and trips. They would choose where to take us to – to places with no risks. We had a great time, but on the very first day I said I couldn’t live there. I think it is fair for the country of Israel to exist. This is what justice is. Why should Bulgaria and Turkey and all the other states have their own countries? Besides it’s located on the same land that was the land of origin of the Jews, but I couldn’t live there. Both my husband and I have been to Israel four times, not always together. My sister went there only once. That country is very different from what I am used to. I realized that if I stayed there I was going to be uneducated. I knew how to talk in Ivrit, but a nurse must be educated enough to help with the doctor’s round and to write some papers. I had forgotten now to write. I liked it there. I liked their democracy. That terror reached us as well. In 1982 during my second visit everybody felt indebted to vaunt with what alarm-system he had or what protecting grille there was on the floor. It would be the first thing which they showed me. The second thing – some different insurance companies had appeared. They used to make people take out insurances by force. If you refused to insure the same night you would have your shop or your apartment on fire. We all are interested in such things but in our home with our roof above us.

So when in 1990, on New Year’s Eve, my son rushed to go and live in Israel I wrote him a letter and I left it in the outside pocket of one of his bags: 'You should always keep in mind that our street door will always have a green light. You can always enter, come back and stay.' And I left him keys for home in the pocket. Let him always keep in mind that he can always come back. By the law as a new emigrant he had the right to get six-month training in Ulpan provided by the country. After that he was to get a job. Yes, but there were jobs in construction only in theory. When they said a construction technician they thought that he should go to the construction site, grab the wheel-barrow and start building. They didn’t need managers in technology. I don’t know what the situation now is but at that time those highly-eduacted men replaced their seasonal Arab workers. He left home in December and on the next 1st March I was already there. I stayed in March and April. I just stood there these two months and observed. At this time my son told me how many jobs he had changed and all of them were the least prestigious possible. At the end of the aliyah they hired him as a head-technician and he worked for six months, but he didn’t get a worker to pound the border pegs and he had to do it himself. The night after this work-day his knee was already full of water, because he had a disease. He took three days off to get some injections so he could walk. On the fourth day he showed up at work and they told him: 'Go home! We don’t need any sick people!'

After my sister’s death in 1992 I lost 17 kilos. My hands started shaking. I used to have that crazy insomnia, because a looked after her till her last breath. After her death I was driven to a sanatorium and burglars broke into her house and took whatever they could. Before it was a year after my sister’s death some relatives of mine went back to Israel. They were here for the summer. They told my son about my condition. He came back to Bulgaria. He found a pile of medications on the table and he understood this was not going to work like that. He spent one more year in Israel so he could repay the subsidies he had been given at the beginning and he came back to Bulgaria. He had worked only for ten months of his three years’ stay there. Now Sami works for a construction company in Varna. We live together because my age doesn’t allow us to keep two apartments and two households.

I am a leftist. In my eyes capitalism is a curse for humanity. On 10th November 1989 29 I was on vacation in Hisar [resort] with some friends from Varna. We heard on the radio that Todor Zhivkov 30 was ousted. I said my supposition in front of everybody that that probably was our last time together in Hisar. No one believed me then but that’s what really happened. After 10th November my life changed completely. We got poor. I retired in 1986 after forty years of service and my pension was 141.90 BGN [around 70 EUR]. Today my pension with the widow-extra is 135.30 BGN. For twenty years I have never reached my first pension at these standards. No one can live like that. I’m pretty sure that (God forbid) such a regime should definitely lead to revolutionary changes; if these changes should be called European Union it is going to be a change. This can’t continue for too long. There is no way.

I keep in touch with the Jewish community; I am a member of Shalom 31 and WIZO. I go to the Jewish Home, which I really think of as my second home – Home of the people. Our community is small, but it’s full of life. This revival started about ten years ago. The point is that the population is going low. The ones who gather together are old people. The middle-aged generation (30 to 50 years olds) make separate meetings, because their interests are different from ours. All of them are members of most of the organizations. I got 500 German marks once and after that – 1000 dollars as compensations.

I think that the prime cause for all of the bad luck in life both for me and my family was fascism. It turned the lives of all the Jews upside-down. You can say it brought the condition for the assimilation. If fascism didn’t pass through our beautiful Bulgaria, which gave us a second life, would the Jews move from Bulgaria to Israel? None of those fifty thousand people that left could forget what happened. A lot of people stayed here. The social structure changed. All the consequences for mixed marriages and for the lack of such ones came from there, too. The years of forgotten traditions came. There is a sharp division – crucial time. I imagine it as, you know what happens, when a flood ends and after the water goes out… In my opinion, in my mind, all the negative things are due to fascism. Just think about it. In my life for 75 years there has been one war, two revolutions, fascism and the horror of it. Isn’t that too much for a single human life? It is impossible to be unaffected. And it’s not only about me, but about the entire Jewish community. It’s fixed in the subconscious and it can’t be deleted.

Translated by Dimka Stoeva

Glossary:

Albert Tsessarskiy
Russia
Moscow
Interviewer: Svetlana Bogdanova
Date of Interview: June 2005

Albert Tsessarskiy is a tall, handsome man.

He is a hospitable, amiable and charming host. Everybody who has ever talked to him cannot help noticing his charms. He agreed to be interviewed in spite of being really busy. He holds a lot of lectures on the recollections about war times.

He is writing a story now. He is an interesting and captivating story-teller. He is modest. He can tell about the feats of his friends for hours, but he would briefly mention his accomplishments.

He lives with his wife in a 3-room apartment of a brick house constructed in the 1970s in one of the central Moscow districts. There are a lot of books in the apartment: modern and classic fiction.

There is a large wall portrait of the host in one of the rooms. It was painted by one of Albert's friends.

• My family background
• Growing up
• During the war
• After the war
• Glossary

• My family background

My parents were from Vapnyarka. It is a small town in the vicinity of Vinnitsa [about 200 km to the south from Kiev]. I think my maternal grandparents were also born there. As far as I know, my father’s ancestor came from Poland to Vapnyarka and settled there. The deputation of Polish Seym and the ambassador came to Russian tsar.

My ancestor accompanied them. He was a chief cabman. The entire delegation was interned in the bounds of Vinnitsa, and ambassador was taken to Moscow and decapitated in accordance with the tales of my family. I do not know the first name of that ancestor. All I know that his last name was Tsessarskiy.

It was a Polish surname. He started the lineage of my ancestors who came from the town out of Vinnitsa. The whole delegation from Poland lived and died there. I remember another family story. My paternal relatives immigrated to different places. One of the relatives was a gifted musician. He became a conductor by the court of the emperor of Austria.

Once, Persian governmental delegation came there. Persian shakh invited him to become the head of the court. Father took the offer. At that time father lived very moderately in Odessa 1. The family was very poor and all of a sudden father got the invitation from the head of the court to visit his country.

Mother saw father off to the ship. When he passed Istanbul, which was on the way, all agencies were reporting that there was a coup d’etat in Persia and all governmental people were murdered, including the head of the court. Father came back to Odessa from Istanbul.

My parents told me that my paternal grandfather was a teacher in cheder Vapnyarka. His name was Abram Tsessarskiy. He was very religious. He was fond of Talmud treatment. People came to him to ask for advice and judgment during different social and family arguments.

He was a clever, talented and hilarious person with a great sense of humor. All his precepts were funny. He was never morose. Grandfather died before I was born. I do not know when it happened exactly. My maternal grandmother died earlier than grandpa. There is nothing I know about her. I do not even know her name.

My father Benjamin Tsessarskiy was born in Vapnyarka in 1888. He became orphan at a young age. He was raised by his only elder brother, who lived in Odessa at that time. Elder brother painted and plastered walls. I remember him a little bit. His name was Solomon Tsessarskiy.

He was so huge that he could paint ceilings without using a step ladder. After the Revolution 1917 2 he was an organizer of the trade union of painters and plasterers. He had a good actor’s talent. He played the part of Sholom Aleichem 3 in amateur performances.

He was a good-humored man. I do not know when he was born. He died in 1940. I do not know anything about his kin. Father finished cheder in Vapnyarka. Then he finished Realschule 4 in Odessa, but he was not involved in commerce. Like most modest poor people he started repairing watches.

My mother, nee Novokovskaya was also from Vapnyarka. I had never seen my maternal grandparents. All I know is that grandfather’s name was Lev Novokovskiy. I do not even know grandmother’s name. There is a family legend about her. There is a version that her ancestors came from Italy to Ukraine.

One of them was Padva. They immigrated in early 19th century from Italian Padua and the clerk mistakenly put the name of the town they came from instead of the last name. Grandmother’s husband was Novokovskiy. He died at a young age. I do not know what he did for a living, but they were rather rich.

There is another interesting family story. Vapnyarka was mostly populated by Jews. Grandmother decided to build a train station in Vapnyarka. She had enough money and energy for that. The rail roads belonged to the state, so she had to get the permit from the emperor to execute the project.

My mother said that grandmother asked for audience with the emperor Nikolay II, 5 and filed a request. He received her and talked to her for a while. She told him about the design of the train station. He signed the authorization letter. When she got up to leave he asked: «Oh, and what is your nationality?». When he heard that she was a Jew, he was about to change his mind, but it was too late, the authorization had been given and he could not cancel it. The train station was built and it is still there. Of course, there is no plaque saying who gave cost and took effort in building the train station. I remember that there was a grandmother’s portrait in our place in Odessa. She looked stately. She was a very beautiful woman.

Mother’s name was Esfir. She also remained an orphan at a young age. Her father died at a young age and then her mother died. I do not know exactly when. Mother was a young child in the family. She had 2 sisters- Sonya and Raya. It turned out that my parents knew each other in Vapnyarka and fell in love.

When grandmother was dying she asked them to get married. When grandmother died, sisters left for Odessa, where mother met father. At the beginning of the century there were Jewish pogroms 6 and elder sisters left abroad. Sonya left for London and Raya for Brazil. Sonya had a very moderate living in London. She found a job there. She sent an invitation letter to mother and found a job for her at a shoe factory.

Mother left for London and father stayed in Odessa. He and his buddy illegitimately left the city in the hold of the ship heading for England. They even did not have the documents. The captain of the ship noticed them, but it was too late and he took them to England. Father lost his fellow.

He did not know the language, besides he did not tell mother that he was going to London. He thought that he would come to London and see mother right away. That was the way it happened. He was roaming along the city, being hungry and saw mother all of a sudden.

She was in the cab on her way from work. They got married in London in 1907. Father said that there they added another letter ‘s’ in his last name- Tsessarskiy. Usually that surname was written only with one letter ‘s’. Then it turned out that father was of drafting age.

It was declared in Russia that those people who avoided the army would be considered deserters. Thus, parents came back to Odessa. Shortly after that father was mobilized. He had served in tsarist army for three years and he was demobilized by the outbreak of World War One. 

Father worked as a repairer of watches. He had a small shop-a booth, where he had been working from dawn till night. I remember that he repaired watches at home. He must have been a good expert as he always had a lot of work to do. The family had lived in a constant feeling of fear.

Mother was a housewife. When NEP 7 was cancelled and expropriation commenced, father was arrested for 3 times as they thought that he had some precious things that should be requisitioned. But he did not have anything, so he was hold at the police station for couple of days and released. 

Father took after grandfather and had a literary talent. I remember he made interesting critics when he was reading some literary pieces. He understood and felt the phrase. He composed verses, but they remained unpublished.  Father was a religious man. He observed Jewish rites the best way he could.

I remember that on the balconies of the houses, where a lot of Jews used to live, sukkaths were installed. Father tried doing that as well. He took me to the synagogue. He did not go there regularly, just on Sabbaths and holidays. He wore secular clothes. He did not realize his talent. He was capable in many ways.

He was very good at mathematics. He was distinguished by that. E.g. he could calculate in his mind very well. Now, those calculations can be done on computer, but at that time people were astound by the fact that as he could do it very quickly in his mind.

For instance, he did such a trick- we took domino in both hands, showed it and hid it right away. He told us the number of scores in a jiffy. He had a beautiful tenor voice. In general, he could have become great, if not for vicissitudes of fortune.

Mother was not religious. She was secular. First she started working as a janitor with skimpy wages. She was not educated, but she was very active. She went abroad for 3 times. It is not clear where she found money for it. First she went to England.

When my sister was born, mother decided that she should be educated in France. Having taken some things, she and my sister left for Bordeaux. The sister was given to the boarding house at the age of 4. They had stayed there for half a year and came back to Odessa.

The third trip was to Brazil. My sister told me that mother decided to visit her sister Raisa. Mother took my little sister and they went there. Raisa married a minister of finance there. They lived in a luxurious place. My sister recalled that when they came there they felt as if they were unwanted guests.

Raya came to us in a silken lingerie and mother rushed to give her a hug, but aunt pushed her away. «Do you remember!» - cried out the hostess. In a week my mother and sister left the place. Sister does not have pleasant recollections from that trip.

Soon Brazilian minister of finance shot himself because he was involved in embezzlement. We did not keep in touch with our relatives from London and Brazil since 1920s as the Soviet regime disapproved of those who kept in touch with relatives who lived in capitalistic countries 8.

We were supposed to fill in the paragraph regarding connections abroad in every employment, admission and military form. I wrote that I had relatives abroad, but I did not keep in touch with them. I do not know about their fate.

Father did not want to leave anywhere. He mostly stayed in. My parents had three children. The first girl Luba died young, and then my sister Alexandra was born in 1908 and I was born in 1920. My sister was very beautiful.

• Growing up

I was called Albert. It was like a joke. My elder sister’s name was Alexandra, but everybody called her Shurochka [tender name for Alexandra]. When I was born mother wanted to have a son and she decided to call me Alexander. «How come, - everybody said – you have a daughter Alexandra!». Аt that time there was a popular cookie in Odessa «Albert and Maria». So, mother named me Albert.

Mother and father got along very well, though they were rather poor. They had such vastly different characters! Of course, our energetic ands brisk mother was the head of the family. They rarely spoke Yiddish, they mostly spoke Russian. We lived in Odessa on the third floor of a 3-storied stone house, located in the place very close to the center.

First, we had couple of rooms. Then things changed and we were left only one room and a half. Our apartment was turned into communal 9. We had a lot of neighbors. Most of them were workers from publishing houses. A large Russian family was our neighbors. I remember that mother marked Orthodox Easter with them for some reason and baked Easter cakes.

We always had matzhah in the house. Mother always cooked casseroles and tsimes from that. Even now I can’t live without matzah. Besides, mother was born in Purim. The date of this holiday is not fixed, so she did not know the exact date of her birthday. She always marked it on Purim. That is why I always associate Purim with my mother’s birthday.

I would like to say couple of more words about my mother’s character. When father was arrested for the third time and was asked to give the gold which we did not have, everybody thought that father would be killed. He was taken out and threatened that he would be shot if he did not give away gold.

I was either 9 or 10 and I remember what happened. Mother stood out. She rushed to the head of NKVD, Zaydenburg. Mother did her best for father to be released. She made friends with that Zaydenburg and moreover, when she came to Moscow, where Zaydenburg lived, she stayed with his family. He liked my mother a lot. She was a charming person.

Father was apolitical. He had never expressed his opinion on politics. For some period of time he was a ‘lishenets’ [editor’s note: After the revolution of 1917 people that had at least minor private property (owned small stores or shops) or small businesses were deprived of their property and were commonly called ‘deprivees’ [derived from Russian ‘lishit’, ‘deprive’].

Between 1917 middle of 1930s this part of population was deprived of civil rights and their children were not allowed to study in higher educational institutions. Communists declared themselves to protect the interests of the oppressed working class and peasants and only representatives of these classes enjoyed all civil rights.]

He was in Odessa deprived of the right to vote and elect as he was a private entrepreneur. I remember that in Odessa there was a big board on Chernomor Boulevard by the monument to Pushkin. There was a full list of deprivees, who lived in Odessa. My father Benjamin Tsessarskiy was included in that list. I did well at school, but I was not admitted to Komsomol 10 because of that.

It is difficult to say who impacted my character more. I think that not only my family had influence on me. We, boys and girls, practically stayed on the street. There was a small saw-mill in the neighboring yard. I remember how we, guys, built a hut from the waste wood of the plant.

We organized commune there. It meant that all of us snitched the products from home, took them to the commune and shared in equal pieces. In general, I was a convinced communist. The formula itself ‘liberty, equality, brotherhood’ was so close to my heart that I thought that there could not be anything higher than that.

In fact, Odessa was a Jewish town. About 80 percent of population were Jews. Odessa even before revolution was out of the Pale of Settlement 11. There was a large stratum of Jewish population. I remember two synagogues in Odessa, but there were a lot of them.

One Brodski synagogue [editor’s note: Brodski family – Russian sugar manufacturers. They started sugar manufacturing business in 1840s. Organized the 1st sugar syndicate in Russia in (1887). Sponsored construction of hospitals and asylums in Kiev and other towns in Russia, including the biggest and most beautiful synagogue in Kiev and Odessa] was at Pushkin street. It was very beautiful.

I remember when father took me to the synagogue for the first time, I was surprised that women were separately upstairs, at the gallery and men were downstairs. There was a beautiful cantor who had a tenor voice. It was not the main choral synagogue.

The main synagogue was far from our house, closer to the maritime boulevard. There was an Orthodox church close to our house, located at Bazarnaya street. I remembered the toll of the church bell. I recall the bell toll and the clatter of the trams coming from Rishelyevskaya street and turning towards our house. Rishelyevskaya was the center of the city.

Then it was renamed Lenin Street. Now it is called Rishelyevskaya again. The street stretches from train station to the opera theater. I remember guys running on the street. Our Bazarnaya Street was paved with pebble. Mother was very irritated by the tar on my clothes. But that tar was all over as carts were lubricated with tar.

There were a lot of carts on the street heading to the market. Tram was the most frequently used transport, but people preferred walking. There were cabs. But we did not use them, as we were poor. Once mother put me to droshky (sulky) and the cabman drove me along Pushkinskaya Street.

When I was a child, there were few cars. I saw only one in Odessa. It was a big event for us, boys, when it was driven along the street and of course we did not find that transport dangerous.

Mother was a housewife, but she could not tend me as she was not patient enough to take care of me. I was on my own, spending most time in the street. As far as I remember at the age of 5 or 6 I was given to the group of children headed by German governess.

Besides, mother said that the first words spoken by me were German, as my nanny was a German. I felt the language and my knowledge in the German group got better. I gradually studied the language at school and at the institute.

My preparation for school was even good for the 2nd grade. Some teachers taught me as well as kin and acquaintances. I went to the 2nd grade in 1930 of Russian 10-year school. Repressions 12 commenced. Something was happening at school.

The school headmaster Vyshnevetskiy was fired as ‘peoples’ enemy’ 13 and was supposed to be exiled. I remember when I was sitting in my classroom; the headmaster came in every classroom, said goodbye and asked to think kindly of him. He came in our class. He was a tall, handsome Jew with a cane.

He said: «I would like you to grow up as true people. Think kindly of me». He vanished. Then I was told that he had been shot. There was a new headmaster in our school. He was a hard-core communist. He was obnoxious. He wore breeches, military double-breasted jacket and pince-nez. The entire school hated him.

Senior students locked him in the classroom by putting a swab on the handle on the opposite side. He had stayed there for 2 days. He was not let out. Then militia came and terrible things were happening! He was freed and he shortly left school. The instigators got away with that. There was no trouble. There were reprimands, parents were called, but nobody was expelled from school.

A lot of people from Odessa used to like Trotsky 14. When Trotsky was exiled abroad (he took a steamboat), there was an incident and a friend of our family told us about it. Our pal was KGB guy. He was sent to the place, wherefrom Trotsky was interned. The whole quay was patrolled.

Trotsky was walking up the ship’s ladder and his hat was carried away with the wind. One of KGB guys took his hat and gave it to Trotsky and another KGB guy took Trotsky’s hat. Both of them were shot- one for keeping something from Trotsky and another one for giving Trotsky a hat.

I had a lot of friends at school. All of them were of different nationalities- Jews, Ukrainians, Russians. There was a large caboodle of friends and nobody ever came up with the nationality issue. My bosom friends were 3 boys – Jews Kisa Averbuch, Dusya Marder and a Russian Oleg Shepelyov.

Kisa and Dusya went to navy school institute having finished school. When the war was unleashed they were sent in the vicinity of Moscow as marines. Oleg Shepelyov was close to them in evacuation. He was starving. Then he told me that Dusik found him and saw how indigent he was.

When Dusik left, Oleg found a wad of money on his table. Dusik left everything he made as an officer. In couple of days he perished. Kisa Aberuch died shortly before him. There were a lot of Jews in my class. We sang and danced to Jewish songs.

There I learnt how to dance Jewish dance Freilichs with all ‘frills’. It was very organic to me. Then my wife’s father, a Russian man, a very good composer, asked me to show how to dance Freilichs. He wanted to feel the Jewish melody. I showed him the dance and sang Jewish melodies.

The headmaster of our school Grigoriy Markovich Radzinskiy was a Jew. When he was at the lead, there was no anti-Semitism. He was a communist and internationalist. I was a pioneer 15. I was not worried for not having been admitted to Komsomol, I took part in social life all the same.

I was given all kinds of tasks and responsible assignments: organize talent contest, issue wall newspaper, organize a tour. The director told me once: «You know Abik, when you finish school and enter the institute, you can join Komsomol as it would not be important there that your father was a deprivee». At school everybody called me Abik, not Albert.

I was a not an excellent, but a good student. I did not ‘see’ books until the 4th grade. I loathed reading! I was next to impossible to make me read a book. There were book ‘peddlers’ (book seller) The peddler brought all kinds of books in the bag, took all of them to the floor so that people could choose what they wanted.

Almost all book peddlers were Jews. One book peddler came to us. He was a lean stooped elderly Jew. He could hardly carry the bag with the books. Father said: «Well, let’s try». He hurled all the books on the floor. First I took no interest. Then all of a sudden I saw I book with an interesting cover- rapid river and ice-floe.

There were men with rifles and jumping dogs on the one side of the river and a woman with a baby in her hands was trying to cross the river. It was the novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe «Uncle Tom’s Cabin». I started reading it. Since that moment I had become a bookworm.

I even read in the tram hanging on the footboard (there were no automatic door that time) When I was in Odessa I came to liking Sholom Aleichem. I should say he was one of my favorite writers. I read his books in Russian translation. My uncle Solomon always played Sholom Aleichem.

He was the one who plied me with love for that writer. They staged performances in the clubs crowded with people. I understood the humor of Sholom Aleichem owing to my uncle, who felt it really well.

I was in a drama circle at school and read a lot in the team of the fiction reader. When I was very young, I met a very interesting family- the Lazurskiys. Once mother took me to the sea. There was a performance in some sanatorium. It turned out that it was the team of artistic reading of Odessa circle of scholars.

They were reading a play sitting at the table. They did it so wonderfully that no decorations were needed, things were clear. My mother was so active that she came up to them when the performance was over and said: «I would like you to take my son in your team. He is a gifted boy».

I was appointed a meeting at the place of professor Lazurskiy. He was the professor at the chair of Russian Language in Odessa University. He was a Russian man, captivated by Russian classics. He was fired from the University at that time as he was apolitical.

He taught Russian Lev Tolstoy’s 16 children for two years. Thus, Ukrainian, Russian cultures mixed up in me. I went to the 7th grade. I remember when I came over to them they asked me to recite something. I recited a monologue written by Lermontov 17. When a child is reciting anything of the kind, adults burst into laughter. All of them were laughing, but I was admitted. They said I would be given the roles of adolescents, not old people.

It was the year of 1937. I finished school and I wanted to enter theatrical institute. But I was advised not to do that as I ought to acquire a serious profession so that theatre would be just a hobby. I decided to go to Moscow and enter IFLI (Institute of Philosophy and Literature).

I dreamt to become a writer. I passed exams, walked around the institute and was dawned that I it was not something that I needed. I had my documents on me. I thought that I should be closer to people and entered the 2nd Medical Institute, Therapeutic Department. When I was taking exams, there was no anti-Semitism. Professor Topchan, a Jew, was the rector. At that time it was not important that he was a Jew. First, I lived in my sister’s place. Then I moved to the hostel.

Sister lived in Moscow before I came there. Se got married in Odessa. Her husband Jacob Itskovich got a mandatory job assignment to Biysk, where he worked as a chief engineer of cold storage facility. Then he was transferred to Moscow and worked as a chief engineer of the ministry of food industry. He was a talented person. He designed and later was the head of cold-storage facility, which is still there.

I felt the dreadful year of 1937 in my sister’s house. The head of ministry, where my sister’s husband worked, was repressed. The neighbors of my relatives were responsible workers in food industry.  When he was arrested all neighbors of the brother-in-law gathered in his apartment and thought how to rescue him.

They decided that they would write a letter to Stalin explaining what a good person and loyal communist he was. It was decided that everybody would come back in the morning and sign the letter. Nobody came in the morning, but my brother-in-law wrote a letter and sent it to Stalin.

After that my sister packed his things and rusks. All of us were aware what was ahead of him. But my brother-in-law was not touched. Later on we found out why. In the 1920s he went to America with the group of engineers to study cold-storage facilities production.

Some White Guard was nagging on them, cursing Soviet Union etc. My brother-in-law was a patriot. He turned to that guy and slapped him. That fact was revealed as there was a stooge in the group. The story was written in the personal record of my brother-in-law and it saved him.

Then they read that case to him. It was a horrible time. There were meeting at our institute where Komsomol members were demanded to reject their repressed parents. It was abominable. I remember I made friends with one student. We went for a stroll and I saw her home.

Once she came up to me and said: «I think, you should not keep friendship with me, as this night my father was arrested». He was arrested and shot and nobody knew the reason for that. I kept on being friends with her, but most of my fellow students turned back on her.

We did not believe that it was the state politics. We thought that local officials were mistaken and the leadership of the country was misinformed. We found all kinds of reasons for that, but we could not picture that it was the politics of the state. Even at that time I was a convinced communist.

Gradually I was getting to understand what kind of party elite it was. It was degeneration. People were far from the ideals, which inspired us. I saw their real value when after the War 18, I came across with them at work.

We had a wonderful team of teachers at the institute. I was very fond of histology, the science of cells. The head of histology chair was Boris Lavrentiev. He was one of the founders of neurohistology.

He was deputy rector of the institute, where all medical branches were combined. He was an original man. He was internationalist. He knew foreign languages and loved foreign culture. On his jubilee we did not give him the books written by Stalin, but by Shakespeare. He was happy.

• During the war

Our teachers were great experts, professionals. They were beyond politics. Our Komsomol Committee [editor’s note: Komsomol units existed at all educational and industrial enterprises. They were headed by Komsomol committees involved in organizational activities] consisted of romantic people.

I joined Komsomol at the institute. It was natural. I was not involved in social work. I was fond of theatre. There was so-called peoples’ theatre in the culture house of medical workers. I played some parts in the performances there and I was a success.

On the 19th June 1941 I got an official invitation to the troupe of that theatre. I was in my fourth year. In three days the war was unleashed. Things were predetermined. What kind of theatres was I to think about! I ought to be in the lines.

I had a premonition that our country was imminent with a catastrophe. I was flatly against the non-aggression treaty between USSR and Germany signed by Ribbentrop and Molotov 19. I was really perturbed that a good Poland was invaded for no reason and a better part of it had been annexed 20. 

I was so displeased when some famous entertainer was mocking Poland and its political leaders during one of his performances. Poland was breathing with culture, literature, music. It was close to me and I could not comprehend how people could have acted and talked like that towards Poland.

Then there was a Finnish war 21. I was thinking how we could have dared attacking somebody else’s country for the sake of improving our territory, but I was afraid to share such thoughts with anybody. I was rampantly against that war, but there were a lot of people who went to that war as volunteers.

One of my pals perished there and I could not get why on earth did he go there?! But life went on. I was young. I had my friends, hobbies, theatre, girls. I met my wife-to-be at the institute. Her name was Tatiana Triodina.

There were four close school friends. All of them entered one institute and lived in one hostel. First, I met a friend of my future wife, Zhanna. She studied French. I was perplexed that among our students one fluffy girl was reading Three Musketeers by Dumas during the recess. Zhanna’s fate was very interesting.

Her father Joseph Koffman was the organizer of the counter revolutionary uprising in 1918. When the rebels were being arrested, he managed to escape abroad. There he finished the institute, worked. He fell in love with a budding singer in Paris.

He got married. She gave birth to 2 children. He was mendaciously called in Moscow as if offered a job. He was arrested immediately and exiled to the north. His wife dropped everything and left for USSR. He lived in an exile in the construction area of some canal. He was in charge of some concrete laboratory.

Construction manager got an assignment to construct canal Moscow-Volga and invited Zhanna’s father who had been released by that time, to be in charge of the same laboratory in Dmitrov [30 km from Moscow]. He and his wife decided to take daughters there. They lived in France and studied at Catholic convent.

Zhanna was a convinced monarchist. Mother went to Paris to bring her daughters. Our embassy helped to abduct the girls and mother took them to Russia by train. Zhanna’s elder sister talked her into fleeing to Paris on their way. And again Mother asked the embassy to help her out.

The girls were found and taken to Russia. Then Zhanna talked her sister into escaping to Paris via Finland. They skied to Leningrad. They were caught there and taken back to Dmitrov. When Zhanna came to the medical school she gradually turned into a convinced communist. She and her sister were arrested in 1948.

They had spent years in dreadful camps. I wrote all kinds of letters to protect her. I was writing that she was a communist. After Stalin’s death in 1953 she came back and obtained a one-room apartment in Moscow. Now she lives in France. When she comes to Moscow, she takes part in the demonstrations of the communists.

It turned out that Zhanna, whom I met, had a friend Musa. I liked Musa very much. She was a Jew, born in Georgia. I started courting her. Then I noticed her friends and one of them took my heart. It was my future wife Tatiana. Both of us joined scientific circle of histology.

I recall when I was in the 3rd year, we were sitting at one desk in the library and reading books. The librarian came up to us with a carnation in a glass and put it between us. How could she see that we were in love with each other? It must have been noticeable.

On the 9th of May 1941 we got married. I was well accepted in Tanya’s family. It was a wonderful intellectual family. I loved my wife’s parents. There were no talks of my nationality, wife’s father did not understand what anti-Semitism was about.

Wife’s mother Olga Triodina was noble. She was very attached to me and we got along very well. Wife’s father Peter Triodin was chief health officer of construction site out of Moscow – Volga canal. Besides, he composed music. I was moved by it. His opera ‘ Silver Prince’ was on in Bolshoy Theatre 22, then it was recorded and it was broadcast on the radio. They lived in Dmitrov. We often went skiing there or to play tennis. After wedding we got a small room in the hostel on the 6th floor, facing the wall with mice.

I remember the outbreak of war. I was on my way to the hostel from my sister’s place. I saw window wide open and heard people crying: «Notification of the government!» and put their wireless sets on the window sills. I was listening to Molotov’s speech 23 when I was in the street: «War».

I dashed to the hostel, where military enlistment office was located. Many of my fellow students rushed to the military commissar. He was called. He looked like he had not slept the whole night. He asked: «Where are you going?» «Well, we are from the hostel of the medical institute!». «No, we are not drafting doctors for a while. We will call you when needed.».

Next morning I darted to the Komsomol Committee of the Institute. There were couple of more students. They were sitting and writing applications to be sent to the front. They were in pencil, on some scraps of paper. The Secretary of Komsomol Committee Lenochka Yankelevich took all those applications and put them in her kerchief, which was on her head. Shortly after I had written the application, we were called off from our practice and we expedited the full course of our medical school.

On the 2nd of July I was called to the Central Komsomol Committee. There was a sentry by the door, who asked my last name. He had a bed sheet in his hand. He was ransacking it and then he drew a piece of paper. It was mine. The hall was overcrowded with young people- students and sportsmen.

I came to the office I was indicated. There were militaries and civilians. They browsed through the list, found my name and asked whether I had not changed my mind. Then I went next door. There was a pretty lieutenant woman. There was a note book in front of her.

She asked my first name, patronymic and last name and put all that data in her notebook. Then I said: «Well. What is next?» I was waiting for some interview. «Nothing, doctor, you are included in the USSR NKVD squad of special purpose.» I asked what special purpose implied.

She said she had no idea. «You would go where they tell you. Your squad would be formed in couple of days on Dinamo stadium. Come there at certain time». That’s it. People from that squad were included in reconnaissance and diverstion partisan groups and squads.

The camp of our squads was on the shootng range of Dinamo stadium out of Moscow. Soon I was allowed to go and take final exams. I lived with my wife in the hostel for a while. The exams were taken perfunctory. The war was in full swing, and people were worried with other things.

That was the way my military life had started. Wife was not mobilized, though she also filed her request to be drafted in the squad where I was to serve. In 2 days, she was expelled as they thought that  husband and wife should not serve together. Tatiana was very upset about it.

Before war mother came to Moscow from Odessa and lived with my sister. Soon she and her sister were evacuated in Kazan and father stayed in Odessa. Right on the eve of occupation his neighbors took him to Middle Asia.

The squad, where I started my army service was called «Separate motorized rifle squad of the special purpose squad». First, our squad did not study. I was assigned as a doctor there. I was conferred the title of doctor of the 3rd rank, i.e. captain. The squad was three quarters intelligent.

The future guerillas, who were pictured like men with beard, but in fact they were 20-year old men. They were in the lines and were just turned into partisans and diversionists. There was a large group of sportsmen in our squad. They were record-holders in Russia and in the world.

They were physically strong and well-trained guys. But there was only one gun for the whole squad. To boot, some of its mechanisms was malfunctioning. Besides, we had carbines, rifle, pistols and grenades, All of us were clad in military uniforms. We had to be trained from rudiments.

Germans were close by, Mozhaisk [about 109 km to the west from Moscow] was captured. It was assumed that Moscow would be attacked from there. Hitler himself came to Mozhaisk. We received an assignment in the vicinity of Mozhaisk, in forest. General Morozov was the commander of the squad consisting of 32 people.

We were supposed to be disguised in the dugs-out. In the event that Germans broke through in Moscow, we had to let them move forward a little bit so that we would go to the nearest rear positions and start attacking.

We started digging the dugs-out. It was very hard for me. The sportsmen helped me settle the medical dug-out. When we were disguising in the earth and it was clear that Germans were about to break through to Moscow, I was given a truck to go to Moscow very quickly to take the medicine at the warehouse.

I was driving along Minsk high way. There was not a single soldier on the whole, it was clear. The closer I was getting to Moscow, the more tanks I saw. It was the 16th of October 1941. I was approaching Kuntsevo, where I was on my training in the hospital. I saw the patients being evacuated and put in the carts.

When I came to Moscow, I did not see a single policeman, not a single traffic light- so people could go in any direction. Streets were in ashes. Moscow was panic-stricken. I went straight to the warehouse. They did not give the medicine saying that I asked too much considering that there should be much less medicine for 32 people of our squad.

I was trying to explain that it was for a long period of time. Besides we would be receiving local people who fled from captivity. They did not agree and told me to come back in the morning to get what I needed. We came to the warehouse early in the morning.

The director of warehouse was missing and the warden said: «Take as much as you want!» We loaded up the whole truck with things that we needed. I came to the hostel to say good-bye to my wife. She was almost the only one who stayed in the house. Almost all people were gone.

We agreed if Moscow was taken, she would leave with the last soldiers of Red Army. I came back Mozhaisk. I saw Siberian divisions entering adjacent villages. Moscow had been saved for those 2 days. German battalion were in the dugs-out on the opposite bank of Moscow river. It was cold- the beginning of sever frosty winter.

Germans installed a gun in the belfry. Local people were trying to cross iced Moscow river and they were shot. What were we to do? Everybody knew that we were digging there, but we were supposed to do that surreptitiously. Morozov made a decision. For Germans not to cross the river we were supposed to picture ourselves as a military unit.

The 32 of us were to make a sentry service. Each of us was to be in one tenth. The ten of us were walking along the bank. We were changing shifts every 2 hours. We could not stand more, as the frosts were severe. Germans were lightly dressed and had thin rubber boots.

We were in ship skins and in felt boots that is why Germans did not step out of the huts, having been taken by them on the opposite bank. When locals were trying to cross the river, Germans were shooting them. It was dreadful. The villagers were taking babies in the toboggans, holding the elderly.

Germans were shooting at them. They also made attempts at night. In the morning we saw the murdered, lying on the ice. We gave food to those who managed to cross the river and evacuated them to the East. We took the murdered and stacked them in the forest.

We could not bury them as we had small spatulas of combat engineers and it was impossible to break iced earth with them. We left a note with the name of the deceased on the corpses hoping that in due time somebody would bury them. It lasted until December.

I remember that on the 5th of December, one of our soldiers rushed in our room with a grey piece of paper and cried out: «Doctor, look!» This is Stalin’s order on counterattack of our troops in the vicinity of Moscow. It was such a great piece of news! We joined the acting army and moved towards the west.

When we crossed Moscow river following escaping German battalion I saw the frozen bodies of Germans. One of them had a brassier on his head and his eyes were frozen.

I was told to come back to Moscow right away as the squad of 32 people was not supposed to have a doctor. Then I found out that in January 1942 the group under commandment of the Hero of the Soviet Union 24 Dmitriy Medvedev came back from the rear of the enemy.

Medvedev was the leader of the partisan movement in Bryansk oblast, Western Ukraine and many other parts of USSR, occupied by Germans. My fellow student Alexander Feinstein was with them. He told me everything and took me with Medvedev, He managed to get me transferred to his squad, which was being formed at that time.

Medvedev was NKVD worker. His career was not easy. His father was a Jew, ‘vykrest’ (convert from Judaism). He left his family and lived close to Bryansk, in the town of Bezhits. He had 3 sons and all of them worked for в NKVD.

Dmitriy Medvedev was a big-hearted man. He was against certain methods, used in NKVD. He was fired from there for three times and was the director of some warehouse before the very outbreak of war. When the war was unleashed he came to Lubyanka and asked to send him to partisan squads in Bryansk forests, which he knew very well.

Authorities had been considering the issue for three days. Finally he was approved. He collected a group of people and went there. He had conducted some successful operations there and founded partisan movement. When the war was over I went to Bryansk Museum of Partisan Movement.

There is a lot of good information about Medvedev in that museum. When he came back to Moscow, he was awarded with Lenin’s Order, 25. He met Marshal Zhukov 26, asked for his advice regarding organization of the guerilla movement. Stalin held speech on the necessity to form guerilla squads.

Squads were formed from volunteers. The commander was announced and all names were listed. There were 80 men. I was given an assignment out of the 80 people to select those who were healthy. No politics, just health criteria. If a volunteer was healthy, he could join and that was it.

There were 400 volunteers and I had to select 80 men. People were anxious to join the squad. Some of them cheated me trying to look healthy. It was hard for me to select the right ones as I was not experienced. When the squad had been formed we started training.

Nobody knew anything about the forest life, how to walk in azimuth Medvedev taught us that. In May 1942 our first group came to the rear of Germans. We jumped with parachutes from the planes. We had the first training jump out of Moscow, then a military jump in the rear of the enemy.

Before war I would not have thought that I would jump with parachute. We were berserk! In the war times there were no fear and no doubts. The first group landed in Ukraine, but by mistake we jumped in open steppe, not in the forest. There local people informed Germans of that immediately.

The entire group was encircled and exterminated. Only one man survived. He went reconnoitering. We did not have information about group until the surviving reconnoiterer came to another partisan squad and told the story. Then the commander ordered to be landed in the Western Ukraine and start reconnaissance and ‘undermining’ activity there.

We had one passenger plane on us. Only 12 men could go on one trip. On the 10th of June 1942 I was unexpectedly called by Medvedev and told: «Doctor, you were to go with me in the last group. You have to take off now. Reconnoiterer and radio operator was in one of our groups to be landed in the Western Ukraine. He landed on the stamp.

He had an open hip fracture. You will assist him». It was my first flight to enemy’s rear. I did not know what our squad was supposed to do. I was to treat people. I remember that Medvedev came to see me off at the aerodrome.

General lieutenant of the command #4 Sudoplatov, who was in charge of the foreign reconnaissance and partisans divisions came there as well. He looked like a mild and intelligent man. He shook my hand and said: «Well, doctor, find your place in the squad». My wife in Moscow did not know anything about me. Shortly before taking off I dropped a post-card in the mail box.

We flew to the military aerodrome. The plane took off at night. The planes were not in the high altitude and anti-aircraft planes could easily reach them. We were heavily shot along the front line. We were ready to jump off, but we did not have to, things settled down. I did not feel well.

I had the problems with equilibrium and was giddy. We were on the small plane. When we got in the air pits, I was about to faint. We managed to cross the front line and we had to jump following the signal fire. I recall, when we were to jump, the accompanying officer opened the door of the cockpit and said: «Hey, guys, see you. For the Motherland, for Stalin!» The words «For Stalin!» were not associated with that man. He was like a symbol.

When I overstepped the threshold of the plane, it was a pitch dark night and I saw no signal fire as they were far away. I remembered that to turn the parachute I was to pull one strap and the parachute would look like a sail. I did that, but then my head was swimming and I dropped everything.

I thought –be as it may. Within the first minutes when the parachute fell – all straps got twisted - because I had a bag with medicine, food and a gun. It took me 10 seconds or so to put things in order. We were told before: «Hide parachute immediately».

Well, I was not thinking of that! Finally, I took off all things from me and saw somebody approaching towards me with a torch. I was inexperienced. The man noticed me, too. I hid behind the tree. He also hid. Then he asked in Ukrainian : «Who are you?»

I was asking him : « And who are you?» He said: «Are you a doctor or not?» I replied: «Doctor». «Well, let’s move faster and go to the wounded! I have been looking for you for 2 hours». He was also asking «How is Moscow?» «Still there». And suddenly I started remembering: «Oh God, I have been told 100 times that I should not talk to anybody without a password». The password was the derivative of the commander’s name. I told him:

- Bear.
- What?
- Bear.
- What kind of Bear? Are you crazy?
- Password is «Bear»!
- Оh! I forget!

So it was the way we wretched reconnoiterers were acting. I was taken to the dug-out, where the wounded was staying. It was the first operation in my life. When I came up to him I saw: dug-out, dark, the wounded was lying and the splinters of bones were showing up from his leg through torn pants.

He was told, «This is a doctor. He came from Moscow» He said: «Why are you lying?» I came up to him and said: «That’s right, I am a doctor». It was hard for me to treat his wound as that dug-out was like a cellar: dark and dank. Earth was strewing from the top, so I was holding waterproof cape from one end and another guy was holding another end.

I had to work only with one hand. The dug-out was lit with pocket flashlights. There was nobody to assist me. I had to operate without narcosis. He was a brave man. When I was about to put a metallic splint which I brought from Moscow, he said: «Are you nuts? My bone is knitting.

I have to go to Kiev to be disguised as a criminal, who escaped from a Soviet prison and what would I say if they found your metallic splint?» I had to bury that splint. I cut 2 branches and made 2 splints out of them and attached them to the leg of the wounded.

I had to spend about 2 weeks on the East of Ukraine, not far from Chernobyl [60 km from Kiev] before our squad got together. It turned out that a local warden informed Germans about us. On the 27th of July we were besieged by punitive squad and we had our first battle.

The total number of people was 100, i.e. 80 men from our squad and the group which met us. The punitive squad consisted of 200 or 300 men. It was dawn. We were encircled. Germans did not expect that our group to be there. We were armed. All of us had guns and grenades.

The melee started! The entire camp was being shot. Germans were using dumdum bullets, therefore the wounded had terrible wounds- comminuted fracture of upper limbs, severest abdominal wounds. I had to operate on spot. There was no way to go.

The tent, where I had to operate was strewn with the fragments of dumdum bullets. We defeated Germans. About 30 men were killed. We lost only one man 7 or so were wounded. We buried one our perished comrade. After war I came to his grave.

The children from Chernobyl told me that they took flowers to our monument. We had to move forward. We had to take wounded and asked to send a plane from Moscow. The transportation was a mere ordeal for the wounded – as there was a lot of joggling on the forest roads and hassocks.

Every time we came across a tussock, I heard the wounded cry. My heart was about to stop at that moment. We were carrying the wounded in hands via cut logs, meanwhile Germans were looking for us as they knew where we headed. We ran out of products taken from Moscow.

We snatched a semi-dead horse in the forest, cut and started eating it raw, as we count not make fire in the forest. It was abhorrent, but we had to do that. Then more trouble started- beriberi, scurvy. I treated everybody with the infusion from birch buds. It was repulsive and guys did not want to have it.

Finally we found a place for a plane to land. The plane was sent, but we chose the wrong site for a plane. The plane landed and stuck in marsh and we could not have found it out beforehand as there was snow on the top of the marshes. We had to burn the plane and the crew stayed with us.

We were moving forward. The pilots were with us and now they were looking for a possible landing ground. Finally in a month, we found a good meadow. At that time there was a terrible genocide of Jews in Western Ukraine. Those dreadful killings of Jews were happening, when our squad was there. We were the witnesses, but we could not leave the bushes not to reveal ourselves.

Once our reconnoiterer saw a 6 or 7-year old Jewish boy on his way from the town. He was shivering and stark. His name was Pinya. His whole family was shot, but he managed to escape. The reconnoiterer took him in hands and brought in our squad. We put Pinya on the plane with the wounded and sent him in Moscow.

I tried to find him after the war. I found out that he was in the orphanage first, then he finished vocational school, then his traces were lost. Later on, we managed to save another kid. It happened in Rovno [about 900 km to the South-West from Moscow]. Jews were taken to the fusillade.

One mother was carrying a 4-month baby. She was the last. She tripped and fell down. Germans shot her. The girl was covered with mother’s blood. When the column left, our underground guys rushed there, took the girl, washed her and gave her a shelter. The local people helped. The girl survived.

After the war we tried to find her. There is a Russian TV program, where people are looking for the reported missing. We informed of the children who were saved. That girl let know of herself. She did not know anything about her fate. She thought that she was Polish, as these were Polish people who helped her survive.

She is married, has 3 children. We are still looking for Pinya. I had to go through one of the sorrowful moments in my life on our way to Rovno. The local population was aware of Soviet partisans (we were clad in Soviet army uniforms). They also knew that that there was a doctor among the partisans and they often asked for help. I went to the villages, accompanied by two gunned soldiers.

Once we had to go through the hamlet, which was half- Jewish. There were 3 of us. I thought that we would be given food in the village. When we were approaching the village, we noticed that it had been besieged by German soldiers. We counted them. There were about 200 men. We were observing from the hill. There was a large shed in the center of the village.

The gates of the shed were locked. Germans were fussing around it and pouring out something by the shed. We understood that the shed with people would be burnt! There were only three of us. What could we have done? We had only one pistol and 2 guns on us.

That feeling of being helpless and no way to do anything was the most terrible thing having happened to us. No sound was coming from the shed. Even when it was set on fire, there was no noise. The whole Ukrainian part of the village was brought together and made watch the execution.

The minutes of stillness of the burning shed full of people were horrible. There were 6 or 7 Jews in our squad. Not only the Jews, but all other partisans were strongly against extermination of Jews by Germans.

Our squad was given two tasks. The first one was to capture the regional center and continue liberation process from there, but then we were given another task- to go to Rovno, where the administration of the occupied Ukraine was located. We were supposed to perform reconnoitering and diversion activity there.

The task was given by a special department of foreign reconnaissance of the ministry of internal affaires. At that time we did not know that our reconnaissance had something to do with the preparation for the Stalingrad battle 27. We were to observe the railroad ways and find out when Germans would start moving new groups from West to East.

Such messages were sent to Moscow. Only after war we found out that it was one of the elements of the preparation of the counterattack of our troops in the vicinity of Stalingrad. There were 10 radio-operators in our group. Every day we had 2-3 sessions with Moscow. There were great many reconnoiterers in different occupied towns of Western Ukraine.

In a month or two we started getting a lot of messages. We could not ask for planes any more, as they were positioned far to the West, and the plane could hardly reach any place within a short night. After that we had a lot of battles and we had to take all our wounded with us. We had a mobile hospital.

There was no place to leave the wounded as we did not have the rear and it was too dangerous to leave them in the village. Within the whole period of time only 3 wounded died as there were in the lethal condition. Many people got better even swifter than in peaceful times.

We lived in the forest, slept on earth, even during winter time. We put feet closer to the flame and head to the trunk of the tree. Sometimes we stopped only for 2-3 hours. Germans were constantly chasing us. We had to change the position of the camp very often.

During the entire period in the forest people did not catch quinsy, influenza or rhoenite. But when we had stayed in the village for 2 weeks, things set off. Many came to me saying: «Doctor, I have a sore throat and a running nose!» What a remarkable situation it must have been in the forest.

Besides, there were no cross infections. Each wounded had its own cart and there was no contract. Sanitary requirements were rigidly observed. Medvedev was stern. We built a bathhouse in the forest. We used branches to build the walls. Simmering water was poured on the stones to produce the steam.

The most terrible thing was that when Germans were retreating, they started to spread typhus barracks. People suffering with typhus came to us. Even the seams of their clothes were teeming with lice. Where was a crackle, when their clothes were being burnt in fire. We took drastic measures. There was only one case of spotted fever in our squad, but the patient recouped.

For the first year and a half I was the only doctor in the squad.  There were two more medical assistants. Then Vera Davydova, who studied in our institute, was sent to the squad. Local doctors also came to help. Finally there were 10 doctors. Our squad grew. There were about 3000 men. It was one subdivision.

It was hard as we had to be prompt, mobile and uniform. We started budding off squads. In 1943 Jews were sheltering in the forests near by Rovno to escape fusillade. There were a lot of Jews- old people, kids, women, youth. We could not travel with them. It was a slow-moving category.

Thus, Medvedev made a decision to take the Jews to Byelorussia, where it would be easier for them to hide on dense marshy area. There were a lot of guerrillas. We formed a rather big Jewish group. We sent our partisans to accompany them. Some of the Jews stayed with us.

Those were young people who were apt for the battles and willing to fight. There were a lot of good and brave guys among them. There was such a lad Golub. He was truly distinctive in the battle. He was very loved and appreciated in the squad. He was a great guy.

There was one thing which perturbed me. I brooded on it a lot. When thousand of people were taken to the execution place, there were guarded only by couple of policemen and nobody made an attempt to run. I was asking: «Why it happened? If people scattered, three quarters of them would have remained alive»

They told me: «It was an inner despondence, feeling ourselves liked chased down preys». When doctor Mashitskiy and his family were taken to the squad, I found a bottle with strychnine with him «Why!?» - «If Germans had captured us, the whole family would have taken strychnine».

He did not want to give me that bottle no matter how many times I repeated that he was among ours and we would be protecting him. It took me a lot of efforts to make him give me the bottle. That strychnine was buried 2 meters deep. He was so scared! I remember he had two children – 5 and 7 year old.

They lived in the hut. Children are children. They were crying and frolicking. When I came in the hut I saw him stopping their mouths. I said: «What are you doing?» He was afraid that we would be mad because children were a bother.

Ukrainian nationalists did not fight Germans. For the two years I had been there, I did not know a single case when they were struggling against Germans. They were constantly fighting with us. They shot from behind, laid ambuscades. About 60 percent of our casualties were coming from Ukrainian nationalists, the so-called fighters for the Independent Ukraine.

When I was a guerrilla in the bounds of Moscow, the local population took us as their own. I did not smoke, but like other fellow soldiers I got the ration of the cigarettes, so I gave them to local guys. They were so happy with that. There was one case in the vicinity of Mozhaisk. There was a severest battle and 2 soldiers survived.

Clad in the uniform they were hiding in the haystack. One local woman Vasilisa Sergeyevna, whom I knew very well after war, went to fetch some hay and heard a voice from the stack: «Auntie, there are two of us. Please bring us some clothes so we can change as we cannot leave this place». She brought them her husband’s clothes.

He was in the lines at that time. The soldiers changed their clothes. They were saved by that woman and broke through the German rear via our squad. Things like that happened often. Our troops were besieged. Those who managed to break through came to us. We gave them food and water.

Then they were sent to the collection depots by Moscow. Local people in Western Ukraine behaved in different ways. There was a hunger in the northern part of Western Ukraine. Poor people treated us better than those who lived in the southern part. They considered us to be enemies.

Now they are talking about their merits, but I know for sure that it was not like that. The fragments of the grenade thrown at me by a Ukrainian nationalist are still there. Moreover, they were not merely trying to do away with the representatives of the Soviet regime, but ethnic groups as well. I saw them trying to exterminate the Poles, who lived there. They were using axes, not the rifles. A cart with those gangsters came in some Polish hamlet and they slaughtered people with axes.

Once we were passing by one hamlet on our way from the patients. Suddenly I heard the cries: «Doctor, doctor!!!» We saw a cart with people fleeing from the hamlet. A sobbing woman darted out and cried: «Rescue my son. Husband has been cut, they sonа was about to!»

Those people were Poles. I went there and I saw a boy with his face butchered by the hatchet. I did what I could- sutured the wound. I did not go to that hamlet. Many years have passed and I had a chance to speak to in the group of workers in Moscow. The hall was full of people. I was talking about the war and suddenly a woman from the back of the hall cried out: «Doctor!!!» She rushed to me across the hall. It was the woman from the hamlet. I asked:

- What about your son?
- Survived and became an engineer!

We nabbed those gangsters-nationalist and took them in the camp. I remember one of them. A hulky man with neck like the bull’s. He was caught in Polish hamlet. He was taken to us and shot later on. Ukrainian nationalists, living in the villages, gave away all local Jews.

We acted in Rovno, Lvov [about 1000 km to the south-west from Moscow], Lutsk and Vinnitsa. There was headquarters of Hitler’s troops in Vinnitsa. We disclosed it. I should say that local people with the exception of the rich ones, who mostly lived on the south of the Western Ukraine, were very helpful and compassionate.

Especially indigent people, who lived from hand to mouth, helped us a lot. God Gracious, there were such poor villages! They burned chips to get warm and survived for the sake of kitchen-gardens. Rich thought us to be enemies. Most of our supplies were coming from German trucks.

When Germans were taking grain, meat, product to be sent to Germany, which started starving, we were bombing them. I recall there was a 200-liter barrel with spirit. It was very important for us not just for the sake of drinking, but to get warm in the forest during wintertime; 50-100 per man…ooh!

Nobody let himself drink more. The barrel was enough for the whole year. There was no binge. There was a man, responsible for the barrel of spirit. It was handed out only as per order of the commander.

Even if I needed it for medical purposes, I was given spirit only as per order of Medvedev. Often we were starving. There was time when we had been eating the ‘gruel’ consisting of flour and water, for a month and a half. We picked up berries in the forest. It was hard.

We had been in more than 80 battles for 2 years. We had not lost a single battle, but we had a lot of casualties. Everybody participated in the battles. The cook took a rifle and started shooting. The sanitary unit was also involved in battles, though in accordance with the international convention medicals were not supposed to fight.

There was no other way-out. Once we were trying to undermine German echelon with tanks. We had 2 wounded, whom we took aside, but Germans started approaching suddenly. I had to fire at them other than that they would have taken the wounded. When we had German captives as a result of the battle, I had psychological problems.

They were shot as we could not carry them with us. Once I was to cross examine one German officer (I spoke German a little bit) who was cooped up. I came up to see how he was doing. He understood that he was doomed. He was walking back and forth behind the partition and mumbled one and the same: «Heil, Hitler, Heil Hitler!»

Either he was trying to plea for rescue or he was trying to fall asleep with those ‘incantations’. The most terrible reminiscence was when I was interrogating another captive. He was an artisan guy, but a hard-core stickler of Hitler. What could we do?! He was shot.

I had another function in the camp- make forged papers and documents for our reconnoiterers. I was the one only who knew how to type on the typing machine with the German font, but it was of paramount importance for the leading reconnoiterer Kuznetsov [editor’s note: Nikolay Kuznetsov (1911-1944) is the legend of Soviet reconnaissance.

In the period of Great Patriotic War was involved in the actions of guerilla squad in Western Ukraine under the lead of D. Medvedev. He was a cover agent picturing himself as a German officer. He exterminated and kidnapped a lot of outstanding Germans from Hitler troops. Was killed by Ukrainian nationalists] to get the documents.

He was not involved in processing of the forged documents. I was the one who was doing it. Those documents worked out OK and there was a certainty that things went smooth. I typed on the trophy German typing machine. There were cases, when I had to go to Kuznetsov for a secret meeting to update his traveling documents.

In Moscow he was given the officer’s book for the name of lieutenant Paul Zibert. One year passed. He frequently showed up in the town as if he came back from the front being on the trip regarding supplies. We decided to ‘promote him in the rank’. It was necessary to type in a new title- – captain- in his officer’s book.

I was really worried. I was afraid to make a mistake while typing in a new title. It was of a lethal danger. I had been typing that word on the blank piece of paper. When I put a new Kuznetsov’s officer’s book in the typing machine, he turned back and I typed in the word. A lot was written about Kuznetsov, but there was a lot of slander.

He was depicted as dashing and fortunate… Nothing of the kind. They wrote that he was a womanizer and got a lot of attention from women. He was a common guy from Ural, though he was very gifted, smart and was fluent in the language. He was born in a hamlet in Ural. His father was a peasant.

At school he had a very good teacher of German language. I met her after the war. She said that he was extremely inquisitive and had a great penchant to the languages. He had an excellent command of German language by the 7th grade. At that time a group of German experts came to the plant in the town where he lived.

They needed a man who knew German. Nikolay was recommended. He was given odd jobs at design bureau, where Germans worked. He communicated with them and improved his knowledge.

Then he was hired by NKVD. Of course, he was a man of the talent. I do not know whether he was a good actor, but he had a stern inner discipline and could control his nerves. He took a lot of courageous actions. People mostly knew that he had murdered certain people or kidnapped certain people.

If considering only the acutest military actions he had taken, they seem to have lasted for a month or a month and a half, but he had been in the reconnaissance for a year and a half. Everyday he had a routine job: «what these people are saying, what those people are saying».

He heard a phrase of one of the officers and cogitated on that. All things spoken were summarized, analyzed and reported to Moscow. Nobody mentioned that, but it was the most important thing. He was a very brave man with a very strong will. I had to operate on him. Kuznetsov was wounded with the fragment of a grenade, he flung at a German general.

We had one ampoule with Novocain and we decided to use it only for the commander. Medvedev ordered to give it to Kuznetsov. He knew that there was only one Novocain. Kuznetsov refused from it. I cut him without narcosis. He neither moaned nor gritted with his teeth. He just was sitting and looking aside as if it was not happening to him. Such an ability to go oblivious inwardly is a rare quality of people.

Local people who escaped from the captivity, came to us. Somebody from the headquarters talked to them and put a special entry in the note-book: who, wherefrom, contacts etc. For the entire period 8 stooges were sent to us. Six out of them were divulged and one of them managed to escape and bring the punitive to us. It was a severe battle.

It lasted for 24 hours or so. Two regiments of special trained punitive squads were sent to us. They were experienced in fighting with partisans in France. They were re-positioned here. Germans decided to do away with us. It was a hard battle and we managed to win it in the end. We took 80 carts with ammunition, provision and three cannons.

The spy infiltrated in a very cunning way. He rescued one Jewish lady and dentist from fusillade. Then he made contact with us, sent the lady to us and came on dates with her to the village where we were positioned. She considered him to be her savior. Soon our underground agents said that he systematically called on Gestapo and was spying on us via that lady. We shot him. He even confessed himself. It was a cruel war.

During war I managed to send letters to my wife for 10 times via reconnoiterers, who were crossing the front-line. In one of my letters I wrote that I regretted of not taking my favorite book “Hamlet’ translated by Lozinskiy. Good thing about it was that there were two columns one in English and another – Russian translation.

On the 8th of March 1943 we had true gifts released from the plane- the letters from our loved ones in Moscow. The headquarters in Moscow took good care of us, kept in touch with them and re-sent their letters by plane. My wife Tanya sent me a book by Hamlet. I was reading the book right by the fire and somebody behind my back started reading in English. It was Grisha Shmuylovskiy, a magnificent connoisseur of English literature. I asked him how he knew about Shakespeare and he said that he had studied at the Institute of Literature and Philosophy.

He wrote a paper about Hamlet by Shakespeare. He found a lot of interesting things, being left out of focus by many people. Then Maxim, the actor from Moscow Theatre, Grisha and I decided to make an amateur performance of Hamlet right by the fire. Grisha said that he would have the part of Ofelia as in Shakespearian times men also played ladies’ parts.

I was to play Hamlet and Maxim Polonius. It was very funny as Grisha was not entitled to take off his gun, and Hamlet was talking to Ofelia with a gun: “Go to the convent”. We were persecuting Gauleiter Erich Koch.

Nikolay Kuznetsov and our whole squad were after him. The reconnaissance informed that Koch was on the point of leaving to the aerodrome to fly to Berlin. The road to the aerodrome was through empty fields with rare bushes. Medvedev decided to send a group there to wait for the motorcade of Koch and shoot them.

Grisha was to participate in that operation. They were missing for 3 days. Koch did not go to the aerodrome, but that had been in ambush without even raising their heads and drank water from the tracks of bovine hooves. When they came back, Grisha gave me the essay, he wrote there. Shortly after that Grisha perished. He was to bring in our squad a messenger with a very important message.

They were caught in the ambuscade and Grisha said to the telephone operator: «Go, I will cover you». He was shooting and suddenly a Ukrainian nationalist showed up from the tree and fired at Grisha. His head was injured. His body was taken to our squad. Half of his head was missing. I was taking it real hard as we made friends. He was a very talented man. His grave is in Transcarpathia.

Those struggles to the state independence of Ukraine, even now are desecrating the tombs of our soldiers. Even Kuznetsov’s grave is desecrated though Ukraine has been independent for 14 years. They have a hard living. Even now they consider those who liberated them to be occupants and guilty of all their troubles.

I was severely wounded in late February 1944. We were moving towards the West to meet Kuznetsov by Lvov. He was reconnoitering there. When we were positioned not far from Lvov, in one of the nationalistic villages as it turned out as we were attacked by «banderovtsi» 28 at night.

Our sanitary unit was on the edge of the village. The hut, where the sanitary unit stayed, was the last in the village. The hostess of the hut came in, lit a kerosene lamp and left. Hardly had she left, rushed two armed men in the hut. Then I understood that she gave them a sign.

One of them looked at me. I was in the officer’s uniform so he shot. I got up, took my Mauser. They dashed outside having seen the weapon in my hands. They started firing at the hut. I was the only one from the medicals who was armed. I crashed 3 windows and shot back.

I could hear a large battle in the village. There were wounded by our hut. In wee hours of the morning I saw a large rifled group creeping to the hut with the wounded. I was afraid that they might break in. I do not know what dawned on me, but I cried out from the window in Ukrainian: «Who are you?» He replied: «Ours» «Ours who?» «Andriy».

I told them to creep back to the forest because the Red ones had slaughtered almost everybody. By chain he sent the message to everybody that they should retreat to the forest. They were creeping back and I was shooting at them from the pistol. I was shooting and thinking what a guile thing to do.

Then I found out that I missed. It turned out that the group which attacked us was a SS subdivision, formed by Germans from Ukrainian nationalists, before Germans were retreating. Then we took the documents. While I was running from one window to another, I was too excited and did not notice that my leg was askew.

I had a splintery fracture of ankle joint. About 30 men were killed in that battle. Our comrade- great and brave, the favorite of our squad Dorpeg Abrodoimov perished. I was wounded. Recently, my comrade, who also took part in the battle, was in that village. Local people told him that there was a battle there and partisan doctor, viz. I, had been killed.

Medvedev was seriously wounded. Then he was even carried in the cart, could not get up and had to give orders while lying. During the civil war he had a fissure in the spine. Forest life was hard, massages did not help. I was on the crutches. Medvedev and I were taken in a cart out of the front line.

Then a truck was sent from Moscow and we went there by truck. It was a long trip. We had crossed all semi-devastated Ukraine. It was horrible. Skeletons of houses were everywhere. Old people lived in dugs-out. They went to the curbs of the roads and looked at us.

I did not think that there would be time when we would have all that restored. I was rendered first aid in the hospital. I had to wait for the bones to knit. It was late autumn 1944. I came back to my wife from the hospital. We lived in the hostel. Mother and sister came back to Moscow from evacuation.

It took me a long time to walk on the crutches and I met the victory day on crutches as well. I did not find out about a victory day by radio, as it was out of order in our hostel. There was the embassy of France in front of our hostel. I saw there was a feast there and everybody was crying: «Victory!» People dashed to the Red Square.

They acted on the spur of the moment. There were banners and posters. How could they have found all that? They lifted up the militaries, who were in the square.

• After the war

After war I had military awards. I got 2 Great Patriotic War Orders of the first class 23, Medal of the Partisan of the Great Patriotic War of the first class 30, Medal for Defense of Moscow 31. There are also some jubilee orders and medals.

In 1946 father did not go to mother in Moscow from Middle Asia right away. They rented a room. I asked municipal authorities to give a room for my parents, but nothing changed. Veterans of war were treated differently at that time. There were millions of people, nothing was being built and it was next to impossible to get lodging.

In 1947 mother died from cerebral thrombosis in Moscow. It happened like a bolt from the blue. I came to her, brought her soup and cutlets, cooked by my wife. The last words my mother spoke: «Eat well». She fell asleep and never woke up. She was buried in city Vostryakovskoye cemetery, in the Jewish sector.

It was a secular funeral, though one old man came over and said that he would read a prayer. Father said that he wanted him to pray. After mother’s death father lived in sister’s place and died from heart attack in 1953. He was also buried in Vostryakovskoye cemetery next to the mom.

When the war was over my wife and I lived in the hostel. Here in 1947 our daughter Natalia was born. Wife worked in Moscow children’s hospital and I was taking care of daughter while I was unwell. My wife came home at lunch to feed us.

When I got well, I was invited to Moscow theatre named after Ermolova. I worked as a doctor and I was an actor part time. I played roles in couple of performances there by 1947.

The director of the theater suddenly died. When a new one came, the atmosphere in the team changed for worse dramatically. It was the time of all-in-all baiting of Jews, the so-called anti-cosmopolite campaign 32 and I felt biased attitude towards me. I quitted the theatre.

Once I was called in the administration of the institute and told to move out from the hostel within a day. My wife, out little daughter and I left the hostel. We  had no place to stay and I went to the secretary of Moscow Council and was turned down rather roughly.

First my wife and I rented a room. It was expensive and we could not afford it. Then my wife’s relative suggested that we should move in her place. We lived in her kitchen. Then I started working in the system of Moscow health care and I was given a small room in the basement.

Then the municipal department o health care gave me two rooms in a large communal apartment. When I was working for another organization, I was given a separate 3-room apartment in the newly constructed house. It is in the yard of the house I am currently living. 

When I left the theater I went to work for the system of Moscow health care. I was to make a hard choice regarding a direction. I did not want to work in the office or in the operating room. The country was being swiftly restored and I did not want to be kept aside.

I began to work in the field of the hygiene of the labor and occupational diseases. The industry was being restored and such occupational diseases as radiation sickness and all kinds of toxicosis were very serious. The lethal rate was very high and the labor conditions were terrible.

I took an interested in that. First I worked in the district, then I was invited for a position of the chief industrial sanitary doctor of Moscow, in charge of military medical institutions. There were 3500 plants in Moscow. Many people came to the devastated city from evacuation, There were 2000000 workers among the evacuees.

I had a lot of tasks to do. I traveled throughout the country, visited construction sites in the remote corners of my country. I actively worked with scientific and research institute of occupational diseases by the Academy of Science of USSR, was the member of the academic council, deputy editor-in-chief of the specialized magazine.

I was always focused on the issues, though it was hard as many of them were secret. Sometimes I was in rather unpleasant situations because of that. When the delegations from America or England came over and asked how many of our patients were afflicted with silicosis, I had not right to tell anything.

So, I had to dodge and it was very difficult. Once I was charge with infringement of 23 items of secrecy. The head of Moscow health care department had been laughing for a long time, but he reprimanded me as he was supposed to react somehow.

Health care system was very influential under conditions of Soviet power. E.g. we not a single project was approved without our visa. We were the experts in all industrial construction projects in Moscow and all over the country. I remember foreign delegations were envious of us because it was not like that in their countries.

When I came to the plant, the director knew if he did not fulfill my instructions his work would be considered by the board of the party control and the sanctions might have been very rigid. Our science was leading in the field. Very many standards introduced by us were the most rigid in the world. It was good and there were much less occupational diseases.

Though, I saw the system rotting. Within Moscow I was involved in large organizational issues ands saw the injustice of the system. The party was turned into a red tape apparatus. The rations received by all party bonzes, close distributors, were abominable.

Party leadership assigned dull people to the leading positions either because of the bribes ore nepotism. The system of health care in Moscow was headed by a totally illiterate instructor of the municipal party committee, who was a medical assistant by education, but we had to fulfill his orders. It was a dice system. But it was killing as any dying system. It was dreadful when some untalented people were at the lead of everything, even spiritual.

When I was working in the theatre, I was offered by the local House of Culture to be the head of the drama studio. It was the time when we were living in the basement. We were meeting with the guys from the studio in our place to have a talk and to conduct rehearsals. I and a producer Voinov were in charge of the studio.

He was responsible for staging, I – for literary part. Young people attended the studio and many of them became famous in the art circles. I wrote a derivate play written by Spanish playwright Lope De Vega. The leaders of cultures were indignant about it.

Somebody spread a rumor that we made the guys from the studio to sing with our blood and all kind of other nonsense. In the end the studio was closed down. It had worked for 3 years. Then I wrote a comedy “Intriguer”. She went through 3 contest rounds, was in the final round, but then a dignitary from the ministry of culture  showed up, read it out loud and said indignantly that the play was anti-soviet. It was a nightmare.

I was in trouble and they even wanted to expel me from the party. That play of mine is still unpublished. It was a horrible time. Illiterate officials concocted mendacious anti-Soviet motifs in literary pieces and dramas and did not let the authors breathe so to say.

Neither before nor during war did I feel anti-Semitism. For example, people from my squad did not know what nationality their comrades were. There were guys in my squad, who did not mention their nationalities. I wrote stories about them. Then my book was published collected stories “Reminiscences of partisan doctor’.

I found out that the characters of my book were Jews from the reviews to my book. It was also written there that the author paid a lot of attention to the people of his nationality, and therefore he did not recommend that the book would be published. Thus, I found out that people, with whom we fought together, were Jews. That book was published later. It was published by the publishing house Soviet Writer in 1956 in the amount of 10000 copies.

State anti-Semitism was double-died. In 1948 Mikhoels 33 was murdered. Nobody believed in the public version that it was an accident. It was clear that it was assassination if his theatre was closed down and the troupe was dissolved. I was in his theatre.

The King of Lyres was the highest literary piece I had even seen staged in the theatres. What an actor Mikhoels was ! Though I remember that some officials, who were at the performance, asked: «Why a Jew should be the King of Lyres?» Assassination of Mikhoels commenced persecution of Jews- cosmopolites etc.

am grateful that I came across such an experience. I was invited in the ministry of health care and offered a job in the international department. At that time I was lured by the opportunity to go abroad. I was to fill in the form. When I was filling in item 5 34, the employee who was standing behind my back, asked if I was fluent in English. Having heard my negative answer, he said that I did not fit. Then I understood what it was all about. I was so happy that I was not employed there!

During the struggle against cosmopolites I was working in the system of Moscow health care. Our chief doctor Valentina Postnikova was a great person. The instructor of the regional party committee attended our party meeting. He started talking about cosmopolites.

Postnikova said that she had just graduated from the Institute of Marxism and Leninism and she was taught there that main motto of our party was internationalism. But is this preaching of the instructor of the party committee? The guy turned pallid and dashed out from the room.

oon I became the secretary of the party organization. The head of the health care department said that she was called to the regional committee where she was suggested that she should make a list of the Jews, she considered to be exiled to Siberia from Moscow.

On my way to the regional party committee I met the 3rd secretary of the committee who was to tackle that issue. He told me: «Though you are our man, but you have a Synagogue over there!». I said that those people who were working there were loyal soviet people and good professionals.

He told me to ponder things over. “Fun” began! I was the member of the academic council of the scientific and research institute. There were a lot of notifications to the institute where it was written that there were a lot of Jews in the institute. The leadership of the institute managed to leave things as they were. Then the doctors’ plot 35 was commenced.

It was the last chord. I knew a lot of people who were arrested. Many of them taught me. In that period of time many of my friends suffered. For example, my friend professor Kagarlitskiy in GITIS [editor’s note: GITIS was  a State Institute of Drama Art, now it is called Russian Academy of Drama Art (abbreviation RATI-GITIS). It is the largest drama institution of higher education in Europe and one of the largest in the world.

GITIS departments encompass almost all specialties, connected with drama art: producers of drama, musical performances, variety shows circus, actors, drama studies specialists,scene designers and directors] He hold a course of English literature there. He was fired without even explaining things.

He had an infarction as a consequence. It was the moment when I understood that our state was degenerated. All those high ideals, which used to inspire the youth, turned out to be a soap bubble. I understood that it could not last long. In 1953 Stalin died. The doctors were set free and state anti-Semitism was not as blatant.

My wife hated Stalin. When all people got up during the general meetings to acclaim Mr. Stalin, my wife did not get up and came into trouble for that at work. She was adamant in that sense. I cannot say that I hated him. It was strange for me that the man who wielded the scepter was not aware of the things going on in his county.

When Stalin died the mourning days were announced and my wife and I wanted to go and see column hall, where there was a coffin with his body. We witnessed a terrible throng of people on the way, who crushed the fence, whereon people fell. Trucks were along the curb. A boy was pressed with his chest against one of those trucks.

The throng could not stop. I jumped on the hood of the truck and screamed «Stop!». The throng stopped for a moment and we took the boy. But there were a lot cases of jam and many people died.

Tatiana taught Histology at our Institute, then she was transferred to the Institute of Blood Transfusion and defended a dissertation there. When the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of Space was founded, she was offered a job there as a leading scientific expert. The first dogs who were in the space, were under her supervision.

These were the first laboratory data showing that a man could be in the space She had worked there until retirement. Wife took after her father and was as musical as he. She plays the musical instrument and composes music. My wife and I have lived a long, hard, but at the same time very interesting and friendly life.

Our house was always open for relatives and friends, no matter where we lived. My parents, sister’s family often came to see us. I liked sister’s husband, an intelligent and interesting man. My friends- partisans and participants of the theatrical studio very often called on us.

Daughter Natasha was raised like the rest children of that time- nursery, kindergarten, school. She was fond of the languages and entered the Institute of Foreign Languages. She had worked in the Ministry of Automobile Industry for many years. She went abroad very often. She is still working as a translator from/into German language.

Her husband’s name is Vlasenko. He is a Ukrainian, but the most important thing for us was that they loved each other. Natasha has a two children. Elder son Dmitriy Vlasenko is 33 года и daughter Tatiana is 29. Natasha’s husband died from cancer 2 years ago. He was a wonderful man. Dmitriy is studying at the Economy Institute, in the 4th year.

Now he is a general director of the company, working in sports service. The company organizes sports competitions. It is a hectic work. Tatiana, unfortunately, left the faculty of journalist department of Moscow State University 36. She did not like it there. She is currently working in the center of environmental protection. She likes her job.

Son Alexey Tsessarskiy is 12 years younger than my daughter. He graduated from MGU, Biology Department. He worked for the Biology Institute by the Academy of Science of USSR, then defended candidate’s dissertation. Apart from his main job he is also a chief editor of the paper, dedicated to ichthyology. Alyosha has a son. His name is also Alexey Tsessarskiy. He is 23. He is working in cybernetics. My son divorced his first wife and married a woman who was also a biologist, but we still love his first wife. He has another son Pavel. He is in the 8th grade now.

I retired in 1990. It was physically hard for me to combine medicine and literature. I have been the member of the Council of Writers since 1975. I wrote two books about war. I wrote a novel «Reminiscences of partisan doctor » and a play ‘Eve and Irene’ about young workers. It was staged in Leningrad Theater –Lenin Komsomol. I wrote 18 books for youth, children, adolescence. It was something that I was most worried about.

I suddenly found out that there was new cooperative house constructed in the yard of our house. By that time our family had grown. Daughter was married and had a baby. I entered that building society. At that time I got the emoluments for my published book, so I could afford to have my apartment built.  My wife, son and I moved to that 3-room apartment, and our daughter remained in previous apartment in our yard.

At that time one of front-line fellow Lev Ermolin. Both of us flew to the rear, jumped from the parachute, lived in one waterproof cape, boiled porridge in one pot- were friends in a word. He talked me into building a dacha [summer house] next to his place in Borodino[about 120 km to the west from Moscow].

At that time he was the director of the plant. They obtained the land plots for dacha in that district. He kept one land plot for me there. It was pretty far away from Moscow, but it was a spectacular place. I was hesitant, but when my second book was released and I got an emolument, my wife and I decided to build wooden house.

Both of us did it with our hands. We are really pleased with that dacha. Almost every summer we spent there and children grew up there as well. Now my elder grandson is having a plush house built next to my dacha and I hope that my great grandchildren will be raised at my dacha.

All my loved ones and I were delighted when we found out that the state of Israel had been founded. When the state anti-Semitism was in full swing, Jews felt themselves as people of 3rd grade in the our country- «You do not have a motherland.  Where are you peoples? Where are you roots?» When Israel was founded I was not going to immigrate, but I felt that I was one step higher and I was not worse than anybody else. I was treated very well even in the full swing of anti-Semitism.

I am not religious, I do not observe Jewish traditions and rites. I hardly know the language. I am not assisted by Jewish charitable organizations and I consider it to be humiliating for me.  My children were raised international. They identify themselves as Russians. Though, Jewishness is one of the elements of my personality. My parents were Jews. I know the culture, music, mentality as I lived among Jews. I called on my school friend. Now he is indigent, but he had a grandfather who marked all the holidays. When I came over to them on Pesach I saw grandpa playing with his grandchild hiding a piece of matzhah and when the grandson found it grandpa was rapt and burst into laughter. I was admiring them. I am worried for the fate of the Jews and I am happy for their success.

I consider 37 perestroika to be ambiguous. When Gorbachev appeared 38 all of us were very happy. He was young and as compared to Brezhnev 39 he understood what he talking about. Gradually we felt that he was losing control over country and it was scary.

Maybe we felt that the system could not exist anymore. Now I am very frustrated because good things which were in the country are exterminated, but new things have not come in place. I am worried with our current president. I found out that Putin was a hypocrite.

He says publicly that he will not let anybody do harm to the journalists, meets with them, makes promises and then suddenly he does away with the leading TV company, protecting the interests of the right wing. He publicly promises that he will not harm large-scale business, and in couple of days a largest oil company is collapsed and the state is involved in the affaire. One dumby company acquires it and re-sells it to the state. A silly and untalented man –the head of health care -was framed.

He was an accountant by education. How can an accountant be at the head of this branch? No matter what we start, it is collapsing. I think it is because things are no thought over, and I am aware that mercantile interests are behind it. Free entrepreneurship is strangled. The economic politics is flunked.

When I am traveling throughout the country I see that the industry is not working, plants are emptied. For instance, 10000 people were employed at Bryansk engine-building plant and now about 200 men are working in one workshop. The rest is either plundered or rotten. It makes me sad because I love my country, its hard-working and boundlessly tolerant people.

My life worked out to be good. I always did what I like. I have a great family: loving and caring wife, wonderful and close to my heart children and grandchildren, a lot of magnificent friends, who do not forget about me. We live in different towns, but we meet on every Victory Day 40, have drinks and remember the years of your youth. 

• Glossary

1 Odessa: The Jewish community of Odessa was the second biggest Jewish community in Russia. According to the census of 1897 there were 138,935 Jews in Odessa, which was 34,41% of the local population. There were 7 big synagogues and 49 prayer houses in Odessa. There were cheders in 19 prayer houses.

2 Russian Revolution of 1917: Revolution in which the tsarist regime was overthrown in the Russian Empire and, under Lenin, was replaced by the Bolshevik rule. The two phases of the Revolution were: February Revolution, which came about due to food and fuel shortages during World War I, and during which the tsar abdicated and a provisional government took over.

The second phase took place in the form of a coup led by Lenin in October/November (October Revolution) and saw the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

3 Sholem Aleichem (pen name of Shalom Rabinovich (1859-1916): Yiddish author and humorist, a prolific writer of novels, stories, feuilletons, critical reviews, and poem in Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian. He also contributed regularly to Yiddish dailies and weeklies.

In his writings he described the life of Jews in Russia, creating a gallery of bright characters. His creative work is an alloy of humor and lyricism, accurate psychological and details of everyday life.

He founded a literary Yiddish annual called Di Yidishe Folksbibliotek (The Popular Jewish Library), with which he wanted to raise the despised Yiddish literature from its mean status and at the same time to fight authors of trash literature, who dragged Yiddish literature to the lowest popular level. The first volume was a turning point in the history of modern Yiddish literature. Sholem Aleichem died in New York in 1916.

His popularity increased beyond the Yiddish-speaking public after his death. Some of his writings have been translated into most European languages and his plays and dramatic versions of his stories have been performed in many countries. The dramatic version of Tevye the Dairyman became an international hit as a musical (Fiddler on the Roof) in the 1960s.

4 Realschule: Secondary school for boys. Students studied mathematics, physics, natural history, foreign languages and drawing. After finishing this school they could enter higher industrial and agricultural educational institutions.

5 Nicolas II (1868 -1918): the last Russian emperor from the House of Romanovs (1894 * 1917). After the 1905 Revolution Nicolas II was forced to set up the State Duma (parliament) and carry out land reform in Russia. In March 1917 during the February Revolution Nicolas abdicated the throne. He was shot by the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg along with his family in 1918

6 Pogroms in Ukraine: In the 1920s there were many anti-Semitic gangs in Ukraine. They killed Jews and burnt their houses, they robbed their houses, raped women and killed children.

7 NEP: The so-called New Economic Policy of the Soviet authorities was launched by Lenin in 1921. It meant that private business was allowed on a small scale in order to save the country ruined by the Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War. They allowed priority development of private capital and entrepreneurship. The NEP was gradually abandoned in the 1920s with the introduction of the planned economy.

8 Keep in touch with relatives abroad: The authorities could arrest an individual corresponding with his/her relatives abroad and charge him/her with espionage, send them to concentration camp or even sentence them to death.

9 Communal apartment: The Soviet power wanted to improve housing conditions by requisitioning ‘excess’ living space of wealthy families after the Revolution of 1917. Apartments were shared by several families with each family occupying one room and sharing the kitchen, toilet and bathroom with other tenants.

Because of the chronic shortage of dwelling space in towns communal or shared apartments continued to exist for decades. Despite state programs for the construction of more houses and the liquidation of communal apartments, which began in the 1960s, shared apartments still exist today.

10 Komsomol: Communist youth political organization created in 1918. The task of the Komsomol was to spread of the ideas of communism and involve the worker and peasant youth in building the Soviet Union. The Komsomol also aimed at giving a communist upbringing by involving the worker youth in the political struggle, supplemented by theoretical education.

The Komsomol was more popular than the Communist Party because with its aim of education people could accept uninitiated young proletarians, whereas party members had to have at least a minimal political qualification.

11 Jewish Pale of Settlement: Certain provinces in the Russian Empire were designated for permanent Jewish residence and the Jewish population was only allowed to live in these areas. The Pale was first established by a decree by Catherine II in 1791.

The regulation was in force until the Russian Revolution of 1917, although the limits of the Pale were modified several times. The Pale stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and 94% of the total Jewish population of Russia, almost 5 million people, lived there.

The overwhelming majority of the Jews lived in the towns and shtetls of the Pale. Certain privileged groups of Jews, such as certain merchants, university graduates and craftsmen working in certain branches, were granted to live outside the borders of the Pale of Settlement permanently.

12 Great Terror (1934-1938): During the Great Terror, or Great Purges, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin's former Bolshevik opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to labor camps or killed in prison. The major targets of the Great Terror were communists. Over half of the people who were arrested were members of the party at the time of their arrest. The armed forces, the Communist Party, and the government in general were purged of all allegedly dissident persons; the victims were generally sentenced to death or to long terms of hard labor. Much of the purge was carried out in secret, and only a few cases were tried in public ‘show trials’. By the time the terror subsided in 1939, Stalin had managed to bring both the Party and the public to a state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so atomized and the people so fearful of reprisals that mass arrests were no longer necessary. Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union until his death in March 1953.

13 Enemy of the people: Soviet official term; euphemism used for real or assumed political opposition.

14 Trotsky, Lev Davidovich (born Bronshtein) (1879-1940): Russian revolutionary, one of the leaders of the October Revolution of 1917, an outstanding figure of the communist movement and a theorist of Marxism. Trotsky participated in the social-democratic movement from 1894 and supported the idea of the unification of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks from 1906.

In 1905 he developed the idea of the ‘permanent revolution’. He was one of the leaders of the October Revolution and a founder of the Red Army. He widely applied repressive measures to support the discipline and ‘bring everything into revolutionary order’ at the front and the home front. The intense struggle with Stalin for the leadership ended with Trotsky's defeat.

In 1924 his views were declared petty-bourgeois deviation. In 1927 he was expelled from the Communist Party, and exiled to Kazakhstan, and in 1929 abroad. He lived in Turkey, Norway and then Mexico. He excoriated Stalin's regime as a bureaucratic degeneration of the proletarian power. He was murdered in Mexico by an agent of Soviet special services on Stalin’s order.

15 All-Union pioneer organization: a communist organization for teenagers between 10 and 15 years old (cf: boy-/ girlscouts in the US). The organization aimed at educating the young generation in accordance with the communist ideals, preparing pioneers to become members of the Komsomol and later the Communist Party. In the Soviet Union, all teenagers were pioneers.

16 Tolstoy, Lev Nikolayevich (1828-1910): Russian novelist and moral philosopher, who holds an important place in his country’s cultural history as an ethical philosopher and religious reformer. Tolstoy, alongside Dostoyevsky, made the realistic novel a literary genre, ranking in importance with classical Greek tragedy and Elizabethan drama.

He is best known for his novels, including War and Peace, Anna Karenina and The Death of Ivan Ilyich, but also wrote short stories and essays and plays. Tolstoy took part in the Crimean War and his stories based one the defense of Sevastopol, known as Sevastopol Sketches, made him famous and opened St. Petersburg’s literary circles to him.

His main interest lay in working out his religious and philosophical ideas. He condemned capitalism and private property and was a fearless critic, which finally resulted in his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1901. His views regarding the evil of private property gradually estranged him from his wife, Yasnaya Polyana, and children, except for his daughter Alexandra, and he finally left them in 1910. He died on his way to a monastery at the railway junction of Astapovo.

17 Lermontov, Mikhail, (1814-1841): Russian poet and novelist. His poetic reputation, second in Russia only to Pushkin's, rests upon the lyric and narrative works of his last five years. Lermontov, who had sought a position in fashionable society, became enormously critical of it. His novel, A Hero of Our Time (1840), is partly autobiographical. It consists of five tales about Pechorin, a disenchanted and bored nobleman.

The novel is considered a classic of Russian psychological realism.

18 Great Patriotic War: On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed.

Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

19 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: Non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, which became known under the name of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Engaged in a border war with Japan in the Far East and fearing the German advance in the west, the Soviet government began secret negotiations for a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939.

In August 1939 it suddenly announced the conclusion of a Soviet-German agreement of friendship and non-aggression. The Pact contained a secret clause providing for the partition of Poland and for Soviet and German spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.

20 Invasion of Poland: The German attack of Poland on 1st September 1939 is widely considered the date in the West for the start of World War II.

After having gained both Austria and the Bohemian and Moravian parts of Czechoslovakia, Hitler was confident that he could acquire Poland without having to fight Britain and France. (To eliminate the possibility of the Soviet Union fighting if Poland were attacked, Hitler made a pact with the Soviet Union, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.) On the morning of 1st September 1939, German troops entered Poland.

The German air attack hit so quickly that most of Poland’s air force was destroyed while still on the ground. To hinder Polish mobilization, the Germans bombed bridges and roads. Groups of marching soldiers were machine-gunned from the air, and they also aimed at civilians. On 1st September, the beginning of the attack, Great Britain and France sent Hitler an ultimatum - withdraw German forces from Poland or Great Britain and France would go to war against Germany. On 3rd September, with Germany’s forces penetrating deeper into Poland, Great Britain and France both declared war on Germany.

21 Soviet-Finnish War (1939-40): The Soviet Union attacked Finland on 30 November 1939 to seize the Karelian Isthmus. The Red Army was halted at the so-called Mannengeim line. The League of Nations expelled the USSR from its ranks. In February-March 1940 the Red Army broke through the Mannengeim line and reached.

22 Bolshoi Theater: World famous national theater in Moscow, built in 1776. The first Russian and foreign opera and ballet performances were staged in this building.

23 Molotov, V. P. (1890-1986): Statesman and member of the Communist Party leadership. From 1939, Minister of Foreign Affairs. On June 22, 1941 he announced the German attack on the USSR on the radio. He and Eden also worked out the percentages agreement after the war, about Soviet and western spheres of influence in the new Europe.

24 Hero of the Soviet Union: Honorary title established on 16th April 1934 with the Gold Star medal instituted on 1st August 1939, by Decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet. Awarded to both military and civilian personnel for personal or collective deeds of heroism rendered to the USSR or socialist society.

25 Order of Lenin: Established in 1930, the Order of Lenin is the highest Soviet award. It was awarded for outstanding services in the revolutionary movement, labor activity, defense of the Homeland, and strengthening peace between peoples. It has been awarded over 400,000 times.

26 Georgy Zhukov (1896-1974): Soviet Commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Soviet Union. Georgy Zhukov was the most important Soviet military commander during World War II.

27 Stalingrad Battle (17 July 1942- 2 February1943) The Stalingrad, South-Western and Donskoy Fronts stopped the advance of German armies in the vicinity of Stalingrad. On 19-20 November 1942 the soviet troops undertook an offensive and encircled 22 German divisions (330 thousand people) in the vicinity of Stalingrad. The Soviet troops eliminated this German grouping.

On 31 January 1943 the remains of the 6th German army headed by General Field Marshal Paulus surrendered (91 thousand people). The victory in the Stalingrad battle was of huge political, strategic and international significance.

28 Bandera, Stepan (1919-1959): Politician and ideologue of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, who fought for the Ukrainian cause against both Poland and the Soviet Union.

He attained high positions in the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN): he was chief of propaganda (1931) and, later, head of the national executive in Galicia (1933). He was hoping to establish an independent Ukrainian state with Nazi backing. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the OUN announced the establishment of an independent government of Ukraine in Lvov on 30th June 1941.

About one week later the Germans disbanded this government and arrested the members. Bandera was taken to Sachsenhausen prison where he remained until the end of the war. He was assassinated by a Soviet agent in Munich in 1959.

29 Order of the Great Patriotic War: 1st Class: established 20th May 1942, awarded to officers and enlisted men of the armed forces and security troops and to partisans, irrespective of rank, for skillful command of their units in action. 

30 Medal ‘To Partisan of the Great Patriotic War’: Established on 2nd February 1943, the first class was awarded to partisans, commanders of partisan detachments, and partisan movement organizers for personal feats of courage and valor. Approximately 57,000 were issued.

2nd Class was awarded to partisans, commanders of partisan detachments, and partisan movement organizers for distinction in carrying out orders and assignments for higher echelons during the Great Patriotic War. Approximately 71,000 were issued. The medal was awarded to over 100 foreigners fighting in Soviet partisan units.

31 Medal "For Defense of Moscow" was established by the decree of the of the Presidium of Supreme Soviet of the USSR as of May 1, 1944. More than a million of people were conferred with that medal.

32 Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’: The campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’, i.e. Jews, was initiated in articles in the central organs of the Communist Party in 1949. The campaign was directed primarily at the Jewish intelligentsia and it was the first public attack on Soviet Jews as Jews.

‘Cosmopolitans’ writers were accused of hating the Russian people, of supporting Zionism, etc. Many Yiddish writers as well as the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested in November 1948 on charges that they maintained ties with Zionism and with American ‘imperialism’.

They were executed secretly in 1952. The anti-Semitic Doctors’ Plot was launched in January 1953. A wave of anti-Semitism spread through the USSR. Jews were removed from their positions, and rumors of an imminent mass deportation of Jews to the eastern part of the USSR began to spread.

Stalin’s death in March 1953 put an end to the campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’.
  
33 Mikhoels, Solomon (1890-1948) (born Vovsi): Great Soviet actor, producer and pedagogue. He worked in the Moscow State Jewish Theater (and was its art director from 1929). He directed philosophical, vivid and monumental works. Mikhoels was murdered by order of the State Security Ministry.

34 Item 5: This was the nationality factor, which was included on all job application forms, Jews, who were considered a separate nationality in the Soviet Union, were not favored in this respect from the end of World War WII until the late 1980s.

35 Doctors’ Plot: The Doctors’ Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the Party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture. This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin’s reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

36 Lomonosov Moscow State University, founded in 1755, the university was for a long time the only learning institution in Russia open to general public. In the Soviet time, it was the biggest and perhaps the most prestigious university in the country. At present there are over 40,000 undergraduates and 7,000 graduate students at MSU.

37 Perestroika (Russian for restructuring): Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s, associated with the name of Soviet politician Mikhail Gorbachev. The term designated the attempts to transform the stagnant, inefficient command economy of the Soviet Union into a decentralized, market-oriented economy.

Industrial managers and local government and party officials were granted greater autonomy, and open elections were introduced in an attempt to democratize the Communist Party organization. By 1991, perestroika was declining and was soon eclipsed by the dissolution of the USSR.

38 Gorbachev, Mikhail (1931- ): Soviet political leader. Gorbachev joined the Communist Party in 1952 and gradually moved up in the party hierarchy. In 1970 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, where he remained until 1990.

In 1980 he joined the politburo, and in 1985 he was appointed general secretary of the party. In 1986 he embarked on a comprehensive program of political, economic, and social liberalization under the slogans of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring).

The government released political prisoners, allowed increased emigration, attacked corruption, and encouraged the critical reexamination of Soviet history. The Congress of People’s Deputies, founded in 1989, voted to end the Communist Party’s control over the government and elected Gorbachev executive president.

Gorbachev dissolved the Communist Party and granted the Baltic stat independence. Following the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States in 1991, he resigned as president. Since 1992, Gorbachev has headed international organizations.

39 Brezhnev, Leonid (1906-1982) Soviet leader. He joined the Communist Party in 1931 and rose steadily in its hierarchy, becoming a secretary of the party’s central committee in 1952. In 1957, as protégé of Khrushchev, he became a member of the presidium (later politburo) of the central committee.

He was chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet, or titular head of state. Following Khrushchev’s fall from power in 1964, which Brezhnev helped to engineer, he was named first secretary of the Communist Party. Although sharing power with Kosygin, Brezhnev emerged as the chief figure in Soviet politics.

In 1968, in support of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, he enunciated the ‘Brezhnev doctrine,’ asserting that the USSR could intervene in the domestic affairs of any Soviet bloc nation if communist rule was threatened. While maintaining a tight rein in Eastern Europe, he favored closer relations with the Western powers, and he helped bring about a détente with the United States.

In 1977 he assumed the presidency of the USSR. Under Gorbachev, Brezhnev’s regime was criticized for its corruption and failed economic policies.

Victory Day in Russia (9th May): National holiday to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II and honor the Soviets who died in the war.

Grigoriy Kagan
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
Date of interview: September 2004

Grigoriy Kagan surprised me all at once with his young looks, light movements and shrewd eyes. Grigoriy is tall and has a muscular athletic stature and gray hair cut short. Grigoriy moves around quickly and he is a very interesting conversationalist. About a year ago he bought a computer to be able to communicate with his sons and grandchildren by e-mail correspondence, but later he started studying the software. Grigoriy gave me a disc with Grigoriy’s memories and the story of his life and the collection of stories ‘Only pleasant memories’. Even the title describes his personality.  I enjoyed reading his book: Grigoriy writes with a sense of humor and picks something funny even in the situation that another person would consider hard or sad. He also likes his dacha. He likes planting and taking care of his crops and enjoys talking about this. He lives in a 2-bedroom apartment in a 5-storied apartment building constructed in the 1970s in the Rusanovka district in Kiev. Rusanovka is also called the ‘Venice of Kiev’. It stands on the bank of the Dnieper and there are channels running all across the area. Grigoriy and his wife Ludmila make a very sweet couple. Ludmila is a short tiny lady, always friendly and gentle. One can tell the husband and wife love and understand each other.

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

I know very little about my father’s family. My father Aron - Arl in Jewish - Kagan did not know much about them either. My grandfather’s name was Mordekhai Kagan and my grandmother’s name was Yura. I don’t know my grandmother’s maiden name or where they were born. They lived in Sovskaya Street in Demeyevka, a suburb of Kiev. Demeyevka was within the [Jewish] Pale of Settlement 1. My grandfather was a cabman and owned horses and wagons. My grandfather died in 1898, when my father turned 2. My grandmother Yura died in 1903. My grandfather and grandmother were buried in the Lukianovka Jewish cemetery 2 in Kiev. My father remained an orphan at the age of 7. He was the youngest in the family. I knew his three older brothers and two sisters. My father’s sister Zelda Bykova was the oldest of all children. Her husband was a clerk and Zelda was a housewife. The next was my father’s brother Yankl Kagan. He was a cabman. He was much older than my father: Yankl’s children were the same age with my father. Yankl had a house, stables and wagons in Sovskaya Street. Horses made the main means of transportation in those years. The next child in the family was Iosif. He was a blacksmith. He had a forge near his house. The third brother Moishe also dealt in the transportation business. My father’s sister Haya was born in 1895.

After my grandfather and grandmother died my father went to live with Yankl and his wife Perl, and Haya lived with Iosif. In winter and summer my father lived at the hayloft. When my father grew older, Yankl trained him in his business, and later his brother Iosif trained him his vocation and before getting married my father worked in Iosif’s forge. 

My father’s mother tongue was Yiddish. I think the only place my father’s brothers studied was cheder. My father studied in the cheder for two years, but he did not finish it. He could write a little and knew only one arithmetic action: addition. My father and his brothers were religious. When they were growing up, the community only acknowledged religious way of life, and different views were not appreciated.

In 1918 my father married Doba Braginskaya, a cheerful girl from the nearby Romanovka village. I don’t know how my parents met. Their marriage may have been prearranged that was quite common at their time. I think my parents had a traditional Jewish wedding.

My grandfather Gersh Braginskiy had died before I was born. My grandmother’s name was Mara Braginskaya, but I don’t know her maiden name. I don’t know what my grandfather did for living.

They had five children: four daughters and one son. His name was Boruch. The oldest daughter’s name was Shyfra. Malka and Boruch came after her. My mother Doba was born in 1900. My mother’s sister Elka was the youngest.

My mother’s family spoke Yiddish. They also spoke Russian and Ukrainian with their non-Jewish neighbors. Romanovka was a Ukrainian village where few Jewish families resided. I’ve never been in Romanovka. When I was born, my mother’s family lived in Kiev. The Pale of Settlement was cancelled in 1917 [Russian Revolution of 1917] 3, and numbers of Jewish families living in Kiev region started moving to Kiev. Only my grandfather Gersh’s grave remained in Romanovka. Mama hardly told me anything about her family and I don’t know how religious they were.

My mother’s sister Shyfra and her husband moved to the USA in 1923. I was 3 years old, and my parents and I went to say good bye to them. I was put on a stool to kiss my aunt and uncle. This is all information I have about them. We had no contacts with them. In the late 1920s the authorities had a suspicious attitude to those, who had relatives abroad and corresponded with them [Keep in touch with relatives abroad] 4. They might accuse people of espionage without any reason. Mama received few letters from Shyfra, but she did not reply and the correspondence terminates. My mother’s sister Malka married Elia Elman, a Jewish guy, who had moved to Kiev from a small nearby village. Elia worked as a foreman at a furniture factory and Malka was a housewife. They had six children: 3 daughters: Ida, a middle daughter, whose name I can’t remember, and Anna, and three sons: Fitel, Grisha, who was older than me, and Pyotr, the youngest, born in 1921. Elia was a convinced communist and atheist, of course, since the Bolsheviks and the Soviet regime had an intolerant attitude toward religion [struggled against religion] 5 calling it delusion. A communist could not be religious by definition. The Elman family observed no Jewish traditions. Elia did not allow having his sons circumcised. He did not acknowledge religious rituals. By the way, this served his youngest son well. During the Great Patriotic War 6 Pyotr was recruited to the army, and his military unit was encircled. They were captured by Germans, who could not ignore Pyotr’s Semitic appearance, of course. The Germans asked his name and Pyotr replied he was Ukrainian and his surname was Vasilenko. This was his older sister Ida husband’s surname. The Germans ordered him to take his pants down and were surprised to see that he was not circumcised. This was probably one of just few cases, when the communist ideas had served anybody well. My mother’s sister Elka, who had the Russian name 7 of Olga, lived near the Vladimirskiy market in Kiev. Her family name was Gershtein. Her husband’s name was Elia. Elia worked at a pant and Olga was a housewife. Their son Israel was born in 1932. My mother’s brother Boris Braginskiy got fond of revolutionary ideas and got actively involved in the revolution. After moving to Kiev he went to work in the party bodies and by the 1930s he became some high official in Kiev. Boris married Alla, a jewish woman, some time in 1934, they had no children. My grandmother lived with him after moving to Kiev, and later she moved to a one-bedroom apartment in Proreznaya Street in the center of Kiev. Of my mother’s whole family that I knew only my grandmother, my mother and her sister Olga were moderately religious. They celebrated the main Jewish holidays at home. The rest of the family was atheist.

My father bought horses and a wagon to work on his own before getting married. He also somehow managed to get a 2-bedroom apartment on the 2nd floor of a 2-storied mansion in the center of Kiev. My parents had their bedroom in a smaller room, and the bigger room served as the children’s room. There was also a kitchen. I was born in this house in 1920. I was named Grigoriy after my mother’s father and my Jewish name is Gersh. My sister was born in 1922. Mama wanted to name her Yura after my father’s mother. However, when she went to register the little girl at the civil registry office, the registrar refused to write down this name (the Russian name of Yura is affectionate from the man’s name of Yuri). For this reason my sister was registered as Yulia.  

When my sister was 2 and I was 4, an incident decided my future. Mama went out leaving my sister and me sitting on the window sill for us to look out of the window. Yulia, seeing our mother approaching the house pushed the window and fell out of it. Mama grabbed her and ran to the ‘Milk drop’ clinic across the street. Leiba Rabinovich, an old Jew and director of this clinic, examined the girl and said she was perfectly all right. When she was falling, her blouse puffed up lie a parachute softening her fall down. This was when I decided to become a parachutist when I grew up.

I cannot say my parents were strongly religious. My father often worked on Saturday. We did not celebrate Sabbath. My father went to the small one-storied nearby synagogue in Bolshaya Vasilkovskaya Street on the main Jewish holidays. He took me with him after I turned five. The building of the synagogue was removed in the 1930s. I remember celebration of Pesach in our family. There was no bread in our house through 8 days of Pesach and we only ate matzah. Mama cooked delicious food: chicken broth, stuffed fish, chicken neck filled with liver and strudels. In the evening we sat at the table and my father recited a prayer. We also celebrated other Jewish holidays as well, but I don’t remember any details. My parents spoke Yiddish and Russian at home and I spoke both languages well.

In 1926 the authorities forced us out of our apartment. They needed the mansion for some reason, and forced all tenants out. There was another 2-storied building nearby. The owner of the house was selling apartments in the house for a very low price. Another part of the building had housed a restaurant before. The restaurant had been damaged by fire. There were two apartments on each floor: one 2- and one 3-bedroom apartment. My father and his brother Moishe bought 3-bedroom apartments on different floors: my father bought one on the 1st floor, and Moishe bought one on the 2nd floor. There were no comforts in the house. 2 houses away from our house water was sold in buckets in a small booth. There was a toilet in the yard. The apartments were heated with stoves. My mother cooked on the Russian stove 8 in the kitchen. There were sheds in the big backyard where my father and uncle Moishe arranged stables. My father had two pairs of draft horses and wagons. This house was removed in the mid 1960s. However, we didn’t live there long. The local authorities took a decision to make a food store in our apartment and we were ordered to move out. My parents rented a small room on the corner of Sovskaya Street and Kladbischenskiy Lane. There was a cemetery nearby, it was a common town cemetery and I don’t think there was a name of it. and I remember the numerous funeral processions. Later this cemetery was closed and a general education school built on the site. My sister studied in this school later. We lived in the Kladbischenskiy Lane for a little over a year before my father made arrangements with the tenants of the 2-bedroom apartment on the 1st floor of our previous house: he bought them another dwelling and we moved into their apartment. My father fenced the yard.

Growing up

When I turned five, my parents decided it was time for me to start my studies. It was common for Jewish children to go to study at the age of 5. I don’t know the reason, but at least all our relatives and friends sent their children to study at the age of 5. However, I could not go to school before turning 8 years of age, which was a rule, at that time children went to school at the age of 8 according to Soviet standards, but my parents arranged with the teacher to give me classes at home. Within three years I attained the knowledge corresponding to the syllabus of 3 grades of general education school. I turned 8 in 1928 and my mother and I went to the nearby 7-year Ukrainian school. It was a small 2-storied building. Its director told mama that there was an order issued by the people’s commissar of education for Jewish children to study in Jewish schools, Russian children in Russian schools and Ukrainian children in Ukrainian schools. He refused to admit me to the 1st grade. Mama asked him whether it was possible for me to go to the 2nd grade. Since the order was issued in 1928 it did not refer to pupils of the 2nd grade. I was given an entrance test: the teacher of mathematic wrote a problem on the blackboard during a break at school and I resolved it instantly. I was admitted to the 2nd grade. My classmates were one year older than me. They were born in 1919. However, I was the best pupil in my class. I was one of the first to become a pioneer [All-Union pioneer organization] 9 in my class, though I was the youngest. I was elected chairman of the pioneer unit in my class and then chairman of the pupils’ committee at school. There were few other Jewish children in my class. There was no anti-Semitism. There was no national segregation in my school.

I had many chores at home. My father got up very early. He had his horses harnessed before 5 o’clock in the morning to go to work. He hauled beer, sweets, sugar and he did the loading himself to save his earnings. He returned home by 5 p.m. and was exhausted after a day’s work. Mama and I were waiting for him at the gate. I opened the gate and unharnessed the horses. Mama had a bucket of water for my father to wash himself. I was to feed the horses, give them oats or hay, give them water and clean them an hour and a half later. I was to take care of the horses. Occasionally I took the horses to a vet. I rode one horse and led another holding it by the bridle. I had to stand in line to the vet and these visits might last a day or so. I always smelled of horses. Once Pyotr Shebiakin, with whom I shared my desk in my class, said that I smelled of horse manure. I hit him. The teacher asked what the matter was and when I explained she told Pyotr to go out of the classroom and told me that I was right. I can still remember this.

1932-33 was the period of terrible famine in Ukraine 10. The food store arranged in our 3-bedroom apartment on the 1st floor turned out to be very helpful. People had to stand in lines at night to get some bread. The shop assistants used to come by our apartment to heat or cook some food in our kitchen during their lunch time. They did it since we moved into the house. Thanks to this we did not have to stand in long lines. The shop assistants brought us bread and mama gave them our bread coupons. We somehow managed through this hard time.

There was a club and a gymnasium in the basement of the house where I had been born. When I was in the 5th grade, I enrolled into a wrestling club. When I told my father in the evening, he said I was a fool, and on the following day I enrolled in a box club. My father didn’t mind it, though he did not quite like the idea. Having attained numerous bruises and bumps, I was soon awarded a junior category, and before finishing the 7th grade at school I already had the 3rd grade in boxing. This helped me to enter a military school later. Boxing was not my single hobby. I went to the radio station the moment I heard there was one, established by Ierehim Tolochinskiy, a smart and keen Jewish guy. We studied the Morse receipt and transmission. It didn’t take me long to learn it. Ierehim sent me to the short wave class on the corner of current Kreschatik and Institutskaya Street. My trainer was Aaronov, unfortunately, I cannot remember his first name. I learned the Morse code receipt and transmission promptly. Over a year later in 1936 I became a skilled radio operator. This became the main course of my life. It determined my future career success. In 1936 I returned to Ierehim’s radio station, but this time I became an operator. The call letter of the radio station was UK5KJ, and I was assigned a personal international call letter: ORS 1030. There was an operator work schedule. I was to take up the shift, sign up in the roster and work 2-3 hours before the next shift man came. This short-wave transmission hobby spread all over the world at that time. I sent messages and someone responded. I corresponded with many people. To confirm our communication my partners were supposed to send me their QSL-cards and I sent them mine. Once I established communication with a radio amateur, whose call letter was W2KK. ‘W’ stood for America! This was the first time I contacted someone from so far away. He sent me his QSL-card, and before sending him mine I boasted to Ierehim of this contact with America. He told me not to send him my card and never show his to anybody since this was a direct path to the GULAG 11 in Kolyma. This occurred in 1936, during the period of arrests [Great Terror ] 12. Later I understood that Ierehim saved my life giving his advice, but at that time I was rather upset that nobody would ever hear about my accomplishment.  

After finishing the lower secondary school I had to go on with my studies. I was admitted to the 8th grade of a Russian school. Russian was no problem for me. I joined Komsomol 13 in the 8th grade. I wouldn’t say I made my parents happy with my successes at school. The radio station was what I dedicated most of my time to. After classes I went to my club and returned home before my father was to come home. My classmates went to the cinema or theater and met with their girlfriends while I spent my time sitting by the radio transmitter sending my call letter on the air. I finished school in 1937. 

Every day newspapers and radio published about new arrests and discovering new ‘enemies of the people’ 14. My friends and I admired Yezhov 15 and those decisive efforts he undertook to discover and eliminate enemies of the people and enemies of the Soviet power. Of course, my friends and I believed it all, being Komsomol members. How could we doubt the Communist Party and Stalin’s decisions! When my mother’s brother Boris Braginskiy was arrested, I started having doubts about what was happening. I knew and admired him since my childhood. He was a wonderful person. We didn’t see him often: he was a high official and did not have much in common with an ordinary cabman’s family. Boris and his wife Alla visited us occasionally. Once he told me that Trotskiy 16 was a great man. I never mentioned it to anybody since we had this discussion after Stalin deported Trotskiy from the USSR. Boris may have spoken it out elsewhere. He was arrested, prosecuted for being a Trotskist and enemy of the people and executed in August 1936. Grandmother Mara died few days after her son was executed. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Kiev. I don’t know where Boris’ grave is. I don’t know what happened to Alla after Boris was killed.

I finished the 10th grade in 1937. I did not have the highest marks in my certificate and knew that I hardly had a chance to enter a college and decided to go to a military school. I went to Kharkov [440 km from Kiev] where I entered the Kharkov Air Force School of Communications. There were two companies in this school: one trained radio operators for landing troops and another company trained operators for Air Force troops. I became the best cadet at this school. While the other cadets were just beginners of studying the Morse code, I was already the 1st class operator. The 1st class radio operator can receive and transmit at least 80 signs, a 2nd class operator can operate 60 and a 3rd class operator can operate 40 signs per minute. We had Morse code classes every day. Our classes started after we had breakfast. In class my trainer gave me a transmission task while the others were receiving what I transmitted. We also studied self-defense and jumped with parachutes.  It’s not true that one can get used to everything. I remember the feeling of fear before my first jump, but the following ones were even more fearful, when the door opened and I looked down… I never got used to this, though I jumped a number of times. Perhaps, the feeling of fear is natural, and it is important to overcome it.

I finished this school with honors. In August 1939 I was awarded the rank of lieutenant and was assigned to serve in Engels town [800 km from Moscow] near Saratov in Povolzhiye populated with German colonists 17. My Yiddish helped me to communicate with them. I served in the 202nd airborne landing brigade. About one month later my headquarters informed me that the 64th howitzer artillery regiment in Saratov needed communication officer and I was sent to Saratov. I became communication commanding officer at the age of 20. Afanasiy Zaborskiy, commanding officer of a howitzer squad, became my best friend. Howitzers have short barrels, which makes them different from cannons. 3 pairs of horses had to pull one 152-mm howitzer. Once one Afanasiy’s howitzer flunked into snow. I tried to help them pull it out of there. It resulted in hernia and I had a surgery. I stayed in hospital for few days before I was released. However, I could not lift weights and was not fit for combatant service. I decided to enter the Military Academy. This was in 1940. The regiment commander approved my application. I took entrance exams in the regiment headquarters in Kuibyshev [present Samara, about 1200 km from Moscow]. I passed mathematic and physics and was to take the Russian language exam. There were few subjects given at the exam and I chose the subject of Mayakovskiy 18, whom I liked and knew well. I wrote an excellent composition with multiple quotations. Then we gathered in the conference hall to hear the results, when the teacher of the Russian language and literature, who happened to be the wife of a big commander asked, who lieutenant Kagan was. When I stood up, she said I had written an excellent composition, and even the excellent mark was not enough to give for it. They confirmed my admission to the Leningrad Academy. It was called the Military Electrotechnical Academy of Communication. After the war it was renamed into the Academy of Communication. In September 1940 I started my studies in the Academy. We lived in barracks. On Sunday cadets had a day off and were allowed to walk in the city. I went to museums and theaters. Leningrad [called St. Petersburg today] is a wonderfully beautiful city. One day I met Masha, Maria Akimova on a tram stop. After the war she became my wife and the mother of our two sons.  

During the war

In June 1941 I finished my first academic year in the Academy. I was eager to visit my parents on vacation, and we were surprised to hear that we were supposed to stay in the Academy after exams. My distant relative living in Leningrad invited me to the opening of fountains in Petergof [Petergof or Peterhof - a palace, fountain and park ensemble built by Peter the Great in the early 1700s, often called the ’ Russian Versailles’ and ’Capital of Fountains', is situated 30 km from Saint Petersburg. The fountains operate during the summer.] on 22nd June 1941. We went to Petergof and were walking around, when a military patrol approached me and ordered to go back to my military unit. I was bewildered: I had a leave and observed the rules so there seemed to be no reason for me to be notified like this. Another patrol repeated this requirement. I went to the station to take a local train and that was where I heard that the Great Patriotic War began. However, people had a rather optimistic attitude we had been convinced that if somebody attacked us, the war would be instant and we would defeat the enemy on its own territory. This was a common belief. The vacation was cancelled and we started having classes in the Academy again. Then there was an order to form the 11th special infantry brigade from cadets issued. I was appointed commanding officer of a squad. We were given no weapons, but some digging tools. We marched to the front line in the south of Leningrad. A company commanding officer, my fellow cadet at the Academy, marched beside me and I asked him why we had no weapons. He silently unbuttoned his empty holster. He didn’t even have a gun. When we arrived at Ust’-Izhora, we dug trenches. I started training my subordinates self-defense methods, when we received another order. It stated that all Academy cadets had to go back to Leningrad. When our replacement forces arrived, I transferred command to another lieutenant and we went back to Leningrad to continue our studies. And then the siege of Leningrad [Blockade of Leningrad] 19 began. This was when I learned what starving was like. We, strong guys, received small pieces of bread per day. We ate our ration at once and then had nothing to eat until the following morning. Then we got an order for the Academy to relocate to Tomsk [3000 km east from Moscow in Siberia]. The planes delivering food products to Leningrad transported us from Leningrad. On our way to the evacuation we got a little encouraged. After two months in Tomsk we were notified that we would have an accelerated graduation to have the right to finish the Academy after the war. I was one of the first 5 graduates of the Academy.

In 1942 I submitted my request for joining the Communist Party. This was my sincere step. I believed the party consolidated the best part of society. This was the way my generation was raised. I became a candidate for the Party membership. I received my party membership certificate in early 1943. It was a big honor for me. Later, in my peaceful life, it turned out that this party membership was also important for making a career, but I did not give this a thought at that time. I was not looking for any personal benefits.

In March 1942 we were awarded the rank of lieutenants and took a train to Moscow to the Communication Headquarters of the army. I was assigned to the 99th Guard tank brigade as communication commanding officer. However, before I could make my appearance at the point of destination, the Communication Headquarters human resource officer took back my assignment notice. I asked him what happened and he explained that commander of the Air Force communications General Vasiliev requested that I was assigned to his unit. General Vasiliev was deputy chief of Kharkov School and knew me well. He appointed me chief of the radio center of the Air Force headquarters located in Moscow. My subordinates were the girls, who volunteered to be radio operators. We received ciphered cables and I submitted them to the headquarters. One month later General Vasiliev notified me that the radio operator of the 4th Air Force Corps under the command of General Kazankin deployed in the German rear near Smolensk perished from an antipersonnel mine. Vasiliev asked me whether I wanted to go there as a radio operator. I was very surprised that my general asked my consent rather than issuing an order to me. I agreed to go. I took a plane with two soldiers. I was given two parachutes and they had one each. One of them had a receiver on his chest and another had a dynamo machine (we called it a ‘soldier engine’ since it had a handle generating power by continuous turning of this handle). It was necessary since batteries were only sufficient to support the receipt, but not transmission. We flew at night. In landing troops their commander is person number one, and number two is the radio operator receiving directions of the headquarters and hands them to the commander. These were ciphered messages and I was the only person, who knew the content. The deployment of our landing troops in the German rear was very dangerous for them. Our 6 brigades were well-trained paratroopers, and we caused severe damages in the enemy’s rear. On 6th May 1942 I received another cipher message from Moscow. It was a direction for us to leave the site of our deployment. My brigade and I relocated to Ramenskoye. Our brigade commander Colonel Rodimtsev, who was promoted to general soon, thought high of me, but I did not stay in his brigade. General Vasiliev ordered me to come to his office in Moscow and sent me to Teykovo town where I was appointed communication chief of the 4th maneuver airborne landing brigade. I had to train its radio operators. Commander of this brigade was Colonel Zhelo drank at least one liter of vodka per day and was never sober. He was a partisan before he was appointed commander of the brigade, but this appointment was cancelled before long. Our new brigade commander was Lieutenant Colonel Nikolay Dvornikov, a highly-skilled parachutist, who had over 200 parachute jumps. He was an idol for me: I had over 50 jumps by then. I arrived at the brigade in the rank of captain, and I was appointed assistant chief of communication of the brigade. Chief of communication, a major, was a stupid person having no idea of our area of responsibility. He was concerned that I when I was promoted to the rank of major, this would jeopardize his position, and this conviction of his postponed my promotion to this rank. I wasn’t promoted to the rank of major until I was back in the Academy after the war. 

The 4th maneuver airborne landing brigade and the 6th brigade were merged to form the 10th guard airborne landing brigade. After it recaptured Krivoy Rog [370 km south-east of Kiev] was awarded the name of the Krivoy Rog Red Banner Airborne Landing Division, but then we were on the front-line in the north making efforts to recapture Staraya Russa [about 800 km east of Kiev]. Redia was ahead of us. We were fighting on the 12-km front line that was transferred to us by the previous division by an acceptance deed. There was a village in this area, and the deed indicated that it was liberated from Germans, but this was not true. Vasiliy Ivanov, commander of the division, issued an order: ‘Well, parachutist guys, seize this village!’ This happened on 4th May 1943. I remember this date well. A group of parachutists started on their way to the village at night. They also had mine engineers with them to remove mines to make passages to the village. They stabbed all Germans in their trenches at night. The Germans did not know what happened till their guys called their headquarters and heard cursing in Russian. The Germans sent a battalion to recapture the village, but our paratroopers already had additional forces sent to them. Our commander was the lieutenant colonel, deputy commander of the regiment. He was in one blindage and I was in another with my radio station. Our wounded troopers were taken to my blindage. I told them to stay calm since no cannon was going to hit our blindage. Why did I tell this? Because a gypsy fortune-teller had told me that my wife would kill me, and I was not even married yet. This called them down, and they only asked me to stay with them. I looked out of the blindage and saw a column of Germans moving toward us. They were coming slowly, but they were still moving in our direction. I tuned the radio station to a ‘Katyusha’ division [editor’s note: The 82mm BM-8 and 132mm BM-13 Katyusha rocket launchers were built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II. The launcher got this unofficial, but immediately recognized in the Red Army, name from the title of a Russian wartime song, Katyusha] and notified them that a German division was openly moving in my direction. The communication officer of this division recognized me and said: ‘We shall play a merry song now’. There were 32 units in the ‘Katyusha’ division and they all started firing. The German battalion was gone. The ‘Katyusha’ units made a fearful weapon. It was tested in 1942, when Germans wanted to capture Moscow. Well, anyway, I had to run to the division commander’s blindage to deliver the messages to him. At one moment a German sniper started shooting at me. I fell onto the ground thinking what I could do. I crawled about 15 meters aside across the dirt, before I stood up and ran. I managed to escape. There were long and hard fights near Staraya Russa, and we had to retreat incurring losses.  I lost many friends there. We almost lost the division. There were just few survivors.

The remains of our division relocated to Kharkov [450 km east of Kiev] for remanning. There were 7 echelon trains with 5 of them transporting cannons. After remanning and reequipment near Kharkov we were sent to cross the Dnieper River in October 1943. We started crossing the river on 8th October 1943. Our infantry went first followed by our landing division and parachutists, when our Army Commander ordered the parachutists to go first. There was an island on the Dnieper that we could use. The Germans used Ferdinand cannons [new German heavy self-propelled gun nicknamed ‘Ferdinand’ after it's creator, Ferdinand Porsche] with thick armor. My division commander sent me to the observation point on a hill. Our artillery people installed a 45-mm cannon to shoot at this Ferdinand cannon, but it didn’t work. The Ferdinand cannon fired back and destroyed our cannon. Its crew perished, and a splinter injured my head. My orderly pulled me to the crossing. I had a bandage applied on my injury and transported me to the left bank of the Dnieper on a raft. Our medical battalion was already there. The surgeon examined my wound and told Major Vasiliy Pokrovskiy, chief of the sanitary service of the division, that I had to be taken to a rear hospital. Pokrovskiy replied: ‘No hospitals! There are many captains in hospitals, but we have only one Grigoriy’. I could never forget this. I was taken to a house in Perevolochnaya village. I stayed in bed and medical nurses came to replace my bandages, give me medications and food. 10 days later Pokrovskiy said: ‘Enough of staying in bed’. I had another bandage replaced and was ordered to cross the river to the opposite bank. My fellow comrades joked that I had to cover the bandage or they might draw attention of Germans. After crossing the Dnieper we moved in the direction of Krivoy Rog. That was when I was awarded the first order. General Ivanov, commander of the division, declared that I deserved an Order of the Red Combat Banner 20 for being wounded, but staying in the formation. He sent the documents for review and meanwhile we relocated to another front line and I had no chance to receive the award. My commander unpinned his order of Red Banner [Order of the Red Star ] 21 and handed it to me. This was my first combatant order.

I always stood beside my division commander. We developed good relationships. In December 1943 we started preparations for our attack on Krivoy Rog. The division advanced, and the paratroopers, communications people and the headquarters stayed behind. A tank leader left his tank with us and went back to his unit. I asked him to show me how to start the tank. My division commander and I were alone, when German troops approached closer. I suggested that we drove the tank. I started the engine and we drove to Pervomayskoye near Krivoy Rog. There were Katyusha units on the bank of the Dnieper. The army commander was preparing for an attack. Germans feared Katyusha units a lot. They played an important role in the liberation of Krivoy Rog. The Katyusha units smashed Germans troops from their positions. We liberated Krivoy Rog by 23rd February 1944, the Soviet Army Day 22. My friend colonel Nikolay Dvornikov perished there. The infantry was deployed ahead of us. Landing troops were always behind on the front line. The 24th paratrooper regiment that was under command of Dvornikov, was behind an infantry regiment that consisted mainly of the Kazakh troopers, who did not understand a word in Russian. They were miserable fighters and ran away hearing the first shots. It was the same that time. Therefore, the 24th paratrooper regiment deployed in the echelon of our division at some distance from the front line did not expect this prompt advance of German troops and was encircled. Nikolay Dvornikov perished repulsing an attack. A street in Krivoy Rog was named after him. Later we resumed our position and seized the town, but the deceased ones were lost forever. Many things happened.... There were also communication problems. The division had to relocate about 15 km from our position. Our chief of communication ordered to install the line of communication. Why did we have to do this, when we were on the go? We had to save the cable. So, we were installing the cable, when we ran out of it. The regiments entered Pervomayskoye village, when the communication was lost. Then we received additional quantities of cable from American supplies: big rolls of 1.5-2 km cable lengths. My people were still behind. What was I to do to establish the communication? I went to the nearest hut where I discovered three guys. We knew there were young guys in all villages who were hiding from being regimented to the front line. When they saw me, they got scared that I might kill them, but I explained that I would do them no harm if they helped me to install the cable. They ran ahead installing the cable and I followed them with my gun. We established the communication promptly. My commander was greatly surprised that I managed it so well. I was awarded a II Grade Order of the Great Patriotic War 23 for my participation in the liberation of Krivoy Rog.

When Krivoy Rog was liberated, all parachutists who had experienced over 50 jumps were directed to relocate to Moscow for another formation of paratroopers. Our division was renamed into an infantry division after all parachutists left it. I had over 100 jumps and went to Moscow. I was appointed chief of communication of the 3rd Guard paratrooper brigade in Teykovo [200 km north-east of Moscow]. The brigade was based in a forest few km from the town. There was a field for training parachute jumps nearby. The jumps were performed from a gondola where 3 parachutists and one instructor could fit. A powerful winch was lifting and lowering the gondola. I was to take part in the training. I additionally received 100 rubles more for each training jump. Besides personal training, I also trained beginner parachutists. There were the first women parachutists involved in the training and they happened to have more courage than men. There were few girls in my paratrooper brigade and they never waited for being pushed to jump. On the contrary, they always asked the instructor to let them take the first jump, the so-called ‘zeroing in’, when an instructor fixed the spot where the first parachutist landed. It was different with the guys. I happened to have to push a parachutist. I also had to tie myself inside to not be pulled out by a parachutist. In early 1944 I and other paratroopers relocated to Bykhov [450 km south-west of Moscow] in Belarus where we were to form the 103rd paratrooper division. I was appointed chief of communication in the 3rd paratrooper brigade within this division. 

I kept in touch with my family through these years. In 1941, when I was a cadet of the Academy, I sent my parents a letter writing them to have no concerns about the war since we would defeat them in no time. Fortunately, my father, who had little education, happened to be smarter than me. He didn’t wait till our brave army would defeat the enemy. He harnessed the horses and my mother, my sister and my father headed to the east. He tried to convince his older sister Zelda to join them, but Zelda and her husband refused. They said they were too old to leave home. They were killed on 29th September 1941 in Babi Yar 24. My family arrived at a town on the bank of the Dnieper where the army expropriated their wagon and horses and they took a train to Uzbekistan. They arrived at and stayed in Margelan near Fergana. They returned home after the liberation of Kiev in 1944. My father’s brother Meishe, his wife Basia, their daughters Mara and Sophia also returned to Kiev from evacuation, they were in Central Asia. Meishe’s apartment was vacant, but some people had moved in my parents’ apartment. They refused to move out of it. My parents wrote me about it. I was in Bykhov. My commandment sent me and 10 soldiers to Kiev to help my parents and we also trained installation of long-distance communication. We came to our house and I demanded that the tenants moved out of my parents’ apartment. They refused and I ordered the soldiers to take their belongings outside. One of the tenants started threatening me and I explained that I was a paratrooper and they had better obey. I helped my parents to move back into our apartment. The previous tenants appealed to court, but it did not work. I returned to my unit. When the formation and training were over I went to the front line again. We cheered up. We were advancing smashing the German forces. There was the feeling of close victory. We were heading to Germany. Our division was involved in the liberation of Vienna. In early May 1945 we stopped in a small village near Vienna, unfortunately, I forgot its name. Our paratrooper forces were in the 2nd echelon. The village was lovely and we enjoyed the quietude and calmness. On 8th May 1945 we got together for a division meeting, when our division commissar came in and declared: ‘Guys, the war is over!’ We rushed outside and started shooting into the air. The commissar allowed us some time to express our cheers before he announced that the war was over for all, but for us. There was still action in process in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Stalin issued an order: ‘Tank brigades and paratrooper forces, go ahead to Czechoslovakia to rescue it from German forces’. We relocated there immediately. We separated, when we arrived in Czechoslovakia: one part moved in the direction of Prague, and we headed to Ceske Budejovice. We were merciless towards German troops. We exterminated all of them: taking captives was out of the question. The war was over for our division 24 km from Ceskе Budejovice. I was awarded another order of Red Banner for Vienna. I received my 4th order in 1965, to the 20th anniversary of the victory over Germany. I was invited to the military registry office and awarded an order of the Patriotic War Grade I.

I also corresponded with Maria Akimova. Maria came from a small village near Smolensk, I don’t remember its name. Her parents Pyotr Akimov and Aksinia gave birth to four children. Aria had to take care of her younger sisters and brother, being the oldest in the family. They perished during the Great Patriotic War. After finishing secondary school Maria went to her aunt in Leningrad. Maria was a siege survivor. We decided to get married after the war. I went to see her and we registered our marriage in a registry office. Of course, we had no wedding party considering the circumstances. I was allowed a few days’ leave to spend with my wife and then I returned to my division. My parents had nothing against my marriage with a non-Jewish woman. They thought that our love was what mattered.  

By the end of the war I was chief of communication of the 114th division where I was transferred from the position of the 103rd division battalion chief of communication. I did not face any anti-Semitism in the army. I don’t think there was any. I was treated with love and respect like other Jews in the army. I think that in extreme situations insignificant things move to the background, and personal values come into focus. 

After the war

I was going to resume my studies in the Academy. Before going to the front line we obtained certificates that we were cadets of the Academy and could return there after the war. However, our division General Vasiliy Ivanov received an order from Moscow: ‘Send Captain Grigoriy Kagan to the Moscow Air Force headquarters’. I had to obey this order. It turned out the Moscow Air Force headquarters worked on the formation of a hockey team. It was organized by Vsevolod Bobrov, a popular hockey player. I had met him in Tomsk where our Academy relocated from Leningrad. I was fond of playing hockey, when I studied in the Kharkov school. This was Russian hockey with a ball, with 11 team players, a field as big as a football field and a smaller gate. By the way, Russia, Norway, Sweden and Finland play Russian hockey that has been renamed to be called Bandy. The teams of these countries hold championships. I took part in hockey matches in Tomsk. Bobrov was a student of the military logistic school. He attended the games and remembered how I was playing. When Vasiliy, Stalin’s son, who was an Air Force pilot and chief, ordered to form an Air Force hockey team, Bobrov remembered me and sent a telegram to invite me. I stayed in Moscow and started training. I wouldn’t say I was happy about this turn in my life. My wife Maria lived with her aunt in Leningrad. I wanted to be with my wife and study in the Academy, but I could not reject this offer fearing Vasiliy Stalin. I was considering quitting the team and asked Bobrov to find and replacement for me. I only saw my life, when we toured to Leningrad. On 11th November 1946 our first son Oleg was born. I didn’t see my son before early December, when he was almost one month old and I arrived in Leningrad on another tour. Perhaps, Oleg brought me luck. Vsevolod Bobrov had birthday on 1st December and celebrated it on 5th December on the Stalin Constitution Day [on 5th December 1936 the second Constitution of the Soviet Union was adopted and it was commonly called the Stalin’s Constitution. It existed till 1977. Until 1991 this day was a Constitution Day, an official holiday in the USSR.] At that time all birthdays were dated for official holidays. Vasiliy Stalin, an Air Force general at the time, decided to arrange Bobrov’s birthday party in the hotel where he was staying. Vsevolod invited me to the party. After numerous toasts Vsevolod mentioned to Vasiliy Stalin that I wanted to continue my studies in the academy and that there was already my replacement found. Stalin ordered his adjutant to find General Lieutenant Muraviyov, Communication Forces, Chief of the Academy. It was about 2 o’clock in the morning. The adjutant called him at home and said that Stalin wanted to talk to him. Vasiliy picked the receiver and said that he was sitting in front of a captain who had left for the front line after finishing the first year in the Academy, but wanted to continue his study in the Academy now. Muraviyov told me to come to his office the following day. When I made my appearance Muraviyov asked me how I was going to study when the classes had begun 3 months before. I replied: ‘I’ll be an excellent student, don’t worry about it’. So I was admitted to the first course of the Communication faculty of the Academy. I kept my word: I had all excellent marks in all subjects in the Academy. I also received a room in the dormitory of the Academy where I could live with my wife and son. I graduated from the Academy with honors on 25th August 1950, and my Jewish surname was written in golden letters on the white marble board in the Academy. There was already strong anti-Semitism in the society. It grew stronger since 1948, the period of struggle against cosmopolitism [Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] 25. However, I did not face it during my study in the Academy. Upon graduation I was promoted to the rank of major. I was appointed deputy chief of communication forces of the 25th Air Force army deployed in Leningrad. I went to the human resource department of the 25th army. Their HR manager was happy to see me and said I was expected. However, when he read my surname in my diploma, his expression changed and he said that regretfully he had forgotten that this position had already been assigned to someone else. After graduating the Academy with honors and having a job assignment I had no job while I had to provide for my wife and my 4-year old son. I could not find a job. The three of us had to live on 90 rubles per month. I received this allowance for my rank and this was the only income our family had. Of course, I understood this had to do with my Jewish identity: the other graduates of the Academy, who had worse marks than I, were appointed to higher positions and were duly promoted. The military career was closed for me. Some time later I was invited to Moscow where I got an offer to fill the position of a lecturer at a military school. I had a choice to teach electric engineering in Zhytomyr, and this position corresponded to my rank of major, or physical basics of radio equipment and location in anti-aircraft artillery school #3 in Aluksne town in Latvia, and this position corresponded to the rank of lieutenant colonel. I decided for Aluksne, thought Zhytomyr was near Kiev and I could visit my parents if I had decided to go there. 

My wife, my son and I moved to Aluksne. The Baltic Republics were annexed to the USSR in 1940 [Occupation of the Baltic Republics] 26. The Latvians considered it to be occupation of their country. They treated us as if we were occupants and they were right since we behaved like occupants. When I arrived I was offered to choose some accommodation. I looked around and decided for a small cozy cottage in the center of the town. The owner of the house was ordered to vacate one room for me and he did it obediently. He did not have the right to argue since he might have been arrested for disobedience otherwise. Such requirements were explained as needed by the state. However, the negative attitude of the locals showed itself in many ways. Shop assistants pretended they did not understand Russian, but if they were addressed in Latvian, they smiled in response and sold their goods. I spoke fluent Latvian within half a year and spoke it without an accent, though I did not know the grammar.

I was surprised that there was no anti-Semitism in Latvia. Perhaps, this was another demonstration of the negative attitude of Latvians toward everything that was Soviet. Stalin was an idol for us, but a barbarian and an aggressor for them. If Stalin and his alliances persecuted Jews, it meant that Jews were worth respecting. This was what Latvia thought about the ‘Doctors’ Plot’ 27. This persecution started in January 1953 and caused an outburst of anti-Semitism in the USSR. By the way, most lecturers in our school were Jewish. One of them had a rather ‘decent’ surname of Sorokin, but it didn’t do him well: the 5th line item [Item 5] 28 was what mattered. This period was very pleasant for me. I was also involved in the sports activities at my school. I was a football trainer and played hockey for my school. Both students and lecturers had a warm attitude toward me. I liked and enjoyed my job. However, I had to think about my career.

Stalin, the ‘father of all people’, as he was called, died in March 1953. Many people cried and grieved after him. I also felt the bitterness of this loss. My generation was growing up with the name of Stalin. We sincerely believed Stalin to be the ‘best friend of children’ and the ‘beloved chief of all people’ that the official propaganda called him. Even the people who had been affected by Stalin’s persecution could not believe that Stalin was connected to this. However, I cannot help mentioning here that when I heard Khrushchev’s 29 speech on the 20th Congress of the party in 1956 [Twentieth Party Congress] 30, I was very happy about it. I thought that if the party was brave and committed to the acknowledgement of mistakes and recognition that the Stalin’s regime was a criminal regime. I also believed that our life would improve significantly. I believed everything Khrushchev said at once and unconditionally. Everything Khrushchev said was a revelation for me. How mean Stalin was! He exterminated all those whom he believed to be more intelligent than he was. There were many such people. Nobody could say a word against Stalin. There was a wide network of his volunteer informers. They reported everything to NKVD 31. There were decision of ‘great’ Stalin, the ‘best friend of all children’ kept in the archives. In those documents he signed his execution verdict for over 40 thousand people, including children under 12. I think Stalin was worse than Hitler, at least with regards to his attitude toward Jews. Hitler did it openly while Stalin exterminated Jews on the quiet, covering himself with crackling phrases about the ‘revolutionary need’ and falsified trials.  Now it’s no secret that he had barracks for deported Jews installed in Siberia. There was a mass deportation prepared and this was not his first experience. He had deported the Crimean Tatars, Chechen and Ingushi people [Forced deportation to Siberia] 32 before. Jews were to follow into their steps and there were already trains for them prepared. Stalin died on the Jewish holiday of Purim. Could it be that his evil deeds overfilled the God’s cup of patience?

One way or another I benefited from Stalin’s death. Shortly afterward I was offered the post of communication chief in Moscow. It was a significant promotion for me. I finished the war in the rank of chief of division communication. A corps included 3 divisions. Of course, I gave my consent and did not even ask where this corps was located. Actually, this was the Northern Air Defense in Belomorsk, between Murmansk and Petrozavodsk, 6000 km from Moscow. This town was located on the bank of the last sluice on the Belomor-Baltic Channel. My wife, my son and I moved to where my job was. In 1957 my second son Igor was born in Arkhangelsk.

My predecessor did not work too hard, and I had to work hard to improve the communication system. What made my work much easier was that my former fellow students, who were not as good in his studies as I was, succeeded well having no 5th item. One of my former fellow students even became deputy chief of communication forces of the Ministry of Defense. My friend Mikhail Kapustin, whom I used to help with his studies on various subjects, was communication cable logistic manager in the Ministry. This helped me a lot in the future. I established convenient and extensive communication between the two radio engineering regiments of the corps (in Murmansk and Petrozavodsk) and two RE battalions at the command post. It was based on the cable lines of the Ministry of Communication that we rented. It also covered our neighbors and command posts of the Anti-Aircraft Defense forces of the country and the 22nd Air Force army in Petrozavodsk. Besides, I installed a powerful radio transmitting center in the reinforced concrete shelter that could not be destroyed even by a direct hit of a radio bomb. Actually, the anti-aircraft defense of the country included just radio engineering forces: two regiments and two battalions. This was another stupidity of the Supreme Commandment: 5 Air Force fighter divisions were not in our subordination. They belonged to the 22nd Air Force army that was under the command of the Air Force rather than the anti-aircraft defense. It was the same with the anti-aircraft artillery units equipped with 100-mm caliber guns and radio engineering facility navigation systems that belonged to the land forces. America proved this inefficiency of the anti-aircraft defense system. One day in summer 1955 a B-47 bomber took off from an US-controlled air field in Norway. It turned around insolently, and this is the only word I can find, over Petrozavodsk, the headquarters of the Northern Military district and the headquarters of the 22nd Air Force army, and flew over the Petrozavodsk-Murmansk railroad. Our anti-aircraft means reproduced this accurately on the command post of the 22nd Air Force army where General Serov was on duty. When our command point requested General Serov why he took no efforts having 5 Air Force fighter divisions available, he declared that we made up the story. So, this B-47 had no obstacles flying over our anti-aircraft means and landed on the Tule air field in Norway. Half hour later another B-47 flew the same route! And again General Serov responded to general Tabunchenko that the anti-aircraft defense was confused about something. The anti-aircraft defense in Moscow asked General Tabunchenko why we hesitated and took no efforts. The general replied that we were aware of what was happening, but we could not hit the plane by our radar set. We should have been grateful to the US commandment for this lesson! Some decisive and serious steps were undertaken. These 5 Air Force fighter regiments were assigned to the anti-aircraft defense agency. Our corps merged with the Arkhangelsk Belomorsk AACD Corps. Then the Severomorsk Corps deployed in Severomorsk north-east of Murmansk was subordinated to us. And finally the Northern and then the 10th separate AACD army covering the territory of the USSR from Vologda [town 350 km north of Moscow] to the Franz-Joseph land [islands in the Arctic Ocean] and from the Finnish border to the Ural were formed. And of course, restaffing took place. General Serov was outranked and resigned. The 22nd army commander was demoted. Commander of the Northern Military district was fired. His replacement was General Tabunchenko, Commander of our corps. His three subordinates, including me, followed him to Arkhangelsk. Despite my Jewish surname I was significantly promoted by being appointed commanding officer of the 34th communication regiment and then chief of the new AACD communication forces. However, before this happened, I had to do a lot of work bringing the communication system to order. The communication system in my 10th separate army spreading to the south, west and east: with the chief AACD command post in Moscow and the neighbors, the Leningrad and Novosibirsk AACD and units of our army in the south, were based on the communication lines that we rented from the Ministry of Communication and the radio communication system. The radio communication was the only way of communication with ‘Novaya Zemlia’ [New Land]. The main disadvantage of the radio communication in the Far North was the impact of winter ionospheric perturbations on short waves. The radio waves reflected from the ionosphere, and any ionospheric perturbations terminate the radio communication. One can imagine what might happen, when radio communication with the radio location companies on remote northern areas was affected. I requested General Maximenko, chief of the AACD communication forces to provide middle wave transmitters to us, but he refused. I understood that communication failures jeopardized the defense capability of our country, and I addressed this request to comrade Loginov, secretary of the Arkhangelsk regional party committee, who was also a member of the Central Committee of the USSR. Loginov listened to me carefully and understood me very well, even though he was not a specialist. He told me to write another request to the AACD Headquarters and show it to him before sending it out. As a result, a cipher message was received from the AACD Headquarters. It read: ‘Till when this slob, colonel Kagan shall be fooling busy people!’ I showed this message to Loginov. He picked the receiver of direct communication with Moscow and loudly explained to the AACD Commander what was going on. The commander ordered to send back the cipher and undertake investigation of this outrageous disgrace. Loginov told me to write a complaint to the Party Central Committee. I described the essence of this cause emphasizing that due to ionospheric perturbations we might fail to provide communication with the units. I also described what was needed to prevent this. A short time later I was invited to the Central Committee in Moscow. General Maximenko was removed from his position and expelled from the party. His replacement general Gavrilenko appointed my friend and former fellow student Vadim Chuyskiy from Kiev chief of the communication forces of the 1st AACD army in Moscow. He was the first of our peer graduates to be promoted to the rank of General for his involvement in the nuclear weapon training that took place near the Ural in 1954. This training covered 4 divisions, 40,000 soldiers and officers. An atomic bomb was dropped and then an order to attack was given.  The official report indicated exposure to fireballs and mechanic jolts, but no exposure to radiation.  These poor people were exposed to exceeding doses and died a short time later. Well, the first act of General Gavrilenko was provision of R-640 transmitters that are not affected by ionospheric perturbations. I supervised installation of these transmitters on the ‘Novaya Zemlia’ in many taiga settlements, in the AACD division headquarters and in the headquarters of the 11th regiment in Vorkuta. My commandment developed a very good opinion of me.

On 17 August 1958 I had my last, 163rd, parachute jump in Arkhangelsk. I was chief of the army communication department and a colonel. On the Aviation Day chief of paratroopers of the army suggested that the veterans did a group jump. At landing I hit my leg on the root of a tree, but didn’t notice it at once. I only felt pain about two hours later, when we were in the restaurant. I was taken to the hospital in Arkangelsk where they X-rayed my leg and applied the cast. This happened to be my last jump.

In 1963 I had to resign from the army due to my health condition. I lived a long time in the severe northern climate and it resulted in my foot artery congestion. The doctors said it might mean amputation of my foot. The doctor said that if I wanted to survive, I had to change the climatic conditions and my job. I resigned and decided to move to my parents in Kiev. By that time the relations between my wife and me were misbalanced. Maria took after her father Pyotr Akimov, who was an officer of the czarist army during WWI. She had a strong character and accepted no objections. She even tried to resolve our family disagreements by means of fights and scandals. I wanted to divorce her several times, but divorce was not appreciated in the army. Chief of the political department warned me that if I applied for divorce, I would be expelled from the party and demounted in my position at best. I divorced her immediately after I resigned. I left her everything we had in Arkhangelsk. I wanted to take my books with me, but Maria did not give them to me. My sons studied at school. They stayed with Maria. I left Arkhangelsk having just one small suitcase. I went to my parents in Kiev. I was 43 and had to start life anew. Probably to make my life easier ‘Destiny’ sent me another wife. My cousin Israel Gershtein, my aunt Olga’s son, introduced me to my second wife Asia German. Asia was about to marry Yakov Tsegliar, a composer, but when we met we understood instantly that we were to be together. I remember how Asia and I were preparing to visit my parents. We were both concerned about how they would meet us. My father had a character and had a negative attitude toward divorce. However, everything went very well. My parents liked Asia. We got married. We had a common wedding. Of course, a traditional Jewish wedding was out of the question: I was a member of the party and we were both atheists. We lived a happy life together. I moved into Asia’s one-bedroom apartment. Asia was a dentist. The doctors she knew saved my leg. I didn’t even need a surgery. I jogged in the morning until two years before, when I had to stop jogging in the morning. I jogged 7.5 km on weekdays and 10 km at weekends. I was a hockey and a box referee for many years. It was hard. I used to be referee at 3 hockey matches in a row: children at first, 3 15-minute periods, junior teams, 3 20-minute periods, and then adult games. I was on ice all this time. A referee has to be in the center of the field. Besides enjoying the sport, it also paid well and was a good addition to our family budget.

I started experiencing anti-Semitism immediately after I joined the civil life. It was hard for me to ignore it, though it did not refer to me directly. Those were anti-Semitic talks in transport means and in lines. One day something happened that I could never forget. In spring 1964 the Ukrainian Soccer federation authorized me to take command of the parade dedicated to the opening of a season on the Olympic Stadium in Kiev. This was a match between the Kiev and Moscow Dynamo. The teams lined up before the gate of the stadium. I was to lead them onto the field where they were to line up facing the main tribune and then I had to give them this direction: ‘Align! Attention! Eyes …’ and then I was to enunciate my words clearly: ‘Commander of Parade Colonel Kagan!’ When I was already at the head of the column, the master of ceremony approached me and told me to not say my surname! This as unequivocal: my Jewish surname was not to be said at the stadium! This made me angry, of course, but I knew that the parade commander should stay in line whatever the circumstances. I did not object. I don’t know whether I was right.

I went to work in the ‘Liftmontazh’ [elevator assembly] trust in 1964. I was chief mechanic. Shvetsov, chief of the trust, employed Jews willingly, particularly as key personnel. Jews are decent employees and do not drink. Unfortunately, drinking at work was quite common. It was not even persecuted. I didn’t like my job due to poor organization and lack of order. It depressed me, particularly considering that I was used to the order in the army. I was lucky again: my former fellow comrade Zakharov, who was a lieutenant in my regiment, became a supervisor in the ‘Gosradioproject’  [state radio project] design institute. We met incidentally and he offered me the position of a design group supervisor. Some time later I was offered the position of chief of department. I could not accept this position for financial restrictions considering that I was receiving a military pension already. I went to work as supervisor of a design group for fire safety automation and communication in another design institute. I wanted to retire in 1975, but my management convinced me to keep working. I finally retired in 1995. They occasionally invite me to work and I never refuse. My institute built a cooperative apartment building and I received a two-bedroom apartment in it. This is where I live now.

My younger sister Yulia finished the College of Economics after the war. She married Iosif Rabin, a Jewish guy. Iosif was born in Kiev and was my peer. When anti-Semitism developed, he changed one letter in his surname to make it sound Russian: Riabin. My sister named her first baby, born in 1947, Boris after mama’s brother Boris Braginskiy, executed in 1936. Her second son Mikhail was born in 1950. Our relative working as chief accountant at the factory of artistic glass helped Olga to get employed after finishing the college. Yulia worked as an accountant there till she retired. Yulia died in 1994. She was buried in the Berkovtsy town cemetery. The Lukianovska cemetery 33, the last Jewish cemetery in Kiev, was closed in the 1961. Iosif Riabin died in 2002 and was buried near Yulia’s grave. My parents were also buried in this cemetery. My father died in 1965 and my mother died in 1981. The funerals were not Jewish.

I kept in touch with my sons in Arkhangelsk. My older son Oleg wanted to enter the Aviation College in Tomsk, but he failed the exams. Oleg was rather upset. He arrived in Kiev. The situation was critical. If he did not enter a higher educational institution he was to be regimented to the army. I called my friend, the dean of Mechanical Faculty of the Arkhangelsk Forestry College. They admitted Oleg without exams. After finishing the college he worked as chief of the department of urban and rural young people in the regional Komsomol committee in Arkhangelsk. He went on frequent business trips. Oleg was married. His wife did not like it that Oleg was away from home a lot. She left Oleg and remarried. The regional committee declared they could not tolerate that Oleg had divorced. However, they helped him to get a job at the gas department of the town. He was a smart guy and it didn’t take long before he was promoted to chief of the department. Before getting married again Oleg asked me whether I agreed if he took his wife’s surname of Bykov. I knew he would have a more difficult life with the surname of Kagan. Oleg and his wife Vera have three children: daughters Oksana, born in 1971, Yulia, born in 1975, and son Grigoriy, born in 1977. By the way, I helped my grandson Grigoriy to move to Israel in 2001. He asked my permission to take my surname. There are two Grigoriy Kagans now: my grandson and I. He writes me letters addressing me: ’To Grigoriy Kagan from Grigoriy Kagan’. He works as a driver and prepares to the exams to confirm his qualification. 

I helped my younger son Igor to enter the Mechanic and Mathematic Faculty of Leningrad University. He finished his studies with honors and got a job assignment [Mandatory job assignment in the USSR] 34 to be a lecturer on mathematic in a college in Arkhangelsk. However, Igor decided for something different. He called me to discuss something. He had a job offer from a militia office and this was a chance for him to stay and work in Leningrad. I wasn’t quite happy about it, but this was his life and he was the one to take decisions. He accepted this job offer and became a militiaman. He was promoted soon, got an apartment and remarried. My both sons married non-Jewish women and both changed their surname. Igor adopted his mother’s last name. He is Akimov. Igor and Ludmila have three children:  daughters Anna, born in 1981, Daria, born in 1988, and my favorite Luka, born in 1994. Igor was promoted to captain. During Perestroika 35 he quit the militia and went to work to a realty company. Later he established his own firm. His company is doing well. My sons visit me in Kiev on vacations and I visit them.

I, my friends and my family, besides our professional holiday which was the Air Force Day, celebrated Soviet holidays: 1st May, 7th November [October Revolution Day] 36, Soviet Army Day, Victory Day 37. Traditionally on this day officers got together in the division headquarters to go to a restaurant. We celebrated these holidays at work and at home. We also celebrated New Year and family members’ birthdays. We had guests and enjoyed the celebrations.

When mass departure of Jews to Israel started in the 1970s, I sympathized and supported them.  They wanted a decent life and wanted their children and grandchildren to be decent people and never hear the word ‘zhyd’ addressed to them. I did not consider departure, but this was my choice. I had a job, my sport and my apartment and I had everything I needed. My sons are here and I want to be with them. However, I believed that everybody had the right to make his own choice and nobody could force them to stay in the USSR, or call them traitors, if they chose to live in another country. Many of my friends and relatives have moved to Israel. I corresponded with them. We could not even dream that there would be a time, when our people could travel abroad and invite their friends and relatives to visit them. Perestroika brought this time. However, I did not consider Gorbachev 38, the leader of the Communist Party, to be a serious politician at first. He gave many promises, but there were few actions, but he managed to accomplish some things. Gorbachev removed the ‘Iron Curtain’ 39, which separated us from the rest of the world for many years. He allowed the freedom of speech and the freedom of press. This is true. But it is also true that the poor and unemployed appeared during his rule. Pensioners could not live on their devaluating pensions. The breakup of the USSR [1991], which crowned the Perestroika, was painful for me. The USSR was a strong and powerful state. What do we have instead? We could save the USSR, had we refused from the leading role of the CPSU and socialist ideas. May capitalism have replaced socialism. May the Baltic Republics have separated: they had been forcefully annexed to the USSR and were occupied and they never accepted this, but all other republics may have stayed with the USSR. We would have been strong together.

In 1989 my dearest wife Asia died. The diagnosis ‘cancer’ had been given to her shortly before her death. We lived together for over 20 years and I was always grateful to my destiny for having sent Asia to me. Asia’s sister Zoya had also lost her husband and we got married, but we lived together less than a year. Zoya obtained permission to move to the USA, but I did not want to go: everything I cherished was here. Zoya left. I suffered from being alone. My sons and grandchildren lived in different towns, and my friends, however numerous, cannot replace my family for me. I met my future wife Ludmila Slovskaya visiting my friends in 1994. Ludmila was born in Kiev in 1930. When we met, she was a widow. Her first husband Konstantin Slovskiy, a Jew, had died few years before we met. He was a wonderful person, and when we got married in 1996, Ludmila kept his surname. I had no objections. We have been together for 8 years. Ludmila worked as chief of the design group in the Institute of Electric Welding. I insisted that she quit her job. We are no longer young and we cannot afford wasting the time that we can spend together. My sons and grandchildren accepted Ludmila. They love her well. She is a wonderful person and one cannot help liking her. We are always together and what is interesting for one is significant and important for another one. 

The break up of the USSR terminated my membership in the CPSU.  I did not join the Communist Party of Ukraine. I started going to the synagogue. At first I just wanted to recall my childhood, when my father took me to the synagogue with him, but now it has become a necessity for me. I go to the synagogue every Saturday. On my relatives’ death anniversaries I recite the Kaddish for them.  

A number of Jewish societies were established during the Perestroika. There is also Jewish press.  The Jewish life is gradually developing in independent Ukraine. We have gatherings in the association of Jewish veterans twice a month. We know each other well. I also work in the section of Jewish veterans of sports at the Jewish cultural center. I am deputy chairman of this section. Our chairman is a former Olympic champion in fencing. On 24th September 2004 we celebrated the 82nd birthday of Ludmila Yakir-Kogan, the 6-time chess champion and 10-time finalist of Ukraine.

There is another Jewish organization in Ukraine, and that is the Hesed 40. I think, it is a very important organization for us. Many Jews would not survive, if it hadn’t been for the Hesed’s assistance. It’s no secret that pensioners are below any poverty lines. Hesed is also involved in another important activity, and that is, attachment of Jews to traditions, to the religion and giving back our spirituality, lost during the Soviet rule. 

Glossary:

Evgeniy Kotin
Moscow
Russia
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
Date of Interview: January 2005

Evgeniy Kotin is of medium height, lean, young-looking man. He is willing to tell a lot about his family. After his wife’s death Evgeniy lives by himself in a two-room Khrushchevka apartment 1 in the house built in the 1960s. Evgeniy must have loved his wife very much and he enjoys talking about her. He keeps things in the apartment the way it was when his wife was alive. There are a lot of books, photographs, all kinds of knick-knacks that people usually bring from vacation.  

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

My father’s family lived in a small town Kromy, Orel province in Russia [360 km to the South-East of Moscow]. Kromy was the part of the Pale of Settlement 2 and Jews were permitted to settle there. I have never met my parental grandfather Moses Kotin, and my father I have never seen him either. Grandmother’s name was Hana-Mera. Of course, after getting married her last name was Kotinа. I do not know her maiden name nor where my grandparents were born. Grandfather was a photographer. When grandmother was single, she was a seamstress. After getting married she quit work and became a housewife like most of the married Jewish women at that time.

There were 5 people in the family. First daughters were born. The first one was Ekaterina [common name] 3, Jewish name Keizlya. Then Faina, Jewish name was Fanya, Raisa, Jewish Rohl and Liya were born. Grandmother craved for a son, and in 1895 a long-awaited son was born. It was my father. Father did not live to rejoice in his son. He died in 3 days after son was born. In accordance with the Jewish tradition the son was named after his deceased father, Moisey.

When grandmother became a widow, she moved to Orel with her children. It was a bigger city as compared to Kromy. Grandmother had to be a bread-winner and there were more opportunities in Orel. She did not get married for the second time as having five children it was problematic for her. Mother took orders and sawed linen. She was sure a good seamstress since they had a pretty good living. Of course, there was no surplus, but at least she earned enough to buy good food and decent clothes. I do not know whether sister got Jewish education, but father went to cheder at the age of 5. Grandmother must have been a very progressive woman and understood that secular education was very important and Jewish education was not enough. I do not know what pains it took my grandmother to earn money for the tuition for the lyceum. There was a Jewish lyceum in Orel, in which all children finished the full 8-year course. 

I do not remember that father told much about his childhood. I do not know how religious grandmother was. I think major Jewish holidays were marked in the family, and that was it. I guess grandmother was very tied-up with work and had hardly any spare time. Yiddish was spoken at home, but everybody including grandmother was fluent in Russian.

Upon annulment of the pale of settlement after the Revolution 4, the whole family moved to Moscow. The Soviet regime also cancelled admission quota of the Jews [Five percent quota] 5 and everybody had the chance to get higher education. The eldest sister Ekaterina and the third Raisa graduated from medical school. Ekaterina was an obstetrician in the hospital, located out of Moscow, in the town of Balashikha. Raisa worked in the hospital in Moscow. Faina graduated from agronomy faculty of Agricultural Academy and became an agronomist. The youngest sister, Liya, and my father studied at Medicine faculty of Moscow University [M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, the best University in the Soviet Union, also well known abroad for its high level of education and research], and became doctors. Liya was specialized in psychiatry. She was the principal physician of the children’s department of mental asylum named after Kaschenko. Father became phthisiatrician and a rontgenologist.

Ekaterina and Faina did not get married. Raisa and Liya were married to Russians. Raisa’s husband was Vasiliy, I do not remember his last name. He worked in the controls department of the State bank as an auditor. They had an only son Boris, born in 1918. Boris worked as an architect before WW2. He went through the entire war and served in the engineering troops [Engineering troops was one of the divisions of the Soviet Army. They were involved in design and building of defense and military constructions]. Then he came back to Moscow and worked as an architect. He died in early 1990s. Liya was married to Andrey Fomin. He was a very gifted man. He was the deputy director of the mental asylum, head of logistics. Liya did not change her maiden name after getting married and remained Kotinа. They did not have children. Grandmother stayed with her. She was the only one in our family who had her separate apartment; the rest lived in the communal apartments 6. Of course, Faina took grandmother in her apartment.

My mother was from the town Bendery, Bessarabia 7. Grandfather Leib Laskin was some sort of merchant. I do not remember grandmother’s name. The family was large. Out of all of them I knew only elder brother Kopl and sister Manya, who lived in Moscow. The rest had lived in Bendery, Moldova 8, all their life. As it had been Romania 9 by 1939, mother did not keep in touch with her relatives abroad 10. It was dangerous for people who lived in USSR. That was the way the family ties were broken.

My mother Basya Laskinа was born in 1893. She said when she met my father, who was younger than she, as per her request it was written in her passport that she was born in 1895. That is why the year of birth in my mother’s passport is 1895. Mother thought that wife should not be older than her husband. Her name in passport is Berta. Mother did not tell anything about her childhood and youth. I only know that she graduated from lyceum and went to Odessa 11 to study before revolution. No matter what nationality a lady was it was hard for her to acquire a higher education. Mother took courses of dentist assistants. Having finished courses she went to Moscow, where her siblings lived.

Mother’s brother Kopl Laskin was the first from the family to come to Moscow. He came there before revolution. Back at that time Jews were permitted to settle in Moscow only as per special permit of the tsarist exchequer, but it did not refer to Kopl. During WW1 he was in the army as a canoneer. Nowadays it is called firing pointer. Kopl did well at war and was awarded with St. George’s Cross 12, which was the highest award. He also got other awards. There were very few awardees of the St.George’s Cross and even fewer Jews among them. The Jews, who were awarded with St.George’s Cross were exempt from the pale of settlement and were allowed to settle whenever they wished. All they had to do was to get registered in the police department of the city they selected. Kopl found a job at some small plant and was involved in logistics. Then mother’s sister Maria moved to Moscow. First she lived with Kopl. Then she met his friend Lev Drubetskoy. Then she got married with  him and moved to his place. Lev worked as an accountant. Maria studied for a little bit and went to work as a book keeper in the housing department. They did not have children. During NEP 13 Kopl and  Lev Drubetskoy started their own business. I do not know what was their business like, or was it profitable. In the early 1920s both of them went to Palestine to start business there, but it did not work and they came back to the USSR. When NEP was winding up, they regained their previous professions Kopl was a supplier and Lev was an accountant. Things were calm before repressions [Great Terror] 14. In 1937 there was information against Lev regarding his stay abroad, in the capitalistic country. He was tried and sentenced to 10 years in Gulag 15 and 5 years in exile. He was sent to the north, to one of the camps. There were production facilities in each of the camps and the convicts were used as free manpower. First Lev was involved in general work, and when the administration found out that he was an accountant he started to work in that field in the camp. When in 1947 his 10-year sentence in the camp was over, he was allowed to choose the place for the exile. Lev wrote to Maria and both of them for some reason decided that he should move to Izhevsk, Udmurtia [1000 km to the East from Moscow]. Lev went to the exile and Maria followed him. They had stayed there for a year and a new wave of repressions had started against Jews [Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] 16. They lived in constant fear. Lev peaked and pined awaiting arrest. In 1949 he committed suicide. Aunt Maria went to Bendery and stayed there till the end of her days. She died in the 1960s.

After finishing studies she went to Moscow to Kopl. He lived in the communal apartment of the former tenancy of the rich people. The hosts must have been either shot or died in the camp and several families moved in a large 7-room apartment. My mother also moved in there. Uncle Kopl made arrangements for mother to move in that apartment. Our family had stayed there by the middle 1970s. The suite of rooms was detached by the doors. The doors between the rooms were nailed down. Kopl’s room was the Study of the former owner. We lived in the former drawing-room. There was a bed-room and children’s room and each of those was taken by some families. There were two bigger rooms and one smaller room ( probably for the servants) on the other side. The kitchen was huge with a big wood-stove. We remodeled it into gas stove. There was wood water heater, then geyser in the bathroom.

Kopl was married to Galina, a very beautiful Russian woman. He was her second husband. She had a son from the first marriage. In 1926 their daughter Margarita was born. During WW2 17 they were in evacuation. They came back to Moscow. When A-bombs were released by Americans in Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki [1945] Galina developed a maniacal fear for the atomic bombs. She thought Moscow to become the first target and insisted moving to another town. She chose Perm [1200 km to the East from Moscow] for some reason. She was a real civilian person and was not aware that Perm was the smithery of weapon with the largest artillery plant being located there. Perm would be more likely bombed than Moscow. There they settled on the second floor of the wooden house without conveniences.  Uncle Kopl was not young at that time, besides he had heart trouble. He had to fetch the bundles of wood and buckets of water to the second floor. He died shortly after moving to Perm. Galina died in couple of years and their daughter remained by herself. Now she lives in Perm’s and from time to time she visits us in Moscow.

My parents met in Moscow. Father was the university student and mother was a dentist assistant after moving to Moscow. I do not know exactly where they met. I assumed it was some sort of a party. Soon they got married. Neither father nor mother observed Jewish traditions, so they had an ordinary wedding – just registered their marriage in the state registration office and a family party in the evening. It was impossible to have a big wedding since the times were hard. After getting married they moved to mother’s room. After graduation father got a mandatory job assignment 18 in the town Shenkursk, Arkhangelsk oblast [800 km to the North-East from Moscow]. Mother went with him. There in 1921 my sister Rita was born. She had lived there only for 3 years. When Rita got ill, mother took her to Moscow  hoping that the doctors in the capital were better and would cure her. However, Rita died in 1924 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery. Now that cemetery does not exist. There is a hotel called Ukraine built on that place. In the year of 1924 father, who was specialized in phthisiology was transferred to tuberculosis sanatorium of Crimean city Yalta, [now the Crimea Republic, Ukraine, 900 km from Kiev]. I was born in Yalta in 1925. We had lived in Yalta for 2 years and father was offered a job in the sanatorium not far from Moscow to work as phthisiatrician and part-time rontgenologist. We came back to Moscow. Father lived in the sanatorium and mother lived with me in our room in Moscow. She came to Moscow on weekends. We spent the whole summer in the sanatorium. In 1929 my younger sister Ella was born.

Growing up

Parents spoke Russian with us, children and Yiddish between themselves. Then they wanted to conceal something from us they used to speak Yiddish. When some of mother’s siblings came over she spoke Yiddish most of the time, though both Maria and Kopl were fluent in Russian. Mother said that when her family lived in Bendery, Yiddish was spoken in her family and it was pleasure to speak the language of her childhood with her kin. When we came to grandmother Hana-Mera both of my parents spoke Yiddish with her. There was a Jewish theatre in Moscow at that time and parents attended all performances. I did not know Yiddish, so parents did not take me there. We did not mark Jewish holidays at home. When I was a child my parents and I went to grandmother Hana-Mera on major Jewish holidays. She marked Jewish holidays. I do not remember the details. I remember that on Pesach grandmother gave my mother a lot of matzhah and I liked to munch on that. I also remember that grandmother gave me money on Hanukah and I spent it on lollipops and sunflowers kernels – the tidbits of my childhood. Our family marked only soviet holidays such as  – 1 of May , 7th of November [October Revolution Day] 19, Soviet Army Day 20. Mother cooked festive food. In the morning the whole family went on the festive demonstrations. Then our kin and family friends, father’s colleagues came over to us. We danced, sang songs.

Upon return to Moscow mother enrolled on secretary’s courses. She learned typing and short-hand. Having finished courses she got the assignment to work as a secretary for the director of the tulle and lace factory. Then my sister and I went to the kindergarten by the tulle and lace factory. At that time it was deemed that children should be raised in the team. We were nurtured to get used to the team since early childhood. Propaganda of the Soviet mode of life had been spread since the child was in swaddles. I remember how our child-minder in the kindergarten often asked us a question who had the happiest childhood in the world and we used to reply in chorus- soviet children in our country. And the next question was whom should we thank for it and all of us knew the reply – comrade Stalin and our communist party. It was a congenital reflex.

Soon father was assigned the chief physician of the sanatorium and he was given separate house on the territory of the sanatorium. Grandmother spent a lot of time with father. The sanatorium was located in a thick coniferous forest. It was very beautiful. In 1932 father was transferred to Mytischi [Moscow suburb]. He had the same position – the chief physician and rontgenologist of the tuberculosis. When I turned 7, father gave me my first camera for my birthday. It was a small box, charged with a small glass plate. I went to develop the plate in an X-ray laboratory. I walked there with bated breath   not to catch tuberculosis germs.

I learned how to read and write before going to school. Father of one of the colleagues, lived in the sanatorium, where my father worked. We spent summer time there as well. He was retired and he was eager to teach us how to write and read as well as rudiments of arithmetic.  Owing to those classes I entered the second grade of Russian secondary school in the year of 1934. There were other Jewish children in my class, but no anti-Semitism was coming from children or my peers. From the very childhood we were taught that all of us were USSR citizens and people of all nationalities were equal. We truly believed in that.

Soon I was a good student, though I did not have straight excellent marks. Approximately from the 4th grade I started attending drama extracurricular class. Later on I was fond of theatre when I was a student in the institute. I was a young Octobrist 21, pioneer 22 like the rest of my classmates. I even did not admit that somebody was not willing to become a Pioneer or a Komsomol 23. Everybody joined, so did I. I was considered an activist, I took part in all school activities.  

I remembered the repressions of the middles 1930s in the USSR not only by the arrest of Lev Drubetskiy, but also by the arrest of the husband of my mother’s sister Maria. Almost every day at our classes at school we were told to paint over the portraits of the ‘peoples’ enemies’  24, including the portraits of the legendary commanders, ardent communists and militaries , whose portraits were in our textbooks. Nobody told us what was going on, neither in school nor at home. We were children and could not get how it might have happened that such famous people turned out to be peoples’ enemies and act against soviet power they had been struggling for. But at the back of my mind I understood that I should not ask my teachers about it. I just painted over the portraits and kept it out of my mind. I had not the slightest doubt in the correctness of the verdicts.

There was another recollection from childhood. Father’s sister Liya and her husband Andrey Fomin were old Bolsheviks 25, members of the communist party since 1919. Since that time they had had personal weapon- Andrey had a pistol and Liya had a browning. With the outbreak of the repressions the weapon was taken from all Bolsheviks. Probably those who were about to be arrested either shot themselves or the NKVD agents 26, who came over to take them. In spite of that old Bolsheviks had the permits for weapons and all of them momentarily were disarmed.

I remember how the entire school went to the cinema to watch anti-fascist movie Professor Mamlock 27. But I do not remember it, probably I was too small to understand that movie. I remember the event regarding the war in Spain 28, because for us it was not mere words. Orphan Spanish children were brought to Moscow from Spain. There was a sanatorium in front of our school and Spanish orphans were given a lodging there. They took them strolling every day and we were watching them. It was the first time we tried oranges, Spanish paid USSR for the weapon, ammunition and fuel. Those oranges were on offer in the store. Before that oranges were not sold and even now I associate oranges with the war in Spain.

When father was transferred to the sanatorium in Mytishi to work as a chief physician, he was offered to join the party. At that time any person who was taking a leading position, was supposed to be the member of the party. Being a doctor father was on the military register and periodically had to participate in military call. I remember when father was on the leave, he came back home with the saber on the side and a piston in the holster. Father tried his best to hide it from me. Father was conferred the title – doctor of the 3rd rank, that is the captain in accordance with nowadays classification.

During the war

During Finnish Campaign 29 our confidence that our army was invincible was slightly shattered. We could not comprehend how small Finland had been successfully resisting for such a long time. In general, we did not know for sure what was going on, there were only rumors. Father was drafted in the Finnish war as a military doctor. Father did not tell me much about the war. They were warned not to leak information. He only mentioned that his patients were with the frostbites rather than with the gunshot wounds. Our military leaders did not even think that those who were to fight in Finland required a warmer uniform. The uniform given to the militaries was not appropriate. Father has the gloomiest impressions about the war.

In 1941 I finished 7 grades. I did not want to go on with studies at a compulsory school.  I was going to enter military navy school in Moscow. It was the time when special military schools were founded- first artillery, then air force and navy. The latter was in Moscow, at Krasnoselskaya street. Parents approved of my decision. I was given my certificate in school administration and submitted my documents to the navy school. Only those students who had good and excellent marks were admitted in school.  I did not go through medical examination. When I was a child I had an eardrum inflammation and my tympanic membrane was punctured. That was the reason why medical board disqualified me. The laryngologist said that I might deafen during the artillery bursts of the battle ship. I took my documents to my previous school and we went to father to Mytischi. That was the place where I used to go on holidays. On Sunday, the 22nd of June 1941 my father, sister and I had breakfast and went for a walk in the forest. Mother and grandmother did some things about the house. We came back at lunch time and mother met us with the news about the outbreak of WW2. The next day father was drafted in the army. His task was to establish a military hospital. Germans onsurge was swift and the frightened authorities decided that the hospital was to be established in Middle Asia, in the town of Almaty, Kazakhstan [3200 km to the South-East from Moscow]. Father went there to take care of the infrastructure works. I went with him. Mother, grandmother and Ella stayed in Moscow. We were sure that the war would not last long and Germans would not be allowed to approach Moscow for sure.

There was no place for us to settle in Almaty. The entire city was teeming with evacuees from those areas, where Germans came first. Enterprises, institutions, theatres, cinemas were evacuated in Almaty. Father was offered to go to Chimkent, Kazakhstan [600 km from Almaty]. He made the agreement with the local authorities regarding deployment of the military hospital in Chimkent. There we found out that Moscow was being bombed. We were thinking of my family, which stayed in Moscow. Father left me in Chimkent, and went to Moscow to take them here. Father came back with mother and sister. Grandmother died during bombing. She was buried on the Jewish cemetery, next to my elder sister Rita.  

In Chimkent my sister and I went to the local school. We lived by the hospital. Mother worked in the hospital as a nurse’s aide. Father was tied up at work and practically did not see him. Apart from working with patients he was involved in organizational work. We did not stay there for a long time. When Germans were squeezed out from Moscow in winter of 1941, father was ordered to transfer the hospital to Voronezh [500 km to the South-West from Moscow]. We took the victory in Moscow defense as the sign of the end of war. We loaded things in the trains, reached Voronezh and settled in there. I finished the 8th grade there. I understood that we might have stuck in Voronezh by the end of war and I decided to look into vocational studies. I was interested in aviation and like to make the mini models of the existing planes. There was a large military aircraft manufacture plant and the aircraft vocational school. In summer 1942 having finished the 8th grade I supplied the documents to the aircraft manufacture vocational school. I had good marks and was admitted to the school without taking entrance exams. My school started on the 1st of September and I was supposed to be involved in farming works during the summer time. My mother and sister went with me. We took the train. At that time Germans were attacking Stalingrad via Voronezh.  When the hospital was being evacuated, father managed to find us at the train station, while we were waiting for a car heading for kolkhoz 30, whereto we were assigned to work. We came back. The equipment and wounded were loaded in the cars and we took the cart towards Stalingrad. We stopped in the town of Balashov, Saratov Oblast [600 km to the South-West from Moscow]. There were dug-out, most likely made by the militaries. We used them for the hospital. The wounded were taken from Stalingrad front [Stalingrad Battle] 31. We heard a constant clatter of bursts saw flashes from shells and mines. Soon there was a mishap with my father. He sent the car to take the medicine from the storage facilities and that car did not return.  The commissar [Political officer] 32 informed the headquarters against father and father was arrested. He was disarmed and convoyed to the headquarters, located in Balashov. The three of us left without knowing what to do. Father was tried in the martial court and sentenced to 8 years with the adjournment of the of the execution of the sentence by the end of war. Father was sent to the front lines. Father was the commander of the hospital platoon of the medical battalion. It was not a military hospital, but a medical battalion which was in the rear troops. The doctors and nurses assisted the wounded right in the battle field or not far from it. Father reached Hungary with medical battalion. He met the victory day there. Father has military such military awards as Medal for Military Merits 33 and Red Star Order 34.

We stayed by the hospital. Father was transferred to the hamlet. Now the wounded were not in the dug-outs, but in the village houses .Mother worked as a nurse’s aide and I started to work a water-carrier for the hospital. Early in the morning horse was harnessed in the cart with big barrels and I went to the river to fill those barrels up with water by using the buckets .Then I went back to the hospital and took water to the kitchen. If there was not enough water, I had to go to the river once again in the evening, when it was dark.

Father’s sister Faina took us from there. She had lived in the hamlet out of Moscow, called Tymkovo, Noginsk region. She was in charge of the seed-trial ground, where new sorts of grain were tested. Then the decision was made whether they should be cultivated in our agriculture. Via the regional party committee she made it possible to get the permit for us, the family of the front-line soldier, to come back to Moscow. We came to Moscow, but they did not let us in. We had the permit for the Noginsk district and we were accompanied by the patrol to the Kurskiy train station [There are nine main railroad stations in Moscow. The stations are named after train routes: from Yaroslavlskiy train station the trains leave in Yaroslavl direction, from Belarusskiy train station in direction to Belarussia, from Kiev rail station –to Kiev etc.] and were sent to Noginsk. I entered the local school and got a passport. We lived in Faina’s house. Mother managed to get the permit to come back to Moscow. She went to Moscow to the tulle and lace factory, where she worked before evacuation and the secretary of the party organization of the factory processed the invitation for my mother to come to Moscow.  There was a military in our apartment, but when mother showed up, he move out. Mother and Ella left for Moscow, and I stayed in Timkovo before vacation. On the 10th of March I got the draft notification from the military enlistment office.   I was turning 18 only in December, but it was the time when men were drafted by the year of birth. So men, born in 1925, were drafted in the army.

All draftees settled in the town club. We slept on the stage and on the floor. I did not finish the 9th grade but it was written in my military ID ‘education – 9 grades’. Those who finished at least 9 grades were sent to Novgorod-Volyn military infantry school, evacuated in Yaroslavl. I became the cadet of the school. The school was in the former cadet corps. We lived in the barracks.  We were allowed to go in the city only when were on duty on the military patrol. In the city we could go to the market and buy some food. We were clad in non-manual jackets with stand-up collars, worn pants and boots.  

I went to the field squadron. We were taught to handle all kinds of weapons when the divisions when would be able to take command after graduation. First we were supposed to study for 3 months, then the term was expanded for 6 months. Our troops gained the victory in Stalingrad battle. It was a turning point in the course of war. We even were sent there to yield the harvest .We pulled flax, scythed rye in kolkhoz before we got the order to leave everything and come back to school immediately. The commander of the school got an order to send all cadets of school to the front-lines as privates. We were aligned after breakfast and were told to hand in our linen, receive new uniform and off to the front lines. On the 25th of April of 1943 we took the oath. We aligned and marched to the train station singing a song. The train station was crowed with people! We could hear women wail when the train was leaving. We got to the station Loknya, not far from Old Russa and came to the forest. There was rifle regiment 247. It was supposed to be reformed. We were assigned in the gun squad and were given personal weapon. My rifle was manufactured before the war was unleashed. It was a bayonet rifle charged with nine cartridges. We carried the bayonet behind the belt. Most soldiers were armed with the rifles of the sample of the year 1893. We used them throughout the war. We were taught how to shoot from rifles at school and here we were trained how to shoot from the gun machine Maxim, a powerful weapon of the civil war 35. The gun consisted of 3 parts- the main body weighting 20 kg, the heaviest part –the carrier weighing 32 kg and the third one is the shield weighing 8 kg. There was a shell around the barrel, where water was poured for cooling. Every day we were to take our gun machines to the training area, located couple of km away from the regiment. It was possible to go there by tram, but we were not allowed to do that. We also were prohibited to carry the gun-machine on the wheels, as the latter might be spoiled on the pebble pavement. We had to carry all that stuff, moreover we had to do it swiftly in order to come back to the regiment at noon. We rolled out jackets put it on the back and part of the gun on the top of it. Apart from shooting training we also had march drilling in Staraya Russa and attacked the bounds of the hypothetical aggressor. Once we were taken to the drilling ground and were told to dig the trenches as the tanks were supposed to be there in 30 minutes. The trenches were supposed to be deep enough to lie down there otherwise people might be crushed by the tanks.  The training ground was made of trampled arid clay, but we managed to make the trenches. The tanks were over us and we were supposed to throw a training grenade in the tank. It was the idea of the supreme commander that young soldiers should have drilling with tanks not to be scared off by tanks in the battle. We had a pretty rigid training. We spent night in dugs-out.

At New Year’s Eve, on the 1st of January of 1944 we heard the alarm and were told to get up. We thought that it was another march drilling, but it turned out that we were sent to the front lines. The training was over. We were taken to Velikiye Luki, Pskov oblast [450 km to the West from Moscow], and marched towards Nevel. We reached the destination point in the evening, but we did not manage to have a respite. We had to dig the pits and throw straw there. It was our place to sleep. In the morning we were ordered to come back to Velikiye Luki. There was a paradise for us- the sanitary car with the bathroom. We took a bath and were given clean underwear. In the morning we were sent to participate in the battle at the station Nasva. All of us were given skis and we set out with ammunition. I was assigned to be second gun soldier and I was to carry a huge bag with the disks for the gun machine. We had been walking all day long. At night we were taken to the forest and were told to settle there over night. I was really thirsty and I drank water from some puddle. In the darkness I fumbled some sort of a log, put my head on it and feel asleep. In the morning I woke up and saw that it was not a log, but a defunct German. The puddle I drank from was in the lapel of the German’s jacket.

We had been waiting for the order to attack all day long and only at time we off to attack. It was my first true battle. Frankly speaking I was scared. I wanted to cower, to become small and inconspicuous. We were attacking at night. From time to time there were flashes from the bursts of shells. Germans were firing at us from the gun-machines and mortars. We were at a run hearing the commands ‘Straight forward’, then ‘lie down’ and again ‘Straight forward’. When we got up for another attack, I saw that the soldier next to me knelt and then slowly fell on the side. It was the first death I saw in the battle. Later on there were a lot of deaths, but I remembered the first one for ever.  

The attacks were periodic. We attacked squeezing Germans out and then they push us to the initial positions. I was wounded in the leg during one of such attacks. I bandaged my leg with the field dressing. The nurses were not coming. One of the wounded was toddling ahead of me and said that I should move otherwise I would freeze. I stumped to the squad somehow. The medical assistant examined my wound wrote in the ‘card of the leading edge’ saying: «blunt bullet penetrating wound in the upper third of right hip. Bullet was assumed to penetrate in the abdomen». I spent the night in the tent of the sanitary squad and in the morning I was transferred to the sanitary point, and from there to the replacement depot and finally to the hospital. I was taken to the replacement depot in a truck, which carried the defunct soldiers to the common grave. The corpses were half naked with frozen bodies. I was supposed to sit right on the cadavers. On the way to the replacement depot the cadavers were taken off the dug grave and the wounded were also picked up in put the truck.  Replacement depot was in the devastated church. There were walls, but the dome was demolished during bombing .We had to spend a night there and wait for the goods train, remodeled to carry the wounded. We got on the train and went to the rear hospital in Valdai. I was sent to take the X-ray in order to find out the place where the bullet stayed. It turned out that the bullet went tangentially and there was no need in operation. My wound was stitched and I was transferred to the hospital of the lightly wounded. I healed up pretty swiftly and was transferred to the reserve regiment. There marching squads were formed and sent to the lines. I was sent to the reserve rifle regiment 204, to the anti-tank weapon. The latter looks like a small cannon, but it is called the gun, because its caliber is 15 mm. It is so big that person would not be able to carry it. I was conferred the rank of the junior lieutenant. When the training was over I was given travel ration and was in the lines again. We went by trained somewhere and then we walked for 3 days. Finally we arrived. The officers from the regiments came over to select people. There was a captain who asked who wanted to be in reconnaissance and I said that I would like to. He looked through my documents, and took me together with two more people. We came to the separate reconnaissance squad # 87 of guards rifle division # 254. The squad even had its own banner and rear subdivisions. We positioned in the forest, then we were told to move forward to the town of Novorzheva. We settled in a hamlet. Part of the troops, positioned there went to the rear for replenishment. They were supposed to provide us with the complete reconnaissance data on the leading edge of the adversary. All squads left, but the headquarters of the regiment and the reconnoiterers, who could not leave before they had taken a captive German and receive the reconnaissance data from him. It turned out that out reconnaissance squad was not involved in anything until they left. I went reconnoitering 2-3 times and then it was calm. Since it was written in my documents that I had finished 9 grades and was well up in the maps I was sent to the squad of surveyors while our reconnaissance squad was at ease. Now it is called exploratory survey. It is conducted on the forward edge. I was given the so-called ‘blind’ maps. At night when German artillery was firing at our positions, we were to determine where the shooting was coming from, the caliber and the type of the cannons and the distance to the German positions. We were supposed to determine that aurally. Firs, I thought it was impossible, but soon I learned how to do it. We were supposed to mark the position and type of the cannons on the ‘blind’ map. We did not have our own telescope, so I was in the trench with the artillery reconnaissance. Artillery division had an artillery regiment, and every rifle regiment had an artillery squadron.  They used artillery telescopes only during shooting and survey of the forward edge of the Germans. It is strange that during firing I was not scared for myself. The fear came later on after the battle. When Germans were shooting there was only thing I feared that  Germans might hit the artillery telescope. I was focused on work and there was no place for any other emotions.   

We were supplied pretty well. We did not starve. Of course, we craved for home-made food. There was a semi-demolished house on the neutral strip. There was potato in its ceiling. We boiled that potato, and baked it in the fire. It was not a mere food for us; it reminded us of our previous peaceful times.

In July 1944 there was an attack. The artillery preparation was in the outset and our reconnaissance squad was in the second car together with the headquarters of the division. We stopped near some sort of a hamlet. Our squad was told to prepare for one of the commanders an observation point on the hill.  It meant to dig full-face trench, so a person could stand there and install the set a telescope there. It was not easy as there were no tripods. We were supposed to cut a log in the forest, fasten it to the edge of the trench, and fasten the telescope to the log.  It took us the whole night to do that. In the morning, when the regiment commander came over, I was sent to the forest to make sure that none of the cars passed. I was supposed to stop the cars, make the passengers get out from it and walk. In case somebody disobeyed I was to shoot on the wheels. I did not enjoy that considering that I had sleepless night. I was so weary that I physically could not walk to my dug-out and fell asleep right by the observation point. I woke up because I had a feeling that someone slapped my hand hard. It turned out that the fragment of shell pierced my arm. Shell makes a funnel and the fragments of mine are scattered on the land during the earth. The Germans noticed our observation point and opened mortar fire. I was pulled down right away.  I was pulled down the trench. They bandaged my arm and when the shooting was over I went to the medical battalion. The fragment was removed, the wounded was cleaned and I was sent to the hospital in Lisino, Pskov oblast. The wounded did not heal up and was suppurating. When the X-ray was made, it turned out that petty fragments remained in the wound, so it did not heal. I was to be operated once again. The surgeon removed the fragment of shell, part of the shirt sleeve and jacket sleeve, which were pulled in the wound by the fragment of shell, and sutured my wound. Finally my wound was getting better.   

I asked to discharge me from the hospital. In the end, the chief of the hospital allowed me to be discharged and treated in the medical battalion of the regiment. Our regiment re-dislocated to Latvia. I knew about that. When I was discharged from the hospital I went to the station of Autse, whereby our regiment was positioned. I was lucky to stop a truck, which carried the shells, and the drivers agreed to give me a lift in spite of the fact that he was violating the instruction not to carry passengers. I reached the place and found our regiment. I even managed to have my hair cut in the local barber shop. The reconnoiterers were not cut close to the skin like other soldiers so that they could pretend to be civilians in the event of captivity. When I came back I was supposed to come to the headquarters of the division. It turned out that the aide of the commander of headquarters on reconnaissance major Danilchenko was killed with his orderly. Our squad commander was to take his position. I reported that I came back in the lines after being recovered. I was sent to the reconnaissance squad. I regained my previous activity. I went reconnoitering. Then there was an order to send one person from the squad to attend the courses of the Komsomol organizers. They chose me for some reason, though I joined Komsomol only in 1943 in the lines. I had attended them for a month and came back to the squad with the rank of a senior sergeant. Shortly after that there was the order that the second Baltic Front was to be annulled and the military staff should be transferred to Leningrad front. The banner of our reconnaissance squad was taken to Moscow and we joined rifle guards division # 85. But is the officer’s position and I was only a senior sergeant. Shortly after that when a new commander came, I became his deputy. Our task was to push the German troops from Latvia. The battles were fierce.  Though, both we and Germans understood that the war was winding up. Germans still were resisting.  I was involved in reconnaissance as well as in the infantry battles. When the battle was on, I could not stay aloof saying that my business was done by making reconnaissance. Germans were bringing new forces, equipment and firing points. They had a lot of defense constructions there. We were attacking. We were ordered to take the village. We had stayed in the forest overnight and in the morning we were to attack in the morning. The battle was hard.  Germans hit with a constant mortar fire and we had a lot of casualties. There were mostly wounded because of flat mines. Any way we managed to liberate the village and Germans retreated. Suddenly we were ordered to come back to initial positions. It turned out that it was not the village we were supposed to fight for. We were furious – a lot of officers were killed. Only 20 people were left from our reconnaissance squad out 75. The squad commander was also killed in action. All those casualties were for some strategically unimportant village, just because somebody in the headquarters made a mistake. By the way, it was not the only case. The next morning, on the 14th of April 1945 I was sent in reconnaissance to find the access roads to the hill, we were supposed to fight for. I fulfilled the task and came back to the squad. The commander listened to my report, marked the attack routes on the map and told me to take people and start assault. There were hardly any people left- 15 men and 3 elderly nurses. They did not want to fight as it would be silly to be killed at the very end of war. We had to walk through the forest to get to the hillock. It was hard: there were saplings and Germans cut the trunks so that high stumps were left at a small distance from each other. It was impossible to crawl or to run. We could only walk. I was the first in the group. We did not know that a German sniper was up a tree, and the bullet hit me. I was lucky to stay alive and get just a dipnoous wound of the forearm. I was bandaged hastily and sent to the medical battalion after the battle. Soon the deputy political officer of the regiment came over and said that for that battle I would be awarded with the medal “For Bravery” 36. They also sent a letter to mother saying that her son was awarded with the medal “For Bravery” as well as the words of gratitude for upbringing of the  worthy defender of the Motherland.

My wound was cleansed and in a week I was sent to the reserve regiment, mortar battalion. I had stayed there for a week. Half of the day I was trained, and the rest of the day I had a spare time. We were not given weapon in the reserve regiment. Only when we were on duty to guard the regiment, we were given guns. We were supposed to return them when we were off the duty. We were not used to feel helpless and disarmed and when going to bed we did not know whether we would wake up in the morning. Suddenly at night of 8/9th of May we were woken up by shooting. We were scared that the Germans came over and all of us would be shot. We got out and saw that everybody on the meadow shooting in the air. People were shooting from guns, flare pistols, gats whatever people had. Somebody who was shooting noticed out frightened faces and cried out ‘the war is over’. We even could not believe it at once. In the morning we went to our neighbors, the squad of bombers, to look around what was going on there. We saw mechanics disarm the planes, dismantling bomb-carriers and guns. Only then we finally believed that the war was over. At noon, on the 9th of May our commander congratulated us on victory and gave us vodka to drink at lunch.

I did not felt anti-Semitism in the lines. I was an only Jew in our squad, but nobody ever accentuated on that. There were Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Moldavians, Tartars among my front-line friends. We even did not remember what nationality we were. There was common enemy and common duty. There were criteria of assessment of the personal characteristics of men by you. Your life often depended on those, who were close by. Nationality was not one of those criteria.

All of us were patriots in the lines. We were brought up by the Soviet regime. Party, Lenin 37, Stalin were out reality. We were aware that we struggled against fascism and gained victory owing to Stalin. Of course, we were thinking that we were young and did not ponder things over. Now I understand that if there were no Stalin’s repressions, there would be no war, or in the event of war there would be much less casualties if our commanders were those militaries who were exiled and shot in the times of Great Terror. At that time I was not prone to think that it was possible to question the actions of Stalin or the Party.

After the war

The war was over and I had to think what to do next. There was an order – if somebody had some sort of military education should be sent to military schools. So I was sent to attend front-line courses for junior lieutenants of Leningrad front. In summer we were sent to cut wood. When we came back the commander of the school said that army did not need junior lieutenants and we would be distributed to the military schools of the city of Leningrad and Leningrad command.  We were taken to Leningrad to the 1st Leningrad Red Banner Infantry School. We were supposed to take entrance exams – Russian language and Mathematics. Of course, I forgot mathematics, but my Russian was not bad. I was admitted to school. I was to start school on the 1st of September and we were sent to the camps. As a rule we had march drilling and got ready for the parade. Then military parade was cancelled in Leningrad. There was a victory parade in Moscow. In Leningrad sports parade was held at Dvortsovaya (Palace) square. We, dressed in white shorts and T-shirts, were doing PT exercises. After parade our platoon stayed in Leningrad. We were not let in the city since we were not properly dressed. Time went by. September was coming and I had to start school. In late October they read us the order of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR 38 as of 25th October saying that doctors, teachers, engineers and militaries, who had over 3 battle injuries were to be demobilized from the army. I was classified for demobilization. The commander of military school called me and asked whether I wanted to go on with my studies. I requested demobilization and on the 17th of November I was demobilized. I received the traveling documents and came back to Moscow.

Father came back from the army couple of days before I came. The sentence which was adjourned by the end of war, was cancelled by the martial court of Privolzhie command. So, father was a free man. He was immediately offered a job in the tuberculosis hospital in a small town out of Moscow, Zvenigorod. He was the deputy chief physician. Sister studied at school, mother was a housewife. First of all, I was to finish the 10th grade. There were institutions of external studies, where the demobilized from the army were prepared within three month to get the secondary education certificate. I enrolled for external studies and finished the course. We were not entitled to take final exams at the external studies institution, we were assigned to a school where we could do that. I passed the exams and got the certificate. My school friend studied at Technical Institute (former ammunition institute, and nowadays it is called Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute). The name of the school was changed, but the profile remained unchanged- weapon production. There were three departments: technological, design and physics. She talked me into entering that institute, the design faculty. The participants of war were admitted beyond the competition. I was supposed only to have the interview in mathematics. I was not admitted to the design department and I was offered to study at technological department of that institute. On the 1st of September 1946 I started school. I became an engineer- metallurgist. I had worked in that field until retirement.

I did not rank among the top students, but I was not a poor student either. Apart from studies I also was enrolled in a drama circle. In 1948 cosmopolite processes started. At that time anti-Semitism was rather conspicuous. Jewish students were expelled from the institute, and Jewish teachers were fired. There were incessant articles about cosmopolites- the activists of science or culture. Jews were baited, but fortunately our institute was untouched. There were a lot of Jews, both teachers and students, but none of them suffered. The only time we felt anti-Semitism was shortly before defending of diplomas.  During the last term more than a half of our group was transferred to the physics department. There were a lot of atom physics scientists, but there were few designers. None of the transferred was a Jew. Only Russians were chosen.  They envied us and it their job was very hazardous, not of them lived over 50 years.

I defended my diploma successfully. Nobody was given a mandatory job assignment in Moscow. I was lucky to be the third and I chose Saratov [800 km from Moscow]. Most of the assignments were in Ural and Kazakhstan.

I came to Saratov. It was an appliance building plant, evacuated to Saratov from Leningrad during the war. It remained there after war. Navigation gauges were produced there for the navy. I was assigned a foreman in the thermal department of the instrumental workshop, as it was the only shop, where the parts requiring thermal processing, were produced.  They treated me pretty well at the plant. In a year I was assigned the chief foreman. I lived in the plant hostel for engineers. It was a recently constructed log house. Married people were given separate room. I lived in one room with three engineers, who came to the plant as per mandatory job assignment.

Shortly after my arrival in Saratov, I was elected in Komsomol Committee of the plant [Komsomol units existed at all educational and industrial enterprises. They were headed by Komsomol committees involved in organizational activities]. Then I was offered to join the party. At that time party membership was very important for career, therefore I did not object. I received the recommendation of the district Komsomol committee as well as recommendations from other party members. The general meeting of the communist party members of the plant approved by candidacy, but the plant party committee did not approve me. I tried to find out what was going on, but there was no answer. I stopped looking for a response.

It was harder for me to work when I was promoted in my position. People who had worked longer than me bore grudge and started convincing the director that there was no need in chief foreman in the workshop. My position was reduced, and the position of a foreman had been already taken. I was supposed to work for three years as per mandatory job assignment, but I remained jobless. I had no right to quit job and the director was not entitle to fire me. They suggested that I should write an letter to the ministry asking to assist me. Father had some acquaintances who worked for the ministry of the armament and soon I received a letter from the ministry, where it was indicated that they did not mind my leaving the job at the plant. In 1953 I came back to Moscow. 

I was in Saratov when Stalin died in 1953. I was really grieving. I was raised with Stalin’s name; he was almost like a God to me. We went to festive demonstrations just to look at the members of the government and Stalin, who stood on mausoleum. There was no TV at that time. Everybody knew that Stalin was present at the demonstrations by 1 p.m., so people tried to get there by that time. I burst into tears when I found out about Stalin’s death.  I felt a terrible loss. I could not even imagine how I would live without him.

In some time after Stalin’s death there was tittle-tattle that repressions were unfair. Though, nobody associated Stalin with repressions, but Beriya 39. First, everybody was confounded when Khrushchev 40 denounced Stalin’s crimes at ХХ Party congress 41. First Khrushchev’s speech was secretive and it was read only at the closed party meetings. I found out about cruel things. Then rehabilitations commenced 42.There were a lot of the repressed who did not survive. Of course, exoneration meant a lot for the kin, but it was impossible to resurrect those who were killed … 

I thought that after ХХ party congress anti-Semitism would merely vanish as the term ‘peoples’ enemy’. But my expectations were not met, when I came   back to Moscow from Saratov and started looking for a job. I read all job openings, went for the interviews, but could not find a job. I was told by the HR department that I was the right person, but as soon as they read my form, wherein there was a notorious «5th line» 43 – nationality, it turned out that the position was taken. Of course, I understood that it was a pretext, but there was nothing doing about it.

Once when I was on the brink of despair, I passed by one-storied building and saw the announcement on job opening of the engineer- heat-treated. Now the institute is called Central Institute of Machine Building, at that time it was Scientific Research Institute of Defense Industry. I came to the HR department without any hope and said that I would like to work there. I had the documents on me. In spite of my expectations the head of HR department asked the director of the department to come in. A typical Jew, whose last name was Regeler. He looked at my diploma and told me that I could start the next day. It turned out that not only in my department, but the entire institute was full of Jews. There were more Jews than Russians. That year I was admitted in the party. I had worked in the institute for 13 years. Then in 1966 the elderly retired and the management changed, so I had to come across anti-Semitism once again. Without any grounds I was transferred from the position of the leading engineer to the position of the chief engineer. It was a lower position and much lower salary. I decided to change my job. I was known as an expert and had quite a few publications. I addressed to one of the institute and filled in the form there, but I was not scheduled the interview. Finally, my acquaintance, director of the department at the Institute of Steel and Alloys, also by the ministry of defense industry, offered me a job there but with a lower salary. I agreed to it. Gradually I got a pay rise and my salary was even higher than at a previous job.  

I met my future wife when I worked at the institute of defense industry. Tatiana Shamrai got a mandatory job assignment after graduation from Higher Technical School named after Bauman, the so-called Bauman institute [Moscow High Technical School named after renowned revolutionary Nikolay Bauman, today it is called Technical Institute] to work as appliances designer. Tatiana is Russian. She was born in the village of Starinki, Kaluga oblast [250 km from Moscow] in 1931. Her father Mikhail Shamrai was a farmer and mother Praskovia Shamrai  was a housewife, and also helped her husband with the field work. There were five children in the family. The eldest son was Peter. There were also Ivan and daughters Anna and Maria, born in 1926. Tatiana was the youngest one. With the outset of collectivization 44 the family moved to Moscow. Father worked as a janitor and mother worked at Caoutchouc plant in the most hazardous plant- where degreasing of metallic constructions in cyanic solutions took place. It was a hard living, but two daughters Anna and Tatiana got higher education. Tatiana was really gifted. She, a village girl, finished school with gold medal  [Editor’s note: the golden medal was the highest distinction in USSR secondary schools. A student was supposed to have straight excellent marks (100%) to get the golden medal. A student was supposed to have 90% of excellent marks to get silver medal. ], entered the institute named after Bauman and brilliantly graduated from it. She was loved by everybody at work. When we met, soon I understood that she was the one for me: a clever and healthy village girl. We got married in 1961. My parents were not against that my wife was Russian. Nationality was not important for them. We had a common wedding: got registered in the state registration office and in the evening our friends came over to mark the event. I moved in Tatiana’s place. She had a small room in the communal apartment. Her siblings were married off and lived separately. Tatiana’s father died, and her mother lived with her elder sister Anna. By the way, Anna was also married to a Jew, my friend Vladimir Tarskiy.  In 1962 our son Pavel was born. Tatiana’s sister Maria was not married, but she gave birth to a son in 1960. Maria died from cancer and her son was raised in our family. When Pavel turned 3, we got a separate 2-room apartment.

When I left the institute Tatiana had worked there for several years. Then she changed her job and went to work for the Institute of Current Sources as engineer- designer of solar batteries. Tatiana managed to become a good expert and she was appreciated at work. The leading expert of the institute was a well-know scientist Korolev 45, who liked Tatiana and took her opinion into account.

In the 1970s mass immigration to Israel started. I was not going to leave USSR. I did not know neither the language nor the customs and traditions. I was not religious either. I did not think it would be better for me in Israel than here. I did not judge those who were leaving and I tried to support them.   

We marked all soviet holidays at work. It was mandatory to attend the demonstrations on the 1st of May and 7th of November. First people got days off for participation in demonstrations and people were willing to go there. Then it was cancelled and people were made to attend demonstrations. Each department was told how many people should be present and people were responsible for the presence of the representatives of the department on the demonstration. We had a feast at work after demonstration, and a concert afterwards. On Victory day 46 veterans were honored. It was the only day throughout a year when I put my awards on. At home we also marked holidays, but apart from New Year’s day and victory day, they were just ordinary days-off when we could invite guests over and have fun.

Having finished school my son entered Bauman institute, the Technological –Physical Metallurgy department. After graduation he worked in one of the machine building design institutes in Moscow. After perestroika 47, which brought unemployment, Pavel got a new specialty –a programmer. Since that time he had worked for a firm as a programmer. Son married a Russian girl, Alexander Gonchrova. They are a good family. They have two children. The elder Elizaveta was born in 1995, and son Nikolvay  – in 1997. We keep in touch. My son and his family come over to us. Unfortunately it takes them more than 2 hours to get to us, that is why we do not see each as often as we wished. 

My sister entered Moscow Geologic Exploration Institute, Mineral Waters Faculty. Geology is not a proper profession for a woman, it is rather hard, but Ella liked it. She was involved in exploration of mineral waters and was the head of exploration department in balneology institute. She was on multiple expeditions. Ella was married to her fellow student, Russian guy Yuri Romanov, when they were in the graduate year. In 1954their son Alexander was born and in 1960 son Mikhail. Unfortunately, the elder son was a sick man and was afflicted with epilepsy since childhood. He finished the music school, violin department, but he could not work. He lived with the parents and got the dole for the disabled. The younger went to work at the plant after the army, got married. Now he has two children. He works in advertisement business.

Parents lived by themselves. They were dependable. Ella exchanged her apartment for a bigger one in late 1970s. They settled in Biryulevo, the outskirt of Moscow. It was very far from our previous place. Probably they should not move. Mother died in 1980, and father died in a half a yea. We buried them on the common cemetery. The funeral was secular as none of the parents was religious. 

When Mikhail Gorbachev 48 declared about perestroika, I took it with enthusiasm. There were new opportunities and rights that we were deprived of previously during the soviet regime. Now there was liberty of meetings, liberty of word and publications. There was no more struggle against religion 49, which was so rigid during soviet regime. Censorship of press was abolished. We had the chance to get the true coverage of the events in our country not from the western radio stations, but also from soviet news-paper and TV news. We learned many new things about Stalin’s times. Anti-Semitism was waning. All kinds of Jewish communities were emerging. The word ‘Jew’ was pronounced openly, not surreptitiously. There was no iron curtain 50, having severed us from the rest of the world. We got the opportunity to gо abroad and invite foreigners over. There was no need in concealing that we had relatives abroad. All those new things made us happy.  Then gradually things calmed down and perestroika was in the crescent. At one of the party congress during the reign of Gorbachev there was an amendment in the party statute regarding the voluntary exit from the party. Things were topsy-turvy in the party at that time. District committees were not doing their work with the primary organization. Previously there were plans and political classes. After that, sessions all activities stopped. Party activists minded only their own business. Our secretary of party organization found a job at some firm. After that I wrote a letter saying that the leaders were not managing things, there was no understanding what to do, what was the general course of the party. That is why I think that there was no use for me to stay in the party. So I left the party. Then, after breakup of the USSR [1991], there were many people who left the party.

I think the breakup of the Soviet Union to be a mistake. Before that all republics were together and productions were interconnected. Such integration was very propitious for the economy. And now things are in the wane, when each of the republics is independent. Besides, the newly founded states lack qualified personnel- engineers and scientists. They do not have their own and have to invite the experts from abroad.  Things created with the combined efforts are now pulled by new states. New Russia built a lot in other republics, and now it is bereft of its property. Besides human relationships are affected as well as they are now living in different countries. It is hard to come to Baltic countries, Ukraine, where friends are living. I think USSR could have been reorganized  to remain a big and powerful country, the way it has always been during the soviet regime.

I retired on the 1st of January 1992. I did not want to resume work. I was on business trips so many times that I just wanted to stay home with my wife. We went for a walk, attended cinema and theatres, discusses the books we read.  We did not have time for that before. I do not take part in the social Jewish communities. When I was a school student, I was involved in social work even in extracurricular time. Now, I want peace. In April 2004 my wife died. I remained by myself. Of course I want somebody to talk to and there are my friends and kin for that.

Glossary

Alexander Tsvey
Russia
Моscow
Interviewer: Svetlana Bogdanova
Date of the Interview: November 2004

Alexander Tsvey is a tall and slender, good-looking man with vivacious young eyes. He lives by himself in a 2-room apartment of a five-storied house, built in early 1970s on the outskirt of Moscow. The way the apartment looks, I can say that the lady’s presence is not felt here. There are a lot of books- a good collection of verses and military memoirs. There are a lot of pictures on the walls, namely of his mother, children, grandchildren and his deceased wife.

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

My paternal great grandfather Moses Tsvey lived in the town Sebezh, Pskov oblast not far from Latvian border [about 500 km to the west from Moscow]. I do not know when and where he was born. Moses was a jeweler, making bronze and copper ware. He also worked as a watch mender. He was an educated and well-read man, which was a rarity among Jewish craftsmen. Moses was a peculiar man. He was a vegetarian, which was not common with Jews. His family did not stick to vegetarianism and great grandfather let everybody choose their own way. Besides, great grandfather was a free thinker criticizing certain dogmas of Judaic religion. He did not recognize some of the rites. I do not know what exactly he disapproved of, but I know that he did not cover his head and smoked on Sabbath to boot. They wanted to excommunicate him from the synagogue for that. Back in that time it was a rigid punishment. They took into account his literacy and his large family and he was not excommunicated, fortunately. Great grandfather remained living the way he was used to.

I was interested in the origin of the last name Tsvey [the similarly pronounced ‘zwei’ means ‘two’ in Yiddish]. I asked grandfather about it. Then, I had an idea that it was a distorted version of the ancient Jewish name Tsvi. Name or a surname Tsvi is widely spread in Israel. I think the clerk misheard the name and put Tsvey instead of Tsvi.

My paternal grandfather Moishe Tsvey and grandmother Basya-Riva Tsvey (nee Mostova) lived in the town of Volyntsy [800 km to the west from Moscow] Gomel oblast, Belorussia. My paternal great grandfather Berl Mostov also lived in the town Volyntsy. I do not know when and where he was born. He was an elderly tall man. He was well respected in the town. My father took after him, and I after my father, but my mother and all her kin were of short height. Great grandfather Berl was a merchant. The Mostovs family was one of the three richest families in the town. Great grandfather Berl died in 1919. I do not know how many children were there in the Mostovs family. My grandmother Basya-Riva was born in 1883.

Grandmother was a stately and beautiful woman. My grandfather fell in love with her and wooed her. There is a family legend - grandmother told grandpa: «Prove that you love me!» and he took off valenki [warm Russian felt boots] in wintertime and had been running around on the snow until grandmother agreed to marry him. Of course, grandmother was the boss in the family.

My father was the first–born. Grandmother gave birth to him in 1902. I know only his Russian name [Common name] 1 Yuri. He must have had a Jewish name, but I did not know it. Mother had escaped to talk about father. He was a grey-eyed, tall and good-looking man. He played mandolin very well. The Tsvey family was musical on the whole. Unfortunately there is little I know my father’s siblings. Now the family is gone, and there is nobody I can ask questions. I remember father’s brothers Abram, Israel, Solomon, Efim and sister Sofia.

The family Tsvey was well-off. They dealt with leather - beginning from the tannery, making leatherwear and selling it. Grandfather had his own store. Children also were involved in work. They bought skin of the animals and tanned it. Being the eldest my father did most of the work. He tanned the skin manually by using hazardous chemical agents, staying by the tub with the solution for tanning. He must have undermined his health during work and was afflicted with tuberculosis, which caused his death, also during his work. After revolution as of 1917 [Russian Revolution of 1917] 2 authorities took production from grandfather and the family was bereft of the source of income.

My father’s siblings were married and had children. Unfortunately, I do not remember anybody but the youngest brother, Solomon. I was bonded with him. Uncle had been taking care of me all his life. Solomon was born in 1912. He used to say that he had chosen his profession because of me. He was present during my mother’s parturition. It was dark and Solomon held a candle while mother was giving birth. Parturition was hard and Solomon decided to become an obstetrician to help suffering women. He became a brilliant gynecologist. He devoted his life to work and remained single. The person who helped to bring hundreds of babies in the world, did not have his own children. Solomon died in Saint-Petersburg in 2000. The only thing I can say about other father’s brothers is that Abram was drafted in the army and was killed in action during the first days of World War II [Great Patriotic War] 3.

My mother’s family lived in a Jewish town Drissa [now Verkhnedvinsk, Belarus, about 220 km from Minsk]. Mother’s father Israel Perlov was the most revered man in the Jewish community of the town. I do not know what he did for a living. I did not know my maternal grandmother, not even her first name. Her maiden name was Novik. Grandparents had four children. Haim was the eldest (in Russian Efim), born in 1900. In 1902 my mother Tsilya Perlovа was born. Her Russian name was Sima. After my mother two sons were born: in 1904 Fayvel or Fyodor in Russian and 1907 the youngest Joseph was born, in his family called Russian name Iosif. Grandmother died when she was giving birth to Joseph. Of course, it was hard for the widowed grandfather to take care of four small children. When the mourning period was over, he was married to the widow with a child. In 1916 their common child, Mikhail, was born. In 1918 grandfather died. Mother remained a full orphan at the age of 16. She did not even manage to finish secondary school.

Grandfather’s brother Moses Perlov also lived in the town with his wife Dobe-Liba (Dora) and their children – mother’s cousins Efim, Abram, Solomon and Simon. Almost all of them perished in the front in 1940s and after World War II we did not keep in touch with their family. I only knew one of grandmother’s brothers out of all Novik’s kin. I do not remember his name. Mother kept in touch with his children all life long. The Noviks lived in Moscow, on Arbat [street, from the second half of the 18th century it became Moscow's most aristocratic and literary neighborhood and home to the city's intelligentsia]. It was the most intelligent branch of the family. Оne Novik became the rector of the institute and the other deputy of the regional prosecutor,.

I do not know how my parents met. It was a love wedlock. They had a traditional Jewish wedding. After wedding mother moved to father’s house. They lived with his parents. Grandmother used to boss around in the family and had quite a difficult authoritarian character. Mother-in-law was hard on my mom and blamed her in everything. Mother was an orphan and her brothers were far away and there was nobody to stand up for her. Besides, nobody told my mother about father’s disease- open form of tuberculosis. Father’s kin was aware of it and they found it unnecessary to inform mother of it.

Growing up

I was born in 1925 in the town Volyntsy. I was named Israel after my deceased maternal great grandfather. I do not know what was the reason of the tiff between my parents. All I know is that they separated in 1927.

Mother’s elder brother Efim finished vocational school and acquired a profession of an accountant in his native town. Then he left for Moscow. He must have insisted that mother also moved with him to Moscow. Efim did not have his place at that time, so he rented a room in house where common people lived. They were really indigent. We had a passage room. An artist named Zhukovskaya lived in the next room. Every morning she passed through our room and walked to the toilet to pour out her night pot. There was hardly any furniture in our room- 2 chairs, a table, mother’s bed and my cot. We had nothing to live on, so mother found a job аt sugar mill as a packager. I did not have a baby-sitter, so I went to work with mother. I was in the workshop observing the assembly line with sugar bales. In spite of the fact that mother was lonely and worked hard, she remained brisk and cheerful. Her life was extremely difficult, but I never remember her being despondent. In general, all Perlovs, including my mother were very energetic and vivacious.

Efim was involved in commerce in Moscow and was promoted rather swiftly. He was assigned deputy chairman of the all-union procurement organization Tsentrosoyuz, which bought out and sold production manufactured by different small-scale companies. Efim had a personal car, which was rare back in that time. He was assigned to the same post after World War II as well. Efim was married. His wife’s name was Roza. They had two children - daughter Lina and son Mikhail. When Uncle Efim became a dignitary, he was literally made to join the party. He also talked his younger brothers Fyodor and Joseph into moving to Moscow. Efim took good care of them as they were poor orphans. Brother welcomed soviet regime and became its active sticklers. Joseph was an active Komsomol 4 member. He married a Jewish girl Sara, also Komsomol member. Joseph was a passionate orator, devoted to the ideas of the party and revolution. He was a political go-getter. In 1934 he became the secretary of the party committee of one of the largest plants in Moscow (I do not remember which one). Then he was assigned the secretary of the regional party committee and then later on the secretary of Kursk [about 450 km to the south from Moscow] municipal party committee. Joseph did very well before the outbreak of repressions [Great Terror] 5. Then in 1938 there was a brief article in the paper «The Secretary of Kursk municipal party committee is mistaken», wherein Joseph was unfairly castigated. He went to Moscow to seek truth and did not come back. He was arrested and in 1938 shot without trial. We found about it only in the 1960s when we got his rehabilitation certificate [Rehabilitation in the Soviet Union] 6, but back in 1937 mother had been staying by walls of NKVD 7 days and nights and still did not manage to find anything about the brother. They even did not let her give him a parcel with the rusks and tobacco. I had never met a more decent and honest man than my uncle Joseph. Two of Joseph’s children survived- sons Vladimir and Stanislav. Vladimir now lives in Israel. I correspond with him. Stanislav immigrated to the USA in the 1990s.

Uncle Fyodor was a frontier man by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was promoted to the rank of a major no matter that his brother was repressed. It was Stalin’s politics- imprison one and persecute – another. Fyodor was married to a Russian, Klavdia. They had 6 children. Unfortunately, I do not remember their names. All of them became worthy people. Now they live in different Russian cities. Their stepbrother Mikhail graduated from Moscow Construction institute, then worked as a chief engineer for a construction company in Barnaul (Altaskiy Kray, Russia, 3000 km from Moscow). Mikhail was married to a Jewish girl, whose name I forgot. They did not have children. He died from blood cancer in the 1950s at a rather young age.

My father died from lung tuberculosis in 1927. He was buried in Volyntsy. I do not know where his grave is. Mother did not tell me hardly anything about father. Even Uncle Solomon did not tell me all about him. Grandfather commemorated the day of father’s death till the end of his days. He always went to the synagogue on that day and read kaddish for his son, who died earlier than he. Candles were lit at home on that day. Father’s kin probably felt guilty and tried to help mother the best they could. Grandfather’s family had been taking care of me, especially uncle Solomon.

In late 1920s father’s parents and brothers moved to Leningrad with families. Grandmother died in 1940. She was buried in Leningrad Jewish cemetery in accordance with the Jewish rite. Grandfather got married for the second time. She was also a Jew. Grandfather remained religious till death. It is difficult for me to judge his religiousness, but I know that he strictly observed Jewish traditions, observed kashrut. Grandfather died in 1966 in Leningrad having survived the siege [Blockade of Leningrad] 8. He was buried next to grandmother in accordance with the Jewish rite, the way he wished.

Mother coped with her work and took an active part in social life. She was noticed and then promoted to the post of deputy the regional council [regional administration], though she was not the member of the party. Then mother was hired by the plant as a time-keeper. Again her skills did not remain unnoticed. She was assigned as an instructor to the children’s board by BTsIK [Bsesoyuzny Tsentralny Ispolitelny Komitet, All-Union Central Executive Committee]. Mother was a young, single and beautiful woman. Of course, she drew attention. Her director asked to accompany him to different events. She was twice at the jubilee of Kalinin 9. Mother said that Kalinin was still a ladies’ man despite of his elderly age.

Mother did not work in the children’s board for a long time. She had been on the trips all over the country, supervising orphanages and organizing work. I stayed at home with a nanny. Those were the times of hunger. There was a dreadful starvation in Ukraine [Famine in Ukraine] 10, there was hunger in Moscow as well. We were famished. A lump of sugar was a rare dainty for me. Couple of times mother got the cards [Card system] 11 for the canteen for the privileged workers. We had a lavish meal there. I remember when I was in the metro in 1935, I saw a man eating a candy. My eyes looked so hungry and wretched that mother promised to buy me a candy. On Sundays we went for lunch to our relatives, usually to uncle Efim, mother’s eldest brother. He was more well-off than others. It was an event for me. At home I ate ‘black’ [black, rotten] frozen potatoes - it was not the name of the dish, but the color it looked like, and aunt treated me with potatoes fried in sour cream. It seemed the acme of richness to me. In summer mother took me to the dacha [summer house] of her acquaintances. When I was 6, she managed to send me to the children’s spa in Crimea. I was afflicted with lung disease because of constant malnutrition. Mother was very worried. She sent me to winter and summer sanatoriums in the forest. Life was hard on mother and I. She often said that she was mother and father for me. Mother left father when she was 25 and she never got married again. She feared that my step father would not treat me the way she would like to. She adored me and I doted on her as well. In 1938 children’s board terminated its work and mother went to work in city park, one of the recreation and entertainment parks of the city, as a director.

Mother and her brothers were totally unreligious. They were bereft of parents rather early and there was nobody to teach them traditions and religion. Mother knew some words in Yiddish. When I was little she sang me some Yiddish songs. I also remember Jewish aphorisms. Mother spoke Russian with her brothers. They considered Russian to be the language of all peoples in USSR. I was raised Russian and did not think of religion at all.

I went to school, when I turned 8. I had studied in Russian school, not far from our house for the first 3 years. Then the house, where we lived, was demolished and we were given a room in a communal apartment 12 in a different district of Moscow. My former school was far from our house and I was transferred to another school. I made new friends there. A Russian boy Volodya Belin was my chum. I was a good student. Mother kept on telling me if I wanted to achieve anything in my life I should study well. I preferred sciences at school and mathematics was my favorite subject. When I was in the 7th grade I was the only student from school who was sent to the town Olympiad in mathematics and I took a prize. I did not feel Anti-Semitism at school. Both teachers and my peer treated me very well. At that time nationality was of no importance. I even did not know whether there any other Jews in my class. I did not feel any inferiority complexes because of my nationality. I did not feel myself harmed of lower-class. I was confident. I was a pioneer 13 and Komsomol member. My mother and I were very poor at that time. When I was in the 7th grade there was a party at school and I did not have anything dressy. All my pants were patched and short. I wore them everyday, but I wanted to dress up on the holiday. I went to uncle Fyodor and he gave me his pants. Uncle was of short height and his pants were ankle length to me. I lowered the belt and wore them on the party. 

I was named Israel at birth. My tender name was Izya. I did not like it. I came to liking the name Sasha a lot, a short name from Alexander when I heard a popular romance song: «Sasha, do you remember our dates in the maritime park…». When I was in the pioneer camp at the age of 15, I was asked what my name was and I said at once: «Sasha!». Thus, since that time I had 2 names- one passport name and another name was used my friends, colleges and kin. Officially I did not change my name. I did not want people to think that I changed my name to conceal my nationality. I was not going to do that. Jewish people have double name, so have I - Alexander Israel.

Our family was not touched by repressions after death of uncle Joseph. Before leaving for Moscow he wrote letter to Stalin asking to look into the issue and exonerate his honest name. I wrote all his letters. Joseph wrote that he was a loyal son of the party and we knew that it was true. All of us were aware that it was unjust but he could not have thought that Stalin had something to do with that. We thought that all those things were done behind his back and believed that Stalin would look into the issue and punish the guilty. We did not associate Stalin with the assassination of Kirov 14, loved by all people. We were shocked by it as well as by the wave of new repressions. We merely cursed the enemies of the Soviet regime [enemy of the people] 15.

I often read in memoirs of different people that World War II was unexpected. It is not true, everybody understood that we would not escape war, besides soviet propaganda had been disseminating that thought starting from junior school age. Since childhood we were taught that our invincible army would crash any enemy and if a а guile enemy attacked our country, the war would be over very soon on his territory. Schoolchildren were taught at civil defense class how to shoot, use personal protective equipment, render assistance to the suffering and wounded. We were raised with patriotic movies, faming our country and army. When in Germany fascists came to power, soviet regime condemned them. Anti-fascist movies were demonstrated in our cinemas, namely «Professor Mamlock» 16, «The Oppenheim Family» [‘Semya Opengeym’ 1939, feature film about a tragic fate of a Jewish family in the Nazi Germany. Producer: Grigoriy Roshal. Story based on Lion Feuchtwanger’s Die Openhemern]. Then Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression agreement was signed [Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact] 17, and anti-fascist campaign was put to end. There were no more anti-fascist movies and propaganda. Of course, many people were bewildered.

During the war

In middle June 1941 I went to the pioneer camp in the vicinity of Mozhaisk [about 100 km to the west from Moscow]. It was a common summer recreation area, I could not have dreamt of anything more. I was 16 , with the height of about 180 cm. I took an active part in all camp events. Shortly after my arrival in the camp I had sharp abdominal pain and fever during volleyball game. I was isolated and I did not feel any better. They called Ambulance. They said I had an acute appendicitis. I was taken to hospital, straight on the operation table. It happened on 22 June 1941 when World War II was unleashed. When I was on the operation table, Germans had already started bombing Moscow. The nurses took us to the air-raid shelter. In a month I was discharged from the hospital, but my wound still did not heal up. School did not start on the 1st of September in accordance with the schedule. Moscow looked different, camouflaged. At times I went to the downtown area, which looked strange. There were trees on the roof of Bolshoy Theatre 18. Moscow river was masked as a high-way with the floating so-called roofs. We got used to the raids of Germans and calmly went down to the basement of our house.

In middle October 1941 there was a rumor that Germans approached Moscow. The city was panic-stricken. Thousands people moved towords East - in cars, on foot, trying to find a sconce from Germans. On the 16th of October 1941 mother’s brother Efim came to pick us up. His family and the family of his driver were in the wagon with precious things. Mother and I tried to squeeze in some clothes in the car, linen and a bag with rusks and headed out. There was no room in the wagon and we had to sit with our legs pressed to the bellies. Accidentally we met mother’s junior brother Fyodor in the street. His family was evacuated a long time ago and he joined us. Now we were packed like the tin of sardines. In the evening we came to Gorkiy [about 400 km to the East from Moscow]. We spent night in a school gym. Of course, we had to sleep on the floor. We had stayed there for 2 days and then went to Kazan [about 800 km to the east from Moscow] by ship. Again we had to sleep on the floor behind the ladder to the engine room. The only thing I remembered in Kazan was delicious buckwheat porridge with meat [grechnievaya kasha]. Fyodor got the cards for the canteen, where we tasted that porridge. There he went to the drafting point and we and Efim’s family took a train and went to Alma-Ata [about 3200 km to the east from Moscow]. Mother did not find a job there and we had to go to her cousin, Alla Perlova, to a hamlet Shakhtstroy in Kazakhstan [about 2000 km to the east from Moscow]. It was a God-forsaken place - just mines and coal dust. Mother was a businesslike woman with good organizational skills. She became the chairman of Russian Red Cross Community [in Shakhtstroy]. We lived in the common barrack, but we were not desponded by the tightness. We escaped danger and it was the most important. I went to the 9th grade of the local school there in Shakhtstroy.

In December 1942 I was drafted in the army. I was in the 10th grade and had not turned 18 yet. I and some of my classmates were sent to Ufa [Bashkyrya, about 1200 km to the east from Moscow] infantry school, to the mortar gun battalion. At school I was issued a certificate that I finished the first half year with straight excellent marks. Mother sturdily got over the coming separation. There were no tears nor wailing.

Our train came to Ufa on the 12th of January 1943. The school was in the city center. The auditoriums and barracks with double-tiered bunks were in the 3-storied premises. Upon arrival we went to the bathhouse. We were given uniforms, solder’s boots; we were taught how to put foot wraps on. Then we were shown our bunks. I was to sleep on the upper bunk. We started school immediately. March drilling, crawling, studies on mortar guns and infantry military statute. We hardly had any leisure time. We got up at 6 and went to bed at 23. We had one hour of rest after lunch. Even on Sunday we had to do something- clean the territory or ski etc. When we ran out of food brought from home, we were starving even thought the cadet’s ration was not bad for that time: 800 grams of bread, 50 grams of butter, 65 grams of sugars, but the feeling of constant hunger was caused by a significant physical loading. I was perseverant in military studies. I took a keen interest in gun studies, taught by senior lieutenant Nazarov. He was an intelligent red-haired man of medium height, aged about thirty. Nazarov did not conceal his emotions when cadets did not solve or understand the task. Once he loudly made a remark on my success: "Look... Tsvey –well done and as for the rest – vice versa!" The guys kept on teasing me calling me “Well done". Later on Nazarov wrote me warm words in his letter to the front, then we did not keep in touch.

Then we had classes on shooting-range. I was an excellent marksman. In June mother came to Ufa for couple of days. I was so happy to spend those days with my mother. The commander gave me leave for couple of days. In late June the load was even harder on the soldiers. In the mourning we were awaken by alarm. In the afternoon we were supposed to run with gas-masks. How could I have stood that and found stamina?! I think my energy was coming from the thirst for knowledge nurtured by mother. Not all cadets were able to overcome the difficulties in the studies. I noticed the gloomy looks and retarded walk of some soldiers. They hardly spoke and remained introverted. Maybe those guys were thinking of the coming battles and the consequences? Most often guys like that were expelled from school at the rank of sergeant and sent in the lines.

Meanwhile mother returned in Moscow and stayed with her junior brother Fyodor as our room was taken by the family of a front-line soldier, whose house was demolished during bombing. The family illegitimately took my mother’s room. Court proceedings took over a year and finally her room was returned. At that time mother worked as a director of the production and studies workshops. Apart from Fyodor and mother there were 7 people in one room. Mother came home only to spend a night. She wrote me about her wandering. I worried about her and tried to cheer her up, assuring her that every cloud had a silver linen.

There was a graduation party at school. After the concert we were supposed to dance with the ladies invited from medical school. I was in high spirits. We had been just given officer’s uniform, all new: boots, waist belt, shoulder straps. It looked nice. Another reason for me to feel happy was that I was among the 10 of the top students, who graduated with excellent marks. By the order from the ministry of defense we were conferred lieutenant rank in advance. I had to recite the poems on stage. Suddenly one of the commanders rushed in the room. "Go take your documents! Have dinner! Today we are leaving to the front". There was a perturbation and hassle caused by certain phrase we heard. There was no festive mood any more. Meanwhile the club was filled with actors and audience: newly arrived cadets, officers and invited girls. When draftees gathered in the yard, the anchorman announced: «And now junior lieutenant Tsvey appears on stage, leaving to the front today». I recited verses with the inner anxiety without seeing the audience in the hall. I said good-bye to the school, commanders and teachers. I believed that things would turn well. When I was leaving the club with my things I heard the applause addressed to me. I joined the lines and heard the order: «Quick march!». The 11th February 1944 was coming to an end...

I was lucky: I was in the lines when our troops were attacking in – Byelorussia, Poland, and Eastern Prussia [Germany]. I did not feel bitter disappointment when during the first days of war our army was being constantly defeated. But still dreadful and fierce war was ahead of us- 452 days before the victory.

We went to the Byelorussia with the comfort in a sanitary car. Finally we went through all authorities in the headquarters and I arrived at 40th Amur rifle regiment # 102 of Far Eastern division of 48 Army. The division was formed on the Far East, and was named accordingly. In afternoon 19th of March I reported commanders of mortar gun squad on our arrival. I was lucky that our squad was just out of battle and positioned six kilometers away from the leading edge. The closest residential area was a village of Yashitsy [This village does not exist today. It might have merged with a bigger town or may have disappeared for some other reason.]. To the north from it is the town of Zhlobin [Belarus, about 500 km to the west from Moscow]. There in couple of months after fierce battle Germans stopped their assault. We knew about it at school and said as if having a premonition: «When we come to Zhlobin, we crack that nut». That was the way it happened ... Commander of mortar gun squad asked whether I was lieutenant Tsvey. It seemed to me that he was surprised. When I confirmed that I was Tsvey he jovially said: «Well, we’ll see how Jews will fight».

The regiment settled in the place. Next day I received a platoon. In couple of days something happened that I would never forget in my life. A soldier was shot in front of the regiment aligned in a hollow square. I even did not understand the reason. Either he deserted or he was a traitor. I still remember that nervous tremor. Military prosecutor read the verdict and shot the kneeling soldier in the occiput. I also was shocked that the soldier did not say anything before death. We had been looking silently on that terrible procedure and then we had no discussion on that.

So, I became a platoon commander. There were two large mortar guns in our platoon, each served 5-6 people. Three carried the parts of the gun: mortar barrel, gun-carriage base plate, the rest carried mines. Besides, there were aide of the commander and an orderly. The total number of people were 12 in platoon, excluding commander. Most of the soldiers were aged 19-20, two or three of them were older than that. All of them were battle-seasoned and had awards. I still remember my front-line comrades.

I think that sergeant-major Volodin became the dearest man for me on the front.  Unfortunately I do not remember his name. «Sergeant-major Volodin», he was called that way. We usually called each other by last name and rank. He was very kind and benevolent. He looked like Mordvinian. He spoke Russian with an accent. I felt his care from the first days, though we did not get in touch that often nor were we bosom friends. It was hard for me to abide by the grief over his death. On the 15th of April 1944 we moved to the leading edge. The gun-soldiers were 800 meters away from the infantry trenches. Firing points were dug in the forest, 4 rollings were made, disguises, shots.  Of course, the adversary noticed our positions and sometimes was shooting at us. We systematically were moving to the leading edge, the infantry, to be on duty, and supported night reconnaissance operations. We thought that Germans would attack and we would be resisting their assault. May just fled. From the events of that day I remembered the return of sergeant Prikhodko. Before that he was spoken about in the regiment. Prikhodko was distinguished in one of the battles by performing a feat. I saw a short, freckled modest man who did not look heroic at all. Prikhodko was awarded with the Red Banner 19, though he was listed for the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union 20. There were rumors that ‘the misconception’ was caused by one of the regiment clerks. At any rate, our commander expressed his indignation. Soon during the inspection of the regiment, carried out by general-major, the commander of our corps publicly raised the issue on the ‘mishap’. As people are not awarded for one and the same feat twice, the verdict of the general was concise and simple: "Include in the list for the conferment of the title Hero". Everybody found out about it...

It seems to me that on the 10th of June 1944 our division took off and headed on a trip for many days. Where? What for? Nobody knew. Having walked for over a hundred km we reached the destination point on the 17th of June, which was called the town of Rogachev [about 450 km to the west from Moscow]. Of course, we could not have assumed that we had to take park in one of the most large-scale operation of our troops, called Bagration. In the book written by marshal G. Zhukov 21 «Memoirs and Recollections» [«Vospamynyanya I razmyslenya», Moscow, 1968]: «...The task of the 1st Byelorussian front was to crash Zhlobin-Bobruisk grouping. The key cities plus river Dnepr, Drut, Beresina, Svisloch and a number of shallow boggy rivers and streams were the base of the echeloned defense of the adversary, which covered the main Western Warsaw-Berlin strategic direction.»

In spite of that the fact that headquarters focused significant forces to exterminate the ‘Center’ we still believed that for the operation to be successful it was necessary for the troops participating in Bagration to get ready thoroughly. There were trenches, dugs-out, people, horses and weapon… It was clear that the intensive preparation was underway. Germans were shooting comparatively rare, but each released shell hit the mark. We did not even have time for a respite from a long trip. At night we were ordered to bring materials to the river for the construction of the bridge. We did it in groups 8-10 people. In 2-3 days we were given a more difficult and dangerous task: carry the boxes with shells to the river Drut, separating us from Germans and stack them on the neutral stripe in special niches, dug by the infantry men. About 6 people carried one box. I accompanied such groups for quite a few times. Our caravan was walking along the neutral stripe and suddenly German flash rocket emerged producing bright light; we could not drop a box as Germans would notice the movement so we had to stand still hoping that the enemy would take us for trees or bushes on the bog. Good thing that it took us only 300 meters to the nearest trenches. Of course, at that moment we felt so miserable- bullets were whistling, but we could not hide or even lie down. Soon the flash was gone and we could move forward. It recurred couple of times before we reached the destination. On the 23rd of June we were read the order on tomorrow’s assault. It was also mentioned there that mortar gun soldiers and gun soldiers would be distributed to the rifle squads by platoons and cross the river. My platoon #3 was to join rifle squad #9. Gun platoon under command of sergeant-major Prikhodko also joined that squad. Soon the orderly came over with the order to follow squad #9. We moved towards the river rather slowly, with frequent halts. Even though the trenches were rather deep we had to bend down as shell were exploding in the closest vicinity. During one of our halts Prikhodko happened to be close by and we had a talk that I had remembered for all my life. Prikhodko spoke Yiddish to me. I was taken aback. Shortly before we met, somebody told me that Prikhodko was a Jew. I did not believe in it at that time. Now I admired Prikhodko. The hero was to go in the battle with me, and he was my tribesman!.. «Are you a Jew?!» - I said dubiously. He firmly answered me in Yiddish. I said that I did not believe him. His last name Prikhodko was purely Ukrainian and I asked him to speak Russian as I did not know Yiddish. Prikhodko said that he was raised in the orphanage where he got that name, but remembered Yiddish since childhood. Gradually we were approaching river. Strange as it may be I was calm and cheerful at that time. My companion was frankly sad. ‘Why are you so wistful, sergeant-major?!’ - I said in a patron way. – ‘You will be conferred the title Hero after battle’. ‘Ah... – he brandished with his hand and said as if he was predoomed: - Hope the head will be safe’. ‘How come?!!’ - I, self-assured boy, who was to take in the first battle, was cheering up a front-line soldier who went through thick and thin beginning in 1939.

Finally our rifle squad came to the breakthrough boundary, located in the trenches on the high bank of Drut. By that time artillery transferred fire deeper to the German defense positions. Aviation showed up in the air. Tanks were roaring. We could see everything vividly from our trenches: steep descent to the river, bridge, filled with corpses and horse carcasses, and further on the opposite bank infantry men running along acclivity to German trenches. Germans rather accurately and rhythmically were firing at bridge from long-distance weapons. Rapid fire... successive fire... pause. And again, repeated in the same succession. I noticed that many commanders of platoons gave the order "advance!" when there was a pause. It took the first group of soldiers couple of minutes to cross the bridge, but next groups were caught under demolishing fire. Judging by the rhythm of the fire I understood that I should run to the river without waiting for the pause; moreover than gun soldier had to carry heavy equipment. When our platoon was given a command to cross, I decided to run to the river a little bit earlier before the pause. I just had a hunch and I think I did not see things around me. I jumped from the trench, ordered: platoon, follow me and dashed to the crossing. When I was approaching the bridge, there were fragments of shells not far from me. I could only assume what fortification the bridge had. I got on and off the bridge, being half-knee in water. «Forward, forward, forward!» I ran for about a hundred meters away from the bridge and finally I fell on the ground and looked around worrying about my soldiers, whether they were alive, thinking whether ammunition was safe. Things were all right. Guys ran up and lied down close by. On the back of the bridge there was a squall of German long-distance weapon. We got up and ran again and with sudden advances approached the first trenches of the enemy. We practically ran out of mines. All of a sudden we saw sergeant-major Volodin holding the bridle on the horsed cart with mines. He calmly asked where to place the mines. Then I was thinking how could he had managed to cross the bridge with the cart? Finally, we fired the first volley at fascists. Soon close to us mortar guns were installed by the soldiers from other platoons. They were much less lucky during forcing Drut. There were casualties, besides somebody lost the barrel from the mortar gun. For right now our fire did not help the infantry that much and no advancement was observed. Finally, the defense of the adversary was broken through. The enemy was retreating and our army #48 headed to Bobruysk [about 600 km to the west from Moscow]. I became more sturdy within those 2-3 days. I felt myself a true front-line solders and gained more self-respect. Pyotr Prikhodko was lethally wounded on the day of the breakthrough and perished on the 26th of June 1944. He was buried in the common grave in the village Zapolie of Rogachevsk region [Russia]. Later on he was posthumously named Hero of the Soviet Union. Secondary school № 1 22 was named after him in Kremenchug [Ukraine], the city where he was born in 1918. I found out about it from the letters written by students of that school in many years after war. I wrote them about the feat of Pyotr Prikhodko and about our crossing the river Drut.

Defeated troops of the enemy were stampeding towards the West. We had to chase them. First, we moved towards Minsk [Byelorussia], then we turned to the south towards Baranovichi [about 800 km to the west from Moscow]. We walked 65 kilometers in one day. We did not have to carry mortar guns as they were on the carts. We were really thirsty. I remember how I bent over a small puddle, covered by some midges and sucked on the water through my sweaty and dirty kerchief. In early August we crossed the border with Poland. I was happy to liberate my motherland, Byelorussia. Now we were to take fierce and ruthless battles in Poland.

Once, one of the commanders of the regiment found it necessary to take agitation leaflets to Germans. I was called in the headquarters and asked whether mortar gun-soldiers could help out. I promised to give it a thought. In theory, there were special mines called agitation ones. They were exploded at a certain distance in the flight. I did not know whether they were used in practice, I just saw them on the picture, when I studied at school. I started thinking whether I was possible to remake a common fragmentation mine into agitation one. I decided to make an experiment. Of course, I asked for preliminary permission. Mine flies from the tube with armed fuse under the action of gasses, formed during combustion of the shells. As soon as a mine encounters the object, it is exploded into about 350 fragments.

My idea was to unscrew the main fuse (of course very gingerly), remove a considerable amount of the explosive material from the body and put some leaflets instead as well as sand to preserve the necessary weight. As a result during explosion the mine would split in some large parts and leaflets would fall out from it. Germans would pick them up and read. It sounded pretty simple. What we had to do was to think what weight to put in the mine body to determine the distance of the flight. I performed all those steps.

On the 25th of October a serious battle ordeal was ahead of me. There was a hamlet on the hill, in 300 meters ahead of us. Germans were well noticeable when we looked in binoculars. Nobody even questioned that the adversary could clearly see us as well. My front-line experience prompted me that Germans would not linger with fire. The premonition of danger spurred me on to take actions swiftly. Having determined the location of our observation point, I told the data for firing over the phone. Shortly after that the first mine was exploded to the right and behind. Having made an adjustment, I gave a new order. The second mine exploded in the yard of the hamlet. Now the whole group was able to fire. Having informed that the target was straddled we were permitted to leave the observation point. I cried out to the orderly who was close by that it was time to run away from here. We jumped out from our pits and ran towards the thickness of the forest. At once we heard the sound of flying shells. We ran ‘home’ among tall trees and it seemed to us the shells were exploding right behind us. We were egged on by blind fear; our hearts were thudding and we started walking only when we understood that the blasts were distant.

It was the end of 1944. We moved forward with fierce battles, liberating one inhabited locality after another. Once after a battle four men in civilian clothes were taken out from a village house. The suits looked fit. Especially it referred to one husky man with military bearing. Those disguised Germans stood by the porch surrounded by our soldiers and nobody seemed to know what to do with them. It did not last long. All of a sudden battalion party organizer came up. He took out his pistol and started to cry out some threats. Captives kept silent. They must have hoped that they would be taken to the rear, where their fate would be decided. The first shot by the party organizer was unexpected for me. A huge husky man fell on the ground. Other men followed them. All of them met death silently, but one. He knelt and whispered rather loudly: «Jesus, Maria!..». Though I was aware that disguised German soldiers were in front of us as well as we apparently had no opportunity to convoy them in the rear, all the same I felt ill at ease seeing the fusillade of unarmed people face to face. I think that the party organizer was authorized to do that.

It was gloomy. Our infantry moved forward along with our squad and battalion commanders with their headquarters. I remained the senior at the firing point. Soon we started firing, first at the distance of one kilometer. In a while there was an order to increase the distance. The attack appeared to be successful so that we could move forward. But we received no orders towards that. We kept on firing incessantly, which lead to overheat of the mortar guns and plates of guns were deeper settling in the ground. There was a strong smell of the powder. Suddenly, time as if stopped. The telephone was silent. We did not know what to do. I do not remember how long the silence lasted. Uncertainty caused even more agitation. Germans started shooting at the hamlet from gun and some of the houses were on fire. It was getting dark for some reason -either because so much time elapsed or because it was cloudy or due to the fumes over our positions. Soon we were stricken with fear. Someone frantically cried: «Tanks! Tanks!». The clatter of German machines was vivid. What were we to do in that situation?! There were no thought to escape. Besides, mortar plates were so deep in the ground that it would take long to remove them. To leave ammunition on the battle field meant to be in tribunal court. We had to protect ourselves somehow and be ready for the worse. I was afraid to be hold in captivity. For me a Jew, an officer and communist it would equal tormenting death. That is why I always had a pineapple grenade by me. At that time I had two German grenades. Without a slightest doubt I would put them in action. But these thoughts were not important. My priority was how to stop the running soldiers. We did not panic, though the roaring of the German tanks was getting harder and harder. It seemed they were in hamlet. The infantrymen were running to the rear by one or two. I took out the piston from the holster started brandishing with it and cried to the running soldiers: «Don’t move!.. or I will shoot!..». One of them was affected by my words, he squatted. The other one kept running. I shot, but I could not kill our soldier, the bullet went past his head. It worked. He lied down immediately. I saw junior lieutenant running. He seemed to be crying out something being happy that he was among ours. I "discharged". I think I blurted out all swearwords I knew. I remember that junior lieutenant very well. I think he was my age, but he looked even younger than that. It must have been his first battle. First he looked numb, completely being unaware of what was going on, but my foul language and manipulations with the revolver did their work. There were flashes of thoughts in his eyes. Soon and couple of other soldiers lied down not far from us. At that time our artillery was acting. Terrible din was produced the shells of Katyushas [the 82mm BM-8 and 132mm BM-13 “Katyusha” rocket launchers were built and fielded by the Soviet Union in World War II. The launcher got this unofficial, but immediately recognized name from the title of a Russian wartime song, Katyusha.]. Their appeared to blast close by. We squeezed in the dug-out and were frightened by thought that one of the shells would blanket us. I do not remember how long that consternation lasted. Then things calmed down and it was clear that German counterattack was over. What happened? Germans gave our infantry to move forward and then send their tanks in its flanks making it severed from the main subdivision – us mortar gunners. It is not hard to imagine what our rifle division thought when German tanks showed up in their rear. Good thing that their tanks were not accompanied by infantry. To our luck, having deterred us they approached the hamlet and turned back. Other than that they could raze us to the ground. We did not have any anti-tank weapons. As far as I know the unsuccessful operation was ended as follows: squads of the 48th and 2nd attack army took initial positions. By the way, some of the generals decided that none of the officers should be awarded for that operation.

During the days, when we came to the second echelon I did some silly thing that might have turned really bad against me. Our nutrition got pretty bad. Once, they brought a soup, in which grains of wheat could be counted. I composed a ‘funny’ song on that subject. It started with the words:

Knock-knock-knock.
Today’s soup is brought.
Tastes like water salty,
For you not to go potty».

I sang my composed crambo to the officers. I remember that in the tent where I sang the song, there was a commander of the battalion, his new deputy on political issues [Political officer] 23 Ioffe and couple of more  officers. Somebody, I think Joffe recommended me to forget that song and I did what he told me. A year and a half passed and once in summer our squad was in Armavir [Russia]. I went to town park. There, the head of regiment counterintelligence department SMERSH 24 was sitting on the bench by himself. All officers knew him, of course. All of a sudden he asked me to take a seat by him. We had a small talk and then he asked me to sing the song that I composed in Poland. He said it in a peaceful, even paternal tone. First, I fumbled and then I finally sang the first couplet. He said that at that time I was spared as I was too young. Neither at that time, nor later on, I did not manage to find out who informed them of that song. 

I implicitly came across with SMERSH in the lines. At that time I was friends with Valeriy Moskovkin. He was of medium height, blond, a little bit older than me. He was a good man and rather literate officer. Moskovkin came to our squad from hospital. Before that he served in a different army. Once, he came back rather late at night to the dug-out, drank vodka and told me (there were only two of us) that they had found him even here. He thought that he would be left in peace after his wound. The sense of his words was pretty clear. SMERSH demanded from him to stooge on his comrades. I do not know why he was so frank with me. Maybe he wanted to admonish me not to blurt anything. Of course, I pretended not to understand anything and I asked him no questions.

On the 30th November 1944 we took part in combat engineering works on the leading edge. We had been making mortar-gun trenches all night long. We were involved in preparation for the coming attack. Combat engineers exploded frozen earth and we ‘finished’ the pits. Frankly speaking it was eerie to work 100 - 200 meters away from the trenches of the adversary. 

The year of 1944 was over. It was full of the hardest and most dangerous events in my life. In January I was a military school cadet and took final exams. By December I had been in severe battles in Byelorussia and Poland. I had a contusion and was in the hospital. I can bravely say that I became really battle-seasoned and skillful officer. The final year of war with the fascist Germany was ahead of me. Fierce battles, the bitterness of loss and the joy of victory were waiting for me.

Our squad entered on the territory of Eastern Prussia on the 19th or 20th of January 1945. That picture was engraved on my memory. It was dusk. We were marching and almost entire forest horizon was glowing with fire. It was the den of the fascist beast! Soldiers were anxious for vengeance on the enemy. Perhaps only those who were in the battle can understand without judging that some times front-line soldiers were overwhelmed with the feeling of vindictiveness. First we had quite an amusing adventure. Hardly had we come in the forest, met we a soldier guarding four cows. The sentinel must have been from the division which came here earlier. Some of our commanders started bargaining with the soldiers and asked him to give us one cow. Touching his gun, the sentinel said that he was fulfilling the order of his commander and would not give the cow. When he saw the gun pointed at him, he obeyed at once. Then we had a real ordeal with that cow, which did not want to follow us. We did everything- beat a poor animal, tied it to the cart, even danced in front of it. We had been pulling our trophy all night long, foretasting the stew at the first halt. Good thing we were moving slowly, with frequent stops. We passed the forest at dawn. In front of us there was a huge barn in a winter haze. There were great many geese, chickens, swine and pigs. All those forsaken cattle and poultry were clucking, grunting, mooing. It was an end to our lean and undiversified food. Since then a new life started and we became true gourmands.

I remember the events, connected with the battle by a tiny railroad substation. On the 26th of January our advancement was stopped by a strong gunfire of Germans from an inconsiderable hill, where they had pillboxes. The fire of our mortar gunner practically was of no help to the infantry. In words of the rifle squad commander he lead his soldiers to onslaught the hill having drunk pretty much alcohol. As a result he died as well as many other our guys. In the end the hill had been taken. When we were up the hill, having followed the infantry we saw our soldiers taking two huge German gun soldiers from the pillbox. The feeling of hatred towards them was so strong that they were shot immediately. I did not see who shot them. I just saw the falling on the frozen earth. In a jiffy, some of the soldiers started taking off the boots from the German guy. He cried out that the German was alive and tried to resist. All of a sudden a junior lieutenant, commander of gun platoon showed up. There was a wide dagger in his hand. Before we could say Jack Robinson, junior lieutenant started striking one blow after another as if in frenzy and crying out something. All of us were numb. Then somebody said that on the eve he got a letter informing him of the death of one of his kin.

It was the April of 1945. On our front sector the troops of the enemy together with the fugitives were pressed to the coast of the Baltic Sea. Germans hoped that ships would come and help them. Having that expectation they were fighting most fiercely. Our commandment decided to spare the infantry and sent aviation. Hundreds of aircrafts were incessantly bombing the territory, held by the enemy. The eradicated land was strewn with crashed cars and guns, cadavers and horse carcasses. Our regiment was not directly involved in the battles for a month. We moved in the second line, when the enemy was defeated. We were positioned 100 km away from the sea closer to the town Heiligenthal, Lower Saxony, Germany. The war was not over yet. Battles were held for Konigsberg 25 and militaries of our squad had a respite.

I had to fulfill another task. It was not in connection of the battle but it was fraught with danger. On the 3rd of April 1945 commander of the mortar gun squad and I were called in the regiment headquarters. One major had a talk with us there. I remember that talk very well. He asked us to take a seat and said in a non-mandative way that we had to clear the coast from the cadavers. Of course, captives were supposed to do that. Three teams of captives, each consisting 80 - 100 people, were formed in 3 squads. We were offered to be at the lead of this job. We silently listened to him. I even was not asking myself why it was me who was chosen for such an unusual task and who suggested that we should do it. Of course, we could not object to anything and the major informed us that 12 soldiers and a sergeant-major were send for the guarding and direct supervision over work of the captives. Accommodation was provided for us and captives. The major ordered me to contact the captives directly. I said calmly to the major that Germans would kill me, but he said that I had nothing to fear as I would have guards. Then I asked what would happen if I killed anybody he also said that nothing would happen. There were no questions to ask and I went to meet with Germans. I went armless to the house, where they lived. Czech, who I was assigned the head of the group, was interpreting for me. I sat on the chair in the center of the hall. Germans surrounded me. Having informed them of the tasks and the conditions I toughly added: ‘I am a Jew. 8 of my relatives perished in the war as well as millions of my tribesmen. I hope I will have to resort to the weapon to establish order and disciple.’ Sergeant-major interpreted my words to the Germans, who were sitting still. Of course, my actions looked like a boyish self-assertion. I was 19 at that time. Now I can look differently at that. Well, it happened. I should say that even did not have to rise my voice to Germans. They were bona-fide, very polite and obliging.

After the war

We met Victory day [9 May 1945] in the vicinity of Konigsberg, on the coast of the bay Freshgaf bay. When Berlin was captured on the 1st of May it was clear that the war was winding up. But still the 9th of May 1945 was a true fete for all of us. Everybody was exulting. Militaries were shooting in the air, giving hugs and kisses, drinking to the victory and future happy life, their household, their kin and commemorating the perished.

I got 2 military orders: Order of the Red Star 26 and Order of the Great Patriotic War 2nd class 27.

I was not demobilized at once. Our squad served in Krasnodar [Russia, 1300 km from Moscow] for another year. I had a good reputation among squadron commandment. A separate training battalion was formed in our division and I was the only officer out of entire division who was assigned commander of training mortar gun platoon of that battalion. I was highly appreciated by commanders. I was eager to study in Moscow artillery military academy, but I did not pass entrance exams in Moscow. I was a battery commander, I had a 10-year education and battle experience, i.e. fit in all respects, but still I was refused. I did not fit in accordance with item 5 28. I did not doubt that. Then I decided to enter officers’ institute, gun department. I was not admitted either. I was told that I was young and had time to obtain education. They also said that there were a lot of officers with high rank having no education at all, so the benefits were for them. I could not picture myself without being educated and I decided not to stay in the army and enter civilian institute after demobilization. In 1946 I was demobilized.

In August I came to Moscow. Since childhood I dreamed to be a cinematographer of an actor. I took an attempt to enter cinematography institute, but failed again. Then I opened up a reference book for school-leavers to find out which institute was closer to our house. Moscow Engineering and Construction Institute and I submitted my documents to the mechanics department. In September 1946 I started classes in the institute. I had straight excellent marks for the entire 5 –year period. I was a patriot and took an active part in social work. I was a deputy secretary of Komsomol committee at the institute [Komsomol units existed at all educational and industrial enterprises, headed by Komsomol committees involved in organizational activities]. 2 months before graduation from the institute the rector Boris Ukhov called me. It was the year of 1951. Jewish Anti-fascist Committee 29 was exterminated, cosmopolite processes were finished [Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] 30, they did not even try to conceal anti-Semitism. Even under that condition the rector said that he and other teachers knew me very well, were aware of my success and would recommend me to the post-graduate studies. In the end he said:’ We want to show everybody that we are not biased against anybody’. I has always been lucky to meet good people. In actuality the academic council at the institute unanimously recommended me to the post-graduate and party organization supported my candidacy as well, but when the state exams were over I was not admitted to post-graduate department. I was told that there was no vacancy in the chair. There were 10 offers to the scientific and research institute when I was given mandatory job assignment 31. I was to choose either to work at the plant or at the construction site. When I said that I wanted to work at scientific and research institute, deputy minister of higher education, who was present there, said that I should be grateful for having been left in Moscow. I said that they were doing evil and that the history would not forgive them that. The rector of the institute was sitting there with his hands on his head. He was ashamed and could not even look in my eyes. The secretary of the party committee merely did not show up at the mandatory job assignment board. Then after Stalin’s death [1953] I asked why he was not present. He said he was reprimanded for the party organization to act on its own and recommend me, a Jew, to the post-graduate studies. 

I got a mandatory job assignment to the trust ‘Stroitel’ as a mechanic. It was a small-scale plant. It looked like a construction site, where automobile plant named after Stalin, later Likhachev 32 was being build. I did not get along with the director of the plant. He was a semiliterate man and an inveterate anti-Semitist to boot. In 1952 I was transferred to the construction trust to the department of the chief mechanics. After Stalin’s death I got an invitation letter to the post-graduate department of my dear Engineering and Construction Institute. In 1954 I was admitted there and in 2 years I brilliantly defended my dissertation. In 1959 I began teaching at Moscow Road Transport Institute, Construction Mechanics. I had worked for that institute all my life. I am still employed there. I was promoted rather rapidly. Soon I became senior teacher. Then I defended doctorate theses 33 and became a professor. I am respected both by my colleagues and peers in spite of my reputation of being strict, reserved and a man of principle. There were cases when my colleagues asked me to put good marks either to their children or acquaintances and I had to refuse them as those students knew hardly anything. My reputation was important for me and I could not prevaricate. Pro-rector of our institute did not want to talk to me when I refused him in one of those requests. In spite of that when there was a secret vote of the academic council for conferment the title of the senior staff scientist, there was a unanimous vote. The vote had taken place for 4 times and I was elected unanimously all the time. My jubilees are always celebrated in our chair. People always sincerely greet me. I am keen on poetry. I compose my own verses, write recollections about war. The Institute assists me in publishing my books and prints them in its typography. I never came across anti-Semitism at work.

I think anti-Semitism commenced at war. I did not feel it towards me, but it was conspicuous in Stalin’s anti-Semitism policy. They tried not to give high ranks to the Jews, delayed awarding or gave lower-class award than it was in the list. During war there were rumors that Jews ‘fought by Tashkent’ [Tashkent is a town in Middle Asia; it was the town where many people evacuated during the Great Patriotic War, including many Jewish families. Many people had an idea that all Jewish population was in evacuation rather than at the front and anti-Semites spoke about it in mocking tones]. During the war there was no mass anti-Semitism among soldiers and officers. But there has always been pathological people who imbibed it with mother’s milk.

In post war years, beginning from 1948 anti-Semitism was all-wide state policy. I remember what I felt when read the information about the tragic death of Mikhoels 34. It was terrible. At that time it was informed that he died in a car accident, but it was clear that it had been insinuated. There was an open struggle against the so-called cosmopolitism, against Jews in fact. I understood the misery of those satirical newspaper articles, wherein Jewish surname of the actor or a writer, known under alias name, was mentioned. After such a divulgement I had such a feeling as if I was stamped in dirt. After arrest and execution of the members of the Jewish anti-fascist committee I understood that it was an open struggle against Jews. It was the time when Jews were fired. Open meetings were held, where hidden enemies of the Soviet regime were stigmatized. Real anti-Semitism reigned in the country. The most terrible things started after ‘Doctors’ plot’ 35. I like any other Jew was indignant. I worked for a construction company with one of my former fellow students. We got along very well. When there was an article in the paper regarding ‘doctors-poisons’ she pretended not to notice me in the morning. She did not want to greet me, talk to me. It was as if boiled water was poured on me. I still shudder when I go back to that time. People blamed Beriya 36 in that. We always believed Stalin and remembered his words in one of his pre-war speeches: ‘Anti-Semitism is a wrong way, which leads astray’ [1939]. Only after Khrushchev’s speech 37 at ХХ Party Congress 38 I understood that Stalin was devil incarnate. I stopped believing in him, but I still believe Lenin 39 and consider him to be a great man.

I met my wife-to-be Inga Kisina during my studies at the institute. Inga was born in 1932 in Moscow in a very intellectual Jewish family. She was an only child in the family. Inga’s father Mikhail Kisin was a scientist, an expert in the field of heating and ventilation. Mikhail was an assistant professor of Moscow Engineering and Construction Institute and was the chief of the laboratory at the scientific and research institute. He was a great, interesting intellectual man. He died in 1954, at a considerably young age, 52. Inga’s mother, Mira Kisinа, was also an engineer in one of the design institutes in Moscow. She is still alive. Her age is 96. Inga and I got married in December 1951. I was about to finish the institute and Inga was in the 3rd year. We got registered in the marriage registration office and in the evening we had a wedding party for our kin and friends. Mother and I had a room in a communal apartment, and wife’s family also lived in communal apartment in the center of Moscow, in 3 poky rooms. My wife and I moved in one of them after wedding. Later on, when we had two children, we still lived in that room. In 1953 I was afflicted with tuberculosis. I found out about the death of my father-in-law when I was on a treatment course in Crimea sanatorium. Of course, I left everything I went to the funeral. Soon doctors found out that Inga had a diabetes. She was a very good person, beautiful, smart and intellectual. She was a giver rather than taker. She has worked for scientific and research institute all her life, but still she found time to take care of children. As for material side, life was hard on us. We constantly had debts and could not only afford luxury, we could not even afford to go on vacation to the suburb of Moscow. Children often went to pioneer camps. My wife and I were atheists and raised our children soviet. We even bid not break the subject of religion in our family. We gladly marked soviet holidays – 1st of May, 7th of November [October Revolution Day] 40, Soviet Army Day 41, Victory Day 42. We invited our friends to come and share potluck with us no matter that we could not afford a feast.

Our elder son Yuri Tsvey, named after my father, was born in 1954, and my daughter Irina was born in 1959. On her birthday, the 15th of December was the all-union census. I had to spend a night at my mother’s place, as when people came to put my data, I was supposed to stay at the place, for which I had a residence permit 43, аnd I had it for my mother’s apartment to take over the room in the event she died. Early in the morning my neighbor gave me a call and said that my daughter was born. I rushed to the delivery house and saw TV cameras and crowds of people. Then I got a note from my wife saying: ‘TV came over from the Program ‘Daily News’ and had been teasing Irishka (we knew how we would name the daughter before she was born) and I for 2 hours. But at last they changed linen, put flowers and said that the video would be shown on TV. Of course, we turned TV on when it was evening news was broadcast. First it was informed that all-union census commenced on that day. Then we saw the ward of the delivery house.  Inga was in bed and there was a tiny moppet by her, my daughter Irina. The announcer said: «Inga Tsvey is giving information on her newly born daughter in the delivery house ‘. ‘Daily News’ was broadcast throughout USSR. We received telephone calls with congratulations from every corner, where our kin and friends lived.

Son and daughter followed into parents’ footsteps. Both of them graduated from Moscow Engineering and Construction institute. Son did well as he was capable. Upon graduation he worked as a designer/engineer for some period of time. Then computers appeared and he was keen on programming. He became a brilliant programmer. Then there was a hard period of time, when the engineers got skimpy salaries. Son was married already and in 1995 his son Alexander was born. He had to provide for his family and to look for a new job. He went to work in commerce. Now he is a realtor. Son is rather well-off, but he does not enjoy his work that much.

Irina is joking that she has been on camera since the first day of her life. After graduation from the institute daughter was involved in work on TV. She was the anchorwoman of one of the popular TV amusement programs. Now Irina is working on the radio as deputy chief editor of radio station Moscow Echo. Irina is married, but she preserved her maiden name Tsvey. She knew it would make me happy. Many people at work advised her to change her name, but daughter said that she did not want to disgrace her father, whose Jewish name did not bother him when he was fighting in the lines.

In late 1970s wife’s disease was progressing. It was getting really bad: Inga became blind. Then she had gangrene. She died in 1988 at the age of 56. She was buried next to her father, in city Vvedenskiy cemetery in Moscow. In 1986 my dear mother, whom I loved so much, died at the age of 84. Mother had been sick for a long time. I was tossing about my sick mother, family and work. My mother was buried in Vvedenskiy cemetery.

When in 1948 the state Israel of founded I was beaming with joy. Figuratively speaking I think of Russia as mother and of Israel as father. I have always followed the history of Israel. I would not like to live there. I am Jew in my blood, but Russian in my soul. My mother and wife are buried here. I cannot imagine myself not hearing Russian language. I love it very much. Nobody spoke Yiddish in my family. I was raised in the Russian speaking environment, in the family where people were thinking in Russian. Russia is as dear to me as Israel. During my first visit to Israel in 1991 I was rapt by the country, but I did not think of staying there, I felt homesick.

Like most people I took perestroika 44 and social democratization with joy. I never like the word ‘perestroika’ as I am conservative, but I welcomed Gorbachev 45, because for the first time we heard lively words from the head of the state. He was not just falteringly reading the speech, written by somebody else. I did not like that Gorbachev talked too much and beat around the bush. The leader should give certain tasks and clearly answer questions asked. 

I consider breakup of USSR [1991] to be despicable. In my opinion our government should be blamed for that as they followed their career interests. I think that perestroika could be more fruitful if our country was plundered in the most savage way. As a result there was a de-stratification of society, the top was practically merged with oligarchs, the gangsters.

As for material side, it is pretty good, especially as compared with most of my coevals. Teachers got a pay rise. I got 5000 rubles, which was less than 200 USD, now my salary is 7000 rubles. Of course, it is not big money, but I also receive double pension, 6000 rubels. It is quite enough for me to get by, and still there is enough for making presents for my grandchildren.

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