Travel

Ruzena R.
Bratislava
Slovakia
Interviewer: Martin Flekenstein
Date of interview: June – August 2006

This interview with Mrs. Ruzena R. took place over several sessions in her apartment.

Editing the interview was made easier by the fact that all information stated in it was exact, and so was easier to verify.

At the request of the interviewee, the final text does not contain surnames from her father’s side of the family.

Despite that, this material offers valuable witness to the life of one branched-out Jewish family on the territory of today’s Slovakia.

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

• My family background

My father’s father was named Rudolf R. He was born in the Hungarian city of Pápa. He supported himself and his family by selling supplies to village shoemakers at fairs. My father’s mother was named Rosalia, née Goldschmidt. That’s who I got my first name from.

They lived in Trnava, where they had three children. Grandma took care of the household and the children. My grandparents’ oldest daughter was Johanna, next was my father [Ignac], who was born in 1876, and the youngest was named Arnold.

I know more or less nothing about Grandpa Rudolf, because he died very young. My father said that he caught a cold during one fair, from that he got pneumonia, which back then was definitely a deadly disease, antibiotics didn’t exist yet, and he died of it. He left behind three little children with no means of support. Grandma got remarried, to Simon Weiner, with whom she had a son, Max.

My father left home at the age of twelve to become an apprentice in Vienna. He had to leave home early on because he was the oldest son and the family was poor. He kept in only sporadic contact with his family, which is why I know practically nothing about my father’s family from that time period.

In Vienna my father apprenticed as a bookbinder. After finishing, he worked as a traveling salesman. He sold office supplies, mainly to notaries. Because his original name sounded German, he changed his name to sound more Hungarian, mainly because his customers wanted it that way. Naturally, this was still before World War I. My assumption is that he lived in Vienna up to around 1912.

During his travels around Slovakia, he met a widow who had a store with office supplies in Topolcany, and married her. After the wedding he took over the store, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. After he took it over, it began to grow and flourish.

Part of the store was also a book printing and binding business. In 1941 his business was Aryanized [Aryanization:  the transfer of Jewish stores, businesses, companies, etc. to the ownership of another, non-Jewish person – the Aryanizer] by his employee Stefan Radic, who was a member of the HSLS 1 and perhaps also a member of the Hlinka Guard 2.

My father’s first wife died after World War I. No children were born of this marriage. Before the Aryanization, our family was well-off financially. Because our father had been poor when he was young, he liked saving money in case of hard times.

During the time of the Slovak State 3, 1939-1945, we lost everything. One law and regulation after another was passed gradually confiscating various parts of Jewish property, so we were left with nothing, including our savings. They took everything we had 4.

My father’s sister Johanna married Mr. Adler. I never knew him, because I think that he died before I was born. The Adlers lived in Vienna. They had four sons, one of whom [Alfred] died before the war, the oldest, Rudolf, immigrated with his family to Palestine in 1938, and Fritz and Richard perished during the Holocaust.

After Hitler occupied Austria 5 in 1938, Aunt Johanna came to stay with us in Topolcany. But she didn’t stay there long, because the day the First Vienna Decision took effect 6, the cessation of southern Slovakia to Hungary, when the Slovaks had already left the territory to be occupied by the Hungarians, and the Hungarians hadn’t yet occupied it, Jews that didn’t have Slovak citizenship were transported to this territory. They were mostly emigrants from occupied Austria. It was in November 1938, shortly after the proclamation of Slovak autonomy, thus still before the proclamation of the independent Slovak State.

Later, Aunt Johanna went to Brno, where she lived until they deported her. The last letter from her came from Terezin 7. From Terezin they most likely deported her to Auschwitz. She didn’t survive the war.

Before the war, I didn’t know much about the Adler family. It wasn’t until my aunt came to stay with us, and, similarly her son Fritz came to Topolcany, whom they deported in March 1942 8, that I got to know them better.

My father’s brother Arnold lived in Budapest. His wife’s name was Malvina. They had a son, Rudolf. All of my father’s siblings, including my father, named their oldest son Rudolf, after their father. Arnold’s son Rudolf immigrated to Chile before the war.

Uncle Arnold was a rich man; he owned some factory and lived in Budapest, on Rózsadomb 9. That address in and of itself said a lot. My uncle and his wife managed to get Swedish passports with the help of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg 10. Unfortunately, not even this helped. They were shot during the Szálasi regime 11.

After the war, their son once showed up in Slovakia. He met with only my father, as he’d only come to Bratislava, and our financial situation at the time could only afford one ticket from Topolcany. Since then he hasn’t been in contact.

After the war, Rudolf Adler also got in touch once, but once he found out we were alive, he didn’t contact us again. I think that he was interested in my father’s property, and not in us. I currently have no news of this branch of my family.

My grandmother’s fourth son was named Max Weiner. He worked as an accountant for a sugar refinery in Trnava. In 1929, during the Great Depression 12, he lost his job and then lived with us in Topolcany, until they deported him in 1942. I don’t know what happened to him. He unfortunately didn’t survive the war.

My mother, Margita, née Goldberger, was born in Zbehy, where her father rented a farm. She had five siblings. Grandpa, Samuel Goldberger, was from Dolné Otrokovce, near Hlohovec. That’s where our family survived the war.

Grandma Johana, née Deutelbaum, was born in Vítkovce, near Topolcany, as the youngest of her parents’ twelve children. They were a large family, but only up until the Holocaust. In my mother’s generation there were 46 or 48 cousins. Around three quarters of them didn’t survive the war.

I was never on the farm in Dolné Otrokovce during the time my grandfather farmed there. When he got old, he left the farm to one of his sons and he and Grandma moved to Topolcany. There they lived in this dark apartment that I didn’t like at all. Grandpa died there, too, when I was around five. Grandma then moved to a nicer apartment in the city.

Grandma wore a wig. From what my mother told me, I know that her oldest son was very ill. Back then she swore that if he got well, she’d wear a wig. When I was a child, that wig seemed very tawdry to me.

But Grandma was devout, so she kept her promise to God. She observed all the holidays. Every Friday evening she’d light candles, and she kept a kosher household 13. I even lived with her at one time. My brother got scarlet fever, and I got sent to stay with her. That was in 1935.

I lived with her in 1939 as well. I know that at that time German soldiers were marching through Topolcany. Grandma was afraid of the clumping underneath her windows, and sat by me on my bed and was all afraid that I’d wake up.

I slept like a log. At that time, the German Wehrmacht 14 was crossing Slovakia to Poland. On 1st September 1939, the war began 15. It was during that time. Grandma was teaching me handiwork, mainly knitting. Because she was a diabetic, she used saccharin instead of sugar. I didn’t like that food.

I liked my grandma very much. I think that of all her grandchildren, I liked her the most. It’s no wonder, the others didn’t spend as much time with her as I did. She also used to come to our place to visit at least once a week. She’d usually come on Friday to bathe before Saturday, because we had a bathroom and she didn’t. During the war she moved in with us. She and I slept together in the same room.

I remember how one night in 1942 they came for her at night and wanted to take her away and put her on a transport. At that time she was over 70. Four of them came for her: one German from the Deutsche Partei who had a brown shirt and a band on his arm with a swastika, a Guardist in a Hlinka Guard uniform, one policeman and one gendarme.

They used to go around at night, around 3am. At that time my mother had a so-called yellow exception, in which my grandmother was listed as well. [Editor’s note: this was an exception for Economically Important Jews.

It was given to Jews that were irreplaceable for the economy of the Slovak State.] Economic Jews’ exceptions protected their parents as well. Back then they cancelled that part of the exception, which is why they had come to take my grandmother for transport.

Luckily, my mother’s younger brother, Maximilian Goldberger, was a pharmacist who worked in Prievidza. At that time, the cancellation of parental protection didn’t extend to academically educated workers.

My mother sent my oldest brother Andrej to get him. They returned still that same night by taxi from Prievidza, and reclaimed Grandma on my uncle’s papers. My grandmother had to leave right away to go to Prievidza with my uncle. After that I saw her only one more time.

My mother’s brother Maximilian Goldberger originally lived in Hlohovec. He was the only one of my mother’s siblings to have a university education. He married into money with Edita Linkenberg, who was from Topolcany, and with her dowry my uncle opened a pharmacy in Hlohovec.

In 1930 they had a daughter, Lilly. During the time of the Slovak State his pharmacy was Aryanized and the Aryanizer threw him out that same day. By the way, its Aryanizer was Dr. Entner, a German, who later founded Slovakofarma in Hlohovec. [Editor’s note: the beginnings of the first and largest Slovak pharmaceutical company go back to the year 1941. In 2003, Zentiva was created with the merger of the Czech company Leciva and the Slovak Slovakofarma.]

After they threw him out of his own pharmacy, my uncle found a job in a pharmacy in Prievidza. The family moved there, too. In 1942 they brought my grandmother to Prievidza as well. They lived in Prievidza until the Slovak National Uprising 16 broke out.

My uncle left for rebel territory with his wife and daughter, but first they found a hiding place for Grandma with one family in Bojnice. I don’t know the subsequent details, but I know that they found her hiding place, deported Grandma at the end of 1944, and most likely immediately sent her into the gas.

After the uprising was suppressed, my uncle and his family retreated to the mountains. There Edita accidentally stepped on a mine. She died on the spot. The explosion alerted the Germans or Guardists, I don’t know exactly. They captured those that had survived the explosion. They shut them up in a barn in Motycky, and set it on fire. They’re buried in Stare Hory.

My mother’s oldest brother was Viktor Goldberger. He married Aranka, née Rosenthal. They lived in Prievidza. Viktor owned a large textile store in the center of town. In 1922 they had a daughter, Truda. Girls of that age were deported on the first transport in March 1942.

Her father wanted to buy her out, to bribe the officers in charge, but she said that she was going to go with her girlfriends. Her parents were put into the labor camp in Novaky 17. There, they applied for the Yom Kippur transport, the last transport before the temporary end of the deportations, because they wanted to go be with their daughter. Their daughter was no longer alive at that time, and they also died. Such terrible tragedies!

My mother’s youngest sister was Jolana. Her first husband was Adolf Guttmann, who had already died before the war, and in 1942 she remarried. Her second husband was named [Alexander] Fröhlich. From her first marriage she had a son, Mikulas – we called him Miki – who was born in 1930. Up to 1944 Fröhlich had an exception, meaning they were protected from the transports.

Uncle Fröhlich was an administrator of one large farming estate. When exceptions no longer helped, the Guardists came for him. They caught my uncle as well as Miki. Jolana hid. Because they’d taken her husband and her son, she surrendered voluntarily, so they’d go together.

They got to Auschwitz, where they sent my aunt into the gas; her son and husband survived the war, because they ended up in the coal mines in Gliwice 18. Uncle Fröhlich cared for Miki a lot in the camp. At that time Miki was only 14. They both managed to survive.

The tragedy is that the husband and son survived the war, and my aunt was killed. These two men moved away to Israel in 1949. I’m in contact with my cousin Miki to this day. You could say he’s my closest relative from my generation.

My mother’s youngest brother was Béla, in Slovak Vojtech Goldberger. Béla ran a farm he’d inherited from his father. For a wife he took Erna, née Zobel. Erna was from Dunajska Streda, but was of Polish origin.

Her mother had already died before the war, and her father and brother were deported to Poland already in 1939 or 1940. Back then the Hungarians weren’t deporting their own citizens yet, but they most likely didn’t have Hungarian citizenship. Béla and Erna had two children, a son, Zoltán, who changed his first name to Shlomo, and a daughter, Marta. After getting married, Marta was named Kohen. Béla’s family survived along with our family, we’ll get to that later.

My mother graduated from council school 19. Her first husband was named Hugo. Together they had a son, Andrej. Hugo was an administrator of a farming estate in Tardóskedde [in Slovak Tvrdosovce, a town in the Nove Zamky district].

Hugo got cancer at a very young age, and died of it. My mother was left alone with a little son. That’s why she moved in with her parents, who at that time were living in Dolné Otrokovce. So that she wouldn’t be a burden to them, she opened a store and a village pub. With this she supported herself and her son.

How did my parents meet? In German it’s called ‘geregelte Partie’ [arranged marriage]. My father was a widower, my mother was a widow. This one man and his wife, who was related to my mother’s sister-in-law, used to live in my father’s building.

They arranged it. That’s how people got married back then. My parents had two weddings. The first one was civil, at the notary’s office in Horné Otrokovce, and the proper one was in Piestany. They were married by a rabbi. For sure it was an Orthodox wedding, because in Topolcany, where my father was already living at the time, and where my mother also moved, there was only an Orthodox religious community 20.

We spoke German at home. My father learned his trade in Vienna, where he’d lived from the age of twelve almost up to World War I, so German was his mother tongue. My mother could also speak German, but her main language was Hungarian.

With the maid my parents spoke Slovak, and when they didn’t want the children to understand them, they spoke Hungarian together. We, the children, spoke Slovak together, after all, all three of us attended a Slovak school. So at home there were three languages spoken, but German dominated.

As far as clothing goes, we all dressed the same as everyone else of our social class, regardless of religion. Which means no typical Jewish clothing. My father always wore a suit. Under his suit jacket he had a vest, and pinned on it he had a pocket watch on a gold chain.

My mother liked wearing silk dresses most of all. Up until she died, she wore mostly silk dresses, even at home. Up to lunchtime she’d wear a normal dress, so that the silk ones wouldn’t smell like the kitchen, and after lunch she’d shower and put on a silk dress. I remember going around looking for silk for her dresses. Because back then you couldn’t always get it.

My father was a very kind father. You know, he was already relatively old when his children were born. My brother Rudolf was born when my father was 52, and I was born a year later. We were his treasures. Otherwise he worried about his business. He lived for that.

He and Mother got along very well. Sometimes he’d grumble a little to himself, but I never heard them argue. My father was a very honorable person. Honor was very important in our home. One always kept one’s word, and lying was completely out of the question.

They were principles, which today, especially in Slovakia, are no longer at all principal. I observe the principles I was brought up in to this day, and my brother Rudolf is a very correct and principled person. Our mother was very strict with us. She always emphasized what a person’s responsibilities were. She never talked about rights.

My father was always praising my mother, especially her cooking skills. He never liked anything else as much as what she cooked. He used to say that there wasn’t another cook like her. Of course, when hard times arrived during the Slovak State, priorities were elsewhere than on good food. An understandable nervousness dominated our home. That was no longer ‘normal’ life.

We lived with our parents in a large, two-story building that had a courtyard but no garden. The entire courtyard was paved with concrete. There were two stores facing the street. One was our store, and my father rented the other one out.

Above the stores there were four windows that belonged to our apartment. It was a large four-room apartment with a bathroom, which was a relative rarity back then, a large front hall and a courtyard gallery. The apartment had old-fashioned furniture.

Back then there weren’t the conveniences there are today. The entire apartment, except for the bathroom, had wooden floors. A fairly rare convenience – as I’ve already mentioned – was a bathroom and running water. You see, Topolcany didn’t have a city water main. We had a well dug in the courtyard, from which a pump supplied water upstairs. The pump always had to be turned on by hand, and watched so that the pump motor wouldn’t burn out. Which also quite often happened.

There was an oblong building attached to the house, perpendicularly. It contained workshops, specifically a book bindery and a printing shop. Above the workshops was another apartment, and in the back on the ground floor, there were another two smaller apartments.

One had one room, and the other had two. The Schick family, who also rented the other shop in our building, lived in the larger one. The Freund family lived up on the first floor, and an older lady by the name of Finkelstein lived in the smaller ground-floor apartment. None of them survived the Holocaust, except for two of the Schicks’ sons.

Our staff was composed of a maid and a ‘Kinderfräulein’ [nanny], who watched over me and my brother Rudolf. The household was under my mother’s command. The maid cleaned house and cooked. In the morning she’d go to the market with my mother, and would bring it home.

She’d then receive instructions as to what to do while my mother would go and help my father in the store. The maid cooked, set the table and after lunch would wash the dishes. Once a week, a so-called ‘pedinerka,’ from the German word ‘Bedienerin’ [cleaning woman], would come by. She would scrub the floors. She scrubbed the wood floors and the entire stairwell.

I liked our ‘Kinderfräulein’ very much, as she did me. By this I mean the last ‘Kinderfräulein’ that worked for us. My brother Rudolf didn’t get along with her very much. He’s got a very different personality from me. Our ‘Kinderfräulein’ was a devout Catholic.

She wasn’t only religious, but also very superstitious. She was a very good person. She would have even given her soul for me. These relationships weren’t as bad as the Communists claimed, that the rich exploited the poor, who had to serve them.

She came to work for us when I was four, and was with us until she had to leave, when Jews were no longer allowed to employ so-called ‘Aryans.’ At that time I was 11. We both wept. She even hid some things for me during the war, and after the war she searched me out and returned everything to me.

We kept in touch until she died. I was also at her funeral. During the last years of my mother’s life, she used to come to our place when I went on holiday, so that my mother wouldn’t be alone. On those occasions she used to stay with us even longer, because she wanted to be with me as well. This was always a holiday for her. She got along very well with my mother as well.

Our apartment: three of us slept together in one room, the ‘Kinderfräulein,’ my brother Rudolf and I. Then there was my parents’ bedroom and one huge room, a so-called dining room, which was used only rarely, and a living room where my brother Andrej also used to sleep.

A huge front hall ran alongside the rooms, and the kitchen was separated off by a hall to the stairwell. The dining room was used sparingly. It had a large Persian rug on the floor. The dining room was used when guests came, and during seder and Passover.

My father’s printing shop printed mainly business cards, invitations, posters and so on. Books less so. But for example Valentín Beniak had us print a book for him. [Beniak, Valentín 1894-1973: Slovak poet and translator, a representative of symbolism]

My father employed two typesetters. One of them, Stefan Radic, Aryanized our store in 1941. My older brother, Andrej, was an apprentice typesetter in this workshop. Another two employees worked in the bookbindery, a woman and a man. The man’s name was Schenkmayer. Another young Jewish girl worked in the store. Besides this girl and my brother Andrej, all of my father’s other employees were Aryans.

As far as religion goes, my father was very lukewarm. He liked ham, which isn’t kosher. But my mother observed kosher regulations at home. When my father wanted to enjoy some ham, it was kept secret from the children, too, so that they wouldn’t divulge it to anyone. It was done so that no one would know about it.

Because my mother couldn’t show up in a store that sold non-kosher meat herself, she’d send the maid there. My father would shut himself up in the dining room, where he’d dig in with relish.

Later my brother Rudo brought him around to religion. Because whatever he did, he did thoroughly. He began attending a Jewish school, but after 1940 Jewish children weren’t allowed to attend any other schools but Jewish ones.

Back then he had a choice: either a normal Jewish school or a school where they educated the boys in an Orthodox spirit, led them to know the Torah and other Jewish religious literature. This school was preparation for yeshivah.

All morning and afternoon they taught only religion, and in the evening they had two hours of civil subjects, from 4 to 6pm. The students – exclusively only boys, were engaged in studies all day. Two or three would debate amongst themselves, and thus learned.

My brother is and also always was very bright and clever. Back then he drove both our parents crazy with religion. He stood above my mother while she was preparing meat, to make sure she was doing it correctly kosher. My father began going to synagogue each Friday.

Whether he gave up ham, that I don’t know. That was already at the beginning of the war years. Even in Novaky, my brother was still driving the whole family crazy with religious regulations. He didn’t manage to catch me and my brother Andrej up in it. Right before the war, I became a member of Hashomer Hatzair 21. Hashomer was atheistically oriented. Back then I didn’t yet know what being a leftist was.

We observed all the holidays at home. For Rosh Hashanah we’d go to synagogue. At that time my mother would also go, as well as for Yom Kippur. I’d go visit them during the day. For Yom Kippur they’d sit in the synagogue all day. On that day everyone would fast except for me and my brother Andrej.

Back then the two of us kept a common front in this. Then, when Yom Kippur was over, there’d be a festive supper at home. Grandma Johana would also come for it. I don’t remember exactly what sort of food was served, but for supper before Yom Kippur, we definitely had soup with noodles and meat.

During Passover we had seder. As the youngest member of the family, I’d say the mah nishtanah. The two of us, my father and I, would sing together. I liked that very much. I can do it to this day. For Passover our parents would usually buy us new spring clothing. We’d get a new jacket and so on.

For Sukkot we for example didn’t have a sukkah. Our neighbors had a sukkah built in their courtyard, and I envied them that. They had all sorts of cutouts hanging in it, and I liked that. Their courtyard began where ours ended. Between them was a low fence with a gate.

They lived in a one-story house and were friends with our parents. They were named the Felsenburgs. During the summer my parents would sit up on the courtyard gallery, the Felsenburgs would sit in the courtyard, and they’d talk over the fence. Our parents got along very well with them. They had a little garden, and in it they had that sukkah set up.

My mother would bake excellent pastries for each holiday. That’s something she kept up until she died. After the war she’d bake them for Christian holidays, too. Because she liked pastries, liked baking them, and even Christian holidays were a good opportunity for that.

For Purim a carnival was held in Topolcany, and what a carnival! Always only indoors, usually in some large gym. They put on masquerade balls for the young people, which we usually attended. But during the war it all stopped, and in Topolcany forever.

My older brother Andrej had his bar mitzvah when I was still quite small. I remember only that there was a party in that large room of ours. It was full of people, including a rabbi. My mother told me that what she’d prepared didn’t seem to be kosher enough to the rabbi, and he didn’t want to eat it.

So my mother offered him a can of sardines. Rudo didn’t have a bar mitzvah. Right at that time he was being operated on for appendicitis. Everything for the bar mitzvah had already been prepared.

He’d learned his droshe, he was supposed to read from the Torah, and he also learned it. To this day he claims that it wasn’t appendicitis, but that he’d just wanted to get out of school and had faked it. It ended up with an operation, and the bar mitzvah wasn’t held.

In Topolcany, the Jewish population didn’t live together with the non-Jewish. Contacts weren’t frequent. I for example had only one girlfriend who wasn’t Jewish. She lived in the building across from us. We attended Jewish school, and there we had our Jewish friends.

In one class [year] there were around 40 children, so from there we also had our friends. My mother also had many relatives in town, and they fraternized amongst themselves. One of our relatives had a large house with a nice garden. We used to go visit them, too. They also used to come to visit us as well, and that’s how we’d meet.

My parents weren’t inclined towards any political party or to any associations. Not even Zionist ones. My father even didn’t go out with friends by himself. Neither did they approve of me becoming a Hashomer member very much.

In their opinion, ‘better’ people didn’t belong to Hashomer, as there were leftists there, so mainly poor people. There was also a Betar 22 in town. As Hashomer members, we were enemies. Why, that’s something that I didn’t understand at all back then.

We also used to go on vacations, but the whole family never went together. The business couldn’t close. They actually weren’t even vacations. My parents used to go, each separately, to spas, so for treatments.

According to their philosophy, if a person did go somewhere, it had to be necessary for his health. Otherwise it was a waste of money. My father used to go to Karlovy Vary 23 and Luhacovice. My mother used to go to Karlovy Vary.

• Growing up

I’ll tell you one anecdote: My mother’s brother Maximilian, the pharmacist, was very well off, and he and his wife set out to Opatija, to the seaside. To explain to his parents why they were going to the seaside, he told them that he had to go for treatments, because he had lumbago.

To the end of her days my mother thought that that’s why he’d gone there. Later, long after they were already dead, I told her that if he had wanted to treat lumbago, Piestany was just on the other side of the hill. They lived in Hlohovec.

But I didn’t succeed in convincing my mother. That was a typical Jewish attitude towards vacations back then. Only spas were recognized as being appropriate for vacations. My parents even went to Karlovy Vary for their honeymoon.

We children spent our vacations with my mother’s siblings. Once I was in Hlohovec at my uncle’s place, and a few times in Dolné Otrokovce at another uncle’s. Nowhere else. I was always terribly bored in Dolné Otrokovce, so sometimes they’d also invite my cousin Lilly from Hlohovec.

Once they sent the two of us from Dolné Otrokovce to a neighboring village, Merasice, about two kilometers away, for meat from the ice plant. Back then refrigerators weren’t common, and when someone bought meat for several days, they’d put it on ice in an ice plant.

The Reichenthals had an ice plant in Merasice. On our way back it began to rain. We cried the whole way, until we returned with the meat, soaked to the skin, to Dolné Otrokovce. We were also frightened. Back then I was nine, Lilly eight.

Now let’s return to my early childhood. I was born in Topolcany in 1929. I didn’t attend nursery school. The ‘Kinderfräulein’ lived with us. I began attending Jewish school in 1935. I liked going to school, high school, too, up to graduation. I liked all subjects. I had straight A’s.

The teachers praised me and held me up as an example for the other students. I liked that, they probably less so. In Grade 2 the teacher would pass my exercise books around to show what good handwriting should look like. So because of things like this, I wasn’t very well-liked by my classmates.

In 1940, when Jews were allowed to attend only Jewish schools, we had a teacher who’d come to Topolcany from Presov. His name was Jozef Roth. Him we all liked. He was young and single, not handsome, very shabbily dressed; one could see that he didn’t have money to spare.

He talked to us as if we were adults. But he liked us, and knew how to deal with children. He would tell us interesting things. He was my favorite teacher, and not only mine. Sadly, they deported him right on the first transport, in March 1942. I never took any private lessons outside of school except for English, which I attended with my brothers from 1938 or 1939.

The city that I grew up in was very anti-Semitic. Many residents behaved horribly towards Jews. For example, on the way to Jewish school we had to walk through a narrow little street. We would walk in double file all the way to the end of the street under our teacher’s watchful eye. Non-Jewish children, from the lumpenproletariat of course, would be waiting in ambush there, to beat us up.

Waiting at the end of the street would be our parents, some other adults, or the ‘Kinderfräulein.’ Often children who had no one waiting for them would also walk under their protection. So the teacher would then hand over the children to the protection of other adults.

As far as the attitude of the population towards Jews goes, Topolcany was the worst city in Slovakia. Where else were they still beating Jews after the war? Only in Topolcany, in the today already notorious pogrom right after the war.

I and my classmates were friends. We were one big gang. My best friend was Herta Nagelová. Her father was a baker and we used to meet in his bakery, mainly during the winter; we used to go there in the afternoon, after school. At that time the bakery would be empty, because Herta’s father baked bread and pastries at night.

There we’d play and talk. Mr. Nagel’s father was also a baker. His bakery was on the main square. We used to take shoulet [chulent] there on Fridays. Because this bakery was the closest to us. The shoulet was still raw in the pot, which was covered by paper and our name would be written on it.

When you came for your shoulet, you recognized your pot. In the worst case by the name on the pot. I remember that once the shoulet didn’t come out very thick, and I poured it out all over my coat on the way home.

I used to spend my free time with my classmates or in Hashomer Hatzair. I felt very comfortable in Hashomer. We used to have lectures and on Saturday we used to go on tiul – an outing. We used to go out into the country. We were learning the basics of Hebrew. From those times I remember the word ‘sheket,’ which is what you’d shout to quiet people down.

Otherwise, Hashomer Hatzair was a leftist organization, and they tried to indoctrinate us with Marxism. My brother Andrej, who brought me into it, wasn’t a very big Zionist 24. His friends went there, and that influenced him. Before the war Andrej was supposed to aliyah [immigrate to Palestine]. He was already even all set to go, but in the end it didn’t happen.

We never went to restaurants with our parents. That’s something no one in Topolcany even considered. My father used to say: ‘Why would you want to eat somewhere else, no one cooks as well as your mother.’ I’ve got a whole book of recipes from my mother.

Some years ago I sat down with her so that I could preserve her recipes for myself. Some recipes I have from Mrs. Weissová, who was friends with my mother until my mother died. Her cooking was practically the same as my mother’s, because that’s the way almost all Jewish households in Topolcany cooked.

I for example didn’t manage to get my mother’s recipe for fish with nuts in time. Mrs. Weissová gave me this recipe. What I didn’t learn was how to bake a barkhes, especially how to braid it.

The first time I sat in a car was when I was five. My mother’s cousin, who they shot along with his whole family in 1944 in Nemcice, was getting married. The wedding was in Piestany, and the whole family took a taxi to the wedding. I remember the taxi driver’s name. He was named Mr. Cerveny.

Because Topolcany is on the Prievidza – Nitra train tracks, we traveled mainly by train. For example to my mother’s brother’s place in Prievidza. We used to mainly buy textiles from him. Once my mother bought me cloth for a coat there. That was the last coat that I got before the war.

We also used to by train to Malé Bielice for recreation. There was this small spa there, just for the day, without accommodations. There I learned to swim in this tiny pool. Once a year we’d travel to Dolné Otrokovce. By train of course, to the nearest train station. Dolné Otrokovce isn’t on the train tracks. There a coach would be waiting for us, which would take us where we were going.

My brother Andrej became a typesetter by trade. When the deportations began, he was already 20. Each time there was a sweep being done in Topolcany, they would come for him. He ended up in Sered 25 for six or seven weeks. They took him there on one of the first transports. To this day I don’t know how my mother managed to get him out of there. He returned to Topolcany, and they would come for him during every transport.

They used to come for the rest of us almost every week as well. It was horribly nerve-wracking. Our mother was constantly running around and arranging postponement of deportation. We had our rucksacks packed the whole time.

I had a smaller one, because I was only 13 at the time, and the others had bigger ones. Our mother had an exception because we owned some fields, because according to the exception she was farming on them.

All in all, I can say that she was constantly working on it, and our family has her to thank for its survival. At that time my father was almost 70, and a person as old as that couldn’t get up to much at that time, under that horrible stress.

• During the war

In those days I didn’t understand the political events of the beginning of World War II very well. The first thing that afflicted us, children, was that they didn’t accept us into high school, where I wanted to go study.

This was in 1940, when Jewish children weren’t being accepted in any schools except Jewish ones. So I stayed in Jewish school. They added new grades for students that had been thrown out of other schools. Before that the Jewish school had had five grades, and from 1940 it already had eight grades. Because before that, students had gone from Grade 5 to council school or to high school.

Since the school didn’t have enough room, Grade 6 was mixed, and also had boys from Grades 7 and 8. This large class was located in the gym. Grade 7 and 8 girls made up a separate class. I attended Grade 6 and 7 there, up until we left for Dolné Otrokovce. We left for there on 13th July 1942.

From Rosh Hashanah in 1940 we had to wear a six-pointed star 26 as a mark. We weren’t allowed to go to the cinema, to the city park. We weren’t allowed out after 6pm. We weren’t allowed to go shopping, neither to the market nor to stores, before 10am. Then the Aryanization of my father’s store arrived, and finally the transports, from which we tried to save ourselves, with exceptional luck, successfully.

All businesses were already Aryanized, for the sake of appearances. In the first round of Aryanization, the Aryanizer got 60%, and 40% remained in the hands of the Jewish owner. Afterwards they changed this ratio to 90 to 10%.

My father’s business was Aryanized later, when the Aryanizer already got everything. That was in 1941. My father had already stopped ordering goods long before, so the Aryanizer didn’t get a lot of goods.

To this I’d also like to add that the printing shop and bookbindery were ‘purchased’ from my father by Radic and Schenkmayer for a symbolic price. My father was constantly having some problems, because until they got to the last source of finances, they didn’t let him alone.

Problems began with bankbooks that my father hadn’t reported in the list of property that Jews had to fill out in 1940. They found out about it somehow, that there were some deposits not on the list of property. This caused terrible problems. My parents were completely shattered by it all. Back then I didn’t understand it yet.

To this I have to add an interesting little story: a few years ago, already after 1989, Radic phoned me, whether our family members, specifically my nephew, could arrange for him to have the print shop returned to him.

I’d heard of cases where people – even some Aryanizers – helped Jews. But us no one helped. To this I have to add that at the beginning of the 1970s I once met our Aryanizer Radic on the street in Topolcany, and he said to me: ‘I was decent to you, I didn’t send you to Auschwitz!’

After the Aryanization came the transports, which was the most horrible thing I’ve ever experienced. I was 13 at the time, and was attending school. There were gradually less and less of my classmates at their desks. There were less and less teachers, too.

We had a couple of teachers who were single. Those they took first. I’ve talked about how they came for my grandma. She was so fright-stricken that she left for the Jewish school, where they were gathering people for the transport, in only her nightshirt and slippers.

They yanked us out of our sleep at around 3am. My mom told me to wrap up some essentials for her and take them to the school. I met there our needlework teacher. The poor thing. Because they’d written that everyone should bring some tools with them, she took her knitting and crochet needles with her.

I’m sure it was in vain, I’m sure that she went straight into the gas. The school superintendent, who was there, made faces at her behind her back, snickered and was entertained. She was a primitive, disgusting anti-Semite. Her name was Tonková. She was all glad to see the Jews gathering in the schoolyard.

There were more people gathering around the school. They were jammed against the school gates, were laughing, and for them it was a big show. I saw it all on other occasions as well, as I wanted to help by at least letting know those that didn’t know about it, and could help those that had been afflicted.

Finally we got Grandma out of there, to my uncle’s place in Prievidza. She stayed with him until 1944. After the Slovak National Uprising broke out, my uncle left for rebel territory with his family, and found a hiding place for her in Bojnice. There were three women there.

My grandmother, my uncle’s mother-in-law, so Aunt Edita’s mother, plus another lady their age. The third one somehow lost her nerve, left the hiding place and went out onto the street. Thus she gave away the others as well. They took them all at the end of 1944. She ended up in Auschwitz, in one of the last gassings! Horrible!

They used to come for us every little while. They would, of course, always be given something so that they’d leave and leave us be. I remember one time, when two of them came. Dobrovodsky, a city cop, and the gendarme Sládek. Sládek’s wife was also an Aryanizer.

My father pulled 2,000 crowns out of his briefcase. [The value of one Slovak crown during the Slovak State – 1939-1945 was equal to 31.21 mg of pure gold. The rate of exchange between the German mark and the Slovak crown was artificially set at 1:11.]

Later that came back to haunt me, because after the war, during the Slansky affair 27, they expelled me from technical university. My cadre profile for that purpose had been sent from Topolcany. It was written by the same Dobrovodsky, who’d become a city clerk when they dissolved the city police force.

He wrote that besides other things my father had two apartment buildings, and that he was a big capitalist. Meanwhile, the other building wasn’t my father’s. Once I met Dobrovodsky in Topolcany, and I remember my conversation with him:
‘Mr. Dobrovodsky, what was it that you wrote about my father having two buildings?’

‘On the main square, this and this building,’ and he pointed to two neighboring buildings, of which only one was really ours.
‘But that other building is Polak’s!’

‘Oops, so I was wrong.’ That’s what people were like. The cadre material that he’d put together followed me all the way to retirement. All my life I had problems based on this material, and they de facto persecuted me because of it, or for my being Jewish.

So on 13th July 1942 we left Topolcany for Dolné Otrokovce. At home I’ve got a copy of the request that my father wrote so that they’d allow us to go away – Jews were forbidden to leave the town where they were registered with the police. This application had, according to regulations, a six-pointed star in the upper corner and the designation ‘in the matter of a Jew.’ Our entire family left: my parents, my two brothers and I. My uncle Béla lived there, with his wife and children, Zolo and Marta. He farmed on a farm he’d inherited from my grandfather. We moved in with him. It’s only now that I understand properly how it got on his nerves when one day a family of five arrived. Especially his wife didn’t like it. She was very religious, and at that time I’d had myself baptized. It was especially I that stuck in her craw. It even went so far that she stopped talking to me. She also caused me other unpleasantries. I guess we mutually very much got on each other’s nerves. But in that situation none of us knew what to do.

In Dolné Otrokovce I was allowed to attend a state school, because I’d been baptized. The standard [of education] that I’d come with from the Topolcany Jewish school far outstripped the standards of that two-room village school.

So I had several privileges. For example, when the teacher was teaching, he’d sit me behind his desk and gave me my classmates’ exercise books to correct. I, of course, had straight A’s. Even though I didn’t deserve the one for drawing.

The people living in this village were without exception decent people with a humane attitude towards Jews as well. After the atmosphere and experiences of anti-Semitic Topolcany, it was a big relief. Only once did it happen to me that one kid at school started yelling at me and cursing me that I was a Jew. He was smaller than I was, so the way I resolved it was that I beat him up.

Many people there helped us. Peter Durka, for example. We were like one big family with the Durkas, which has lasted almost to this day. The commander of the gendarmes in Horné Otrokovce, the Horné Otrokovce notary, helped us as well.

Despite this, in 1943 someone in the village informed on us. First they took Uncle Béla, then his family and finally us as well. We ended up in Novaky. I don’t remember the name of the person that informed on us, but allegedly he fell in the uprising. I’ll never forget the night that we spent in the jail in Hlohovec before the trip to Novaky.

Although we were five, we had only three narrow beds at our disposal, so my mom and older brother sat all night, and the rest ‘slept’ on beds that had paper sheets that rustled with every movement.

In Novaky we lived in the first complex. The second complex had workshops, and the third was also residential. My mother worked in one workshop in the first complex. This workplace was for women that had small children and for the old and sick who weren’t able to walk over to the second complex to go to work.

Already back then my mother had problems with her legs, and wasn’t able to make the daily walk to work in the second complex. In the workshop in the first complex they did various work: knitting, and cutting rags for rugs that were also woven there. They did all sorts of other things, too.

My father worked in the cardboard-making shop with my brother Andrej. Then Andrej was transferred to the cabinetmaking workshop. Rudo worked in the tinsmiths’ workshop. From my first to my last day there, I worked in the sewing shop.

Overall, the living conditions in Novaky were good, especially in comparison to what was taking place in the German concentration camps. We were especially afraid of the Germans occupying Slovakia as they’d be retreating and the front would be passing by here.

We expected that the first thing they’d do would be to immediately send the interned Jews in the camps to camps in Germany or Poland. Thank God, this didn’t happen. It was prevented by the uprising. So we can also be thankful to the Slovak National Uprising for our lives.

As soon as the uprising broke out, on 29th August 1944, they dissolved the camp. Everyone could go where he liked. My mother sent Rudo to Prievidza to stay with his uncle. Andrej stayed in Novaky and I and my parents went to the train.

We were left with only what we were wearing. Everything else that stayed in the camp was stolen. We got on exactly the same train on which Rudo was returning from Prievidza, as he’d found that our uncle and his family weren’t there anymore, and so he intended on going to Topolcany.

As the train was arriving at the station in Topolcany, my mother wanted to get off. My father pulled her back onto the train with the words: ‘Topolcany stinks’ and that under no conditions whatsoever would he go to Topolcany. So we kept going, and ended up in Dolné Otrokovce. Later this showed itself to be a fortunate decision.

Uncle Béla and his family were also in the Novaky camp and also returned to Dolné Otrokovce. We decided that we’d wait in Dolné Otrokovce to see what would happen next. My parents were so exhausted by those two years of fighting for survival and the stress connected with it, that they didn’t want to think about or do anything. Because I wanted to do something and not just sit around and wait, I set out for Nitra, that I’d find something there.

After two or three days I returned, because my nerves couldn’t handle it. All I did was cry constantly. In the meantime they had come to round up Jews in Dolné Otrokovce as well, but someone had warned my parents and Uncle Béla ahead of time. I’ve got this impression that either the commander of the gendarme station in Horné Otrokovce or Mr. Durka warned them. When I returned, they were already all in hiding. I went to see one local family, and they told me where I could find them.

When they left, they didn’t have time to take hardly anything with them. My mother was accustomed to taking duvets everywhere with her instead of clothing. That paid off when they took us to Novaky and then also during our return from Novaky to Dolné Otrokovce, and it showed itself to be a good decision this time as well.

So anyways, still before dawn, I set out to look for them. I got there by morning, and spotted my mother. They were hiding in a grove of trees, under the open sky, together with my uncle’s family. There was nothing there, just a quickly dug out ‘zemlyanka’ [a shelter dug into the ground] made of twigs and branches.

Then it somehow spread that we were there. We had to leave. We set out for Horné Otrokovce, where there was an abandoned forester’s lodge. During the day we stayed outside – we were lucky that the weather was nice – and at night we slept in the lodge on a bare cement floor.

Once in the morning, when it had begun to rain a bit, a man with an axe appeared. My mother went out and began with a quavering voice: ‘For the love of God, please don’t hurt us, we’re Jews and we’re hiding here.’ The answer was very surprising: ‘Why, I recognize you, I’m Dr. Roth from Hlohovec.’ The Roth family was hiding in Horné Otrokovce, and survived the war.

After several days, someone from the village warned us that they’d be coming to look for us – someone had probably informed on us. We had to immediately leave for Dolné Otrokovce. You see, in the meantime we’d found out that they’d already looked for us in the ‘zemlyankas,’ so we returned to the same ‘zemlyankas.’

Remember, all movement was done at night. The most dangerous part was when we had to go along a road. Luckily back then there weren’t as many cars on the road as today, so at night we didn’t run into anyone. The weather in September was still nice, so several farmers from the village set out on a Sunday outing and came to visit the Jews hiding in ‘zemlyankas.’

Back then, my mother, correctly guessing the value that land had for farmers, said that she would give the one that saved us his pick of part of our land. The next day one of the farmers returned with a kettle of soup. It was Peter Cizmarik. ‘Here’s some soup from my wife. So, let’s make a deal on that land.’

It was signed and sealed. After nightfall we went to their place. We then stayed with them in one room, nine of us, our family – five people, and my mother’s brother and his family – four people. We stayed there until liberation on 2nd April 1945.

We paid extra for the food they gave us – the fields were only in return for saving our lives. Despite this, what the Cizmarik family did for us was amazing. Peter Cizmarik endangered his whole family, he had five children. His wife cooked for all of us.

That means that she cooked for seventeen people, and all the while no one was allowed to see what large quantities of food she was cooking. The food wasn’t anything special, we didn’t get supper at all, but we ate and didn’t go hungry.

After the terrible months of hiding, liberation arrived. Nitra was bombed on Easter Thursday. On Saturday we were looking through the curtains in the room, and saw that there were Germans running away through the valley below. In the afternoon a drummer came and announced that people shouldn’t go outside. In the distance we heard artillery fire. The village is located in a valley, and above it there’s a hill.

The Russians were already behind the hill. The lads from the village went up on the hill to have a look at the Russians, and one of them paid for that. The Russians didn’t know who they were, and to be on the safe side shot at them, and killed one of them.

The last night, the farmer sent us all into the cellar. I was completely hysterical down there. I was imagining that after all that we’d lived through up to then, that they could kill us on the last night. Just before morning, we heard someone moving about in the yard.

The farmer came out into the yard and asked who was there. The answer was one of the most beautiful ones of my life: ‘We’re Russians.’ The following evening we went back to the apartment where we’d lived in Dolné Otrokovce during the war.

The Russians were having a lot of fun with the village girls there. We lived in that apartment until May. I was the first in the family to go to Topolcany, because I wanted to investigate possibilities regarding attending school.

• After the war

Gradually our entire family returned to Topolcany, but not to our own apartment. Our Aryanizer, Stefan Radic, was living in our apartment. We had two free rooms upstairs, where one family who’d been deported had lived, and they’d all died.

Our kitchen was on the ground floor, where there was a vacant apartment from one old lady that had also been deported, and the Aryanizer had been using it for storage, and freed up one room for us, which we used as a kitchen.

There were strong anti-Jewish feelings in the town, fed by those that had things stolen from Jews who had returned and wanted their things back. During those times we constantly heard: ‘More of you returned than left.’

This mood also fed the pogrom that broke out at the end of September 1945. It began with the fact that a Jewish doctor, Dr. Karol Berger, was vaccinating children who were going to school in the local convent. Already in the morning it spread through town that many children had died as a result of the vaccinations, which was a lie.

At that time I was in high school. That day our class didn’t have school because of a so-called Principal’s Holiday. When I got wind of what had happened, I left town. My older brother Andrej was working on a farm in Velké Dvorany as an accountant.

I went to see him. Alone and with no money. On the way there, I stopped off in Topolcany at a sawmill, and there I asked one man who was a friend of my father’s for a hundred crowns for the trip. [In November 1945 the value of the crown in gold was set at 1 Kcs = 0.0178 g of gold.]

My mother stayed in town. My father went to visit a friend of his, also a man of similar age. Soldiers who had joined the pogrom came there for him, and took them away with them. They brought him, all bloodied, to the police station, where the town’s Russian commander had ordered all the Jews to be gathered. Someone had beaten him on the way there. They took him to the hospital for treatment. He was the oldest of the Jews that had been beaten.

Soldiers came to our home for my brother Rudo. They were brought there by our Aryanizer’s brother-in-law, Moravcik, who was helping his brother-in-law, our Aryanizer, at the store that had originally belonged to my father. The soldiers also took Rudo to the police station.

On the way there he was hit in the face so hard that he started bleeding. It happened in front of a store where the Aryanizer Korec was. During the war Korec was a well-known Guardist and participated in the rounding up of Jews.

I remember how he came for our neighbor, Ruzena Felseburgova, who they’d caught while she was attempting to cross the border into Hungary, to save herself from the transports. She’d gotten a half hour to pack her things, and Korec was ordering her to quickly finish.

In the evening, when Andrej and I returned home together, everything was over with, as gendarmes from Bratislava had arrived and restored order. Nothing happened to the people that had initiated the pogrom and took part in it, and demonstrably beat Jews.

They put them on trial, but let them go. At home we found our mother, who hadn’t dared to turn on the lights, because she didn’t know what things looked like outside and whether the pogrom wasn’t still continuing. She didn’t know anything about any of us, where we were, and was very glad when she saw my brother and me.

Then we went to the police station and there we met our father and my brother Rudo. Both of them had already gotten medical treatment. Then, accompanied by a Bratislava gendarme, we all went home.

My father never ever got back into his business, because he needed to get a so-called ‘reliability’ [a state certificate of reliability or loyalty]. I don’t know exactly what it was called, but people used to call it ‘reliability.’ It was a piece of paper that certified that the person hadn’t collaborated after the First Republic 28.

As the Aryanizer had a friend in the people’s committee, he got a ‘reliability,’ but they refused to give my father one. The reason they gave was that we were Hungarians and Germans. At the time it was forbidden to speak German, and my father didn’t know how to speak Slovak well. That was the reason he didn’t receive that ‘reliability,’ and thus the store remained in the Aryanizer’s hands and my father couldn’t get his own store back.

Nothing remained of our prewar property. We got back only a little of it. I remember how once my mother went into the courtyard and from one neighbor’s clothesline yanked some dishcloths and similar things, which had originally been ours and she was drying it out in the yard. They didn’t even have enough shame to hide the things they’d stolen. Our neighbor saw it, but said not a word.

My mother even found our closets in one apartment. On the back of these closets, my father had written down the numbers of bankbooks he’d burned, as he hadn’t included them in the declaration of property in 1940, when Jews had to declare their property, so that they could gradually confiscate what they’d declared.

He had the same numbers scored into a little pillbox that he’d carried on him throughout the whole war. My mother entered that apartment with a policeman. They, of course, immediately began with what was this supposed to mean and so on. The policeman said: ‘Turn those closets around.’ The numbers of course matched, and so we got the closets back.

Things like this naturally fed the pogrom mood. This is also why in his speech on the radio Lettrich 29 asked Jews to not ask for their things back from people they found them with, because it was causing needless anti-Jewish sentiments. It was always typical to turn the victims into the guilty.

With his property and income, my father belonged to the upper middle class. After the war, nothing remained of his property. We returned home with only the clothes on our backs. After the war, I went around in a coat I had gotten from one aunt.

I had only one dress, and I didn’t get others until a few months after the war, from cloth sent by the UNRRA [The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration]. From January 1946 I started tutoring classmates, and with that money I bought myself clothes, because my parents didn’t have money.

Our family’ composition wasn’t very well suited for emigration. My father was old, and he soon died, in 1948, and my brother Rudo and I were still snot-nosed kids, plus both of us wanted to study anyways.

Our brother Andrej did talk about how he would work to support the family, but we couldn’t expect that of him. We also made a few attempts, but they ended up in failure. We had a relative in the United States, whom my father had entrusted with a huge sum of money in case we needed it.

His wife came to visit us before the war, and took 400,000 crowns [in 1929 it was decreed by law that the Czechoslovak crown – Kc – as a unit of Czechoslovak currency was equal in value to 44.58 mg of gold] back with her to the USA, but after the war they returned almost nothing.

They just sent us some used clothing and around 20,000 crowns, and that was it. He was my mother’s cousin. During the war I was memorizing their address, and I knew that it was because we had lots of money there.

My father died in February 1948, and is buried in Topolcany, at the Jewish cemetery. My mother remained alone in Topolcany. My brother Rudo and I were studying in Bratislava, and Andrej was commuting to Piestany for work.

They wanted to throw my mother out of her apartment, saying that she was alone and didn’t need it. They didn’t want to recognize that all three of us siblings had our permanent address in Topolcany. Andrej went with me to the police station, they were the ones that wanted to throw my mother out, there he banged on the table and that helped. That’s how it was finally resolved.

After the war, we didn’t practice any religion in the family at all. My mother used to say that the God that had allowed what had happened is not God, and turned her back on him. She never set foot in a synagogue again.

Neither did we ever fast, and on Friday we didn’t light candles. We just made pastries for the holidays, that remained. My father died in 1948, and he didn’t have any affinity for religion at all. What’s interesting is that my brother, who had at one time attended yeshivah, also became a non-believer.

We all became atheists. While he was still in Novaky, Rudo had been very devout, and when we began hiding out, during the first few days he didn’t want to eat any meat, and ate only bread and milk, and butter when there was some.

After the war my mother told him that if he wanted it, she would lead a kosher household. He told her to not bother. After the war something in him changed, and he became a Communist. But he got over that as well.

My mother was very exhausted from saving the family, and no longer had the energy for anything bigger. In 1948 my father died, and from that time on she became very dependent on me. She did work at one time, she worked as an invoice clerk for minimum wage, but only so that she would get at least some sort of pension. Her first pension was 400 crowns. Because we had no property left, she lived from hand to mouth. She lived in Topolcany, and Rudo and I in Bratislava. My brother Andrej did live in Topolcany, but worked in Piestany, so wasn’t home during the week. When he got married, his wife also moved in with our mother.

I didn’t get to a relatively decent apartment until 1962, and my mother would spend most of the year with me. Near my apartment there’s a park where she used to sit on a bench with her friends – Jewish women her age. In 1966 she moved in with me completely.

She lived with me from then on, until she died. She died in 1977. She had heart problems and very limited mobility, so during the last few years she didn’t even go out anymore, and insisted on not sitting at home alone, so I spent most of my time outside of work with her. According to her explicit wishes – ‘I don’t want to be eaten by worms’ – we had her cremated, and her urn lies in an urn grove.

After the war, Rudo spent a year at home preparing for being accepted to high school. After the pogrom, he didn’t want to live in Topolcany. He never even returned there, and lives in Bratislava. He decided to go into science. He made it as far as a doctorate.

Andrej eventually got a job, at first he worked in a printing plant in Bratislava. His last workplace before retirement was a book printer’s in Partizanske. He died in 1994.

After the war I wrote my high school entrance exams, and after graduation I went to Bratislava to study at the Slovak Technical University. I managed to successfully graduate, even though in second year, in 1951, during the Slansky trials, they expelled me from school.

They gave various reasons: that I was a careerist, that I had a bad – capitalist – class background and so on. One of them was even true. I really don’t have a fondness for manual labor. That was true, I was always more inclined towards mental and not physical labor, which back then meant mainly work with a pick and shovel. In order to prove my fondness for labor, I applied for brigade work, washing windows at a newly built building on campus.

During the brigade work, I received an invitation to register for the next year. The woman clerk at the dean’s office didn’t want to register me. The dean of the faculty resolved it. He formally gave me a dean’s ‘reprimand’ for ‘behavior unbefitting Communist youth.’ ‘And now run and get yourself registered.’

Before I graduated the Communists tried to expel me one more time, but this time the university chancellor came to my rescue. He then talked about such cases in television after the year 1989 30, that he didn’t allow good students to be expelled for ‘singing Communist Youth songs out of tune.’

However, I received such a cadre profile that I could only work in a factory. In it they wrote that they had expelled me from school, but that they’d refused it at the chancellor’s office, because ‘the chancellor’s office contained elements similar to Ruzena R.’

This is what I had written in my cadre profile, which followed me my whole life until retirement. By those ‘elements’ they meant that there were some Jews sitting in the chancellor’s office, and that they had arranged it for me. It took me several decades before I realized this.

And that at the instigation of a non-Jewish girlfriend of mine. Those were the 1950s, today we know that they were strongly anti-Semitic, but back then we didn’t understand it. So finally I finished my studies after all. Everything ended up fine, just in Marxism-Leninism I couldn’t get higher than a C, the worst grade, but enough to pass the exam.

After finishing my studies, I got a placement offer for the Dimitrovka [Editor’s note: The Juraj Dimitrov Chemical Works, today named Istrochem. One of the oldest companies in the chemical industry, it was founded in 1873 by Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.]

Apparently my ‘diagnosis’ [cadre profile] contributed to this. They greeted me enthusiastically, because they had a shortage of engineers. Back then, no one wanted to start working there voluntarily. The conditions there were very bad. Whoever could, got out of there. I used to say that through a process of natural selection, the only ones to remain there will be either stupid or with a bad cadre profile. In other words, people who didn’t have a chance anywhere else.

My cadre profile chained me to that place all my life, which they made sure was thoroughly bitter. In what way? My boss, who was my boss for ten years, was a terrible anti-Semite. When I needed only one day’s holiday, because I wanted to have a long weekend because I was going to go visit my mother in Topolcany, his answer was: ‘Not on Monday, take Tuesday off,’ and so on. During the time he was my boss, he never even once gave me a raise. After 1968 31 conditions improved a bit.

After 1968, a slightly softer era began in the plant as well. My position improved a bit, too. I no longer had an anti-Semite for a boss, and I was treated decently, too. In 1983 I was eligible for retirement, as I had a so-called 255 32; because they asked me, I stayed there and worked for another three years part-time.

Those were the nicest times in the plant where I worked for 33 years. In June 1986 I retired. I still remember that the most beautiful day of my life, besides 2nd April 1945, when we were liberated, of course, was 30th June 1986. After that I did translations at home and worked as an interpreter. I translated mainly from German to Slovak and vice-versa. This I did until 1991.

My lifelong hobbies have been reading, swimming and attending the theater. My friends were from various circles. In the first place, I had to be sure that they weren’t anti-Semites. I’ve got very sensitive ears for subtle insinuations.

They apparently don’t realize this. For example, one female colleague of mine was scandalized by Jews being thrown out of good positions [during the 1950s]: ‘they should really have kept them working – for us.’

I was 48 when my mother died, and right after that, I began to concern myself mainly with my own illnesses.

From the time I learned to read, I read every day. Luckily I’m able to pick from among several languages, which was an advantage especially during the Communist era, when there weren’t a lot of good books being published in Slovak or Czech, as they were forbidden.

I came by my linguistic capabilities quite early on, and therefore also easily. At home, besides Slovak we also spoke German, my parents also spoke Hungarian to each other, I took private English lessons since childhood, in high school we had French, and I caught on to Russian. I’m sorry that I don’t know Hebrew, because most of my next generation of relatives in Israel don’t know any other language.

Even though opportunities for travel were very limited, I tried to take vacations abroad. But always when I returned, especially from the West, it took me a few days to get used to the conditions here. As soon as it was possible, my first trip was to Israel.

That was in 1991. I was there for three weeks. I wanted to make use of the possibility as soon and as much as I could, because my health was rapidly getting worse. I mainly visited my relatives and friends from school in Topolcany.

I tried to see everyone, as I hadn’t seen them for 40 years. The sight that made the greatest impression on me was Masada. I was captivated by that whole atmosphere. Of course, visiting the Wailing Wall was also a big experience for me.

I was no longer able to fully take advantage of the changes after 1989. My age and bad state of health didn’t allow it. But during the first few months I was very happy that I’d even lived to see the change.

I realized that the euphoria that I had also allowed myself to be enraptured by wouldn’t last long, but I enjoyed it to the fullest. I remember that right when it was going on, I was lying in the hospital. I got discharged home from the hospital, at home I turned on the TV, and had an immense feeling of happiness.

Several months later, the filth began. Communists were leeching off it, nationalists were rearing their heads, mainly descendents of the wartime Slovak State, and once again history began to be rewritten.

In 1991 this one funny thing happened to me. My cousin from Israel and his wife were at my place visiting. On the street I met the wife of one of my colleagues, who we called ‘Emil the Communist.’ In his time he used to threaten me that my comments could have dire consequences for me. With great satisfaction I said to his wife: ‘Right now I’ve got relatives from Israel visiting me, whom I kept a secret from the Communists for 40 years.’

The revolution in 1989 influenced our daily life, starting with being able to find the basic necessities of life. I say to people that I’m no longer able to imagine how we used to shop back then, because every day on the way home from work, I’d go stand in a queue to buy something – whatever they had right then.

The store was up on the first floor, and the queue used to stretch down to the ground floor. There I stood and waited, to see what I’d get that day.

Today I spend my spare time at the computer; I send emails and also look around on the internet a bit. I recently found the address for Yad Vashem 33 and I’m upset over the lists of those that perished, whom I’d known and who for me aren’t an abstract concept. I correspond with friends, I talk to some of them on the phone regularly, and sometimes I watch TV, on the rare occasion that there’s something interesting on.

I’m glad that research of this type is being carried out, so that what went on during that bloody 20th century will be recorded, and I consider it my duty to leave the facts about my life for those that will come after us. Though I’m not very convinced that it’ll be of interest to anyone.

Glossary

Hertz Rogovoy 
Kiev
Ukraine
Date of the interview: October 2004
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya

Hertz Rogovoy was interviewed by me in Hesed 1, after Hertz went through with reception of patients. He works as a volunteer doctor in Hesed. Hertz is a middle-aged man, with a mop of grey hair, bright young eyes and a splendid smile. As a consequence of a severe battle injury Hertz became handicapped. He is afflicted with lameness and leans on a stick. Nonetheless, Hertz is a very sociable and brisk man. He is very pleasant-looking man, an interesting personality and a good company. He has a great sense of humor. Hertz was an interesting interlocutor, having his own view on the events, with unusual interpretation of familiar notions and events.

My family background

Growing up

During the War

After the War

The fall of Communism

Glossary

My family background

My father’s family lived in Kiev before revolution of the year of 1917 [Russian Revolution of 1917] 2, during the times of pale of settlement [Jewish Pale of Settlement] 3. Only few Jews were allowed to live in Kiev. The privilege was given to the lawyers, doctors, merchants of the 1st and 2nd Guilds 4 and certain craftsmen, whose services were in demand. Craftsmen were allowed to reside on the streamside part of Kiev, Podol 5. This latter is now the center of Kiev being the outskirts back in those times. My father’s family used to live on Mezhygorkaya street. My father’s parents passed away by then. There is nothing I know about my grandmother. I do not even know her name. My grandfather’s name was Hersh, judging by my patronymic. All I know about my grandfather is that he worked in the brewery, and that he died in 1911. My grandfather’s grave was on the Jewish Lukyanovskoye cemetery 6 in Kiev. When the cemetery was destroyed in the 1960s, I took my grandfather’s ashes and his tombstone to the Jewish plot of the city cemetery. That is all I can say about my father’s parents.

My father came from a large family. My father eldest brother’s name was Hertz, and I was named after him. My father, Moses Rogovoy, was born in 1879. Apart from two sons, my grandparents had three daughters- Golda, the eldest, Berta, the middle, and Feiga, the youngest. I do not know when they were born. 

My father’s family was by all means religious. At that time there were no unreligious families. I do not know what Jewish education my father got. I know he knew how to read Hebrew and pray. He had, as all religious Jew was supposed to have, tallit, tefillin, prayer books. The family stuck to Jewish traditions, and children were raised as Jews. My father went to Realschule 7, but I do not think he finished it. Of course, he was fluent in Yiddish [it was his mother tongue] and he was also proficient in Russian, and wrote literately.

Before 1917 my dad worked as salesman in the store that belonged to Swarzman, the Jewish manufacture, merchant of the 1st Guild. His store was located in Podol. Swarzman highly appreciated my father, and in course of time he even promoted my father to the title of the merchant of the 2nd Guild

Hertz, my father’s eldest brother, worked with my grandfather at the brewery plant. He was married and had three sons: Moshko, Shulim, Boris and one daughter Sarah. According to the Jewish laws my father was not entitled to get married before all his sisters had been married, because he was younger than them. [Editor’s note: this interdiction was probably a local tradition, as it doesn’t appear in halakhah.] Golda and Feiga got married off quickly. I do not remember Golda’s husband. Kiev Jew Mendel Lipskiy proposed to Feiga. They had daughter Bronya and son Grigoriy. It was difficult for the father to marry off Berta. She was very homely, and there were no wooers. That is why my father could not get married. Finally, my father was able to find a fiancé for Berta, whose name was Lisyanskiy, an elderly Jew, Nikolay’s army soldier 8, who served full term in the army, i.e. 25 years. My father married off Berta, and in the end, he was able to think of his marriage. He was 33 by that time [1912]. Almost all marriages were prearranged. My father rendered to a matchmaker [shadkhan], who told him about a beautiful eligible maid in Zhitomir [Ukraine]. My father went to Zhitomir [140 km from Kiev] to propose to her.

Zhitomir was one of the most ancient cities in Ukraine. At the beginning of the 20th century its population was a little less than 100 thousand people. Zhitomir was mostly inhabited by Russians, Poles and Jews. Jewish population made 30% [Editor’s note: In 1897 the Jewish population was 30 748 comprising 46.6% of the general population. In 1910 they numbered 38,427.] Jews lived in the downtown area along with the representatives of Russian and Polish intelligentsia and well-off people. The downtown houses were mostly two-storied and made of stone. Zhitomir Jews were mostly craftsmen and merchants. There were also Jewish intelligentsia: doctors, lawyers and teachers. Most Russians and Poles lived in the outskirts of the city. They dealt with agriculture. People were friendly, many generations lived in one place. There was a large Jewish community in Zhitomir. There were a lot of synagogues. Even after the Great Patriotic War 9 and struggle against religion 10, carried out by Soviet regime, there were at least five synagogues left [Editor’s note: Zhitomir Jewish community was so large and influential that even during and after struggle against religion there were five acting synagogues, which was unusual], while originally there were way more of them [about 50]. There was cheder in the city and Yeshiva. The Jewish community in Zhitomir was very large, which focused on charity, assisting the poor and indigent. There was Jewish orphanage, alms house and hospital. During the Civil War 11 there were pogroms (bashings) 12 in Zhitomir. The local people usually harbored Jewish families.

My maternal grandfather’s name was Sheftel Knopp. He was born in Zhitomir. I do not remember his birth date. I did not know my grandmother’s name. Before 1917 my grandfather owned glass workshop and a store, where glassware, produced in workshop, was on offer and the orders were taken. Grandmother helped my grandfather with the workshop and the store. Once, either in 1914 or 1915 a customer asked to a glaze the icon [Christian families traditionally had icons in their homes, unless some of their members were convinced communists. Most older people in villages remained religious]. Grandmother fulfilled the order the way the customer asked. And when the customer came to pick up the order, he either had not paid or underpaid my grandmother, I cannot tell for sure. Grandmother was enraged, grabbed the icon and hurled so hard that the glass got broken. She was blamed in sacrilege and insult to the Orthodox sacred thing. The customer filed a charge against my grandmother, and as a consequence she was to be exiled in Siberia. Grandfather spent a lot of money on attorneys, but his efforts were futile. The authorities were willing to make an ostentatious trial so that other Jews would in no way insult Orthodoxy. Revolution saved my grandmother, the soviet regime started a struggle against religion, and my grandmother’s culprit was overlooked. But due to constant worries grandmother got afflicted with breast cancer and passed away a rather young woman in 1919.

From grandfather’s kin I just knew his brother, Reuben Knopp. Reuben’s house was by grandfather’s house. Reuben had many children, he himself did not remember their names. At times he would call some of his kids: ‘Hey you. What’s your name?’ ’Haim‘ ’Haim, go and tell mama, that I am hungry.’ Grandfather was very tidy, but Reuben was ill-kempt, wearing his pants unzipped. Grandfather used to joke that his brother did not zip up his pants, because he did not have time for it since he was making children.

The Knopps had six children. My mother Bella Knopp (Jewish name Beila) was the eldest, she was born in 1891. Then her sister Khasya was born, brothers Boris, Mikhel, Grigoriy, Hersh and the youngest sister Manya. Everybody in the family spoke Yiddish. In Zhitomir even many non-Jewish people were fluent in Yiddish, and Jews in its turn were fluent in Ukrainian and Polish. All children knew how to read and write Yiddish. I do not know what education my mother and her siblings got. I would say it was rudimentary. Anyway, I remember the fact that my mother corresponded with her kin only in Yiddish. Later in the post-war period my mother started writing in Russian.

All mother’s brothers and sisters left paternal home. Mother’s sister Khasya married Grouzer and lived in Kiev. Her husband Motl Grouzer worked as an electrician on the shoe factory. Khasya was a house-wife. They had two children. The daughter Liya was born in 1923 and the son Naum in 1924. Boris lived in Donetsk. He was married and had children. Mikhel lived in Vinnytsia with his family. He had a son Shunya, born at the end of the 1920s. Grigoriy abandoned his father, because grandfather was a private entrepreneur and it would stand in the way of his career. Grigoriy left for Moscow, graduated from Polytechnic institute. He lived in Moscow with his family. Mother’s younger sister Mayna lived in Kiev with her family. Her husband was a professional military. Manya had two sons. Yuri was born in 1934, Yan in 1938.

Of course, the entire family was religious. It could not have been otherwise in such a city as Zhitomir. Nevertheless, I did not happen to meet such a religious man as my mother’s father. My grandfather always wore kippah on his head. He took it off only before going to bed. My grandfather kept to praying and reading religious books. I remember a huge bookcase in his room very well. There were a lot of religious books in it. My grandfather was an inveterate stickler of all Jewish traditions. Sometimes my mother took me to Zhitomir, when she went there to visit her family. Once we came for Pesach. I remember how my grandfather carried out first paschal Seder. Grandfather clad in white attire was sitting on the pillows, as it was supposed for a king. I remember all Seder rites- when I was to steal a piece of matzah, afikoman from my grandfather. I also recollect the wine glass for the Elijah ha-nevi, placed in the middle of the table. Grandfather told me to look at the glass. I was looking very closely, and it seemed to me that there was getting less wine in the glass. I was sure it was Elijah ha-nevi who sipped wine from the glass. I remember wine goblet, placed on the table- they were beautiful, made of blue glass. Seder lasted for a long time, and it was tiresome for everybody, but grandfather did not admit any reductions. During the war grandfather was evacuated. When he came back, he had not found his books. He began to collect religious books once again. I cannot perceive how he could manage to get such books in former USSR. He was able to collect many antique religious books.

Father’s wooing was successful and at the beginning of 1912 my parents got married in Kiev. It was a traditional Jewish wedding. Parents had a marriage certificate issued by rabbi. My elder brother Grigoriy was born on December 28, 1912. In the year of 1917 my second brother Lev was born. He died the year when I was born, 1924. Mother and Lev went to Zhitomir to see her relatives, and Lev died there as a result of either meningitis or heliosis [sunstroke]. He was buried in Zhitomir in Jewish cemetery, next to my grandmother. 

Growing up

I was born in August 1924. I was named Hertz after eldest brother of my father, who died a year before, 1923. He was buried in Lukianovskoy Jewish cemetery in Kiev.

Father told me about Jewish Pogroms in Kiev. They started before revolution and lasted until 1919. I learnt from my father certain things I was not aware of. I always thought that pogroms were made by denikintsy [henchmen of Denikin] 13, petliurovtsy [henchmen of Petliura] 14, makhnovtsy [henchmen of Makhno] 15 and other gangs 16 being hostile to the soviet regime. It turned out that soviet militaries, Schors 17 troops and other were involved in pogroms. They also plundered and often murdered Jews. It was a hard time, both revolution and civil war. Power in Kiev often changed, circulating between regimes. The order in city was established only in 1919. Unfortunately, I know hardly anything how my family lived in that period of time. By the fragmental recollections I can only say that it was a hard time for my dad. The store where my father worked was most likely nationalized by new regime. My father could only regain footing due to NEP 18. First he began working as a salesman in the store, gradually became the owner of the store. He bought a good apartment at Bolshaya Podvalnaya street, in the center of Kiev. Unfortunately, NEP period was of short duration. When the soviet regime decided to do away with private entrepreneurship and transfer to planned economy private entrepreneurs, so-called nepmans [‘NEPist, people dealing with NEP’ in Russian] at that time were suffocated by taxes. Those taxes could be changed 3-4 annually. Hardly had one tax been paid, when another was levied, exceeding the preceding one 2 or 3 times as much. Smart people dropped everything and escaped abroad. Unfortunately my father did not turn out to be sagacious. He was arrested as an offender of tax laws. He went through a trial and was sentenced to 3 years in GULAG 19. After the trial my father was sent to the camps in Solikamsk [Russia, about 2000 km from Kiev]. Even after he was released, he was not entitled to return home, he had to be exiled for a while.

I remember myself from the six-year age. My father was exiled at that time, and my mother and I lodged in Podol, at Obolonskayka street. My elder brother Grigoriy had become adult by that time and moved from Kiev. He finished secondary school and wanted to go on with education. Father was repressed, and it would be an obstacle for Grigoriy if he stayed in Kiev. He had to conceal father’s arrest. Moreover, only children of proletarians and peasants were accepted in vocational schools and institutes [Family of persons arrested as “enemy of the people” 20 was deprived of many civil rights and their children were allowed to study in higher educational institutions only accordingly to predetermined quotas. By this kind of quotas communists declared themselves to protect the interests of the oppressed working class and peasants.]. It goes without saying that nepman’s son, whose father was convicted for tax dodging, could not be accepted. It was called ‘suppression of rights’. Brother left for a small town Konstantinovka [about 550 km from Kiev], located in Donetsk oblast and entered chemical and silicate vocational school, the faculty of construction materials manufacturing. Nobody knew about our family in Konstantinovo, therefore my brother was accepted. Of course, he filled in certain entry in the form by writing that his father was a worker. Grigoriy rarely came to Kiev for a day or two, but he did it stealthily so that the neighbors could not see him. Brother got married at a young age during his studies in vocational school. His wife’s name was Anna. She was a Jew, and her father was also repressed. Brother stayed to work in Konstantinovo after he had finished his studies.

Mother did not work before father’s exile. When my mother and I were left on our own, she found a job in some sort of workshop. I do not know what her job was like. The most important that she was paid. Of course we lived from hand to mouth. The most jovial event for me was when mother took me to the market, which was located close to our house, and bought me a big rice patty. It was a real feast! We were starving. But my mother strove to support me. It is the most delighted recollection from those times, but there are others. I remember there was a tram line near our house. The trams were remade from horse chaises. There were no doors, and the steps were along entire train. I remember that there were very many homeless children. At that time streets started being asphalted. There were large cauldrons, where asphalt and pitch were melted. The melted mass was ladled and rolled manually with the rollers. In the evenings when the workers left, vagrants were warming in the cauldrons. I remember the famine of 1932-33 [famine in Ukraine] 21. There were a lot of peasants in Podol, who left villages for the city, trying to survive from starvation. Their bodies were swollen from famine. Some of them could not walk, stretching their hands for alms, others kept lying, without being able even ask for alms. In the morning there were found corpses of people who died by hunger. They were taken away. I remember that near our house the columns of ’dispossessed’ [Kulaks] 22 went by being escorted by militia. Militiamen were in blue caps with red bands, carrying pistols in their hands. I remember the first loud-speaker in our house, a big black wall plate.

In 1932 mother took me to Zhitomir. We went to the wedding of my mother’s younger sister Manya. The wedding was traditionally Jewish, despite of the times, when the soviet regime streamlined struggle with religion. Everything was the way the Jewish wedding should be. I remember chuppah, placed in my grandfather’s yard. Manya and her groom David were walking under chuppah, then the rabbi pronounced a traditional wedding formula. I forgot the details, but they stuck to tradition.

In 1938 father returned from exile. Parents lodged in private house on the left bank of Dnieper river. Now it is the recreational area of the Kievites–Hydropark, back in those times that district was called Predmostnaya Slobodka [‘outskirts’ in Russian]. Father found a job to sell newspapers and magazines in a kiosk. 

After father’s return my brother Grigoriy moved to Kiev with his family. At that time there were few people who even got the middle technical education. In spite of the fact that my brother graduated from a mere vocational school he worked as a chief engineer for a construction trust in Kiev. In 1936 Stalin constitution was brought into action [on 5 December 1936 the second Constitution of the Soviet Union was adopted and it was commonly called the Stalin’s Constitution. It existed till 1977], which abolished ’suppression of rights‘. My brothers had nothing to fear. Grigoriy’s elder daughter Tsilya was born in Konstantinovo in 1935, and the younger daughter Liudmila was born in 1937. Brother was very talented, he had a wonderful voice. He was sent to talent contests in Moscow, where he won 1st prizes. There were articles about him in the paper Izvestiya [one of the most popular communistic papers in the USSR, issued in the period of 1917- 1980s, with the circulation exceeding eight million copies]. If brother had finished conservatoire instead of technical vocational school, he would definitely become a well-known singer.

As a rule my parents spoke Russian to me at home, and they spoke Russian between themselves. If they wanted to conceal something from me, they spoke Yiddish. I felt insulted because they kept secrets from me. That is why I voluntarily got the rudiments of Yiddish, and later on I began to comprehend all they were saying. Of course, I pretended I did not understand a thing. I was pleased to find out their secrets without them knowing about it.

My parents were not very religious. The life was hard and it was difficult to stick to all Jewish traditions. I do not remember if we observed kashrut at home. But my father never missed any religious holiday in the synagogue. He obligatorily celebrated Yom Kippur, fasted the proper way. It was sacred to him. My mother and I always went to meet father on his way back from the synagogue. It was in the post-war period, when I was the student of the medical institute. We always celebrated Pesach at home. Beforehand we cleaned the house from chametz. During all Pesach days we used to eat only matzah instead of bread. All holiday were celebrated strictly according to the traditions. Father knew how to read Hebrew and pray. I do not remember how other holidays were celebrated. All I remember is that I was given money by father for Chanukkah. 

I went to school at the age of seven. At that time the fist grade started at the age of 8, and I was accepted in the pre-school. It was a Russian-speaking school. I cannot say that I was an outstanding pupil, but I was a pretty good one. I liked such subjects as literature, history, geography, natural studies. I always got excellent marks for those subjects. Mathematics was not my favorite. I became an inveterate philatelist at school. Many boys had a hobby to collect stamps, but the passion to collect stamps had not gone. Probably this is the part of childhood that has remained with me by now. Later during the war, I started to collect awards. My collection started when I removed Iron Cross from the first and the second class and Austrian military medal from a captured German. Those 'trophies’ were taken near Kursk in 1942. Our reconnoiters took a captive, cross-examined him and shot. The commander allowed me to take his military awards. Even when I was severely wounded I preserved such precious things. They were the grounds for my post-war collection and I still keep them.

There were a lot of Jewish children in our class. Neither teachers nor other pupils pointed at us. They were not antagonistic. Sometimes during the street frays you could hear the word ’zhyd’ [‘Zhyd’ abusive nickname of Jews in the Soviet Union], blurted out in the ardent fray, but it never happened in school. I do not remember pre-war anti-Semitism. I think it did not take place.

I became oktyabrenok [Young Octobrist] 23 in school, then pioneer [All-Union pioneer] 24. It stood to reason. Nobody objected to it. You could refuse, but those who did naturally became ”black sheep”. Even a child knew you should not do so. Moreover, in the peoples’ psychology it was singled out: those who are not with us, are against us — the old slogan of the communists. Everybody understood it, even children.

In 1935 I went to another school to the 6th grade. That school grew with us. We finished the 6th grade, and they opened up the 7th etc. I sat at a desk with Jacob Koffman, and we have remained friends until now. At present we keep in touch, call each other.  

In 1936 repressions started [Great Terror] 25 and lasted until Great Patriotic War. There were a lot of children in our class, whose parents had been arrested. Probably those made about 2/3 of the class. People treated them in a normal way, nobody abandoned friends, just because their father or mother got arrested. Jacob Lidov was my friend. His father was a driver of Balitskiy, NKVD 26 minister, a slaughterous hangsman. Stalin had a certain system: a person had a leading position in NKVD for 2-3 years, and then he was removed and put to trial аs ”enemy of the people”. He was replaced with a new one. Balitskiy in his turn became enemy of the people and was shot. His driver, Jacob Lidov’s father, was imprisoned. Jacob’s mother came to NKVD with the fairing for her husband, and she was told that he was not alive. She died there in the reception office. Jacob remained an orphan, he was raised by an old grandmother. There was a Ukrainian girl in our class, named Galina Uschipovskaya. Her mother was shot, and her father was put in jail. There were many such kinds of families. It even had not caused any emotions. The savage to us was that very often the teacher began the lesson by telling us to turn out from the textbook the page with the picture or information about a well-known person. In case we could not remove the page, because there was something useful overleaf, we were told to delete or to paint in blank ink or to clout that piece. Once we learned at a history lesson: Blyukher 27, the great commander, marshal of the Soviet Union, and the next day we would have to cover his portrait with black ink. Today he is a loyal communist, a struggler for the revolution, the hero, and tomorrow he turns out to be enemy of the people, betrayer, spy, coward or other riff-raff. The best people of the country, renowned revolutionaries, commander Yakir 28 – there were so many of them… Of course our children’s minds could not comprehend it. I could acutely feel such an inconsistence.

Sometimes there were ridiculous things. Father worked as a salesman in the newspaper kiosk, located on the central market in Kiev. Close to him there was a table of an elderly Jew, who sold the portraits of the politicians, which was customary at that time. His table was placed inside of the roofed market next to the counter. There was a sign over the counter ’Slaughtered poultry’. And it happened so that the portrait of some member of the Central Committee was hanging right under that sign. Such a nebbish salesman was taken away by NKVD people, and nobody had never seen him since then.

My father and I were very close. He loved me very much, maybe for the reason that I was the junior. Father was a very intelligent man, well-read and politically-minded. My friends respected him, even when we became adults. My friends took humiliation of the Jewish peoples very hard. I remember he often used to say: ’Why Tartar and Gypsy songs are broadcast on the radio, and there are no Jewish songs? Shall we have lived by the time when it happens?’. Of course I was moved by that spirit of my father. Of course after all father had to go through, he did not trust the soviet regime very much, and due to that we argued with my father, if a discussion of a 14-15 years old boy with a wise grown-up man can be taken for a dispute. Father mocked at my ideals. I remember how I used to prove that Dzerzhinskiy 29 – the chevalier of the revolution, whose motto was: ‘warm heart, sober mind and clean hands’. But my father objected to me, telling that Dzerzhinskiy was a bandit, who shot innocent people. How could I independently think at that time? Propaganda and slogans reverberating all day long thought for us. At times I was even ready for Pavlik Morozov’s feat 30, I wanted to stooge for my father, but probably the sense of decency, inherited from my parents, stopped me. 1936, 1937 … these were the years, when children were called upon and encouraged to betray their parents. Such disputes were not occasional. I was brought up by the soviet school, in a certain spirit. Knowledge came much later, when I learnt from life. At that time my life was short, tiny and unperceived.

During the second half of the 1930s anti-fascist propaganda started. In 1933 Hitler came to power in Germany. First it was spoken about casually. Then fascist speeches were broadcasted on the radio. Articles appeared in the papers. But my father was so anti-soviet, that he did not believe a thing. I remember his phrase: ’If they implied «yes» in the official propaganda, I take it as «no».’ He considered all anti-Hitler slogans as propaganda. In the cinemas anti-fascist movies were demonstrated, such as «Professor Mamlok» 31 and others, where atrocity of the fascists was shown. At that time there were only soviet movies.  A new film appeared once a month, which was viewed many times. We had a particular clear vision of fascism, when the war in Spain [Spanish Civil War] 32 was unleashed. Documentaries were cast, showing bombings and battles. Bereaved children were brought from Spain. Of course, Hitler caused antipathy with most of people. I remember how everybody was confounded when in 1939 Stalin signed a peace treaty with Hitler, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact 33. I was so perturbed and shocked when at school we were crossing out from the books the names and portraits of the former greats and the greatests, now being enemies of the people. I could not perceive how Hitler, the fascist and criminal in our propaganda, turned into a great politician. Stalin and Hitler immediately started to divide Poland [Invasion of Poland] 34, and torn into pieces. At that time there was a joke about Polish sausage: ’What is the name of Polish sausage now? Russian and German’. People were aware that for such an anecdote they could be put in jail, but they still cracked that joke. Friendship and affection between USSR and Germany was demonstrated. The articles appearing in the papers with the stories how brave sailors of the German cruiser sunk British vessel. We were shocked, and it was very hard to «swallow» it. All anti-fascist movies were banned, as if they never existed. And then appeared films, stolen by the soviet troops from the occupied Poland, forcedly joined Baltic countries [Occupation of the Baltic Republics] 35 and Western Ukraine: a magnificent movie «Great Waltz» [melodrama, shot in 1938 by Julien Duvivier, the American producer], Charlie Chaplin’s movies 36 «City Lights» [Chaplin, 1931] and «Modern Times» [Chaplin, 1936], new German movies appeared.

During the War

My father was given lodging by local authorities. It was one-room in the wooden house in the center of Kiev, Krasnoarmeyskaya street [present Bolshaya Vasilkovskaya street]. The room was in a terrible condition, without lavatory and water. But at least it was our lodging, not the rented. We lived there before Great Patriotic War started. Then I went to the Army.

In 1941 when I was in the 9th grade, I joined Komsomol 37. It was natural for me: I believed in communistic ideas and I honestly considered Komsomol to be the vanguard of the youth. I could not imagine myself not being in Komsomol. In June 1941 I finished the 9th grade. Summer holidays were to start. There were a lot of military trainings and maneuvers by Kiev. We were used to shooting and blasts. That is why when we heard the remote sounds of the blasted shells in the morning on 22 June, we did not react to it. We thought those were routine trainings. Only when we heard Molotov’s 38 speech on the radio on 12 p.m., we found out that the war was unleashed with fierce battle, and that Germany attacked USSR at 4 a.m. without declaring war. I remember how we crowded by the black wall loud-speaker to be listening to Molotov’s speech with our hearts sinking. 

On June 21, 1941 my elder brother was called up in the army. When we learned about the war, my brother’s wife Anna and I went to see my brother in Solomenskiy [district of Kiev] military quarters. Grigoriy was not allowed to get out from there, and stayed behind the hence and spoke to us.

Very quickly all students of the senior grades, who did not reach the age of the draftees, got the notices from military enlistment offices to be involved in construction of defense fortifications around Kiev. Some pupils were sent to Svyatoshino, others, including me to Goloseyevo [at that time remote districts of Kiev, today central districts].We were given the spades, which were very heavy for us. We had to dig anti-tank trenches. Nobody made us work very swiftly, but we, the boys, were trying to outdo each other, and it all crowned with cons and blisters. We bandaged injured hands and kept on digging. It lasted for couple of days, and then we had the first baptism of fire. At night we could hear the humming of plane. We were woken up, and told that Germans sent landing troops. We were given training with drilled barrel so we could not shoot and told us to run in the indicated direction as if we were chasing wolves. At dawn a grenade exploded close to me. I deafened from the blast, and could not hear anything. They let me go home to recover. I could not hear anything for three days, and then I got my hearing back. On July, 10 we received official notices to appear in military enlistment office, and take a spoon, a mug and provision for three days.

In 1941 the draftees were to be those who were born in 1922, but the notices were received by those who were born in 1923, 1924 and 1925. Of course, we all strode to the military enlistment office. After that we walked along Krasnoarmeyskoye, Pechersk [district of Kiev] to the bridge across Dnieper, crossed the river and moved on. We had been walking for several days, covered about 70 km and reached Yagotin. Then for the first time I saw a crashed plane, and I was astounded. I used to think our planes MIG, bombers to be powerful planes, and there I saw that they were made of thin painted plywood with tarpaulin wings. [The plane MIG-3 was the most numerous fighter-plane in soviet air force. Due to frequent operation and considerably low applied altitudes MIG-3 did not have a sufficient combat efficiency and was of inferior quality as compared with the German planes. It was out of production at the beginning of 1942.]. Such a stump, wide plane was on the ground. There was no pilot on the plane. In Yagotin we were placed in freighter cars to go to miners’ town Slovyansk [550 km from Kiev], not very far from Donetsk. Then the entire crowd strode to military enlistment office. I weighed a little over 40 kilos, I was not plus-figured, but minus-figured, and most of my coevals were the same. They did not send us to the mine, even to the surface. They understood that we were not workers. Almost everybody was allotted to the collective [Kolkhoz] 39. We worked in good faith.

In September, 1941 we founded out that Kiev was occupied by German troops. We started a siege in Donetskiy, asking to be taken in the army as volunteers. The military enlistment offices were overwhelmed with work: hectic mobilization and evacuation. They scolded us and sent us away, but showed up again. In the end, our aim was achieved. At the age of 17 I joined the army as a volunteer. First I was sent to the reserves troops, but in 1941 I was sent to Moscow whereabouts. They fought for Moscow. I was there being a boy. There were four lads my age in our squadron. I made friends with two of them, Esikov and Khabarov. They were Siberian volunteers. One of them finished 8 grades, the other - 9. We belonged to 42nd army. We began from Mozhaisk and reached Istra. These were my first battles. We were armed with huge triple passage rifles, the ones used during World War I. We also had gun machines of the same epoch. There were few guns in 1941. The battles were fierce. But the frosts were the most gruesome for me. The winter of 1941-42 was severe and cold. First our uniform was not apt for such winter. Then we were given felt-boots and sheepskins, so we did not suffer from cold so much. Strange as it may be, provision, ammunition and armament were way better in the period as compared to Stalingrad 40 and Kursk Battle 41.

There are people who say they felt no fear in the battle. I do not know, all bread is not baked in one oven. But I do not believe those who say that they were not scared in the battle. Yes, I would not depict myself as a hero. I was very scared. During the air raids, especially during the first one, I had such a feeling that a bomb was going right after the crown of my head. I wanted to dig up and hide. Germans used additional gadgets for determent. They attached sirens to the bombs, which produced a terrifying howling sounds. Sometimes they threw empty barrels just to appall with a terrible whistle. We had the sense of fear, and it was very hard to get over it. Later on, of course, when I was a battle-seasoned old-stager, the fear was not so acute. At the beginning it was a feeling of consternation. Sobriety from my hurrah-patriotism was over very quickly. When your wounded friend cries from pain close by, you do not think with the slogans. I was in platoon troops. Of course, we had to attack. The head of our squadron raised us, buried in the snow, with the ’Get up!’, with swear words, brandished with his pistol behind our backs. And then, of course, hurrah! – and ahead. Though, we could not move forward very quickly, the snow of waist length was a good hinder, so we could not run. Besides out of Moscow, the Germans made good posts, so it was useless to ardently cry out hurrah and run forward. People close by fell wounded of dead. But we had to move on, and we went. There were times when they cried ’For the Motherland, for Stalin’, but most often they swore. My friend Khabarov fell in one of the battles. The battles were fierce. There were many casualties. But there were no so many burnt villages as I was to see later. On our way we came across safe villages. There we could spend the night in the warm place. At that time I got my first military award, the medal «For military merits» 42. I was wounded close to Istra during the air raid. During bombing the shell fragment pierced my shoulder-blade. I took it out somehow, but later it started to suppurate heavily and I was sent to the hospital. I stayed there for a month and then I was sent home, because I was not the age of the draftees.

I did not keep in touch with my parents, but I corresponded with the relatives, who told me that parents were evacuated in Voronezh oblast [Russsia]. I went there. It was very hard to get there -- on the freight platforms with the iron dust. I was stopped for couple of times. I had my passport by me, I even did not show my military documents, only passport for people to understand that I was not of the drafting age. I was rather appalled at that time knowing what war was, so I did not want to complicate things.

My parents survived by miracle. My father’ castigation of the soviet regime was about to kill him and mother. He did not believe any radio broadcasts about atrocity of the Germans, killings of Jews and civilians. He decided to stay in Kiev. Father remembered Germans from World War I. That is why he thought that they should wait for the Germans as they would not do harm. Only in August, 1941 when most Kievites [people from Kiev] had been evacuated and Grigoriy went to the army and I went to the front, my father was dawned. He said to mother if Germans had occupied Kiev, we would have appeared in one state, and mother and he in another state, and they would have never seen their sons again. And only for the reason to live with my brother and I in one country, they decided to evacuate. So, by miracle they escaped Babiy Yar 43. Meanwhile father’s sister Golder, a widow by that time, perished in Babiy Yar together with unmarried daughter and son.

My parents and I settled in a village not far from Voronezh, 650 km to the east from Kiev. I decided to finish the 10th grade, but did manage since I received the notice to appear in the military enlistment office in 1942. It was drafting of my age. I turned 18. The draftees were brought together on the collecting point, and from there were supposed to go Lipetsk [about 640 km from Kiev] mostly on foot, at times in carts. There was a training regiment in Lipetsk, where we were trained to march in a squadron before being dispatched to the front. We were inquired about our education. Since I finished 9 grades, it was decided to send to the military school. Again, I headed on the road - by trains, steam boat and car. We were brought to the military school in Balakhna [Russia, 1100 km from Kiev], a town about 50 km away from Nizhniy Novgorod. It was Simferopol gun and mortar military school, evacuated in Balakhna. My recollections about that military school are even more hideous than war. We had such a skimpy food, that we were running amuck from famine. We begged on the streets, trying not to be nabbed by the commanders. Once I went to the shanty to ask for food, where our commander was with his lover. He saw me and recognized me. I was lucky not to get into trouble. We found ingenuities to get some food. At school we were given a tiny bar of soap. We collected that soap. Then we took wooden bars, soaked them in water and coated in soap.

Then we sold so-called soap on the markets to buy food. We tried hard to survive from hunger. We were given the uniform made of thin felt. It was winter time, and we got very cold. Our boots were horrible and left blue paint on our legs and were not waterproof. Former junior commanders and employees of the schools teased us a lot. Junior commander Garbuz was the head of our squadron. He recognized a Jew in me, and it was another reason for his hatred towards me, the first reason was that I was “too educated”, he finished only two or three grades. He had never missed a chance to let me crawl over puddles: ”Rogovoy, belly-crawl!”. I had to fall and crawl in that puddle, and then he gave me extra duties because I marred my uniform. The easiest punishment was to clean frozen outhouse without a spade, just by using a board from the fence to have been removed beforehand. His mocking was boundless. But cattily to him, I learnt well. I did not write to my parents, I did not want to hurt them. They found me somehow and wrote to the head of the school. He called me and asked to write home, and then praised me. The studies lasted for 5 months, and then we got the rank of the junior lieutenant. It was the 3rd months when the horrible battle by Stalingrad started. The entire school, 450 people, was sent to Stalingrad. I had a dream that as soon as I got the rifle I would kill Garbuz before the Germans did. It dreamt of that seriously, because I could not forget his teasings. I think I was not the only one, who brooded on that. But no matter what all junior commanders were left in school, including Garbuz. The rest were dispatched to Stalingrad.

As compared to the majority of school leavers, I was an old-stager. I went through hell by Moscow, but it was not to be compared with Stalingrad. I had never felt more fear, terror and hatred to the Germans during entire war experience. The city was devastated, shells and mortar bombs were aimed at one and the same place, making a powder out of sand, which could be compared to that sold during my childhood in Kiev, finely fine brick powder for samovar cleaning. We went by Kalach and I saw the camp of our captured soldiers, frozen to death in dug-outs, with frozen blood, with wounds not being bandaged. I saw the tiers of frozen, coated in ice cadavers of the captured soldiers together with the wood for burning. I saw huge moats with corpses. Just imagine a moat as deep as 3-storied building, and not the house length, but the block length. In spite of the winter time we could feel cadavers smell.

Each regiment had the representatives of the special department SMERSH [SMERSH is the abbreviation of ‘Smert Shpionam’ ("Death to Spies" in Russian), special secret military unit for elimination of spies. SMERSH is actually the Ninth Division of the KGB, originally divided into five separate sections. The first section works inside the Red Army]. It was known that in 1941 Germans captured 2 or 3 millions people. If in the military unit there was somebody who appeared, from blockade or fugitive from captivity, SMERSH officers were supposed to check that person. It was natural, it could not have been otherwise at war. I do not know whether SMERSH people were performing NKVD functions referring to the militaries. I was a private, so those things were way beyond me. There might be SMERSH stooges among us, but it was very hard for me to believe that. There were a lot of casualties, the division was replenished each time. I cannot imagine anybody to be able to stay in one platoon for a long time. There was not a single week with fewer casualties, than up to 75% of the military personnel. Divisions were constantly replenished with new people. If the circumstances permitted, people were sent to reformation, if not the squadron moved forward. Often the replenishment was made for the sake of the wounded, let out from the hospital, and minutemen, e.g. people who did not reach drafting age, who were involved in work, and then later they became soldiers.

I remember one battle. We were brought together, the entire platoon of 45 people and were given 3 gun machines, each weighing 62 kilos, 32 out of them was the weight of the machine with rollers, and theoretically it could be rolled. But when we were crawling, it was impossible to roll the machine, we had to drag it. Barrel was another part of the gun-machine, and it had to be filled with water for cooling the gun. It was a famous gun-machine, the main weapon of World War I and the Great Patriotic War. The advantage was in its heavy weight that made it steady for precision fire. We were shown a semi-destroyed building, and were ordered to crawl there, set the gun-machines and not to let the Germans in the building. The latter could not even be called a house, because only walls remained from it. The house could be left without the order of the commander. At that time Stalin’s order № 227 as of 1942 was enforced ’No retreat’. And according to the latter the so-called defensive squadrons were formed, which were to follow regular troops, and start fire if there were any attempt to retreat. That is why there was no way we could leave that house. Almost all of us were lean and emaciated boys, weighing not more that 45 kilos. It was unbearably hard for us to carry the parts of a machine-gun, each of them weighting a little bit less than each of us. But we could not violate the order, especially if it was fortified by the defense squadrons. We were able to stay in that house either 5 or 6 days, I do not remember for sure. By that time 2 or 3 of our gun-machines had been crashed. 7 people remained alive out of 45. Then we ran out of cartridges for our gun-machine. Then we ran out food and water. Then the mortar bomb hit the house, and our last gun was destroyed.  The shell hit the gun jacket, where the water for cooling was filled, and we remain unarmed. We could not go back, there was no communication, and we could not get the order to retreat. What were we supposed to do?

At night German fire was feebler, so as in the day time it was very strong. We saw the hole in the floor, the passage to the basement and crawled in there. We decided that we would sit there for some time and find a solution what to do next. But in no less than 30 minutes another shell or mortar bomb hit, and we were dug. There was no light, the air penetrated through some crevices. We crawled in the basement like blind mice, trying to find a cleft or a passage, but our efforts were futile. I do not know how long we stayed in that basement. It was impossible to observe time there. I think one day passed, but I am not sure. We had a feeling of being buried alive. At times I cried out of despair. The guys were alive. We talked. We would have probably died there, but the miracle happened. They say, one shell never hits the same funnel twice. I know for sure that it is not true. A shell or a mortar bomb hit the basement again, and a big hole was made, that emanated light. We were saved. I thought a fragment from the shell pierced my buttock, but it was a trifle as compared to what might have happened to us. After that, 6 people out of 7 were given the order of Red Banner 44, but I somehow was given the medal ‘for Valor’ 45. Later I submitted a report to the commander, and justice prevailed. I was given two awards for the battle, i.e. medal “for Bravery” and the Order of Red Banner, the second high award after Lenin Order 46. Chuikov, commander in chief [Chuikov, Vasiliy Ivanovich (1900-1982) prominent military commander, conferred of many Soviet and foreign orders and medals], shook my hand. I was sent to the medical and sanitary battalion. I spend there more than two weeks. On February 2, 1943 I was discharged from the sanitary battalion and attended the meeting, devoted to the exemption of Stalingrad. Only 45 out of 450 people, sent to the front from our school were present at the meeting. I do not know who from the absentees was killed or who was wounded.

After this battle I was to be conferred the rank of a lieutenant. I was appointed the commander of the 112th platoon the regiment of the 37th Stalingrad Guards division 62, 8, and was dispatched to the command in Balashovo. By the way, later on that 8th Guards army was the main occupational army in Germany after the war was over. We stayed there for about two weeks. The regiment had a lot of casualties, and it had to replenish both with people and ammunition. They sent about 100 Uzbeks, who were mere boys. We teased them and jaunted as we thought they none of them wanted to speak Russian. We were furious that such words as ‘kotelok’ [‘pot’ in Russian], ’kasha’ [‘porridge’ in Russian], ’kasha malo’ [‘not enough porridge’ in Russian] they pronounced excellently and understood them very well. We were irritated that they were able to understand things, connected with food, and at the same time they refused to understand the simplest commands of the officers, addressed to them. We thought they were pretending, but they just did not know Russian. We were given arms for the squadron: 60 triple – passage rifles with a bayonet, “the miracle of 1891” [The so called Russian Mosin-Nagant Bayonet had a integral push-button/spring latching mechanism instead of a locking ring, and the tip of these bayonets can be used as a screw-driver. The Mosin-Nagant Model 1891 Bayonets - and variants - were used from 1891 into World War II, also by Austria and Finland.], 6 subguns, 2 guns, 3 heavy machine guns, 3 sniper rifles. All Uzbeks flung to take guns. But there were heavy discs for 75 cartridges in the set with the guns, and Uzbeks took the guns, throwing away the disks. We scolded them. It lead to their death in the first battle. None of them survived. They were used as cannon fodder, I cannot put in otherwise. When I recollect that I am cursing myself. Such a contagious feeling of nationalism: if a person is not like me, it means he is homely and inferior. That was the way we treated those boys. These were young guys, full of sap, all they were ”guilty in” that they did not know Russian, and were totally unprepared to what was ahead of them there. We were trained and battle-tried and teased them instead of helping them out and supporting them. What a shame, even now I feel ashamed!

The squadron was replenished and we went to Yelets by train. We stopped there and got off the train, since the railroads were crashed from German bombing. We walked for 300 kilometers or so. From the first days Germans were bombing so hard that we did not have a single field kitchen left. We had nothing to eat. First the sacks with the rye rusks were brought. Tarpaulin sacks for gas masks were attached to our belts. We removed the gasmasks and filled the sacks with the rusks. But these reserves did not last long. We were constantly hungry. We shot the crows and cooked them in fire. There were a lot of carcasses of huge German horses on the ground. We crawled to them, cut a piece and then boiled it. The carcasses were decomposing, producing a terrible stench. Nonetheless we ate that concoction. Sometimes we found potatoes and beets in the villages. It was a feast for us. I could not eat uncooked potatoes, others ate it raw. In Kursk oblast, that we went through, there were no safe villages. That oblast was divided, in some villages there were partisans, in others politsai [Russian for betrayers who joined the Nazi-run militia]. Politsai burnt partisan villages [villages controlled by partisans], and partisans in its turn burnt politsai villages [villages controlled by politsai]. It was difficult to find a place to spend a night. We were really lucky if we could find cellars, where vegetables were stored for winter. That was the place to stay overnight. We often slept straight on the snow. Filth and lice were absolutely unbearable. We could not even think of a bath. We were exhausted. We had to walk only at night as in the daytime there were bombings. The columns stretched, people lacked behind. Once I walked by half asleep and fell asleep. I woke up in the car of the commander of our division, the general. It turned out that I was hit by his car. I did not remember all that. The general asked me: ‘What‘s up with you, son?’ I could not remember anything, it all happened in my dream. The general took me to the place, where our squadron was located, and gave me a piece of pig’s fat and a loaf of bread. Of course I shared with my friends. But I found out in horror that I had lost my gun. Probably it happened when I was hit by car. If somebody lost his weapon, he was shot immediately in spite of the military merits. I was scared, I just had one thought –how to save my life. We walked in a column by burned hay storage. There was a fire in the center, and the soldiers were sitting around it. The weapon was placed along the wall. I crawled to the storage, saw the gun and stole it. I wanted to remain alive. And in a day, we walked by battle sites, where the weapons were piled …

We moved forward with the battles. These were the times of my hardest recollections. We came to one village, occupied by Germans and started squeezing them out of there. I saw a German running ahead of me, and I understood that I could chase him down. I was shooting and running, and because of my running I missed all the time. The German came to the destroyed house. I could see the basement. I approached him, when he was walking down to the basement. He might have wanted to hide there. I spent all cartridges left in my disk. The German fell down. His back was torn to pieces. When he was dying he turned to me, and I saw his face with a bristle. I think he was an elderly man of 40-45. Before that, I never shot from a close distance. I shot figures from remote distance without seeing the faces. And here I saw the face of a dying man, killed by me… and this face is in front of me even now… Is he an enemy? He is the same poor, emaciated soldier. Yes, I shot the German, and killed a man. It was the first time in my life. I was sick. Of course later on I had to kill Germans from close distance, too. But such an acute reaction never occurred to me again. I would never forget that first time. 

Beginning of 1943 was characterized by fierce battle. It was the period when Germans captured Orel and we had Kursk. At 6 a.m. on March 6, 1943 we called to attack. The snow was dazzling white. It melted a little bit in the day time and got frozen a little bit overnight, making a shiny ice coat. We did not have camouflage cloaks, and we stood out in the usual uniform and looked like flies on the white wall.  We crawled forward. Germans noticed us around 9 a.m. and started such a fire that there was no way we could cover. The bullet hit my gun, I bent and the splinter from my butt reached my face, and I still have that scar. The bullet hit my shoulder on the tangent. I did not feel pain, just a burring, like a burn from cigarette. The hand got numb and hung like a whip. I crawled back. The squadron commander cried out ’Where are you going?!’, I told him I was wounded, and he let me crawl back. Of course, I was moving very slowly, and the fire was so intensive that I had to be devious. Besides, I did not see where the shooting was coming from. Then the mortar bomb landed by me, and the fragment of the bomb pierced my left thigh. I was in felt pants, but they could not absorb blood. The hemorrhage was severe. I lost conscience from and acute pain.

When I came around, I began to crawl. I lost the boot and froze left foot. I could crawl propping on write leg and left hand. What was I to do?  … Finally, I crawled to the trench, where our gun soldiers were and besought: ’brothers, help me out of here!’ and they replied that they were not entitled to leave their positions. Then they took away the gun machine. Then, I think I was noticed by a sniper. It was getting dark, and I was on the woodland. He was aiming at me from the wood with the tracer bullets. I did not move. One bullet hit right in front of me, the second on the rear, and the third hit my leg. It was a percussion bullet, which hit my tibia, and exploded when it came out. I saw a huge torn hole in my felt pants. Later I found out that the bullet exploded and tore 10,5 cm of tibia. Spell bone was safe and served as a natural frame. My leg was saved for the sake of that, though it became crooked. I fell in the trench without any thoughts and stayed there for 24 hours or more. I could not put a bandage with my healthy hand, I could not even unbutton my cloak. I lost conscience, then I came around. And there in the trench being feeble, wounded, with forlorn hope, I believed in God, he was my only hope. I needed to pray. I was praying, lost the conscience and came around. I kept on praying. I told the God that I was young, and had not seen anything in life, and would have made my parents suffer, if I had died … My thoughts gadded, I was very scared and became even feebler. I remembered for all my life the gorgeous blue sky, with flashing lights from the tracing shells and bullets. I could not hear the explosion, it was all so far away, and over my head celestial flights were scintillating in the sky. My mouth got dry because I lost a lot of blood, so I ate snow from time to time. Then the hemorrhage stopped as I have a high coagulability.

Besides, I was arid and dehydrated. Certainly, I would have died there if there were not six people from our squadron who were on the way back on the same route. As it turned out, I unwittingly was crawling on the same route that we took when we were to attack. They were not able to take the village, but came back alive. They put down 4 long rifles. One of them took uniform jacket off and put over the rifles. They carried me to the village on those impromptu stretches. An old peasant lady came to the hut, where my stretches were placed, and asked me: ’Are you hungry, son?’ and gave me a slice of bread. I could not eat, and she gave me water. Then she went out, and came back right away. I do not know, where she was able to get milk. She brought me a mug of milk. I was taken to medical battalion. They bandaged me. There were no bandage materials. They used white moss instead of cotton wool, instead of frame - bars and sticks, bandages were laundered. The whole village was infected with typhus fever. Four wounded people and I were taken to the cottage, where the owner died from typhus before we came. We were put on the floor. The surviving members of the family were looking after us. The ordeal was more coming from the lice than from the wounds. They liked white and clean, and settled in the moss, which was used in the bandage. When I was trying to scratch, the splinters rubbed against each other, caused such an excruciating that I lost conscience. They did not bring food to us. The hosts had potatoes, but there was no salt. They fed us potatoes without salt. May be this is the reason why until now I eat oversalted food. I do not know how long we stayed there. Then I was to undergo the operation. I remember that the tools were boiled in samovar. The narcosis was not ether, but obsolete chloroform. When I was given narcosis, I felt as if I was sinking. Then I was told that I was swearing like a bargee. I do not know how it could be in my unconsciousness, because I did not swear. My leg was cut and cleaned.

Then we were taken to the same hut, and then they must have forgotten about us. We stayed there for 12 more days, and nobody changed the bandages. I do not know what was happening with my wound. Meanwhile my neighbor died. I woke up at night. Because, he fell dead on me. His leg was amputated, and it might be improperly bandaged. He died from hemorrhage. In 12 days they remembered about us, put us in the truck and took us somewhere. Then the bombing started, and the driver sped up so that we were jolting and crying from pain. The driver stopped the car, and the accompanying registered nurse gave each of an injection of morphine. It was the greatest bliss I ever felt in my life. My leg was cast hither and thither, but I felt no pain. I was only a little bit sleepy. We were brought to Kursk and put in the hospital. But my suffering was not over. I had a fever, and the wound had not healed up. I could not eat anything and was totally emaciated. The nanny, that was looking after me sympathized with me. She bought me a lemon with her own money. I cannot perceive where she could possible buy it. I was moved to tears. Again, I was convinced that the God was helping me. Hospital personnel were thinking that I would not survive, and I was placed separately from other wounded, in the pigeonhole. There was a show window covered with boards. During the bombing it fell down on my bed. Of course, it would crush me, but I landed on the iron back-rests of the bed. One of those rests crashed, but another was not harmed and stopped the show window. Again, I remained alive. I was taken out from Kursk. They moved me from one hospital to another. I was operated on, and cured… I was in Moscow, Vladimir and Kaluga hospitals. In the last hospital, Izhevsk, I stayed the longest. I traveled for over 1500 km being wounded, moving from one hospital to another. In Izhevsk I was commissioned and sent home. I was awarded the Order of the Great Patriotic War 47 second degree for the battles on Kursk Curve. I got Order of the Red Star 48 for the last battle.

I felt unbearable, horrifying hatred to the Germans after everything I was put through at war. How could have felt different, after the scenes of trenches filled up by frozen corpses to be burned, Kalach camp of militaries captives, with no survivors, villages burnt to ashes, piles of cadavers of the hung civilians … Frankly speaking I had to force myself not to shoot the captured German to take it to the headquarters. Such hatred remained with me for a rather long time after war. I calmed down only after 1965. Before, I could not stand hearing German language, I could not stand seeing Germans.

I came to Semipalatinsk [Kazakhstan, about 3000 km from Kiev], where my parents moved from Voronezh oblast in 1942. When I was on my way, the wound was open, and I had to go to the hospital in Semipalatinsk. My parents were very indigent in the evacuation. They sold everything they had, even the wedding rings, which were sacred to them. All - clothes, linen was sold and exchanged for bread.

After I was discharged from hospital I began to work at school as a military training teacher. I finished 9 grades before war, but I could not be studying and sponging on my parents. I asked my colleagues for assistance. They helped me out to get the certificate for 10 grades. The time I spent in hospital influenced by choice of the future profession. I was firm – if I were to survive, I would become a doctor. In August 1944 I went to Kiev to enter the Kiev Medical Institute. I sent the documents in Kiev beforehand. My parents still stayed in Semipalatinsk. When I was looking through the list of the those who were enrolled on the first course, I did not see my name. I went to the admission board. They told me that I was not admitted for the reason of health, because I would not be able to become a doctor with my crippled hand. I was infuriated. Then I asked whether my crippled arm would be good to beg on the street. So, I was admitted. 

After the War

All those years I got excellent marks. Of course it was difficult. I had been walking on crutches for all those years. Often my wound was open, and the splinters were coming out, causing acute pain. Of course I was young, and I wanted to appear a hussar in front of girls, and leave the crutches. I made a stick with a handle myself, so I could prop on it with both hands. I had used by the fifth year. At that time, I was able to walk, not only without a crutch, but even without a stick. There were 850 ladies and 40 men in my graduation year. Those guys were mostly handicapped like me. Those who were healthy then in 1944, were at war. There were armless and legless people among us. I entered psychoneurotic department. I had studied there for years. Then it was closed down, and I became a therapist. There was no other way out. 

Our pre-war apartment was occupied by other people. Probably I could fight for my rights and file in court, but I was too weak for that. I stayed with my father’s sister Feiga for some time, who came back to Kiev from evacuation. Then I was given a room in the hostel of the medical institute. The handicapped in war were given the whole floor. During the last courses we were given the cards for dinner. But it was later. At the beginning, we just used to starve. I being unsettled, feeling hunger and cold by all means decided to graduate from school. So, I kept on learning hanging on by skin of teeth. I was good student, remaining the monitor of the group through all students’ years. The clothes that I had was ill-kemp- my military uniform from war. I wore military jacket, received at war in 1941. I never took off my jacket, even during the classes, because my army pants were torn on the back side, and on the knee area. I was not ambidextrous at that time, so with my left hand I sawed patches made from my green tunic on my black pants. I did not have any other clothes. My parents were in evacuation. In Kiev there was only my aunt Feiga, who would rarely cook something for me. My scholarship was enough to buy the beans, the cheapest product at that time and a little bit of fat. The bread given by cards [Card system] 49 was not sufficient, 300 or 400 grams. I never could take it to the hostel from the store, I ate it on my way. I could not die. Sometimes the ration included herring and sugar, so I stood by the store and tried to exchange them for bread. In 1946 my parents came back to Kiev from evacuation. They did not have a place to stay. First they found a poky apartment for rent, and then bought it from the landlords. It was a tiny room, without conveniences, with no water and toilet. They had a hard life. They were indigent. But still I would come to see them and take the pot luck with them, no matter how skimpy it was. My brother came from the front twice and made great feasts for me. First he came in 1945, brought me new uniform - English boots, uniform and pants. When I saw a hen on the table, I burst into tears. Tears were streaming from my eyes, and I am not a susceptible and a mawkish boy. I practically did not have any other food, but bread. And I was not willing to eat anything else but bread. Then as a doctor I found out that a hungry person craved for bread more than for meat because of lightly digested carbohydrates. And during my student’s years I would have survived without faith. Of course I did not divulge it, but in God was always in my soul.

My brother took part in defense of Kiev during the first war months. During retreat he was in blockade, being imminent with capture. If that happened, he would not survive. They were in blockade in August, 1941 and broke through in September. In period of September-December he was in Ukraine with a group of people, hiding in the woods, bogs and haystacks. In winter they swam across unfrozen Don and found the location of our troops. Grigoriy was afflicted by an acute joint rheumatism and was about to die. After that he was transferred to noncombatant troops. Brother was a wonderful singer. There were times when he with the front-field band was giving concerts for the soldiers. In the course of time Grigoriy managed to return to combatant troops. As during peace times he was in construction, he appeared in armored engineering troops. He was a color sergeant. Grigoriy was in the infantry of the 62nd army on the front-line of Voronezh. He took part in Stalingrad battles. To my surprise I learnt from Grigoriy, that we were both in the same army, the 62nd. We were close by, but never met, and did not know about each other. After Stalingrad brother fought by Rostov on the Southern front, on Caucasus, during setting Kiev free. He was in Poland and fought for Poland with our troops. He freed Budapest and Berlin, took part in the fights for Prague. At that time he was the deputy commandant of the Czechoslovakian city Brno, which was a pretty high position. Taking into account his education, brother was recurrently offered to stay in the army as a professional military. My brother objected to that, because he had two children and wanted to come back to them. Nevertheless, Grigoriy was demobilized only in December 1946. He started his service in the army on June 21, 1941 on the eve of war and finished it a year and a half after war. He got very many awards. After he came back to Kiev, he started working and studying in engineering and construction institute. He became a construction engineer after graduation. He worked in many design constructions organizations such as: «Меzhkolkhozstroy», «Kievgorstroy» etc. What really appealed to him was participation in restoration of Kiev, devastated by war. He was a gifted engineer, had a lot of reasonable propositions on manufacture of construction materials, in particular brick. He was generating good ideas. He was a great expert. He was very valued at work. He was often given bonuses.

I remember pre-war time very well, when anti- Semitism did not take place. I was shocked when I found out that our neighbors being friendly with Jewish families, shamelessly disposed them Germans or Polizei [‘police’ in German], hired from local people. I remember our anti-war life very well, and there was no place for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism was mostly likely buried at the back of their minds, and with the right circumstances flourished well. My cousin Boris, son of my father’s elder brother, was drafted in the army in 1941 before war. After our troops left Kiev, Boris appeared in blockade by Borispol. He was lucky to break through blockade, and he came home. He was recognized by the janitor, and she disposed him to the Germans. Boris was nabbed and hung on the gate of his own house as an edification for others. After war the janitor was put to trial and sentenced to 10 years in jail. She did not come back to Kiev.

The younger sister Khasya, who married Grouzer, had two children: daughter Liya and son Naum. They both were brilliant at school. They loved theatre, went info sport-swimming, skating and skiing. Liya took an active part in the social program of school. Naum was the secretary of Komsomol organization at school. After finishing school Liya entered Kiev chemical technological institute. She finished fist year in June 1941. In 1942 she went to the army. She appeared in air defense regiment, which only consisted of girls. The regiment was based to the North from Stalingrad. Germans were trying to exterminate all air-defense batteries. In September 1942 Liya perished by Stalingrad, in the village of Orlovka. None of the girls in her regiment survived in the battle with the German tanks.  They were buried in the communal grave in the village of Gorodische. Liya’s younger brother, Naum left school in 1941. With the outbreak of war mother and he evacuated to the Central Asia. In 1942 he was drafted in the army. At the end of 1942 he was reported missing after Stalingrad battles. There are Liya’s and Naum’s pictures on the tomb of their father on the cemetery in Kiev.

Father’s second sister Berta, who was married to the retired soldier, had only daughter Zilya. Berta’s husband was much older that she and died a long before war. Zilya got married and gave birth to two daughters. Her family name was Konstantinovskaya. Zilya’s husband died in the first days of war. She never got married again.

Grigoriy, elder son of my father’s sister Feiga, also perished together with my father’s sister Golda and her children. Grigoriy caught meningitis during childhood and remained mentally retarded and sick. He stayed in Kiev and was shot by Germans in Babiy Yar.

Babiy Yar is still a pain to me. Over 60 years have passed, but I still cannot think calmly about that event. I envisage those people being lead along familiar streets, and the probably knew that they were walking for the last time. A bleeding wound in my heart is the way they were beaten up and shot. I understand that Babiy Yar did not come out of nothing. Why most of concentration camps were in Poland? Why almost all Polizei were Poles, Ukrainians or people from Baltic countries?, Because this was the right territory and right people. Here Jews were mostly hated. Here were most people who were willing to tease and kill them. This is my subjective opinion.

My friends went to war, too. My classmate and friend Jacob Koffman, who shared one desk with me at school, in July 1941went to the army as a volunteer. He took the surname of our common friend, Lidov, whom I mentioned before, not to die in case he became a captive. Jacob defended Kiev, participated in Kursk battles. He was given the rank of a sergeant and was awarded with the Order of the Great Patriotic War fist degree and with the medal «For military merits». In October 1943 Jacob was heavily wounded and after staying in the hospital he was dispatched from the army for being handicapped. When he came back to Kiev, he graduated from the geological vocational school and worked for construction companies. We still keep in touch. My friend, Mikhail Shukhman, two years older than me, was drafted in the army in 1941. He was awarded with two Orders of the Great Patriotic War on February 23, 1943. His right hand was torn during explosion of the shell. After his return home, he graduated from the motion-pictures engineers’ institute. He had been working at Kiev furniture factory as a power engineer. Mikhail died in 1978. Jan Bardakh also was drafted in the army in 1941. He was sent to military school and graduated with the rank of lieutenant. He was awarded with the Order of Red Star and medals. In 1943 he was severely wounded in the knee. After staying in the hospital, he was demobilized. Jan’s right leg became shortened because of the wound, which had not healed up. After his return in Kiev, he graduated from the institute. He had worked as an engineer for many years. He died in 1979.

In 1948 «cosmopolite processes» [Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] 50 started. It was the time when anti-Semitisim was not concealed, and even flourished. There talks that Jews did not go to war and stayed the whole time in Tashkent [Tashkent is a town in Middle Asia, 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]. I have never heard anything like that from people, who were at war. But those who were evacuated, where not shy to speak about it. Cosmopolite processes, where Jewish names were being constantly mentioned, streamlined anti-Seminism.

In 1948 another prominent event happened – the state of Israel was founded [May 15, 1948]. 2 thousand years ago the Jews were expelled from their land and scattered all over the world. I think foundation of Israel to be a miracle, witnessed by me. The independent state of Jews, created by us is our pride and happiness. 

In 1948 another important event took place, important for our family though. My maternal grandfather Sheftel died in Zhitomir. My parents went to the funeral in Zhitomir. I had to stay as I could not leave classes. Grandfather was buried at the Zhitomir Jewish cemetery according to the Jewish rites.

I did not join communist party 51, as I was not the eligible for age. I became the candidate to the party in 1949, the year I graduated from medical institute. I joined the party in 1951. I have not done it because I was stickler of the party’s ideas. Everybody knew that the person who was not the member of the party, did not have any prospects, and could not even dream of career. I wanted to become a doctor and achieve something in my profession. That is why I joined the party. Though, at the back of my mind at that time I was prone to believe that internationalism was the major principle of the party. Of course, when cosmopolite processes were in full swing, I was aware of my mistake. But there was no way back. I became Komsomol member with the ardent belief, and I could leave the organization because of age, when I was offered to join the party. It would be the real fling of the gauntlet and demonstration of one’s «unreliability ». And if you were a Jew to boot. … I understood that I had to go with the tide. I was not a dissident. Even if I were, I would not be strong enough for fight. I had to get over my disability.

In 1949 I graduated from medical institute. I was allotted to work as a therapist in Podol. My district was: Zhdanov street [today Sagaydachnogo street] and adjacent streets to the right: Andreyevskiy street, Pokrovskiy lane. Those who lived or visited Kiev know that those streets are on the steep upland. It would be hard even for a healthy person to go up those streets without gasping for air and stopping for a respite. In winter when the earth is covered with ice, such an ascension would almost like a mounting climbing. It was difficult for me walk, the leg did not heal up. I propped on a stick, having a constant pain. Nonetheless I had worked on that district for 25 years and 3 months, before 1975. 

When in January 1953 «doctors’ case» [Doctors’ Plot] 50 commenced, I had worked in the polyclinics for almost 4 years by then. My patients treated me very well and trusted me. There were few male doctors in the polyclinic, and I was appointed the head of the district being a veteran and the member of the party.   But as soon as there appeared the article about the doctors poisoners, I was immediately called to the head of the polyclinics and dissolved from my position. I never was a go-getter for administrative positions, and it did not perturb me. What really perturbed me was that many patients all of a sudden changed their attitude to me. An old communist Voronkov lived on my district. He joined the party in the 1920s and enjoyed talking about it. Once he attended me with complaints of windiness. I advised him to be on diet, but he wanted me to prescribe medicine for him. I prescribed a very simple medication—absorbent carbon and he left. In some time I went to the first floor and saw the door wide open. I went by and saw Voronkov in the office of the head of the polyclinic brandishing with my prescription and saying: ’Have a look, what that zhyd prescribed me, may be is on the point to poison me?’ I will never forget that.

Of course, such attitude was not only towards me, it was also towards my colleagues-Jews, and it was not coming only from patients. I remember a terrible article about a wonderful gynecologist Kresson. I knew him very well. In the articled he was accused of murdering fetuses in the mother’s womb. It was a horrible accusation. And what really happened? In any book on obstetrics, the section covering pathological delivery reads: in case the fetus improperly develops or in case of untimely determined pathologies of the mother, hindering normal parturition and Caesarian section, mother’s life is chosen, if it were to choose between the mother’s life and the fetus’s. In this case decollation is made. Of course, it is barbaric, but at times doctors have to use the decollator to decollate the fetus and then remove the body. Such a live-saving operation was performed by doctor Kresson. He was charged with infanticide and put in jail, only after 20th [Twentieth Party Congress] 53 he was released from prison, being ill, preliminarily enfeebled and spavined. Then I remember how cardiologist, the professor, was accused of doing harm, because contacts to be attached to the patient’s body came off cardiographer machine. I, a beginning doctor, was observing all that. I also saw the way Jewish doctors were treated. A young doctor Dmitrienko worked with us. Every time another dirty article appeared in the paper she discussed it with everybody and exclaimed: ’Have a look what they are doing!’. Then in several years those doctors were exonerated after Stalin’s death. She was astounded and used to ask: ‘What am I to believe in?!’ It means that it was easy for her to believe that such outstanding experts in medicine, the writers of students’ manuals as Kogan-Yasnyi, Vovsi, Vinogradov and others were murderers. But she could not abide by the written facts that those formerly called murderers had been totally innocent. What can I say? Let bygones be bygones. I got it over. But God had not just saved my life, he also let me keep my memories. After the case with the doctors I started being very cautious with people, and not always trusted good words spoken about me. But I take pride that those people who I had grounds to consider anti-Semitists, thought me to be a good doctor, and trusted me their health.

Stalin died on March 5, 1953. I cannot say that his death was unexpected. When there were reports on Stalin’s state in the bulletins, I, being a doctor, was aware that he was on the brink of death and I was ready for that. I cannot say I was grieving over Stalin’s death. Of course, I did not demonstrate it to many of those, who were bursting into tears. My father made me buy and wear a red mourning crape with black bands. Such bands were worn on sleeves, and it was a sort of a proof of loyalty. My friend Peter Hitelman told me that when everybody was whimpering, an elderly Jew Khalemskiy, the doctor in our polyclinic said: ’Why are crying, idiots?! You’ve got to be laughing and rejoicing, it will be better to live now!’. He was right. People got over the mourning rather soon, after 20th party convention. As for me, 20th convention and Khrushchev’s 54 speech were more shocking than Stalin’s death. First Khrushchev’s report on the offences was not disposed to public, it was read only at secretive party convention. Then it was revealed. I was deeply impressed by Khrushchev’s speech. When certain NKVD leader became peoples’ enemy, they used to mention his abuse of power. Only from Khrushchev we heard about Stalin’s role in criminal repressions of the year of 1937. Of course, I believed everything Khrushchev said. I recognize that Stalin was an extraordinary man. He was not merely a despot, he was an exceptionally intelligent and guileful leader.

In 1946 I met Elena Cherevo, my future wife. Elena studied at medical university. She was born in Kharkov in 1925. She was evacuated with her family during war, and they moved to the freed Kiev. In 1951 we both started practicing medicine, and then got married. Elena was not a Jew, and my parents were against our marriage. What could they have done… I was a grown-up, a battle-seasoned awarded old-stager, a doctor. I did not accept any objections. Moreover being at war right out of school, going through hospitals, hard years of studies gave me no experience with women. Elena was my first woman, and of course it was a pivot. After getting married we lived with Elena’s parents for a while. Unfortunately we could not make a family. We did not get along, having quibbles since the first day of our life together. Our only daughter Irina was born 1952. I loved my daughter very much. I tried to spend with her a lot of time. She was reciprocal. Being a veteran of war, I got a two-room apartment in Kiev on the left bank, Darnitsa. But it did not help, we had no mutual understanding. By the way, Elena’s parents were also against our marriage. Only later I understood that they were inveterate anti-Semitists. My father-in-law used to say: ’Go to your zhyds’ meaning my parents. Our divorce was spurred by arrests of the well-known numismatists in 1969. I knew many of them. They were imprisoned for any precarious accusations. It was difficult to overcome that time. I was interrogated, but was not accused. Those imprisoned under pressure had to give away their collections, and then they were released as there was no corpus delicti. During such arrests Elena filed for divorce in court. It was not mandatory, I would never object to giving money for my daughter. Nevertheless, we were divorced. The daughter stayed with her mother.

I left them apartment and came to live with my mother. She stayed by herself as my father died in 1962. We buried him at Jewish lot of the city cemetery, where grandfather tomb was moved after Lukianovskoye cemetery was liquidated. Father was buried according to the Jewish rite. His grave is next to my grandfather’s, where the name of my father is written. I keep both of my father’s prayer books as precious things. My father’s picture and the calendar leaf dating his death - March 28, 1962 - are glued to in his prayer book. This is a keepsake of a wonderful man, my father.  

It was difficult to get registered [Residence permit] 55 in my mother’s apartment, as it was considered that I had a place to live, and there was no room for another person in her apartment. But I was a rather known doctor, so I was given a hand. I was registered in my mother’s poky communal apartment 56 without toilet and running water. I started to look into making out lodging better. In three years I was given a two-room apartment, no matter how hard it was. At the meeting of the district executive committee 57, when my issue was under table, there were people who asserted that my divorce was fictitious for the sake of getting apartment. How could I leave the apartment, without hearing in court on division of the apartment. It was the first time my mother lived with conveniences. Unfortunately, she had lived only for 2,5 years in the new apartment, and passed away in 1976. My mother was buried at the Jewish lot of the city cemetery. It was important for her to be at the Jewish lot. I reserved a burial place for me close to my mother.

I always remembered about God, who rescued me at war when I was dying. My faith did not weaken. I was getting more ascertained of God’s assistance in hard times of my life. Here is another example. In 1955 I had a severe jaundice. I was on the brink of death, my liver was below umbilicus. I was puking not only from food, but with the thought of food. I had a strong biliary intoxication with toxic psychosis. I was in such a terrible state, that even my loving father did not believe in my survival after the ambulance had taken me to the hospital. That case was probably more severe than the one when I, being wounded at war was beseeching God to help. I started praying. I was still young, only 30. And again I asked God for help and care. God rescued me again, like in the first time. It was a miracle. Being a doctor I understand it even better. It was another proof that God loved me. He might be saving me for certain purpose that I do not know of. My miraculous survival strengthened my believe. I did not mark Jewish holidays, did not attended synagogue, worked in Sabbath and ate everything, but I always felt in my soul that there was God. Of course, you could ask how I could have been a member of the party and a believer? These two things seem to be incompatible, but not for me. I was the member of the party, only in my card. There has always been God in my soul.

Being divorced I was not going to get married soon. There were quite a few ladies, who wanted to marry me. After first bad experience I was certain that my wife would be only a Jew. I did not want to make another mistake. I was lucky to meet Sofia, my wife-to-be. She was born in Kiev in 1934. Her father Naum Shekhtman was born in the village of Gornostayevka [420 km from Kiev], Kherson provice in 1908. He was a great mahogany joiner. There was time when his apprentices were problem children. Mama, Feiga Shekhtman (née Zlobinskaya) was born in 1910. She became a housewife after getting married. Sofia has two sisters: the older, Bella Matskina (née Shekhtman) born in 1929, and the younger, Zhanna Shekhtman born in 1945. Russian is Sofia’s mother tongue, but she also understood Yiddish, as her parents communicated in Yiddish. In 1941 Sofia’s father was drafted in the army. As a lieutenant he fought for Kiev, took part in the battles on the South-Western and 2nd Ukrainian fronts. He became disabled because of a severely wounded leg.  He was awarded with Orders of Red Star and of Great Patriotic War and many medals. The family was evacuated to the Uzbek town Andizhan. In 1944 Sofia’s father was charged from hospital and called his family in the liberated Kiev. Sofia’s father started to work at a glass plant. Mother was a housewife. Sofia’s elder sister Bella studied in Kiev University, at Philosophy department. After graduation she was sent [Mandatory job assignment in the USSR] 58 to Dneprodzershinsk to teach history. She married a Jew, Jacob Matskin and gave birth to daughter Alla in 1960. Sofia’s younger sister Zhanna finished drama school and was the head of drama studio in cultural center. She married a Jew, Aron Elkin. In 1970 she gave birth to elder son Konstantin.  In 1979 another son, Alexander, was born. Now both of my wife’s sisters live in Israel with their families. Sofia entered Kiev dentists’ institute. At the beginning of 1950s her father was arrested, and Sofia was expelled from the institute as cosmopolite’s daughter. Sofia left Kiev for a town of Rovno [Ukraine, 370 km from Kiev] entered Rovno Geological Technical School there and obtained secondary technical education. After graduation she was assigned to Chita [Buryatia, 5700 km from Kitv], in Zabaikal expedition. She had stayed there for two years. She got married in Chita. Her family name was Burmanova in her first marriage. Sofia and her husband moved to Kharkov from Chita. In 1952 she gave birth to an only daughter Irina. After Sofia moved to Kharkov, there were conflicts with her husband. She wanted to go on with higher education, but her husband wanted her to be a housewife and raise their daughter. But Sofia was very stubborn and straightforward. She studied extramurally in Kiev Geological gas exploration University. She became a geologist, expert in gas exploration. She divorced with her husband. She was offered a job in Kiev Geophysics Institute, and she moved to Kiev with her daughter. We met in Kiev, in some of our friend’s house. We got married on November 4, 1978. We have been together for 26 years, and I've never questioned my choice. 

No matter that my daughter lived separately, I always kept in touch. We were and are getting along. I never wanted to change my name for Russian, so Irina accordingly has a Jewish patronymic Hertzevna. That is why when my daughter finished school with a silver medal [the second highest distinction in USSR secondary schools. A student was supposed to have straight excellent marks (100%) to get the golden and 90% of excellent marks to get silver medal], tried to enter Kiev university, she was not accepted. [Entrance interview] 59 And next year she failed to pass entry exams. At her third attempt she was accepted to the evening physics department. She worked in the day time, and after work she attended classes. Irina got married after graduating from the University. She kept her maiden name, Rogovaya, after getting married. Both of her sons took the father’s name Khokhlov. Yuri was born in 1980, and Igor in 1984. Irina worked as an engineer in X-ray diagnostics. She is retired now. Radiographers retire at the age of 45 as their job is harmful to health. Both of my grandchildren study. Yuri got the Master’s degree in Kiev polytechnic university, and works there as an assistant. The younger, Igor, is studying in Kiev polytechnic institute. My daughter and her children are very dear people to me.

In 1970s there was an outburst of mass immigration of the Jews in Israel. It was happy news. I craved for immigrating to Israel, but my mother would not allow. There was no way my brother would leave, and even spite of that my mother would not let me go as she thought she would never see me again. We should never have thought that there would be times when one could go to Israel for a visit, invite your kin and friends. [Keep in touch with relatives abroad] 60 At that time people left for ever, and it was good if they wrote. I could not leave my mother. And my second wife flatly refused to leave. Israel still remained a dream. Of course, it might sound preposterous that I am an ardent patriot of Israel sitting here in Kiev. And now I am even doing Israel a favor that I am not importuning myself as a pensioner to be given dole. By the way, when in the ‘70s Jews started a massive immigration, anti-Semitists all of a sudden understood that practically all good doctors were Jews. And they started complaining: which doctor to go to, there would be no one we could trust our health …

In 1975 I left polyclinic. I found out that there was a vacancy of a therapist in the sanatorium of Ministry of Defense in the Kiev suburbs, Puscha-Voditsa. I went there and I was offered a job. I had worked there for 23 years and retired at the beginning 1998. They treated me in a great way during my working years. I was a civilian, but still I was given vouchers for treatment in the best spas of USSR. I was always selected in the honorable presidium at general meetings. I am not vain, it was just a demonstration of the positive attitude. They still keep a show-case devoted to my battle experience. I exerted every effort and used my knowledge to the benefit in my job, in treatment of patients, and I am given credit for it. Many retired militaries still remember me and render to my assistance. I have forgotten many of them, but they still remember me.

I went off war as a lieutenant. But since doctors are liable for militarily service no matter what they are specialized in, my rank periodically changed. The last rank was obtained this year – lieutenant colonel of the medical service.

It turned so that three granddaughters of my wife were brought up by us mostly. Irina, Sofia’s daughter lived in Kharkov. Her married life was not happy, so we took three of her daughters. They went to the kindergarten, to school. I liked tendering them. I treated them as my own grandchildren, and they treated my accordingly. Elder granddaughter Yulia, born in 1978 left for Israel when she was 16. At that time there was an educational program in Israel. She worked as a waitress in Israel and took a preparatory course by Haifa university. Then she entered Haifa university and married a military man. Yulia graduated from the university and is working as a programmer at a very prestigious company. My wife is a greatgrandmother: Yulia gave birth to a boy, and she is pregnant again. She is expecting a daughter. My wife and I are looking forward to seeing her. The second granddaughter Svetlana, born in 1983, followed Yulia. She is also studying in Haifa university and is going to become a programmer. She was supposed to be drafted, but she recently got married, so she was given an adjournment. And the youngest, my favorite Anastasia, born in 1991, has just recently left for Israel. Irina married for the second time and left for Israel with her husband and a younger daughter. Anastasia goes to school. My wife often goes to Israel to see them. Both of my nieces, Grigoriy’s daughters live in Israel, in the town of Karmiel. They are prosperous, that this makes me happy. My brother died in Kiev in 1978, long before they left. There are my relatives in the United States, too, viz. both sons of my mother’s younger sister Manya. The elder, Yuri, lives in New-York, the younger - in Chicago. Both of them are younger than me, but they are not youths. We keep in touch, write and call each other from time to time. 

The fall of Communism

When at the end of the 1980s perestroika 61 started in the USSR, I was delighted. We, USSR citizens, were not used to the absence of censorship in the press and literature. We were not accustomed to open honest public sources. I was happy with those events. It was marvelous that there was no iron curtain 62, severing our country from the rest of the world for many years. All it was new and delightful. But my euphoria did not last long, and my attitude to perestroika became negative. The consequences from perestroika brought to the breakup of USSR [1991], and I still regret it. Yes, I am still yearning for the Soviet Union like many of my contemporaries. Yes, it was a terrible empire, but it was a forceful foundation. And what is it now? We could easily go anywhere on the territory of the USSR, and now with a course of time it is getting more and more difficult to visit any of CIS countries. Of course, each type of society has its own disadvantages. I do not compare the independent Ukraine with such a monster as FSU used to be. I have few grounds why independent Ukraine should exist. How did the world benefit by from breakup of the USSR? There was one monster- Soviet Union, and now there are 15 instead of 1. We could forecast before, and now if the steps of one state could be forecasted, the other state would remain totally unpredictable. I would have never believed that the USSR will be deleted from the worlds map. The country that went through such a calamity as a patriotic war and was on the brink of defeat … Frankly speaking, there were moments when I did not believe that we would win that war. How could I believe when I retreated from Stalingrad, interminable retreat, starting from the Western boarders of Ukraine, when Germans reached Volga and we had way many casualties and remained stern? After that there was a huge socialistic empire, including the countries, which did not belong to the USSR: Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, half of Germany. And suddenly such a country broke up. It was hard to believe in it.

What I like in the present Ukraine is that the Jewish life revived. Though, I understand that the current and coming leaders are not giving such a freedom out unselfishly. They just understand very well, that they depend on American and other capital, and they would not get anything if they demonstrate anti-Semitism. Various articles in the papers and speeches of the deputies at the Supreme Council speak for the existence of anti-Semitism. I even like those more who speak publicly on anti-Semitism, than the rest who just conceal their thoughts and remain anti-Semitists. I am positive in that. This is the time, when we, the Jews are needed. That is why I do not believe in the ardent love for Jews, demonstrated by our government. I am not the only one, who thinks that. The figures speak for me. At the beginning of the 1990s there were 400 000 Jews in Ukraine, and according to the latest census (in 2003) only 100 000 remained. There were 100 000 Jews in Kiev, and now there are only 17 000.

When Ukraine was declared independent, a lot of Jewish communities appeared. There is a cultural center, which I like, and Hesed 63, performing great useful work. I do not trust other societies because I do not understand what they are dealing with. Why there are at loggerheads with each other, and what are they trying to divide. I am a member of the Kiev organization of Jew-veterans of war (Kievskoy Organizaciya Yevreyev – Veteranov Vojni) 64. I deal with medicine. I attend sick people in the hospital, officially receive war veterans. I have my reception hours. I am «a call-doctor» - veterans call me at any time when they require a medical consultation. There are getting less and less people in our organization. I was confounded at the last meeting. If earlier I used to come to the meetings beforehand, so I could occupy a seat as the hall was crammed, at that time there were only 35 people or so. People are getting older, die, but the organizations grow. I am very grateful to Hesed, and to those people, who give money to support its work. I know about Hesed not by hearsay. I have been working here since my retirement. I am taking patients in Hesed medical office every day. My conscience is clear, I am a volunteer and work for free. I consider, that my work, and the work of Hesed on the whole are needed. I see those who come here. These are indigent and miserable lonely people, who cannot make a living with their pension. One can judge it by the clothes they wear, and how during free dinner they eat potatoes in the canteen and put fish cutlet in a bag and take it home. They even take slices of bread home. They are not just given dinner, they also receive provision and clothes, medical care, medicine. We have day hospital, I also work there. There one can be examined and treated. Another important thing is that Hesed provides the opportunity for those lonely old people to communicate with each other. People suffer from loneliness more than from diseases and poverty.

My wife is also working. On Aug 5, 2004 she turned 70, but they do not let her retire. Though she does not have any scientific degrees, she was conferred the most prestigious award in geology- Silver Geological Cross given by the state. Apart from Sofia 2 or 3 people were conferred this award in the institute. She is a great expert, and now they talk her into teaching students, so she can share her experience with them. It is hard for her to work full-time. She is working half –time.

Recently in the honor of the Victory Day 65 and for my volunteer work Hesed gave me a wonderful present - paid for my trip to Israel. I have dreamt of it for so many years, and now my dream came true - I saw this beautiful country. I admired everything I saw. I stayed with my younger niece in Karmiel. Besides, I saw many cities and historical places in Israel. All I could physically visit, considering my weakness, and pain in my leg. I attended museums. I was in Yad-Vashem 66. But I was most deeply impressed by Wailing Wall. I still cannot forget that. I am not very susceptible and superstitious, but when I was by that wall, I thought that the air there was unusual and dense. It seemed to me that the wall emanated special blessing. For two thousand years people have been praying by it for the temple to be restored and the state of Israel to be revived, so it imbibed their prayers and hope. I was happy to see that the cities in Israel were clean and well taken care of - an apple-pie order. The most important was that I saw Israeli felt them home. Veterans have a serene and worthy life. They deserve it. It was painful for me to compare the life of the veterans in Israel with Ukraine.  

I still remain religious. Though, there are only two holidays that I mark - Pesach and Yom Kippur. I certainly go to synagogue during those holidays. I attend the synagogue my father went to, the one located at Shchekavitskaya street. Unfortunately I do not know Hebrew, but I have a contemporary prayer book with Russian translation. I have not always fasted for the Yom Kippur, but for the last 35 years I keep a tradition not to eat or drink during Yom Kippur. This year I fasted, too, even though I turned 80, and then I took my economy car, given to me as a handicapped during Great Patriotic War, and went to the synagogue. Though, I understand that I should not drive. I cannot stay there for the whole day, so I go there by 4 and stay by the end of the praying. Then I go home for the feast. This is the day of our family get-together. My grandchildren come. My daughter, though half-blood, always attends synagogue with me. My wife is aloof to that. She went there with me for two or three times. My daughter supports me and goes there with me. She knows how important it is for me. This is our tradition, along with the 9th of May, the victory day’s tradition. The whole family gets together to go to the monument of the military honor. This tradition will be kept on, until I am alive.

I think my life has not been futile. I have witnessed three important events, which never happened before in the world. I, having read about a man landed on the moon in science fiction books, witnessed that it happened in real life, not in the novels. The second - foundation of the state of Israel. The third, the epochal, was the breakup of the USSR. Those three evens are not interconnected, but they were unique in the world. I am happy to observe those events trying to be useful to people the best way I could. 

Glossary

YASEF ROMANO
ISTANBUL
TURKEY
INTERVIEWER: ALBERTO MODIANO
DATE: MAY – JUNE  2005

I had the opportunity to interview Yasef Romano thanks to his daughter Ines. I became acquainted with Ines through her job in Matan Baseter 1 Barinyurt. When the subject of Ines’ father being from Edirne came up, I offered to interview him. Yasef Romano spends 4 - 4.5 days of his week in Edirne due to his work. He comes to Istanbul to be with his family on Fridays. He spends the Sabbath and the weekend with his family. When he comes to Istanbul, he stays in the flat no. 15 in Hayriye aparment, no. 17, in Gayrettepe Girne Sokagi (street). His wife stays here during the week too. They spend their summer vacations in the bay of Saroz as a family. He is a very active person, having been president of the Rotary and head of the Edirne Jewish community. While we were doing the interview, he suddenly had to have surgery due to an ailment he suffered. When we resumed the interview approximately three weeks later, his health was as good as it had been in the past. He has not neglected to instill the values and traditions he has inherited from his father and his religiosity into his daughters. Yasef Romano is a kind, optimistic person who is full of love.The interview with him was spread over a period of three months because of his health problems and his vacation. We met him three times for the interview.

Family background

Growing Up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

Family background

Our roots on my father’ side are from Rome, Italy. We found this out from the registrations in the Diaspora Museum in Israel. We thought we had Spanish roots.  We did not have the opportunity to talk with my father’s father or mother about how we came to Edirne. That is why I don’t have much information, I don’t remember at all. Our father did not talk much, either.

My paternal grandfather, Yasef Romano, was born in Edirne, my grandmother, Ida Romano was also born in Edirne, I do not remember the birth or death dates for my father’s father. My father’s mother’s maiden name was Dudu. I know that my grandfather was  a tailor in Edirne.  I don’t have any more information.
I did not get to meet my mother’s father or mother.

My father Yuda Romano, was born in Edirne in 1905.  My father first started to work as a secretary in the Edirne Jewish community. Later on he became a rabbi. But you cannot call that being a rabbi exactly.  He worked as a philosophy teacher in Alliance Israélite Universelle 2 in Edirne which was a foreign school. He taught philosophy classes in French. He raised a lot of students. The students he raised constantly came to visit him. He had another job also. My father started commerce, but he continued with the community work. He was serving as Grand Rabbi also.

He worked as a cantor too. But he could not open the Sefer Torah as a cantor. Why: We managed a store together.  I opened the store on Saturdays.  And since he was my business partner, he said: “We sin on Saturdays, I cannot open the Sefer Torah in the synagogue on Saturday”.  But he raised important rabbis.  He had more knowledge than rabbis. My mistake towards him was to open the business on Saturdays. Until he died, on Saturdays he neither touched electricity, nor warmed up food. He was excessively orthodox, he would not let others shop on Saturdays even, and he wouldn’t talk to us.  He was very angry with us for opening the store. But it was not possible to close the store in Edirne.

He was a very social person in Edirne. They would meet every Saturday at 10.00 a.m. in a wine store. But the wine seller was an important Jewish philosopher named Israel Reytan. He would open his store only when the mayor pasha came on Saturdays.  He would have philosophical talks with the mayor, pasha and head of municipality of Edirne. Sometimes they took me too. I remember this very well.  Sometimes they would meet in a library, open the books, and do their own interpretations.  He died in 1988.

He is still remembered in Edirne. Some of the students he raised in Alliance school became mayors or ministers. Unfortunately I do not remember the names. He would help the poor, everyone. He helped the government of Israel a lot too. [After the death of Rabbi Mose Behmuaras, who took over the job from Hayim Becerano, the general secretary, Yuda Romano took care of business in the Edirne community in the 1940’s due to the absence of a Grand Rabbi. Yuda Romano was the representative of the Jewish Agency from Edirne between 1940-1946, and was a big help to the Jews who were coming from Bulgaria and Greece en route to Palestine; he waited for the trains, sleeping in the stations through the night. (Rifat N. Bali Edirne Serhattaki Payitaht, YKY Publications 1988 p. 224)]

After I was born, my father worked at the Grand Rabbinate then, in 1955 he started a business with me as well as working at the Grand Rabbinate. We sold gasoline and tires for automobiles. At the same time, he continued at the Grand Rabbinate. He would open the Sefer Torah until 1955. After 1955, because I was opening the store, and because he was my business partner, he said I was sinning and did not open the Sefer Torah.

My father died in Israel on March 2nd, 1988, and was buried there.  He had an open sore on his face for thirty years. He had skin cancer. He could not have that sore taken care of, once and for all.  The doctor said, don’t touch it, it will not bother you.  At the end it started penetrating under the skin. Since my older sister lived in Israel, my father went to Israel, had surgery and got rid of it.  He stayed with my older sister, he kept calling me, “my son, take me away from here, take me to Edirne, I want to stay in Edirne, and die in 
Edirne”.  It wasn’t meant to be, he died in Israel. I could not go to his funeral because my passport wasn’t ready, he was buried in Israel.  However it happened, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs got news about my father’s death. I received a phone call from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They said, your father died in Israel, your father belonged to Turkey, we will cover all the expenses to bring his funeral to Turkey. Because your father was very useful to the government. I was not expecting something like this then, I could not answer on the spot. Then I thought, why should he come here, he is buried in the holy land, with requests and so on, he stayed there.

My father wore a shirt, tie and jacket with a felt hat, summer or winter. He shaved every morning. He even had two pieces of advice for me. He would say “My son, you will go to work before the sun comes up, and you will not insult your friends, how do you insult them?  By having a beard. You will shave every morning, absolutely and absolutely, as soon as you get up, you will face your friends, your clients, shaved.  If you face them with a beard, it is a big insult”. I never forget his words.  For twenty-five years, I am at work every morning at 5:30. I get up at five, I go to bed at midnight or one in the morning.  I have tried to apply his legacy for 25-30 years. He had another testament. When my wife’s father died in Edirne, sometimes we could not form a minyan for the morning prayers. I would get up at 5:30, go from door to door, and gather a minyan. This is a habit for me now.

My father was excessively serious, very interested in philosophy, he was a good philosopher. My father was a true philosopher, they still remember his philosophy in Edirne. I inherited his principles too. He never thought negatively in his lifetime. He always thought positively. Let’s think of good, may it be good, he used to say. When sometimes we would say something like it will be bad tomorrow, “don’t even utter it”, he would say. “Always think positive”, he used to say. He never thought negatively and he did not let us either.

My mother Ines Romano was born in Edirne. I do not remember the birthdate. She was a very humble woman. She would not attend meetings a lot. Because my father had a principle. When my father came home from work, he wished to see my mother across him. When my mother went somewhere, she would come half an hour earlier. When my father arrived, my mother had to be the one opening the door. But this was a habit based on love and respect. My father had a principle about food. Don’t ever leave the table full in the evenings. In the evenings you get up hungry. Eat the most food at lunch, because you can eat till the evening, he would say. My father used to eat at lunch. He would arrange his schedule accordingly, when it was 12 noon, he would come home from work to eat, my mother would worry, has the food gone cold?

My mother was slender and graceful and her hair remained black till she died. Every mother views her child differently. But she spoiled me excessively, even my spouse complains about this. My mother and father never let me want for anything in my life.  My mother was even a big support when we went out with friends, as a group. When my friends got fifty pennies, I would get a hundred pennies.

My mother is a highschool graduate, I do not remember which highschool. My father on the other hand, graduated from university. He studied in Istanbul, I do not know which university.  But I think it was either economics or math. He would solve all of our math problems. I know very well that he studied in university. Their mother tongues were Turkish and Judeo-Spanish, they would speak Spanish and French among themselves, they would speak Turkish with us. Because we did not speak the Judeo-Spanish language very well, they would speak Turkish with us.

Our livelihood was from the gasoline station and auto tire store that we opened with my father in 1955. My father previously had a salary from the Grand Rabbinate, that is to say, the community.  In addition, he had a salary from the school. He was a great Mason. He hid this for 60 years, he told us two years before his death. He was a very tight-lipped person.

My mother and father probably met in Edirne, because they were both from Edirne. There was a great love between them. Yuda Romano constantly would come to the balcony and serenade her. Their love was very, very strong. There was great affection. When my mother was sick, my father would cry. A person who appeared so serious and strong, when my mother got the flu, he would cry in the other room. When they asked him why he was crying, he would lament “what if something happens to her?”. My mother would do everything he said, but at the same time she was wary of him. For example, sometimes she had to buy something on a Saturday, she would go without letting him know and come back.  Their wedding was in the Edirne Synagogue, I do not remember the date.

My father always dressed very well, but on Saturdays, he would dress even better. He was a person who attached a lot of importance to Saturday. He reserved his best outfits for the Sabbath day. He did not dress like this even on Yom Kippur. Even his shoes would be polished, as if new.  He wore a vest, jacket and hat even in the month of August.  He dressed well till the day he died. My mother was like that too. I did not take after them, not even 10%.

The financial situation of the family was good. There were no cement houses in Edirne then. The houses were made of wood. But it was one of the most beautiful houses in Edirne. It had three stories. Our house was at Kaleici, Dogan Mahallesi, Cumhuriyet Caddesi. This was in the Jewish neighborhood. There were no bathrooms in the houses then, but this house had a bathroom and a laundry room on the ground floor.  On the second floor, there was a guest room, a bedroom and a livingroom. On the top floor my parents’ bedroom, sittingroom, kitchen and another livingroom. His room was on the top floor. We used to live with my wife on the middle floor and relatives on the bottom floor.  It was quite a big house. There were beautiful antique furnitures. The heating was provided with a stove. Coke coal was used for heating then. There were trees, plants, in the garden and a cistern where rainwater gathered. They probably used the cistern for laundry. I think there was also a cat in the house.  A lady would come continually for housework.

There were quite a lot of books in our home. When my father left for Israel, he went with the philosophy books. My older sister lived on an upper floor. He was going to Israel for surgery. My mother had died in 1986, from arteriosclerosis. My older sister prepared his bag. She put his underwear in his bag. Then my sister went upstairs, when she left, my father emptied that bag completely, and put only the philosophy books. I will take my father to the airplane, I can’t lift the bag. I ask him, “what did you put here”, he says “I put underwear”.  “Is that possible?”, I say. This is his answer: “I will not need underwear there, your older sister will find me some underwear anyways, but she cannot find these books”.

He did not stay home much, but wherever he went, he would read the same philosophy books.  “Dad, you have read this book before” I would say. “My son, I take pleasure every time I read it” he would reply. We had the Koran, Bible and Torah, all three in the house.  He would read all and interpret them for everyone.  He even provided the explanation to Muslims. He was that knowledgeable. When he left for Israel, he went with the philosophy books and he died with the philosophy books. In addition, he had a lot of books on religion. He recommended the books by Orhan Hancerlioglu to me. He enjoyed reading the newspaper a lot.

I assume that there was no one in Edirne or Istanbul  that was as extremely religious as he was. He applied all of the Jewish traditions. He observed kashrut. He went to the syngagogue every Friday and Saturday. He attached a lot of importance to celebrating holidays, he wanted to see all of us at his side. You pay holiday visits on holidays, as you know, but when it was our holidays, he would let the public know, because he wanted them to come and see how to celebrate Jewish holidays. He wanted them to know what Yom Kippur, or Rosh Hashana signified. In Passover, a table would be laid out, 30 people would sit down with him as the leader. He would read the Seder in Hebrew and the reciting tone.  We always reminisce about those days.

He participated in a lot of social events.  But he also had an inclination towards a particular political party. He leaned towards the Party of the People. That is what he claimed, maybe he said it because of politics. They would ask “Who did you vote for?”.  I would not tell that even to my wife, this is between me and G-d. All the Jews voted for the Democratic party, but he supported the Party of the People, if he was serious about this, or this was a joke, he did not tell anyone.  My father did his military service, but where, I do not know.

All of my father’s neighbors were Jewish. They had a very good relationship.  Everyone felt reluctant in front of my father. Because he was excessively strict and minded the rules, even we did not speak much inside the house. His friends mostly were the mayor, the pasha, the head of municipality of the time, that is to say, the bureaucrats. They found it difficult to be friends with him, because they could not attain his personality or knowledge. They wanted to take advantage of his philosophical knowledge.

He never went on vacation.

My father was part of six siblings, four boys and two girls.

Isak Romano was younger than my father. All of his siblings were born in Edirne, then they came to Istanbul for commerce. He was in the business of cheese in Istanbul. Isak’s son, Jojo Romano lives in Istanbul. His grandson was involved in a meat scandal.

Salvator Romano was the manager at Grundig. Then he emigrated to Israel. I do not know if he is currently alive.

Nesim Romano did not work. His siblings took care of him. He died.

Ines Kalvo, housewife, lives in Israel.

My mother was five siblings, four girls and one boy.

The oldest was Gina (Alkalay) Gerzi,  the one younger, Doret Gerzi, lives in Morocco. She probably died. One sibling was shot in Greece and died, I do not remember the name, then it is my mother, and she has a younger brother, Nesim Gerzi, he lived in Marseilles.

My mother and father did not visit often with their relatives. That is because there wasn’t the transportation vehicles of today, then.

Growing Up

In my childhood, I think close to 15,000 Jews lived in Edirne. The Sabbath days had a special place. That day, after leaving the synagogue, we would go strolling to parks, to river banks. Saturdays was a different event for us.  Everyone dressed well. There was a park called Bulbul Parki (Nightingale Park), ladies, gentlemen, when they left the synagogue they would eat their dezayuno [Ladino term for breakfast] (boreks) there. On Saturdays, this event was known among the Turks too. There was a beautiful unity. This will be considered a reproach, but today’s Grand Rabbinate in Istanbul cannot provide this unity. Here everything is about materialism. I am still on the Board of Consultants of the Jewish community, one day we are at a meeting of the Board of Consultants. Naim Guleryuz was presiding. “Dear Yasef, would you like to say something too?”  I said “Yes”, the Grand Rabbi was then David Asseo. “I have a complaint about you, you cannot inspire the Jews in Turkey with unity, accord or brotherhood.  Please do not create separatism. In addition, the subject that bothers me most is assimilation. In the future this is going to be a big problem. Please let’s take measures against this. Let’s be in unity and accord with Jews.  A small child cannot go to Dostluk Yurdu [Jewish Youth Club founded in 1966]. It is a question of money. You only look at it from above” I reproached them. I still think this way. They help a lot, they educate students, but it stays at this level. Why, they do their own advertisements. After that I did not go to a meeting of the Board of Consultants again. There was a lot of unity and accord in Edirne. My father was a very strict man, but he paid a lot of attention to solidarity among Jews. We were all like a family. Whenever someone had a problem, or someone had a happy occasion, we would run there. That is to say we shared everything.  We lived through the good days and bad, the sweet and the beautiful together.

There were a lot of horses and horse-carriages in the city, quite a lot. Transportation was provided by this anyways. We would go on city tours with horse-carriages.  The streets were covered with paved stones, but sometimes the roads could be muddy too.  There was a population of  40-45.000 in Edirne. The Jews numbered 15.000.

There is one synagogue in Edirne that is now demolished. In the old times, there was one synagogue in each neighborhood. They were about 40-50. For example ladies had a separate synagogue. This was like a one-room prayerhouse.  They would gather and do their prayers. They had a rabbi, a gardener. There were synagogues according to professions. There even was a city club. It had no name, I even was on the board of directors.  All social activities took place there.  I worked on the board of that city club too. I am not a founder. This club was for Jews. There would be balls, garden parties once a month. For example, we would gather there after lunch, it had a large library for whoever wanted read, or we played card games. From time to time, musical meetings took place.

The Edirne Synagogue is a story in itself.  We did not gather there every morning. We gathered in the midrash that was next to it, in the back. The memory that stayed with me most was Saturday prayers. There would be lunch after Saturday prayers, then we would get together with the rabbis, all the Jews would eat their meal, and then enter the synagogue again and would sing different songs from different tones.  For example from Dede Efendi, but we sang it in Ladino.  They were all inclined towards Turkish Art music. These were in Hebrew. Today I don’t remember them. In Ladino, with the tonality of Turkish Art music. Nisim Kalaora, he even practiced music with my father for an hour and a half there. That moment still lingers in my memory. They distributed cheese candy to all of us there. It was a very interesting thing.

As far as I can remember, there was one usher and three rabbis. One was the famous Rafael Pinto, he worked in the Grand Rabbinate too. It had a mikveh, Talmud Torah and a Yeshiva.

The Jews lived in the neighborhoods of Kaleici, Sabuni Mahallesi, and Bostan Pazari Mahallesi in Edirne especially. They were sellers of dry goods and notions, moneylenders and cheese sellers. We had electricity in my childhood, and running water.

I lived through events of antisemitism.  At the time there was the campaign of “Citizen, speak Turkish”. 3 Later a “Death to Zionists” association was founded. It was the years of 1964-1966. They did not want the public to shop from Jews. But  we stayed on top of them insistently with the help of the Police Headquarters. The one who helped us most was the father of Emrullah Isik,  police chief Feyzullah Isik. He put a positive end to the event. He threatened the association even if it was illegal. In addition, there was thefts in the synagogue. The books of the synagogue were sent to Istanbul.

I do not remember military parades or special celebrations, but I remember something relating to our holidays.  We are going to temple on Yom Kippur day. Coincidentally, the same day is the first day of Ramadan. We are going to temple at 7:30 in the morning for Yom Kippur. I don’t remember which period it was, just as I arrived in front of the synagogue, a police car approached and stopped.  He asks “Brother, where are you going?”. Of course he does not know I am Jewish. “I am going davening”, I said. The police said “When there is Selimiye, the old mosque, why do you come here to daven”. I said I will go here, without explaining. Of course he doesn’t know what a synagogue is. I still remember this small argument.

I still remember the Independence march and the Tenth Year march.

There weren’t any merchants or vendors where we shopped exclusively. There was a neighborhood bazaar and shopping was done there. The men of the house went shopping.

I was born on August 6th, 1938. I did not go to preschool. My mother took care of me. My first education was in the Ismet Pasha 4 elementary school where I was president for 30 years.  The name of the school was later changed to Sehit Asim school. I finished junior high and highschool in Edirne highschool. All were public schools. I loved social studies, history and geography most. I hated physics. One day we were experimenting in the laboratory. They were going to test us on that experiment. I left the lab saying I am going to the bathroom, I had loosened the fuses. I could never grasp physics, that is why I got special tutoring.

I did my national service in Denizli during 1959-60. While I was in the military, I got engaged on May 27th, 1960. I returned to Edirne in 1962. Before I left for the military, I was working in my father’s business. I got married and started working.  I took over the business which was the sale of auto tires in 1962 completely. I still do this work. We also had a franchise for Mobil. Later my father retired.

Our elementary school friends were generally Jewish. Of course there were Muslims too. We had a good dialogue. There was no religious discrimination in school.  We were together with Turks in groups of friends. They did not discriminate.

My wife’s older brother Menahem Razon was my friend. We had parties amongst ourselves. We gathered in houses on Sundays. We visited relatives in their homes on holidays.

I liked soccer and music.  They provided me with private lessons because I liked music. I did not play any instrument, I only took tonality lessons. We had stone records.  We had a gramophone. We did not take vacations that much in my childhood. We would go to  Karaagac on the weekens in Edirne with my family. We had a house there. In my childhood, there were two or three taxis in the city. We went to Karaagac every Friday at lunch time with my mother. My father stayed in Edirne because he had to be in the temple on Saturday. My father would come on Saturday in the evening. We sometimes went on Saturday morning. All the Jews would come there. It was a perfect summer resort. I don’t remember it but all the embassies, Greek embassy, Bulgarian embassy, American embassy had house there.

At the time we would go on the train from Edirne to Istanbul. When the train was going to Istanbul, it would pass through Greece, it would stop for five-ten minutes, then we would enter Uzunkopru. We would go from Edirne to Greece, then to Uzunkopru in Turkey with the train.

We are three siblings. My older sister Ida (Nee. Romano) Kasuto  was born in Edirne in 1929. She is married to Sami Kasuto. Sami Kasuto was a grocer and seller of candy in Edirne. He was from Babaeskili. My older sister has two sons. One is Hanri Aaron Kasuto, the other Yuda Kasuto. They left for Israel in 1964 and 1966.  Henri worked in Turkey quite a bit. He still comes and goes. Ida Kasuto currently lives in Israel. Her son Aaron died in Israel during the six-day war 5.

My second older sister Rejina (nee Romano) Sarfati,  was born in Edirne in 1932, she died in Istanbul in 1994.  She studied in Ismet pasha elementary school.  She attended junior high and highschool there too. She married Samuel Sarfati  She had two daughters and a son. Meri and Ines are the daughters, Modi the son. Ines lives here. She is on the board in Goztepe Kultur dernegi(cultural association) now, Meri and Modi live in Israel. My older sister’s husband worked in shipping in Edirne. Later he came to be with us. When my sister died he left for Israel and lives there.

We would always go to Mahazike Tora6.  They would even call us up to the bimah on the Sabbath as Mahazike Torah students. The rabbi would not read some of the portions, we would all sing it together. It was more tones of songs, I would get up and sing three lines, another friend would get up and sing another three lines. That is how it was on Yom Kippur. On the weekends, every Sunday, we would definitely have one or two hours of lessons, we would always have education during holidays. My father participated too. There was no Hebrew education in Mahazike Tora, we only learned how to read. My father knew Hebrew in Edirne. There was no one else who knew it in Edirne. I think he learned it from Mahazike Torah too. But Hebrew and the language of the Torah are different. My father knew both the language of the Torah and Hebrew. We only learned how to read religion.

My father was very official on the Sabbath.  I still remember it like today, when it was Friday, around four or five, we would come home. It was not exceptable not to bathe. Then we would put on our new clothes, and we would wear them the next day too. We would all go to the synagogue. There was even a place for ladies in the big synagogue. Then we would gather around the table at home. If the table was not set early on Friday evenings, my father would bring the place down. The table had to be ready around five. We will go to the synagogue. If it was necessary to leave the house at seven-thirty, we would leave at seven-twentyfive. My father would say “No.  You will go early, dedicate yourself to G-d, you will discard all your thoughts”. You will face G-d and G-d only, there. He would insistently admonish us about this. Please do not think about your classes when you are going to temple. Do not think about money when you come to temple. Do not think about your business when you come to temple. Don’t ever ever say “My G-d, help me with my business”.  G-d knows all of this. If you are worthy of him, G-d will help you, he would say. The biggest sin would be to say, my G-d, I don’t have money, help me. His most important habit was to go to temple early on Saturday mornings.

My bar-mitzvah took place in 1951. We were very wealthy then. It was a nice bar-mitzvah. It left a nice impression with me. The piece that was written had really affected me.  I don’t remember exactly. They had given us a piece of writing both at the temple and the day we celebrated. That we had to be respectful to our mother and father, that we would not sin against G-d, it really affected me. We were very emotional. We had celebrated the evening in our home in Edirne. It was crowded, the whole community came because of my father’s duty.

I liked Rosh hashana holiday best.  Kippur was a little boring.  You could have fun during that holiday. Purim also went very well.  We did not eat meat that was not kosher, therefore we did not eat out much.

During the War

Because I was born in 1938, I do not know much about the history of the Turkish Jews around the 1940’s. My mother’s sister was in Greece. The Germans took her from there to Austria, and from there she was sent to the camps.

My deceased father met hundreds of refugees running away from Europe.

Due to my father’s duty, we were not affected by the Wealth Tax7.

In the spring and summer of 1943, there were a lot of events of arresting and displacing that happened towards nonMuslims. The father of my wife and two uncles went to the 20 military classes8.  The conditions were very harsh, they even had to drink from streams where frogs lived.

We were very affected from the campaign of “Citizen, speak Turkish”. We became low-spirited. There were even sermons in mosques; “Do not shop from Jews”. Posters were hung. “Citizen, speak Turksih”.  I started commerce in 1945. It did not affect me. There was even a letter.  There is a friend who we love a lot, Tekin Sayinbas. He did not want to be friends with a large group. He liked being friends with us a lot. He received a threatening letter because he was friends with us. This had scared us a lot.  Later this friend stopped seeing us. But now we are still in touch.

My father saw the Thrace events9, but it did not reflect on us.

My wife’s mother Sofi Razon (maiden name was Razon) was a very religious and zionist person. She never said anything against anyone. She always protected. She was very religious. She did not light the stove on Saturdays.  Muslim women who lit stoves would go around outside. She would call one of them and had it lit. She would never light a fire, on Saturdays.

My wife’s father is Salamon Razon.  He like growing eggplants, tomatoes. They had a grapevine. On summer evenings they would eat dinner underneath the grapevine. In the home of my wife’s family, they had a chicken coop, cats and dogs. Her older brother Menahem liked animals. One day he brought home a dog he found on the streets. It will stay in our house, he said. Later he grew so much, he did not fit in the house or garden, they made him a guard dog at the door. My wife’s childhood was very pleasant.  She grew up in open air, in parks. Her mother tongue was Judeo-Spanish. My wife’s mother did not speak Turkish well. They would speak French or Spanish most of the time.

He was very close to his family. He worked in the commerce of dry goods and notions. He had two stores. He stayed in one, my wife’s older brother Menahem in the other one. She had a very good childhood, she grew up in a very loving family.  She lived in Edirne in a wooden house. It was three stories. She has one older brother and one older sister.  They now live in Israel. Nady Behar and Menahem Razon. She had a very good childhood with them. My father was a very special person. He died when I was still engaged, very young, at 54 years of age. He did not see our wedding, our wedding took place three months later. My wife still misses him dearly.  They would invite relatives on holidays, on weekends, on Sabbath days, and eat all together and sing songs, it would be very pleasant.  Long tables would be set for holidays. He had friends.  Twelve girls, twelve boys, they would go out and have fun together. Later all of the Jews left for other cities or out of the country.

My wife’s father did his military service in Sarikamis. My wife’s father Salamon Razon, brought his merchandise to the house they lived in. Later her aunt tried to convert that to  money at home.  Dina Razon (Mizrahi) is still Erol Mizrahi’s mother. He closed up his house during the Wealth Tax and moved to Ortakoy in Istanbul with my wife’s mother, older brother and older sister. When business took up, they returned. My wife’s mother used to tell us, they had difficult days. They would get a quarter of a loaf of bread with a ration card, at one time when they were in Kuzguncuk, my wife’s older brother and sister would go to buy bread, on the way home would eat the bread before they reached the house.  Everything was prepared at home.  Bread and something similar to bread “Panne de pinion” (corn bread) it was called. There was severe shortage. My wife was not born yet, these are what her family relates.  My wife was born after the war. My wife’s aunt Dina Razon, was an outgoing person. Her mother and father died when she was very young.  She became an orphan. When she was 11, she was raised by my wife’s mother and father. My wife knew her as her older sister. She was 11 years old when she came to my wife’s family. After her mother and father died, the father married her sister (that is how it was back then), my wife’s father Salamon Razon was born. The father was the same, mother different.  I do not know her education, she speaks Spanish all the time. She loved people, helping everyone, chatting, and also matchmaking and she was good at it. She also knew how to sew very well.  She sewed a lot in Edirne, her sewing was “Haute Couture”.

My wife’s brother Mehahem Razon was my classmate. We grew up together, with her older brother.  We were children from the same neighborhood, our houses were very close. The spark happened from there.

My wife Luna Romano was born in Edirne on August 25th, 1944.  She studied in Sehit Asim school. She went to junior high and highschool in Edirne. They went out with the same group of friends for years. They would get together at homes on weekends, hold parties. My wife’s family are people who are loved and respected in Edirne. Today we still continue our friendship with some of her friends in Istanbul.

After the War

Our wedding was a little sad. My wife’s father had passed away before the wedding. We were in mourning because of that. In our family, mothers and fathers are above everything. We were raised in formality, but attachment was more prevalent in my wife’s family. In a family where everyone is so close, our wedding took place in an atmosphere of melancholy due to the absence of the father.   Normally one would organize an evening for a wedding. We could not have the wedding even though we were wealthy. We were going to have fun but there would be sorrow in us. We married on September 9th, 1962 in Edirne Synagogue, we went to Istanbul by train that night, we stayed at the Hilton hotel.

My older daughter Ines was born in 1964, and in 1973, my younger daughter Sima. My wife struggled in Edirne for their education. She won entrance to Besiktas Anadolu Lisesi (Besiktas Anatolia highschool) after finishing elementary school.  We were obliged to come to Istanbul so my younger daughter could get a better education.  My wife had to cut her ties to Edirne. We did not want to leave her alone in Istanbul. We helped her so she could study here. Then my older daughter got married. We came and went for her too. Our life was spent on the roads. But we are tired now. Luna is more attached to Istanbul now.

We did not have a refrigerator in Edirne in our childhood. One Saturday, we were having guests from Istanbul. My wife’s mother and father prepared the food on Friday and lowered it to the well.  The weather is hot. She lowered the fish too, so the food will not go bad. When the food was pulled from the well, the rope snapped. Everything fell to the well. My wife’s mother cannot forget her agitation. “What am I going to serve them”  Thank G-d she was a very prudent person. There were meat based meals in the screened closet.  The food that had been baked did not go to waste fast. Those were taken out. Later on they stopped keeping food in the well. We had a cupboard, we would buy ice blocks from the ice store.  They had a very beautiful garden. They had every fruit you could think of.

My wife’s family celebrated every holiday with all the details. During Purim, relatives and friends in Edirne would give out Purim candy. It was red and white Purim candy. They made different shapes from Purim candy, the six corner star, a heart and so on. He would make candy as big as a tray, there was an old candymaker, he used to make the candy, the name of the candymaker was  Sami Kanetti (father of Soli Avigdor) and he would decorate the tray beautifully. We would put our best tablecloths on the tray and arranged the candy on it. At the same time, you would put tezpisti (a syrup-soaked cake) and an orange in the middle, I do not know the meaning of this. This was sent especially to those who were in mourning. The women who worked for us distributed it to houses.  They would be tipped in houses. So many sweets were made for Purim that we had a cupboard, during those holidays, it would be filled with sweets from one end to the other. Especially during Rosh hashana borekitas, tatli de muez(walnut sweets), tezpisti, mekikler (a kind of muffin), so many, many things were made. Because there were a lot of guests coming and going, a lot of sweets were made at their house. 

When you say Passover, cleaning up started a month before. Everything would be unstitched, would be washed.  Anything you could think of would be washed.  We had a special cupboard for Passover. In that cupboard, the pots and pans, plates that were to be used only in Passover were kept separately. When Passover came, they would all be taken out, washed, the old ones put away, and the ones for Pesah arranged in place. You could not find flour ready to use in Edirne in Passover. The matzos were thick and hard. They were so hard, that there was a bakery in Edirne called Has firin. That bakery would be washed, cleaned, prepared for Passover and matzos were produced. This was a bakery with arrangement but we, the Jews bought it in 1964. The matzos would be baked there after they were prepared. Yuda Romano participated in the preparing. The matzos looked like round breads and were flat. But they became hard when they waited, we ate it with difficulty.  We always softened it to eat. Since there was no matzo meal, we would grate this bread. My mother made us grate it all the time, so it would be ready. Cakes, tezpistis have to be prepared, there is no flour. We would grate, and we would add it to other meals.

Later we would start preparing the food. Among the Passover foods, the one made with spinach was called ‘Minas d’ispanaka”. Now this meal that is baked in ovens, was fried at the time.  It was fried on a pan, burmelos (fried matzo and egg balls), fritaz de ispanak, pirasa, patates (frittatas of spinach, leeks, and potatoes). Potatoes wasn’t popular then, later it became more popular.  It left us the impression that you don’t eat it. Kilos of spinach were bought, washed (he tells while laughing) and cooked. We did not eat rice. We did not eat feta cheese or kasheri even. There wasn’t much then like today.  Our wine came from Istanbul. We would also make Sarope (jam-like candy made with sugar and water).

My wife’s mother would make a special pastry from pumpkins for Rosh hashana. My wife still cannot manage that. Because the dough was special, she would roll it herself with her hands. She would cook the pumpkin with sugar and make a special pastry.  She would also cook leeks. Because these are the first vegetables to come out.  Rosh hashana has a special meal. Of course there is no fish in Edirne but carp. Sheatfish cannot be eaten because it does not have bones. As you know, boneless fish cannot be eaten in Judaism. Carp really was prepared deliciously.  I still remember the delicious taste. My wife’s mother would make any sweets you can think of in Rosh hashana. We had a cupboard, that cupboard would fill up with sweets. My older brother had a sweet tooth. One day he had eaten enough sweets, but because he wanted more, he had climbed on top of the cupboard, and when he climbed on top, the cupboard fell on him.  Those sweets became inedible then.

You did not do anything on Tish ha Beaf, you would sit and fast.  The weather would be hot anyways. You don’t go in water. This habit is still in use.  We wouldn’t even go to the riverbank to sit.  That is a relief, it cannot be done on a day of mourning.

My wife tries to continue the traditions she learned from her mother and father in Edirne. Even if she is not as religious as them, what is important is that she continues the habit. She does not eat treyf, she likes applying things that are religiously required.  I pray to G-d that our children will be like that.

My older daughter Ines Romano, was born in 1964 in Istanbul, in Guzelbahce clinic. She grew up in Edirne. She finished elementary school, junior high, highschool and university in Edirne. She is a metallurgical engineer. She married Moris Aldis and has a daughter named  Doris. Aldis family is also from Edirne. She had a very happy life in Edirne. The children grew up in open air and gardens.   My younger daughter Sima is born in 1974. She was born in Istanbul too. She finished elementary school in Edirne. She attended junior high, highschool and university in Istanbul. She finished Besiktas Anadolu Lisesi. She studied sociology in Mimar Sinan University. Currently she is a teacher in Marmaris. She is married to Tansel Cetin. She has a daughter named Melis. They live in Marmaris. She is married and has a daughter.

My children had Jewish friends until they started school. It was necessary to come to Istanbul, and that is difficult after a certain age.  My younger daughter was the only Jew in her school. There was even an incident there. She entered religion class. In the religion class, her teacher told them that Jews were bad people. This happened in the first year of junior high. 
She knows my younger daughter is Jewish, of course. Of course, the next day she did not go to school. The principal of the school was a good friend. Another friend also got involved. That teacher was laid off after a while.  My daughters did not have to go to religion class, but to prevent separatism, they never refrained from going and memorized the prayers.

My older daughter likes Turkish folk dancing a lot, there were some international competitions, she even participated in them.  My younger daughter Sima also likes folk dancing, but she especially likes Israeli folk dancing. She even taught Israeli folk dancing in the Jewish highschool.

We lived in a villa type house in Edirne after we got married. We would come to Istanbul very often. We would come to Istanbul almost every weekend. When I come, I go to the movies, theatre, to meetings.  I don’t have any free time. We go to Enes and Saroz for vacations with my family.  And we also go to Antalya in the month of May.

I had a lot of trips out of the country. Mostly Greece, Bulgaria, Netherlands, England and Israel.  I went to Greece and Bulgaria alone for social activities. To Israel with my wife.

The islands seemed very far to us. Tekirdag, Sarkoy, that’s where we would go.

In our trips out of the country, the children would accompany us. There were groups of friends in Saroz.

I raised my children according to Jewish traditioins. They go to synagogue often, bat-mitzvah was not known in Edirne, therefore we did not do it. 

The nights of seder that we held when we were married were magnificent. My father would gather all of us. Because he had more knowledge than rabbis, he could read the prayers with the right tone. We were very crowded. The whole family read. Now in Istanbul, we try to apply the traditions but we are not as crowded as we were. 

His wife relates: “In my family, the relatives would gather like that, my mother would cook a lot of different foods, the kids would come, a wonderful table would be prepared. My mother was also a very orthodox, religious person. She would not touch fire on Saturdays, she would look for a person to light the stove on Saturdays, people would pass on the street, she would make them light it. The nights of Passover truly constitute memories that we cannot erase from our minds”.

My wife continues her traditional cooking at home.

My father is buried in Israel, my mother in Ulus Jewish cemetery. Kaddish was recited at the funeral.  We do the yartzheit every year on the anniversary of their death.

  My close friend from a large community Tekin Sayinbas was born in 1935, knows Jewish history more than I do and knows the Jews who live in Edirne better than I. He has books on this subject. Our friendship started before I went to the military. For 55 years we keep in touch every morning either with phone or other means. He is my beloved friend. He loves Jews a lot. He even has books about this subject.

There is one more person but I cannot stay in touch with him as before. Rifat Mitrani. He lived in Edirne too.

I took positions in a lot of organisations. I carried the presidency of the elementary school after the birth of Ines. I was president for thirty years. There was a change I brought to this school  That is why they did not want me to leave he presidency. When there was no television even in homes, we were working together with the wife of the mayor Unal Erkan (he also was chief of security, and president of  Diyarbakir section management among other things) in Sehit Tahsin school. We put a television in every classroom, and we put a video in the room of the principal. Whatever the subject of the day was, the cassette would be put inthe principal’s room, that subject could be followed in every classroom at the same time. This system did not exist in Istanbul even, not just in Thrace. We entered the computer age in our school when  no school had such technology.

I started in the Rotary in 1977 to be of service and I am still continuing to serve. I became the founder of Edirne Rotary club. We started it with 20-25 people.  When the Rotary was going to be founded in Edirne in 1977, I did not know what Rotary was.  I had an older mentor, he is a lawyer. The attorney Altinel, my dear Yasef, we will take you into the Rotary, they said. We are creating it, we will take you into the founders, he said. I said let me read about its philosophy.  Don’t read at all, he said, let’s make you a member first, you will read later. I entered without knowing, after starting it I read about its philosophy, I was really very happy. I became a secretary after it was established. I served as secretary for 13 years which can be a world record. After becoming president, I became assistant to the governor.  And I am still continuing. I have been working actively since I started.  This year, 2005-2006, I see as my “Golden Year”. I will serve not only Edirne but all of Thrace.

The biggest project in my life is establishing a center for disabled children. It was established with the name “Edirne Therapy Center for Mentally and Physically Disabled Children”.  You might say, what relationship do you have with disabled people. I am very socially active in Edirne. One day, I am sitting at work, a family came with all of its children. I am looking for Mr. Yasef, they said. “Mr. Yasef, you serve everyone, but you do not do anything for families with disabled children”. I had not thought of such a thing until that moment. “My son is disabled, but we cannot get him the care he needs in Edirne, we cannot get it in Istanbul either.  I take my child to Eskisehir every ten days and bring him back.  Would you please give a hand for disabled also?” she said. Next to me was the Textiles Central manager of the famous Bezmen group, Erdal Bey.  We came face to face and said why shouldn’t we do this job, we said.  We could do it, but with what.  That day the word disabled imprinted on our minds.  That person affected us. One day I receive a call from international Rotary. There are 25-30 young people coming from Germany who will transit through Edirne, they needed help in Kapikule. But they were a little late . I could not send them to Istanbul that day, I hosted them in Edirne.  I was very useful to them, and I did not take a penny. One of them was a governor, he asked me if I had a project from Rotary when he was leaving. “I really want to be involved in disabled people” I said.  The guy took note of it.  He visited Turkey, went to Syria, and returned to Germany.

A week, ten days later, I received a letter, “There are very big schools in Germany for the disabled” he said, “send me a team, I will host them for 15 days, I will provide you support with the help of the university, and you send your doctors here”.  We sent them a team of doctors led by Sait Erdem.  They stayed 20 days in Germany.  We made an international project, worth 20.000 dollars.  The dean of the time gave up, I will not do this job, he said.  All of our efforts were messed up, we sent the doctors to Germany.  We were completely disillusioned  I did not lose my conviction.  I had a friend in Ankara.  I called him.  I told him about the project.  I told him I found  20.000 dollars too.   “But I cannot find anyone to implement the project”, I said.  His answer was “ If you find Ihsan Dogramaci, he will take care of your business”.  Dogramaci was president of YOK(Committee for Higher Education) then,  a very good friend of his.  He finds Dogramaci at his place, tells him the situation, we will take care of it right away, he says.  He immediately calls the dean in Edirne, Ahmet Karadeniz, on the phone and says; “Dear Ahmet, I congratulate you, I heard that you are cooperating with the Rotary Club.  You embraced them, wonderful.  I am sending you a letter of commendation for the work you do, he said.  But things did not progress fast after this.  The dean provided a doctor for the clinic, we have seven patients, we cannot accept more. We don’t have money either, I started sitting at tables in mosques.  I am collecting donations for the disabled.  There, one citizen who does not know me, asks the reason.  I explained the situation.  We started a center, but it is not enough, if we find around 5 millions, then we can do something, I said. This friend gave us the five million, he was very touched when he saw me.  The Jews are collecting money in the mosque for the disabled.  We could only do excavations with this five million liras.  We could not do anything else.  He gave a place in the university of course.  He asks me what is happening.  My dear friend, you gave this money, we did the excavation, we have to wait for the rest from the government, I said.  Would you lead this job, he asked me, I accepted.  If you are going to be on top of this job, I will support you, he said. He gave 1.000.000 Swiss franks.  This is a very big amount.  With this money, we established the biggest disabled center not only of Turkey, but of the Balkans under my management, and it is still currently under my management, and it is very important for me, I am attached.  In this hospital where we started with 5 childreen, now there are 2,000 disabled children.  There are mentally challenged and physically challenged.  This is a project as big as Turkey.  I go there three to four days a week.  The approximately 15 doctors that work there work under me.  This provides me with the greatest happiness, I am so attached to these disabled, that I even built a park for them. Because the families of the disabled children are ashamed of their children. In reality it is nothing to be ashamed of but unfortunately they are.  We built a park just for them on the road to Karaagac, on a 10 acre plot, which this citizen donated again, we built a big park for the disabled children’s families.  The families come with their children, everything is free.  Now, that is my biggest happiness.  There are ceramic and art workshops inside the school.  All the rooms are spotless, the families participate in the education and everything is taught to the children including getting dressed.  There are two psychologists for these children and their families are visited too.  Our therapy is free.

Outside of the Rotary, I am involved in the disabled. When the Edirne community was crowded, we had a lot of friends, and we did a lot of activities.  The families of Kalvo and so on, all came here.  We continue our friendship here too. Now we are friends with people who came from Edirne.  We could not become part of the community of Istanbul.

Of course my wife, she goes to Dostluk yurdu on Mondays, and prepares seminars at Ulus on Thursdays, for women, she goes there.

The birth of the nation of Israel makes me very emotional. For a person to have a country is wonderful.  It gives you  a lot of confidence. However we manage here, we live with that confidence. If they did not exist maybe we would be seen in a different light.  My wife never forgets, when the six-day war4 started in Israel, the b’ris of our relative Niso was taking place at home in Edirne.  That day the war started,  we are very agitated, very scared,  very impatient, the circumcision was done, we dispersed to our homes. We all decided none of us should leave our homes. There was a panic that they might do something to us. We were the subject of a lot of discussions.  A lot of things were being said, this scared us, we were relieved when the war ended. Of course the fact that they were stable gave us a big peace of  mind.  More than a peace of mind, it is the place where we would find shelter.

One year we had the intention to do aliyah there. When we were in Edirne, before we moved to Istanbul, first my mother and father, we made our preparations that we would all go together, in the meantime my mother and father went to Israel for the wedding of their grandchild, my mother suffered a stroke, we thought that the atmosphere did not sit well with her, and we changed our minds. The government of Israel had provided my father with a furnished house to settle there. But it wasn’t meant to be.  We have friends and relatives who have gone to Israel to settle there.  We still keep in touch with them.

We were very affected by the revolts against Greeks in 1955 and 1964. My wife’s older sister was getting married then.  The wedding was going to take place, we were going to get the wedding dress that we had orderd, the owner was Greek. When we went to get the dress, we did not find any wedding dress, everything was looted. Of course we had to buy another wedding dress later.

We don’t have such a good dialogue with the community. I am on the council of  representatives. Why am I there. Edirne is a community. Their president is automatically a member of the council of representatives. Edirne is also accepted as a community, even if it is one person or five people.  I go to all the meetings. I give speeches too. But I saw that the speeches stay there. Everyone speaks up, there are some very good proposals, but nothing is done. No one was involved in the event of the Edirne synagogue.  The collapse of that synagogue made us very sad. Right now there are people in the community staying on top of it, the dean’s office in the university, and Unicef stepped in. G-d willing, something will happen this year, I am very hopeful. There is always hope.

Let me tell you about another event. There is a bazaar in Edirne called Kapalicarsi (Closed Bazaar).  That bazaar was built during the Ottomans.  The bazaar belongs entirely to the religious foundations.  This event is one we lived through three to five months ago. All of the stores belong to the foundations. The treasury examines all the foundations.  One of the stores is registered as belonging to the Edirne Jewish community. I have a very good relationship with the attorney for the Treasury. The attorney said, I discovered something; one store belongs to you as a community. You can have it reinstated from the foundations, he said. For a year now, the foundations have been renting the place out and receiving the money.  I have in my hand a certificate starting I am part of the Edirne Jewish community, I can open a lawsuit, sell the store in the name of the Jewish community and take the money.  I did not do this. I informed the Grand Rabbinate immediately, come, let’s take care of this, I said.  They send a lawyer to Edirne, open the lawsuit. The foundations say, you leave, we will pay you 180 billion liras.  There are some snags that arise, I become part of the talks.  The affair is concluded, the money arrives to Istanbul to the Grand Rabbinate. I discovered this, I informed you, can’t you even say thank you?  But when problems arise, the lawyer can call me at nights, I am the one who brought this to light, I don’t want anything.  But our Jewish community never, until they conclude their business, pashaiko, when the business is taken care of, the friendship is also done.  That is why I am a bit distanced from and offended by the community.

There is a synagogue in Edirne, it is demolished, I told the Grand Rabbinate, I am the only Jew left in Edirne, I am not able to do much of anything.  I gave the mayor’s office an ultimatum and I said you cannot touch this place as long as I am alive.  This is my legal right.  I told the Rabbinate in order to save it.  We cannot do it, they said.  This temple is a historical building.  Then I found a friend of mine who is a dean in the university.  The dean says o.k., we went and talked to the foundations, we turned it over to the university, I will do it, he said.  But the dean got scared, when there are so many  mosques, if they say the university is doing this, it would reflect negatively on me.  But let’s say the repair costs 100 liras, I will provide 99 liras, have your community pay the other one lira.  Let’s say the university and Jewish community are working hand in hand.  It might work if they say this is how it happened.  I went ahead and brought the great dean to Istanbul. The Grand Rabbi was Asseo then.  Of course he did not participate in the meetings, he had lawyers. The dean explains, I will have this synagogue built for Yasef’s sake, he says.  Do you know what the people there  answered?  “Do not ask for money from us, use our opinions and advice”.  The dean said, this, I have, I have the money too, I can build one hundred percent of it, but public opinion is important.  An event was done in Istanbul for the synagogue.  To fundraise, the people in Edirne came by buses, so money could be collected and used. But when nothing came from the community, it didn’t happen. In the end the building collapsed. I can never forget the day that building collapsed, how I was distressed.  In our community they only ask for money. No one took charge. They could have asked for a little support from outside.  So that at least the synagogue could stand erect.

I am in the council of representatives, once a month, or once every 15 days, a letter comes so we will participate in the meetings. The council of representatives meet at some places.  Once at Or-ahayim10, once in the building of the Grand Rabbinate, another time at Barinyurt. We would be approximately 50 – 100 people. Most of the times it was presided by Naim Guleryuz.  Whoever wanted to speak spoke.  I got up, talked about assimilation, come let’s tackle this problem together, I said.  What more can we do for these people, we form associations, we will work at it, they say, nothing comes of it.  Three months later, five months later, records are kept, nothing happens.

I gave a conference only at the council of representatives.

I wanted to take part in a social program voluntarily, I wanted to work together too. They called me, I gave a speech.  Two or three years ago there was Ida Ben Romano, “Yasef you are an expert on the subject of the disabled,  in this Jewish community of ours, there is no place for the disabled”.  They wanted a conference from me. A school serving 2,000 people opened in a place like Edirne.  I did not spend a penny out of my pocket.  Our Turkish friends are very emotional about this.  When I say I want to do something like this, a disabled children center opened in Edirne that is not only one of the few in Turkey but one of the few in the world. There are 2.000 disabled children.  I am the administrator, the founder, there are 30-40 doctors working there.  They are all under me.  I didn’t know this business either, but I worked there voluntarily.  Come. Let’s do something similar for the Istanbul Jewish community, I said.  We also have very emotional people.  Let’s start with one lira, I said. There are disabled children among us too. The families are ashamed, they don’t take them out.  I wanted to work, Ida Benromano encouraged me in this, she helped me.  A lot of people came, listened, it did not happen.

Here once a month, once every two weeks and during the holidays I go to Ortakoy synagogue, and once in a while to Sisli synagogue.

I do not use the internet and e-mailing to communicate with my family much, my secretary uses it.  My computer is on 18 hours.  150-200 e-mails come daily, and as much are sent.

I am very loyal to the Jewish religion, but I do not advertise it.  My life cannot consist only with Jews.  Because I am in Edirne.  I even educate my children continually about religion.  Religion bonds us.  If we are loyal to it, everything turns out better. I am as loyal as I can be. My wife is more religious than I am. She follows all the holidays, everything.  But I do not pressure my grandchildren to own their religion.

My grandchildren go to the Jewish school and will graduate from there. They take part in all the activities.

When I come to Istanbul for the weekends, the friends who came from Edirne get together as a group, we eat our meal.  We learn our ideas about the community.  I put out this struggle so the Jewish community can be more active. I put them under pressure.  I have a very good group of friends.

I do not get involved in politics. Cem Boyner had formed a party.  He offered me to form his party’s Thrace section. I did not accept this.  He was going to give me all the responsibility for Thrace. I was the president of Rotary. Rotary is always on a higher level. Of course he wanted support from me as a Rotarian to increase his financial power. I did not accept it.  Only, I have a point of view, for a rich person and a poor person to be equal.  For a poor person to get the same care and to live as a rich person does.  You might say, he has money, the other doesn’t, but I believe in supporting the poor.  I think I lean towards the left a little with that point of view.  I live a regular life, but the poor person there cannot, my conscience bothers me.  That is why there are differences of class all the time unfortunately.

We were very upset with the bombing of Neve Shalom in 198611 and in November of 200312, we got calls from our Turkish friends, they all conveyed their condolences. Everyone was in a panic. Our Turkish friends were as affected as we were.

I talk Turkish with my wife ninetyfive percent of the time, and Spanish the rest of the time, I use the Turkish language with my friends and children all the time.

Your philosophy in life:  I formed my life philosophy based on three words and think the same way since 1975.  Love, I approach everything with love.  I do not get angry at anyone, I face everything with tolerance. That is to say, I based my life on love, tolerance and a happy demeanor.  I continue on these three principles.  Believe me, even if someone curses at me, I will face it with tolerance, I will face it with a happy demeanor.  I would open my hand and help someone who slaps me. These three words constitute my life philosophy.


GLOSSARY

1 Matan Baseter Bikur Holim:  Literally ‘Secret Help Care for the Sick’; a Turkish Jewish community institution that looks for the needy in the community and helps them. It supports children in school and health related issues, sends needy families all necessities for the Jewish holidays, and looks after the sick. All expenses are met by donations and sponsorships inside the Turkish Jewish community.

REBI REBEKA EVGIN
Istanbul
Turkey
Date of Interview: May 2006
Interviewer: Feride Petilon

I am here with a loving mother who harmonizes the warmth of the Mediterranean with the Jewish personality: Rebi Rebeka Evgin.  She shared with us her childhood years that were spent in  Adana, her close relationships with her family, the hope and the despair of the war years, her marriages.  My job is to relate this to you and to enable this beautiful story to pass down generations.  Rebi Evgin is of medium height, with chestnut colored  hair, a woman considered petite.  The traces of the life she lived are evident in the wrinkles on her face. In reality these wrinkles have been diminished with the aesthetic procedures of the modern times. It is evident that she takes care of herself.  Her home reflects all the criteria of an organized and neat housewife. She lives with her daughter Sara and grandchild Yoni.  In her classically styled home, handmade rugs and ornaments stand out.  The habit of never offering coffee alone is part of this family too.  Rebi Evgin never forgets the difficulties she endured during her lifetime, yet she disperses the pessimistic feelings created by these, with her own willpower and spends her life with her friends, her children and her relatives.  

Family background    

Growing Up   

During the War     

After the War

Glossary

Family background                                   

In Fiddler on the Roof, the heroes ask each other “Why do Jews wear hats all the time?”, and the answer, just as we all know, is, “Because Jews are always ready to migrate”.  As in one of George Moustaki’s songs, “Le Juif Errant” (The Wandering Jew) has become the fate of the Jews.  And when I think about my ancestors, we see that my roots extend to Urmi.  Urmi is a town between Russia and Armenia.

My paternal grandfather Avram Babakardash was born in Urmi around 1870.  He lived in Iran, in Van Bashkale, in Konya, in Halep [last three are cities in eastern, central and southeastern Anatolia respectively], and in Damascus.  I don’t have much information about him but I know he was quite religious and that he spoke in Georgian.  They dealt with livestock.  A lot of his family members died during World War I.  My grandfather married Cevahir Babaoglu after losing his first wife.

My paternal grandmother, Cevahir Babaoglu, was a woman who lived in Russia, and who had escaped the Bolshevik Revolution 1.  She would poke her eyes with needles when she saw the picture of Stalin in the newspapers.  Cevahir Babaoglu was an obese woman who wore the garments that were in fashion in those days.  Her clothing was always dark-colored.  When she sat at the edge of the table, the table would disappear under her weight.  I am guessing that inactivity in her last years was the cause of her condition.  She never uncovered her head, she wrapped a scarf around it.  Even though her husband was Avram Babakardash, her last name was Babaoglu.  This situation was actually  prevalent in those years.  Even siblings from the same mother and father would be remembered with different last names.  Since there was no surname law 2 during those years, the last names that were acquired later on were changed at will.

Cevahir Babaoglu worked at the market in an era when ladies never worked.  She sold socks and handkerchiefs in the market.  Since she had suffered through a lot of poverty in Russia, she was used to working.  It was a second marriage for Cevahir also, with my grandfather.  She had two children from her first marriage, she had lost her first husband.  But there is no information about him.  A lot of people called her “Mr. Cevahir”.  You needed courage to go to markets to sell merchandise.

When I came to Istanbul, I went to her house.  She lived in Kuledibi [A neighborhood in Istanbul.  The surrounding area of Galata Tower was known as Kuledibi.  This area was densely populated by Jews.  Even all the merchants around were Jewish.  Galata Tower was built by Genoveans.  It is one of the important touristic spots of Istanbul today.  There are small restaurants in the narrow streets around Galata Tower.  The Neve Shalom Synagogue 3 is in this area too].  This was a large house with 5 rooms and a living room.  Old-fashioned sofas and mirrors decorated the livingroom.  There was a large section they called “hamam” [Turkish bath] in the house too.  Laundry would be washed in this section in large pots.  Food was kept in wire closets [there would be a closet in a cool part of the house in an era when there were no refrigerators.  It was called a wire closet because the door was made of wire].  The house was heated by stove.  She prepared a meal made with garbanzo beans called “abushifte”.  You added potatoes, meat and onions to this meal.

Cevahir Babaoglu was a pleasant, cordial woman who liked to converse and to give advice.  She suffered through a lot of poverty in Russia.  She worked at anything she found there.  After my grandfather died, when she was left alone, she thought commercial life would be more active in Istanbul, and followed the family Pur who were her relatives to come to this city.  When I went to visit her with my daughter, she would make cloth dolls for my daughter.  She was a very creative woman when you consider the conditions of those days.  I have no information about Miriam who was the real mother of my father.

The livelihood of this family who was constantly migrating was earned from different jobs all the time.  Selling dry goods and notions and dealing in livestock were the prominent careers.

I have no information about the mother and father of my mother.  Her father was called Daniel Nuriyeller, her mother Simbul.  My mother’s father married twice too.  There is no information about his first marriage.  Those are war years, unknown ailments [there were no antibiotics then, high fevers would cause deaths], epidemics [flu, typhus, cholera epidemics] would cause deaths at young ages.  Georgian would be spoken in this family too, and religious rules were deemed very important.

My father Yasef Babakardash was a radiant faced, saintly person.  Medicine had not evolved much then. There were no doctors either.  There was the problem of malaria in Adana [a city on the southern coast of Turkey, overlooking the Mediterranean].  Neighbors would come and look for cures for their sons who were feverish.  My father would write their names with a pencil or an inkpen somewhere, tie knots on ropes and pray something.  And he would put those ropes on the arms of those children like bracelets. The kids would get better and the neighbors would be happy.  He had a long thick moustache, he wore fez’s at first, then felt hats.  A black suit and tie were never missing.  He dealt in dry goods and notions, he was the owner of a large fabric store.  My father was very religious.  He would not go out to the street in the mornings without donning his tefillin.  My father was a very pleasant and honest person.  He was a good spouse.

My mother was an authoritarian mother.  Because there was a large difference in age between them, whatever my mother said, was done.  My father did all the shopping.  My mother did not even know how to buy bread.  When my father died, my mother would give me the baskets, I would do the shopping and bring it home.  Since I was the youngest child in the family, the whole family spoiled me.  On Saturdays or Sundays, when my father did not go to work, he would hold my hand and lead me to the park.  We would sit on the benches, I would swing on the swingsets.  When we went to the park, we looked more like grandfather and grandchild rather than father and daughter.  When people asked, he would proudly say “she is my daughter”.  But he felt sad inside, being taken for my grandfather.

My father would always come home for lunch.  He would close up the store and come home with my older brothers.  All the men came home for lunch in Adana.  Stores would be closed for lunch break.  Since distances were not long, the distance between home and work was walking distance.  My mother was a very good cook.  There were coal stoves in the kitchen.  There would be two pots of food every day.  We would eat that food for lunch and dinner.  Everyone would wait for each other for lunch, we would all gather around the table together and eat our meal.  Sometimes we would eat kebap [skewered grilled meat] and “lahmacun” [pronounced as “lahmajoon”, thin, slightly spicy meat pizza] that is famous in Adana.  But because the meat had to be kosher, my mother would give me the ground beef she prepared for the lahmacun.  I would go to the lahmacun maker, wait for the dough to be stretched, and when the lahmacuns were cooked, bring them home hot.  If my father wasn’t going to be able to come home for lunch for whatever reason, he would definitely take food to his store in a thermos.

When my father died, my mother mourned him for a long time.  She wore a black turban, and black pantyhose.  Since fabric handkerchiefs were used then, she had black bands sewn around white handkerchiefs to show she was in mourning.  She would lament after my father “who did you entrust me to, to leave me”.  My brothers wore black bands but did not allow us to wear black.  I don’t have information about my father’s first wife.  I am guessing she died from an epidemic.

My father had two brothers named Avram Babaoglu and Yakup Babaoglu.  They were born around the 1880’s.  Avram Babaoglu married a lady named Mina who had escaped from the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Mina went to Israel when her husband died.

Yakup Babaoglu married Shaabe and they went to Israel.  I never saw them.
  
My mother Varda Babakardash was a beautiful woman with a light complexion, medium height and brown eyes, she did not wear make-up but would dye her hair with henna.  [Henna is a kind of plant. This plant is mixed with water to make a paste and put on hair.  This mixture nourishes the hair and gives it a reddish hue.  There is also a tradition of painting hands with henna.  This is when young girls put henna on their hands before they are married and their hands become dark red.  It is a tradition mostly applied in Anatolia.  With this tradition, the family of the girl gathers together before the wedding.  Music is played, folkloric dances are performed, local outfits are worn.  Even though painting hands with henna is no longer applied today, the tradition of family and friends gathering together the night before the wedding to eat sweets and have  musical entertainment still continues.  In this way, the tradition of sending off the young girl from her home in a joyous atmosphere and enable her to have pleasant memories is given weight].  She was a woman who dressed well.  She had tailors sew her outfits.  These outfits were usually dark-colored, long-sleeved and with shoulder paddings.  There was no problem for fabrics because my father was in this business, and he always brought the best fabrics.  Sometimes foreign sample fabrics were used, sometimes domestic ones.  There were people who worked as tailors in the family.  They would sew it for my mom.

My mother never went out with her head uncovered.  In Adana, they would not look kindly on women with uncovered heads.  She wore scarves.  She was a very good housewife.  Her first husband had died in the war, too but she did not have children.  She was very fastidious about her clothing.  They had 25 years of age diffence with my father.  She was quiet and calm.  I would get the impression of a woman who had accepted her fate in my mother.

My mother had lost her first husband in the war.  My uncle Nesim Ipekel took her under his wing. When my uncle met my father and became friends with him, he found him appropriate for his niece.  He said “Look, he has two children but he is wealthy, and a very good person.  Get married, you will be comfortable”. She agreed to marry my father because of poverty, the stress of being a widow, and most importantly, not being able to contradict the words of your family elder. My father was a friend of my uncle’s family. In an era when family relationships were very strong, the families’ decisions were applied.  There was no such thing as dating then of course. You couldn’t even think about women working.  The best reference for women was being a good housewife.  My mother and father married in Iran. They had a civil marrieage but I don’t think they were married in a synagoue. They were married at home. This situation reflected on my mother’s relationship with my father in reality.  My father was both wealthy and handsome.  He had two children, but he was older in years nevetheless, and “knew the value of a woman” according to the mentality of those times.

My mother was a very clean woman, she cooked very well.  Her time was spent that way anyways. She had jewelry.  When I had measles, she would put that jewelry on me so I would not get up from bed and catch cold.  She was obliged to sell all of the jewelry in time.  In reality, even though my mother married because of pressure from her family, she demonstrated a very decisive and tough personality in her later years.  After my father died, she took my older sister and me and came to Istanbul to prevent the family from dispersing.

Avram Babaoglu, who was my father’s brother, never had children. Therefore he was very fond of me. And he wanted to adopt me. They even had a confrontation with my father about this subject.  My father had promised that if he had another daughter, he would register the child with his brother Avram Babaoglu to enable him to adopt her.  When I was born, my uncle had verbalized his wish, but my father had not warmed up to the idea.  When my father died, this time my uncle felt a debt towards me and the family in his conscience, and came to Istanbul to take us under his wing.  This way, someone from his family would get his inheritance.  His wife Mina wanted to adopt a niece from her side of the family.  During this time, it became imperative for us to move to Istanbul.  It was the beginning of World War II.  There were blackouts. My mother sold everything to pay for the move and we came to Istanbul all together.  Avram Babaoglu took us under his wing.

My aunt Mina hosted us very graciously but she wanted to adopt the daughter of her sister who had passed away. Some friction started at that point.  Yet this adoption did not take place with my getting married at a young age.  Mina could not adopt her own niece, either.  In fact, after my uncle died, Mina settled in Israel.  My mother, after marrying my older sister and me in Istanbul, went to live with her sons in Israel claiming “it is a shame to live in the house of your son-in-law”.

Israel was going through the birth pains of a country newly established.  My mother was a well-liked woman.  Her sons-in-law treated her with a lot of respect.  There were shortages and poverty in Israel during those years.  A country is getting established on one hand, it is growing economically on the other hand, and the people live concentrating on their own problems.  It saddened her that she did not receive from her daughters-in-law the close attention she had from her sons-in-law, that she could not find the relationships with her neighbors and family that she was used to in Istanbul, and that she could not speak Hebrew as much as she needed.  My mother settled in a house that the Israeli government provided for her as a result of my older brothers’ efforts and died in her own home in 1958.

My mother’s father also had a second marriage, I don’t have much information on this subject but I know that my mother had step-siblings.  One of my mother’s brothers was Nesim Ipekel; he dealt in dry goods and notions.  Of his children, Bohor died in war at a young age.  Eli married Ceni, Gabi married Beki, and Ruben married Monik.  All of these kids came to Istanbul and became successful at commerce.  Yayir Daniyelzade married a lady named Hana.  Of his children, Daniyel married Belkis Gulcan, Mois married Miryam Babakardash, Shamuel married Shaabe, Rıfat married Ester, Ester married Misha, and Matild married Zeki Basmaci.

I don’t have information about my mother’s other siblings Mordehay Basmaci and Anna.  I only know that all the siblings were involved in businesses like the commerce of fabrics and textiles.  I do not know why the last names are so mixed up.  When the surname law came out, everyone took their own last name and maybe the nicknames became last names.  I don’t have much information about this subject.

I am the fifth child of my family.   Avraam and Yakoov are the sons of my father from his first wife, they are my brothers from the same father, but different mothers.  They weren’t very happy about my mother and father getting married.  They thought that since my mother was a young woman, she would have a lot of children.  They manipulated the dry goods and notions store the way they wanted and during a period when my father was ill, they used it to further their own financial benefits.  My father sold fabrics by meters during that time, he opened up a small store and earned our living.  He did not have a fabric store any more when I was able to remember.  He had a small grocery store and earned his living from this store.  They say that Avram Babaoglu resembles my father a lot.  When I went to Israel in 1977, I saw my older brother after a lot of long years.  He had already grown old. During the years Avram Babaoglu immigrated to Israel, Israel had not even become a nation, it was under the protection of the British, it was a place of war and poverty.  Going there seemed like an adventure more or less.

Avram  Babaoglu married a lady named Matilda.  He had children named Isak, Janet, Niso, and Yosi.  Janet was a guardian in jail.  Niso was an engineer.  Isak and Yosi dealt in commerce.

Yaakov went to Beirut because the economy was better and commercial life more active.  Yaakov married a lady named Shaabe.  I never got to know him.

Among my siblings from the same mother and father, Israil Babakardash was born in Damascus in 1916.  He dealt in hardware, he migrated to Israel, he worked in a military office there.  Israil was a very smart young man.  I don’t know what would have happened if he wasn’t the son of a very enlightened mother and father.  He drew very well.  When he came to Istanbul, he would go to the Boshphorus and draw the shoreline across.  He did all my art homework from school.  He married a Turkish Jew named Pnina in Israel.  Pnina was a really beautiful woman.  She was a productive lady.  She always supported my brother by working at home.  They had children named Dalya, Yosi, Sami, and Judith.  Dalya had a beauty salon.  Judith deals in the catering business of a kibbutz.  Yosi and Sami work on computers.
 
Simon Babakardash was born in Damascus in 1925.  He left for Israel during the Wealth Tax 4.   First he learned the language in the kibbutz.  He married a lady named Margeurite that he met in the kibbutz and became a traffic cop.  He was a handsome young man.  There was no one in Tel-Aviv who did not know him.  He was always in the very front during ceremonies.  He always received support packages during the war years.  Margeurite was a smart woman.  My older brother had gone to his mother-in-law’s house as a live-in son-in-law.  He had two children named Eti and Yosi.  Eti was a make-up artist.  Yosi on the other hand had a certificate on diamonds.  He worked in the stock market.  He decided to go to the United States.  He planned on doing the same work there.  One night when he was going home with a bag full of money and diamonds, he was attacked by blacks.  He tried to resist giving the bag to the blacks but did not succeed.  The blacks killed him right there.  Yosi was newly married.  His mother Margeurite was extremely upset from this event and died a short while later.
  
Miryam was born in Damascus in 1920.  Miryam was a tailor.  She sewed for the most famous people in Adana.  She married my cousin Mois Daniyelzade.  The family objected to this marriage.  Because they were cousins with Mois, and in addition they dated.  Dating was frowned upon in those days.  When they went out, Miryam would take me with them.  She would meet Mois with the pretext of taking her sister out.  She would ask me not to mention this to my mother.  In time my mother accepted this union.  They left for Israel too, after they were married.  Miryam continued working in Israel.  Mois who was a sophisticated man on the other hand, could not find work and started working in construction.  First he settled in Hertzelia.  He started living in a small house with the opportunities that the Israeli government provided him.  Later he moved to Holon with the money he earned.  But Hertzelia became a city that bloomed.  And my older sister lost this opportunity that was given to her.  They had children named Suzan, Yosi (my father’s name), Yayir (her father-in-law’s name) and Hertzel.  Suzan and Yosi were born in Istanbul, Yayir and Hertzel in Israel.

These siblings who immigrated to Israel, started meeting up and socializing with each other.  They were together often on holidays.  Even though each one had their own lifestyle, the siblings and their spouses were very happy being together.  My uncle Simon and Miryam came to visit Bodrum this past summer.  From there, they came to Istanbul to visit with us too.

My older sister Sara was born in 1932 in Adana.  She was my biggest support after my father died.  As soon as we came to Istanbul, there was a proposition for Sara.  A young man from Samsun [a city on the shores of the Black Sea], his name was Yusuf Murat.  They had lost their mother.  Their father had remarried a lady named Mari.  Mari was from Istanbul, but went to Samsun as a bride.  Mari also gave birth to three children but she was a very good stepmother.  She never discriminated between her children and the children her husband had had with his first wife.

My uncle Avram Babaoglu was meeting up with Yakup and Mordo Murat.  Yakup was engaged to a Sephardic lady but he had rejected the engagement thinking that the wishes of this lady were excessive and that he could not live up to these wishes.  My brother-in-law Yakup had done his military service in Adana, long before this.  My father-in-law and my father were distant relatives.  My brother-in-law’s family also immigrated from Georgia but the Murat family went to Samsun.  When his son started his military service in Adana, he gave him our address.  There was a big military  branch in Adana.  Yakup Murat had come to our house to visit our family while he was doing his military service.  My older sister and I were very young then.

Meanwhile the years passed.  They had left Samsun and had started working in Tahtakale [A neighborhood in Istanbul where the heart of commerce lies.  All kinds of things are sold in this neighborhood.  A business market, especially ready-made clothing is sold in Tahtakale.  In addition, especially young men, when they finish their education, start working with a boss they call the master in Tahtakale.  Later on, they establish their own business.  They call the young who have not been educated much, graduates of Tahtakale University.  Boys would work as apprentices during the summer months to learn a trade.  But not with their father, it was more appropriate to go with a relative.  In this way, it was thought that they would adapt better to business].  On a day when they come to visit our house, Yakup Murat sees and likes my older sister.  At that time, neither my older sister nor I have any dowry [the money given when girls marry].  The Murat family is a wealthy family.

My older sister accepted her fate and married in the Sisli synagogue 5.  I had an outfit made from pink moire.  My older sister rented a wedding gown from Eliya Pardo [A place in Kuledibi where women rented wedding and engagement gowns, and men tuxes].  My older sister Sara and my brother-in-law Yakup rented a house in Sisane and started living there.  My older sister became the means for my marriage, too.  Because I married Yakup Murat’s brother Mordehay Murat.  Sisters became sisters-in-law. Sara and Yakup Murat had two sons named Yosi and Hertzel. Yosi, after finishing St. Michel French Highschool [French Catholic school] went to Belgium and attended university there.  He works in the university as a researcher and academic employee.  Hertzel on the other hand finished St. Benoit French Highschool [French Catholic school], he continues his father’s business in Istanbul.

Growing Up

I, Rebi Rebeka Evgin was born in 1934 in Adana [A city on the Mediterranean coast.  The Taurus mountain range runs parallel to the ocean in this city.  Adana  is famous for its cotton fields.  In addition it sits on the most famous valley of the Meditarrean, the Ceyhan valley.  The Seyhan and Ceyhan rivers run through Adana.  Among its most prominent architectural structures you can count the Adana Fortress, Clock Fortress, the Ulu mosque, and Stone Bridge over the Seyhan river].  Adana was a really wealthy city.  Wheat and cotton was planted.  Depending on the season, Adana would either be covered in yellow with wheat or white with cotton.  Citrus groves, vineyards and vineyard houses are like Adana’s symbols.  All of the houses had gardens.  My mother would gather the eggs from the chickens in the coop and have us drink them raw.  There was a statue of Ataturk 6 in the plaza.  The street going all the way to the station was surrounded by citrus groves.  Stores were in this area.  In the area which was called the Old Station, there was a neighborhood called Dipdil.  Darker skinned people who talked mostly Arabic lived in this area.  We called them “fellah” [peasant/ negro].  They wore baggy trousers, the tough guys among them gathered sugar canes.  Later on they would gather the sugarcanes together, tie them up and play games among themselves to break them in two.  The Jews did not have much to do with them.  Jews dealt in commerce mostly.  Our street was wide or it seemed that way to me from a child’s perspective.  The side streets were narrow.  The floors were cobblestone or dirt.  There were very, very few cars.  Transportation was mostly done by horse carriages.  Horses would poop in the streets.  We would gather the horse dung and dry it under the sun.  This was called dried horse dung.  This dried horse dung was burned in stoves afterwards.

Our house had three stories.  We rented it.  A different family resided on each floor.  We, three siblings, slept in the same room.  There was no running water, we would pull up water from the outside pumps and carry it home.  Our neighbors planted in the garden.  Laundry was done by hand and washed with rain water, and this laundry that was washed using bluing would be hung in the wind to dry.  There was no electricity in our house, we used kerosene lamps that we called night lights.

I loved reading a lot but when I was into books trying to read them with the light from these lamps at night time, my mother used to say “are you going to become a bad woman, reading and reading all the time”.  It was believed that women would become knowledgeable by reading and be more open to the outside world by that knowledge.  In short, having girls with open minds was not a desirable thing.  A very shrewd girl would not obey her family at first and then her husband.  She will become independent and then go off the correct path, it was believed.  I really loved reading novels but my mother would always turn off the night light.

In our house the floors were made of wood.  This wood was called planks.  Starting at the age of 10, mopping this wood was my chore.  The floors would be scrubbed by brush, and after the dirt was cleared, would be painted with yellow paint.  It would become bright yellow.  Our relationship with our neighbors was very good.  The biggest pastime of those days were visits to neighbors and relatives anyways.  The children would visit with them too.  It becomes very hot in Adana in summer.  We would sleep on the balconies in summer.  Our balconies on the upper floors were almost interlocking with the balconies of the house next door.  The young people in Adana never looked at us with bad intentions.  They would call us sister [“baci”-- a term used in Turkish to address people who are not siblings which indicates that they are considered as siblings], and loved us like siblings.  They even protected us in the market. Girls and boys forming relationships was frowned upon.  It was not correct to talk with not only Muslim young men, but with Jewish young men also.  

The hamams of Adana were very beautiful.  Going to the hamam was an event in itself.  We had special hamam combs, towels and clogs.  We would pick our embroidered bundles, and would go as if we were going to a picnic.  The people of Adana are dark skinned.  I, on the other hand, was as white as could be.  In the hamam, everyone would gather around me and joke to my mom “did you adopt this girl, she doesn’t look like anyone”. [In the old times, adoption is the process when children with no parents were taken in, not as servants but to be raised as the child of the house.  These children also helped with housework].  Taking a bath was another problem when we did not go to the hamam.  Water would be boiled in pots on top of coal stoves, there was a toilet in the garden.  My mother would place the pot, mix up the hot water with the cold, and bathe all her children one by one.  Later on we started bathing ourselves.
 
My mother never went to the market.  She would shop from the vendors who passed in front of our house, and my father would come home with his arms full every evening.  Plastic bags were not invented yet, shopping was done with baskets.  Buying bread from the bakery was my job.  Taking the lahmacuns [A type of thin pizza where ground beef, onions, tomatoes and peppers are spread on a thin round piece of dough, and baked.  This used to be a southern food in the old times.  Today you can find it at every corner in Istanbul] that my mother prepared with kosher beef, to the bakery was one of my chores too.  My mother would prepare sponge cake [a type of cake made with eggs, flour and sugar.  It rises because the eggs are beaten for a while, vanilla extract, mahaleb or mastic can also be added], taking it to the bakery was mine too.  When I remember my childhood days, the scent of the lahmacun and the beautiful sight of the sponge cake come to my mind.

Between my friends and me, we had childhood games like jumping rope, playing hopscotch.  The guys twirled tops. I wanted to twirl tops like boys but could not do it.  The mothers of my friends made cloth dolls.  We would draw eyes and eyebrows on these cloth dolls and play with them.  Because my older sister was a tailor, she would give us the leftover fabrics.  We would weave floor mats with those ropes.  During summer months, in order to earn my allowance, I would nail wood boards and make cases to put the oranges that our neighbor gathered from the citrus groves.  Tomatoes or peppers were also placed in those cases.  I would wrap candy in papers (Grocers would wrap candy in a thin paper before selling it.  This way, it would prevent the candies from sticking to each other).  Again during the summer months, I would go to my older sister, and do overcasting [a simple sewing technique to prevent the unraveling of fabrics].  In this way I earned my allowance.

My school years were colorful.  All the holidays were celebrated in our school.  We would wear black uniforms with white collars, and take part in parades.  We would get in line according to height.  Turkish Independence day on October 29th 7, National Independence Day and Children’s Day on April 23rd (The anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Parliament by Ataturk. Ataturk gifted this holiday to the kids, and created the first children’s day in the world in this way) would be celebrated with exuberance.  The love of Ataturk had been instilled in all of us.  We had very innocent relationships with our friends.  We would go to each other’s houses.  We would kiss the hands of our elders and our teachers on religious holidays.

During the War

One day I was at a friend’s house.  My friend took me to a room.  The room was full of sesame seeds.  She said that her father sold sesame seeds.  A room full of sesame seeds, it was a sight I had never seen before.  When I was finishing elementary school, we had a teacher named Mr. Ata.  I loved him a lot.  When I was going to take my final (for a while, in order to graduate from elementary school, you had to take the final for each subject separately.  The teachers would evaluate the students and give the diploma accordingly), Mr. Ata said to the other teachers: “Rebeka has a very pretty voice.  Let’s have her sing us a song”.  I was very embarrassed, my grades were very good.  I was not afraid at all, but I turned red.  I sang the folk song “Do birds land on the telegraph wires” (it is a very famous folk song).  All the teachers clapped and they did not ask me another question.   My involvement with music did not go further than being a good listener.  If I had grown up in Istanbul, rather than in the conditions of Adana, I would definitely be a student of conservatory.

Yet I could not find the same tolerance level from every teacher as I found with Mr. Ata who loved me, at the finals for elementary school.  One of our teachers often asked this question: “Tell me Rebeka, how many churches and temples are there in Adana?”.  And I always blushed even though I was not embarrassed while answering this question that was asked so unabashedly.  “There is one church in Adana.  There is one synagogue in Adana, my teacher”.  She would be content with the answer, and ask me the same question a couple of days later as if there would be some new development.  The children on the other hand would ask a question like “how many feet does the cat have?”  I have not grasped the meaning or the answer to this question even today.   I was only able to attend elementary school in Adana.   I was not able to continue my education after we came to Istanbul.  If it were possible, I would have liked to attend the conservatory.  I would have liked to develop my musical talents.

There were no opportunities to swim in Adana.  Adana is not a city bordering the sea.  You could only swim in the Seyhan river.  But you had to know how to swim very well to be able to go into the river in the environment we were in.  Frankly, swimming in the river was not looked upon in a positive manner. To swim in the sea, we would go to Mersin [A city bordering the Mediterranean.  It is famous for its citrus groves] in the summer months. 

After the War

In 1956, the Seyhan Dam was opened on the Seyhan river.  Life in Adana was revived by the opening of the dam.  I remember the opening ceremony of the dam very well.  Foreign guests had arrived.  And they had put on a ceremony with a lot of hoopla.  We used to go on picnics next to the dam.  We would prepare everything at home because the rules of kashrut were meticulously observed.  Outings to the dam were an important type of entertainment for the people of Adana.  Miryam Zade’s spouse liked me a lot, they would take me everywhere they went.  There were public houses [It was an organization operated by the Education Ministry and the municipalities to ensure the wide acceptance of Ataturk’s principles and revolutions.  Its goal was to organize cultural events, and to elevate the public’s cultural level], Turkish style casinos [restaurants with Turkish style music played].  They would take me to such places.

The Sephardic Jews and the Georgian Jews lived together in Adana.  Georgian Jews were weaker culturally than Sephardic Jews.  Georgian Jews spoke Georgian amongs themselves without fail.  My father used to go to the synagogue on Saturday mornings.  The synagogue was a rented house that had been converted to a synagogue anyways.  There would be extensive work for the holiday of Passover.  Coffee beans would be boiled, dried up and ground in a special way.  Rice would be rinsed, dried, and filled in bags.  Since there was no matzoh, bread would be baked with yeastless flour and salt, and that bread would be eaten throughout those 8 days.  My mother would make orange marmelade at home and it would be offered to guests on silver trays along with water.  There were no chocolate or other types of candy then.  It was a tradition to offer sweets like this.  During one Passover, one of our Muslim neighbors came to visit us.  They did not grasp that they had to use a spoon to eat the jam my mother was offering this way.  They started eating it from the bowl.  After a few spoonfuls, they apologized saying they couldn’t finish the bowl.  This practice is quite special.

My uncle would translate the Passover Hagadah into Georgian after reading it, so that the children could understand it.  The Hagadah was in Hebrew.  My uncle would translate the Hagadah that was in Hebrew instantly, to enable us to understand.  In this way, we comprehended Passover.  White candy [made with sugar.  Mastic, oranges, milkfat, almonds could be added to it.  This candy that needs to be mixed with a wooden spoon after bringing to a boil, is quite difficult to make], charoset, and homemade wine were specialities of Passover.  On the second night of Passover, we would drink a special soup with rice [recipe at the end of the interview].

We would not eat the dried fruit distributed during Purim right away.  We would put those dried fruit under our pillows, and sleep like that till the morning.  There was poverty and shortages.  This dried fruit that was offered to us, seemed like a blessing.  From a child’s perspective, we ate them slowly so we would not run out.  We even put them under our pillows to protect them.  There wasn’t the abundance of today.  Those bags were like blessings for us.  Candy, dried fruit were not stuff that was bought usually.  My mother would rinse the seeds of a watermelon, salt them, dry them up in the sun, and then bake them, and we would munch on them with a lot of pleasure.  In Adana, where holidays were celebrated in the true sense of holidays, relationships between friends were as strong as family.

There was no synagogue in Adana, a house had been converted into a synagogue.   This was a rental house.  And a lot of effort had been put into converting it into a synagogue.  This house did not belong to a Jew.  Jews were not able to own a lot of real estate then.  A lot of them were foreign nationals anyways, and legally foreigners could not own real estate.  The community was connected to each other in Adana.  The president was Gaston Mizrahi.  Gaston Mizrahi had spent a lot of effort to convert this house into a synagogue.  And they would invite us to their home on Passover evenings.  The Mizrahi family was a wealthy family.  They had an optical business.  The Mizrahi family had four sons named Isak, Moiz, Albert and Metin.  These children also worked for the Jewish community in Adana.

My father was sick during the Wealth Tax.  He was in bed.  The only thing I remember was his bronze bedframe.  And he was in no shape to pay the tax that was demanded of him.  When the officers came, they registered that bronze bedframe among the furnishings that could be taken.  My siblings were around 16-17 years old.  They were doing odd jobs.  They did not demand a high tax from my oldest brother.  But the younger one suffered quite a bit.  My oldest brother was working with a hardware store owner named Salamon Benyesh, and they took on this tax.

The younger one of my older brothers, Simon was a somewhat lazy young man, he was very smart but used to act lazy.  He would fill small bags with lemon salt and sell them.  He appeared like a merchant and got his share of the 
Wealth Tax.  My older brother came home one evening, he looked quite worried.  My mother gave money and underwear to my older brother Simon.  When we heard from him the next day, he had crossed the border already.  With the help of a prison guard on the road, he went to Damascus, and later to Israel.  He attended the police academy in Israel, he improved himself, overcame his laziness like this; the officer education changed the course of his life.

When the events of the Second World War broke out, we were all scared.  Our friends in Adana took us under their wings, and said nothing would happen.  My stepbrother who lived in Istanbul came to Adana to check on us.  The rumor that there were even ovens being prepared in Istanbul [referring to the gas chambers used to kill Jews during World War II due to Hitler’s politics, mentioned by the Jews living around Balat] struck terror in our hearts.  During those days, our elders who were policitically savvy said “Don’t be afraid, Ismet Pasha 8 is going to get out of this with the minimum amount of damage”.  Truthfully, Turkish Jews were spared the horrors of the second World War with the attitude of Ismet Pasha.

We were very happy when we heard about the establishment of Israel.  We listened to the news on the radio.  It was a happy event for us.

Adana Jews were not affected much by the policy of “Citizen, speak Turkish”. 9  Turkish was always spoken anyways.  Even though we spoke in Georgian between ourselves from time to time, we always spoke Turkish on the street.

My father did  not live long after that.  When he passed away, I was in middle school.  My older sister Sara was in the institute.  My stepbrother Avram Babaoglu took us under his wing and told us that it was imperative for us to come to Istanbul.  The year is 1949, I am 14 years old, I left Adana with my mother and my older sister Sara, ending an era, and moving towards a new adventure.  It was time for me to say goodbye to beautiful Adana where I spent my childhood years and my youth.
     
We boarded the train in Adana.  It was midnight.  My mother had thought of making big quantities of citrus, orange and pumpkin jams, and tomato and pepper sauces, and bring them to Istanbul.  I settled on the window seat and watched the road in awe.  First we came to Eskishehir [a city in central Anatolia].  My mother had prepared some stuff to eat.  We took them out in the compartment.  We put it between bread slices and ate.  In the morning we arrived to Istanbul.  It is December of 1949, there is knee-high snow on the ground, and it is snowing in big flakes, and I am seeing snow for the first time in my life.  I am imagining Topkapi Palace, Dolmabahce Palace [touristic spots in Istanbul, the former being the residence of the sultans, and the latter the residence of the first president of Turkey, Ataturk] in my mind.  I am very excited because I will get to see Istanbul. 

Haydarpasa [The last station in Istanbul for all the trains coming from Anatolia.  It is both a train station and a dock for boats.  You can cross from the European side to the Asian side with the boats taking off from there.  In this regard, Haydarpasa is where Istanbul’s heart beats.  Both the dock and the station are like historical treasures] seemed big and magnificent to me.  We disembarked from the train, and boarded a boat.  I did not understand what the boat was.  I thought we had arrived home.  First we came to Karakoy [a neighborhood on the shores of the opening of the Bosphorus to Marmara sea], then we took a taxi and came home.   It was the first time for me in a taxi then.  Istanbul was empty then, there were no houses on its hills.  There was no trace of the crowds of now.

We started living with my uncle but we absolutely need money.  My uncle took me to Karakoy every day. I learned handywork there.  After a while, my uncle started frowning upon my going to work.  I was an attractive girl even though I was young. There could be people hitting on me during the commute from home to workplace, in those conditions.  It wasn’t easily acceptable for a girl to go and come from work. Just like the mentality that the books I read would be detrimental to me, going to work was considered a potential to change my mindset.

This time, a machine was bought for the house.  They bring the merchandise home every day, I sew it and send it back.  They bring rolls of fabric home.  
They pick it up sewn in the evening.  I had to help with the family budget.  In the meantime I was dreaming of going to Israel.  I was only 15 years old.  I started corresponding with my older brother.  I was torn between my mother, my older sister, and going to Israel, I was constantly crying.  My uncle told me that my older brother was telling me to stay there in his letter.  I was devastated, was my older brother giving up on me?  While all these developments were happening, my brother-in-law’s brother Mordehay Murat asked for my hand.  Mordehay Murat was a prospect approved by the family.  For what it’s worth, the older brother had married my older sister Sara.  I would get to preserve the family ties by agreeing to this marriage, and my mother was going to stay with us.

Mordehay Murat was a handsome young man.  He was respectful.  Even though later he seemed to be an authoritative father in his relations with his children, he doted on them.  His philosphy in life was honesty and living with your principles.  He paid a lot of importance to his children’s education.  He wanted his son to obtain a career and his daughter to study in a foreign school no matter what.  When we started this marriage, when I took the first step by getting engaged, I had a condition, we would move into my older sister’s house too when we got engaged.

A house with the back rooms overlooking Halic [the Golden Horn], linoleum floors and no bathroom.  Husband and wife, my mother, myself and my fiance, we started living together.  This time, a machine belonging to the workplace of my fiance came home.  There were handkerchiefs that were sold in Anatolia then.  You would sew the edges of those handkerchiefs.  This stitch was called “bibila” [Judeo Spanish term].  Every day a roll of cut fabric would come and I would stitch the edges.

We were happy, we were truly very happy.  6 months after the engagement, we had the civil marriage, we were living in the same house with my fiance nonetheless, it seemed more proper to us to be civilly married.  I still have no dowry.  One morning my fiance got up and took me to the market.  We bought black fabric for a coat, green fabric for a coat, black for a dress, green for a dress, blue silk fabric for a nightgown and a nightdress, bed jacket and a lot of other necessities.  My fiance paid for all of it and he said to me “this is the payment for a year’s worth of work, you worked and you earned it and you bought it”.

I was really very happy.  We gave my nightdresses and nightgown to Sara, the embroidery expert.  Nightgowns and nightdresses were an important part of the dowry because brides greeted the family members coming to visit on Sabbath mornings with a nightdress, nightgown and bed jacket.  We married in Sisli synagogue too.  My wedding gown was rented from Eliya Pardo, too.  The only difference with my older sister was that I left the house of a relative as the bride [according to tradition a bride cannot return to the house she left in a wedding gown, this is not considered lucky, if she is returning to her own home, she leaves another house as a bride].  We did not have the luxury of having an evening reception. 

In this way, two sisters, we became sisters-in-law.  According to Georgian traditions, a bride’s virginity is important.  The mother of the girl waits through the night and without fail sees the bloodied sheets.  She takes those sheets  home, and offers stuffed grape leaves with yoghurt and sweets made with walnuts to the family [recipes at the end of the interview].  The mother-in-law is called, this is called “yuzgorumlulugu” [a present given by the bridegroom to his bride when he has unveiled her for the first time and seen her face].  Offering stuffed grape leaves with yoghurt means we delivered our daughter pure.  Even though we lived in the same house with my fiance, and even though we had the civil marriage quite a while before the wedding, my mother waited at the door of the bedroom till the morning.  And I gave her the sheets.  She wanted to see it because we lived in the same house.  She wanted to prove that even though we were married civilly, my husband and I did not have a sexual relationship before the wedding.  My husband was so respectful that I don’t remember him holding my hand once while my mother was present.  
  
The other siblings of my husband, Efraim Murat married Luisa Sirinyildiz.   They dealt in hardware in Samsun [a city on the northern coast of Turkey, bordering the Black Sea].  They had two children named Samuel and Sara.  My older sister Sara and Yakup had two children named Yosi and Hertzel.  Yosi is a professor of chemistry in Belgium.  Herzel continued the family tradition by dealing in commerce of ready-made clothing.  Avram Murat married the sister of his older brother’s wife.  In this way two sisters became sisters-in-law again in the family.  Luisa Sirinyildiz and Viktorya Sirinyildiz became wives to two brothers.  Viktorya Murat currently lives in Israel.  She had children named Kamer, David and Meri.  Isak Murat married a lady named Nina.  They live in Israel; they have children named Sami and Viktor.

I had two children named Sara and Sami.  There is 18 months’ difference between them.  They were two very cute kids.  Sara’s grades were always very good.  She first attended St. Pulcherie, and then Notre Dame de Sion [French Catholic schools].  She got engaged when she was a senior in highschool.

Our happiness was sealed with the birth of Sami.  His circumcision was done in the French Hospital.  Cake and lemonade, chocolates and mint liquor was offered at circumcisions then.  I was resting in my bed with the nightgown that Sara the embroiderer had prepared.  Sami’s bar-mitzvah lacked luster.  Father and son went to the temple and put on tefillim, then there was a brunch.  My son finished St. Benoit Highschool [French Catholic school].  He graduated from the electrical engineering department in the university.  He worked in Netas, a big firm, for long years.  He retired from that firm, now he continues in commerce.

My life was spent at home, working and raising children.  My husband was an extremely good person.  We used to go to the movies, to the theatres, to musical entertainments.  We used to buy bulk tickets [tickets bought at the  beginning of the season, for movies playing at a certain time and certain day in a movie theatre throughout the year].  We used to dress in our best clothes to go to the movies.  On musical nights, we would watch artists like Perihan Altindag Sozeri, Adnan Senses [Turkish Classical Music performers].  It was a privelege to go to the matinees in Maksim Casino [the most famous casino of the times].  The matinees were for ladies only on Wednesdays, and ladies and gentlemen on Sundays.  Women’s matinees were a complete chaos.  Food would be prepared at home, the artists would perform different routines.  We used to go to Cinarcik [a vacation area close to Istanbul] in summers.  The sea was clear blue.  We had fun with our friends.  The men came only for the weekends.

We were living in Sishane during the events of 6-7 September events 10.  We had Greek neighbors.  Our doorman wrapped himself up in the Turkish flag, and said “if you enter through this door, you trample the flag”.  Our house was saved from looters in this way.  The scene in Beyoglu was horrendous.  The cakes and chocolates of the pastry shops were all over the streets.  The thought “we weren’t able to afford them, you don’t eat them too”  was prevalent.  The furs, jewelry on the ground, people desolate.  It was said that this event happened because of a few looters.  The government defended itself like that.
 
After 15 years of marriage, my husband first had kidney stone surgery, he had surgery in a private hospital.  After about a month, he had chest pains one night.  We called the doctor, medicine was not as advanced then.  He was diagnosed with congestive heart failure.  Bypass procedure was not developed much in the 70’s.  When we were married, my older sister, my brother-in-law, my mother, myself and my husband lived in the same house.  When the children were born, we couldn’t fit in one house any more.  My husband and I first moved to Taksim [a neighborhood in central Istanbul].  Mostly people who came to work from the United States lived in Taksim, Kazanci Hill.  I was very young.  My husband’s friends said “Mordo, are you crazy?  How can you live here, they will hit on your wife.  You will have no peace”.  So we moved to Kurtulus, a short while later.  I would wait my husband’s arrival on the hill every evening, and take the bags from his hands.

One evening, after dinner, Sara went out with her fiance.  My husband wanted to lie down.  I thought he did not look well, so I called Sara back home.  When I came back from the telephone, it was over already.  I lived through a huge shock.  I really did not know what to do.  The cure for depression is in working, apparently.  I started going to work after so many years.  My brother-in-law warned me “to wear a coat over pants to go to work”.  I know that a porter accompanied me to work every morning from the boat in Karakoy, and every evening from work to the boat again.  8 years passed like this.  When my first grandchild Elsa was born, I left work.

Sara was raised quite conservatively by her father.  She was only allowed to the movies on Saturdays.  Sundays were for homework.  We used to go to Cinarcik in summers then.  The mother and father of my son-in-law, Mordo Altaras were also there.  Mordo Altaras was there too.  He was dating a girl.  The father-in-law knew my husband.  He said this to his son: “You leave that girl, and see if you can arrange to go out with the girl downstairs”.  They started going out together.  They exchanged phone numbers on our return from Cinarcik.  They had bonded, Mordo started calling continuously.  I tried to keep the peace despite the opposition of the father.  Her father did not want his daughter’s education to suffer.  She had been accepted to Notre Dame de Sion Highschool [French Catholic school] without a test because of her high grade point average at St. Pulcherie [French Catholic school].  But that year, because of Mordo’s phone calls and going out, she failed her first year of highschool.

Her Dad did not know she was dating.  If he knew, he would kill me first.  One Saturday, she came a little late.   Her father turned to me and said: “If this girl is seeing someone, I will first kill her, then myself”.  He was so rigid.  He was a very good father, a very good husband, but he was very conservative.  I acquiesced, I was raised in such an environment anyways.  But when it came to 
Sara, we had to formalize this union.  She was only 16 years old.  Her father who was at Sara’s engagement, unfortunately could not witness her wedding.  The day Sara was married was a beautiful day, my brother-in-law and older sister held the thallis.  In this way, my older sister happened to hold the thallis for me and my daughter.  I was wearing a violet-blue lace dress, navy blue shoes and purse, and a salmon colored hat at the wedding.  I was very well-dressed but everyone pitied me.  I don’t like being pitied at all.  Sara was wearing a simple wedding gown, the best part of the dress was the veil. We celebrated by having a family dinner in the evening.

My son was grown up too then.  One morning when I went to work, I left the siblings at home arguing.  The two siblings got along well usually.  That morning they started verbally arguing about an insignificant, small thing.  In reality it was a period when my nerves were really wrought.  I told my son not to be lazy.  When I returned home in the evening, I saw my son with a bundle of money in his hand.  I asked “What is this money?”.  “I started working”, he said.  He decided to become a tourist guide.  His first job was to take tourists to the Dardanelles [a city on the Aegean coast, where the Dardanelles strait connects the Marmara Sea to the Aegean.  The Dardanelles strait divides Turkey into European and Asian sides just like the Bosphorus].  The firm where he worked had given him the hotel and excursion money for the tourists.  In this way he earned his living by being a guide for a long time and continued his studies.  During this time he got engaged and broke up once.  The girl he got engaged to had different expectations about life. The discord between them ended with separation.  He married the granddaughter of my uncle Sami.

Sami’s wife’s name is Rachel. She had gone to Israel to study after finishing highschool in Adana.  She had studied to be a preschool teacher.  But she could not stay there, she missed her family too much.  My son, when he was a tourist guide was changing girlfriends frequently.  Just like captains who find a lover at every port, tourist guides return with a different girlfriend from every trip they take.  This situation worried me of course.  My uncle’s granddaughter Rachel was a beautiful girl, she had come to Istanbul from Adana, and did not  have much of a social circle.  She and my son met.  This was a type of matchmaking [proposition—families deciding first and the children marrying in a short time].  But my son went out with Rachel for a while after meeting her, they did not decide within three days like in the old times.  They got to know each other and fell in love.

They had a happy life.  Rachel could have been a working woman, preschool teacher was an ideal career for a woman.  But my son did not budge from the principle “I will not allow my wife to work” even though he was an open-minded person.  His wife became a good homemaker.

My son had a very severe cold when he was 9 years old.  He developed nephritis [kidney infection] after the cold.  I encountered a lot of difficulty for his therapy.  We went from doctor to doctor, the levels would not go down.  A Greek doctor started a new therapy.  This time the leukocytes [white blood cells—they fight the infection] went down, and the kid felt better.  In reality, this doctor took a big risk, and gave my child cortisone without letting us know.  Truthfully, if you think about the side effects of cortisone, the fact that a mother is kept in the dark about it could lead the patient to very dangerous directions.  After this event, my son had to be raised with more care.  I did everything I could until he got married.

After he was married, I did not concern myself with my son like I used to, so I would not be meddling in their lives.  All of a sudden, it was found out that one of his kidneys was not functioning.  We started going from doctor to doctor again, and it was decided that he needed dialysis.  He contracted hepatities during the dialysis.  My son was in a very bad state.  You could say he was on his deathbed.  They called me to their home and said they were going to India.  India has an abundance of donors and it is a country that is advancing technologically.  When we reached India with an ambulance, a Turkish doctor received us and took us to the barracks where the operation was going to be done.  You might find the term barracks a bit of an exaggeration.  But it was really a very dirty, primitive environment for such a surgery.  All the preparations were done, and the kidney transplant operation took place.

India is a poor country, where the destitute have trouble finding food.  The donors think they can buy a car to take tourists around or a small kiosk to prepare food to sell outdoors with the money they receive, to get on with their lives.  But the pleasant demeanor and encouragement the people provide is really outstanding.  The streets are full of people at peace with themselves.  The doctors know the techniques very well, they have been educated at top levels in the world.  The nurses do not have beds to sleep in but they are trying their best to serve.  And I gained a new life experience by staying there a long time.  Some of the things I did to support my son during that period was misunderstood by some people and they hurt me by calling me “a carefree woman”.  However, it is much better for a son to see his mother in a good mood than nervous and sulking.  My son could not understand the seriousness of his situation when he saw me with lipstick and a happy face.  I never asked but I know that the necessary financial help was provided by a campaign in the Jewish community but my son and I never discussed this face to face.

One of the biggest turning points of my life was my marriage to Erdal Evgin.  Erdal was a business major and a very decent person.  We lived in Kurtulus.  He had lost his wife too.  But he had taken a step towards remarrying, and was living with a very attractive lady named Viki.  We were friends.  Erdal went on a trip and brought me a perfume and a scarf.  My son commented immediately “mom, a man who brings perfume from a trip has different intentions”.  “Don’t be silly”, I scolded my son.  One Sunday morning, I left home and saw Erdal at the window.  When I saw him at the window again on my return, I asked “where is Viki?”.  He sighed, “We separated”.  I went up home.  A few minutes later the phone rang.  It was Erdal calling.  He said he wanted to talk to me.

We met at the corner, entered a pastry shop.  He went right to the point.  He explained that he wanted to marry me.  I was surprised, I asked him to give me some time.  When I returned home, I told my daughter Erdal’s offer. She reacted by saying “They will say that Elsa’s grandmother has married a Muslim” .  But Erdal’s family did not react like this at all.  Because Erdal’s first wife was also Jewish.  I wrote a letter to Erdal’s first wife’s sister who lived in Israel.  And I asked her permission for this marriage.  I received a positive reply right away.  I faced my daughter and convinced her by explaining the difficulties of being alone.  In this way, Erdal and I had a civil marriage ceremony.  He introduced me to his family.  We really loved each other a lot.

Erdal was a person who knew the Jewish traditions and who was very respectful.  And I respected his holidays, and the holy nights when the minarets are illuminated.  Erdal would not drink alcohol during the Ramadan.  My friends also obeyed this rule when we went to a restaurant during this period.  We had our most important memory when we bought the flat that we are living in now.  The people who sold us the flat thought I was Muslim, and Erdal Jewish.  When they saw that my name was Rebeka on the deed, they were surprised.  We only had Jewish neighbors in the building.  During Passover, Erdal would fill the trunk of the car with spinach and leeks, and distribute it to everyone.

We went to Cleveland with Erdal during a trip to the United States that we had planned and had his heart checked.  This is my fate I think; we stayed in Cleveland for 3 weeks and dealt with heart problems.   After we came back, we repeated this trip and had wonderful memories.  One morning, he put on his best suit and went to work.  He looked in the mirror. “You are very handsome, my husband”, I said.  A few hours later I received a phone call from his work place.  He was already in the hospital and there was nothing to be done.  The only thing the doctor said was “you are lucky, ma’am, if he had lived, he was definitely going to be paralyzed”.

I started living with them when my daughter Sara divorced her husband.  Elsa got married.  Yoni continues with his education.

My son’s children also continue their education.

We heard about the massacre in Neve Shalom 11 on the radio.  It is very sad that people who are in a temple only for praying are subjected to violence.  My granddaughter Elsa let us know about the attacks on November 15th 12  from abroad.  I had the same emotions again.

I lost both of my husbands, my children are my most valuable assets in my life.

I take my leave with Rebi Evgin.  Today we can only talk about the presence of a Jewish community in Istanbul or Izmir.  However, in the first half of the 20th century, there were several cities within one life story. Even though there are different traditions in each one, they all come together under one roof.  This roof is the Jewish identity.  I hope that we never lose the different tastes of these different colors.  

Georgian recipes:

GALYA SHIHNA

Ingredients: 1 kg potatoes
                    4 onions
                    ½ kg blade steak
                    2 eggs
                     Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the potatoes that have been cut in rounds in oil in pan.  Slice the onions in rounds too, and cook in oil until softened.  Salt the meat and cook it separately.  Stack one layer potatoes, one layer onions, and cooked meat on top in a pan.  Beat two eggs and pour on top.  Cook over low heat.

STUFFED GRAPE LEAVES WITH YOGHURT

Ingredients: 2 cups rice
                    dill weed
                    2 medium onions
                    mint
                    salt and pepper to taste
                    250 gr. grape leaves

Boil the grape leaves.  Slice the onions thinly and cook in oil, add rice, mint, dill weed, salt and pepper to make the filling.  The leaves are filled with this filling and rolled.  For two cups rice, you put 4 cups water to cook.  While serving, you pour yoghurt beaten with a little garlic and sizzling melted butter on the plates.

BORCH

Ingredients:  Beef broth or bone marrow broth
                     Cabbage
                     Lentils
                     Garbanzo beans
                     Homemade noodles
                     Salt and pepper to taste

Bring the broth to boil.  Soak the garbanzo beans the night before.  Wash the cabbage and cut it in bite size pieces.  Add to the broth and cook to prepare the soup.

SHILLECE

It is a Passover meal.

Ingredients:  Chicken broth
                     Swiss chard
                     Rice
                     Turmeric
                     Salt and pepper to taste

Bring the chicken broth to boil.  Wash the chard and cut into bite size pieces.  Add chard and rice to chicken broth.  Add salt, pepper and turmeric.

GOZLEME (THIN PANCAKE)

Ingredients: 2 eggs
                    2 cups flour
                    2/3 cups milk     
                    Slightly fermented grape juice, molasses, honey

Mix the eggs and flour with milk.  It becomes a soft dough.  Fry in oil in pan in pancake style rounds.  Add fermented grape juice, molasses or honey as desired, to eat.
 

  ZIRREDOSH

  Ingredients: 250 gr. walnuts
                      2 eggs
                      1 cup sugar
                      A knob of turmeric

Mix all ingredients to make paste.  Shape with hands to serve.   

GLOSSARY

Enrico Modiano
Istanbul
Turkey
Interviewer: Rose Modiano
Date of Interview: May-July 2005

After his beloved wife Ester Modiano’s strange, tragic accident, Enrico Modiano tries to communicate with other people as much as he can – usually with a poignant smile on his face – and to go through this painful process as best as he can with patience and love. Enrico Modiano lives with his wife Ester in an apartment building named Edes (No.90) in Siracevizler, Sisli. He retired last year from the insurance business. He has an attendant helper, who comes over fives days a week to take care of the groceries, cleaning, etc. Every Saturday morning, Enrico Modiano goes to the synagogue for Shabbat prayers – except when the weather is terribly bad or if he experiences a health problem. When we look at his style of speech, he usually likes to stress on each and every word. For example, he stretches the word ‘1900.’. He is probably doing this to intrigue others or maybe to test their patience, because when you hear the beginning of the word, you start wondering if he means 1950 or 60 or something else. He likes using older Turkish vocabulary in his speech. Enrico Modiano is 79 years old. His outlook on life is one of hope even though he is experiencing some health problems. Although his wife - during her healthier days - was not too happy with his casual style of fashion, he prefers to wear both formal and casual clothing depending on the setting. He likes to listen to classical music with his wife as well as reading books about the Jewish religion and its history.

Family background

Growing Up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

Family backgound

I know that my family is of Italian, Livorno origin, and that they had originally settled in Salonika. The name Modiano comes from Modigliona; it changed over time to Modiano, and has continued to this day. My great grandfathers knew both Italian and Ladino, but they often spoke Greek when they were living in Salonika. 1

I considered my paternal grandmother’s father, Gabriel Yakoel, as my own grandfather. He was a respected man in Salonika. He was a very good-hearted man. According to what my family told me, he even had a Midrash [small synagogue] in his name, and he used to open its doors to the public for worship during important Jewish holidays.

My paternal grandfather, Mario Modiano was born in Salonika in 1858. I never had the chance to meet him. He passed away at such a young age; my father and his brothers were just kids at the time. I believe my father was 9 when it happened. After my grandfather passed away, my grandmother had to take care of the family financially. She did get occasional financial support from relatives though. I also know that my father had to start working at a very young age in addition to going to school. I was told that my grandfather died in 1896, and that he was never interested in politics.

My paternal grandmother was Reyna Modiano. Her maiden name was Yakoel. She was an extremely tranquil-natured, introverted, respectable woman. She became a widow at a very young age, and took care of her daughter and three sons with utmost care and compassion. She also made sure to educate her children on appropriate manners of behavior.

I did not really see her so much as to remember her sense of fashion. This is because when I first met her, she was already in her 60’s. She was a house-wife; she did not go out much. She spoke only Ladino, and apparently the family also spoke to each other in Ladino. Family names have remained the same since then… I remember that my grandmother had beautiful, whitish hair that reminded me of a princess’s.

My grandmother first lived in the Beyoglu neighborhood in Istanbul, and then Taksim and Nisantasi. I remember having been to her houses in both Taksim and Nisantasi. She used to live with her daughter Ester Yakoel, who was single. The house my grandmother and Ester lived in during the ’50s and the ’60s was a big, comfortable place. They used a gas furnace for heating purposes, like most people did back then. I do not remember them ever having problems with running water. They did not have a garden.

I remember my father telling me about a 15-year old girl named Palomba Asayas. She was originally from Edirne [Andrinople, a city in the northwest of Turkey], and was adopted by my father’s family. In reality, it might not be correct to call her adopted, since adoption occurs when the person in question does not have parents. Palomba, however, did have a mother and a father. They were so poor that they lived in a broken-down house, and led a very difficult life. My father and his brother felt very sorry for the family, and offered to take her in. They took care of Palomba as if she were an adopted daughter or sister. She stayed with my father’s family until she got married. My father’s sister, Ester Yakoel, took care of the cooking for the entire family.

My paternal grandmother was born in Salonika, and lived there for a long time. She then moved to Istanbul, where her two sons, Gabriel and Isaac, lived. She did not read the newspaper much. She was not a very knowledgeable, educated woman. She deeply cared for her religion though; she always practiced and observed the rules of Jewish traditions. She kept Kosher, but did not go to the synagogue much – especially after moving to Istanbul. They usually celebrated Jewish holidays at home. She was extremely meticulous about food preparation during the Holidays. She had her own recipes for some foods and deserts. Every year, when Pesach approached, she would buy new sets of pots and pans from a month before, and would fill them with vinegar and peeled walnuts. A couple of days before Pesach eve, she would begin cooking a very specific kind of fish. I do not remember what it was called, but she served it to us every Pesach.

I remember my grandmother’s house in Nisantasi [a district in the European side of Istanbul]; it was a two-story house. She lived on the ground floor with her daughter. On the upper floor lived my grandmother’s brother Hayim Yakoel and his wife Loret. My grandmother did not have many friends, but her family visited often. She did not go on vacation much; she preferred to stay home most of the time.
She had one brother named Hayim Yakoel. Hayim was also born in Salonika, and went to school there. Actually, he was classmates with Ataturk. 2 When he later relocated to Istanbul, he worked at the Bank of Salonika for a while. He then began working at the Deutsche Bank as an accountant; he worked there until World War II, and hence, the Holocaust began. Unfortunately, he was intentionally fired from that job because he was Jewish. He was a very good accountant, and with the help of some of his friends, he was able to secure an accounting position at the Sultanahmet Vakko . He worked there until he retired. He has a son named Gaston Kohen. I still have many relatives today from Gaston’s family. One of my cousins from that side, for example, is Elyo Kohen. My parents did not give us a lot of information about their parents. My father, actually, does not remember too much about them and their elders.

My father had two brothers and one sister. He was the eldest of all siblings. The eldest son after my father was Gabriel Modiano. He was born in 1890. He was the Managing Director of the Bank of Salonika. He passed away in 1963. He was married to Eleonora Modiano. They had a son and a daughter together, both of whom lived in Italy. Actually their daughter, Linetta, still lives in Rome today. I occasionally speak to her on the phone. Gabriel and Eleonora’s son, Morio Modiano, passed away two years ago.

My father’s sister, Ester Modiano, was born in 1892. She passed away in Switzerland in 1982. She was married to Raphael Yacoel, and they had a son named Gabriel. I know that Gabriel has been living in Milan until recently, but we have not heard anything about him over the past couple of years.

My father’s youngest sibling, Isaac Modiano, was born in 1894. He was the Managing Director of the German Deutsche Oriente Bank’s Salonika branch. During the Second World War, he too was forced to resign from that post. Later on, he got a job at the newly founded Turkish Credit Bank as a Vice President. When the Bank became bankrupt, he decided to move to Switzerland. He had two daughters. One of them, Giovanna Modiano, unfortunately passed away at a very young age in 1984. She used to conduct academic research on law before passing away. Their other daughter, Renata Modiano, still lives in Switzerland today. She is a teacher of Italian Literature. Isaac Modiano passed away in Switzerland in 1985. He was married to Maria Pardo. Maria’s father, Josep Pardo, actually was Ismet Inonu’s French tutor.  3

My father, Saul Modiano, was born in Salonika in 1887. He passed away in Istanbul in 1970. My mother, Ester Modiano [her maiden name is Kohen] was also born in Salonika in 1894, and passed away in Istanbul, in 1979. My parents are both buried at the Italian-Jewish Cemetery in Sisli, Istanbul.

My father was of medium-height, and was slightly overweight. He had whitish hair. He had glasses, but only used them when he was reading. He did not wear a tie around the house, but he always wore one when he was outside. He always wore clean, fashionable clothes. My mother, Ester Modiano, was also of medium-height and was slightly chubby. She had a very reserved personality. Her hair was medium-length. She wore casual clothing both inside and outside the house. She usually wore lipstick, and used nail polish.

My father was a very serious, introverted kind of man. He did not speak much, and when he did, he spoke with utmost care – as if he was weighing each word. He was a reserved man just like my mother was. My father was also very smart and perceptive. He did not have a lot of time to read, but he followed all major news of the day. My mother did spend a lot of her time reading. She graduated from a French school in Salonika.

My parents both went to school in Salonika. The school my father attended was called ‘Idadiye’ back then. It was a special kind of Italian school. My father’s native tongue was Italian, and my mother’s was Spanish. They spoke in Spanish and French between each other and their own parents.

When he lived in Salonika, my father used to work as a regular employee at a firm. Later on, when he came to Istanbul, he founded his own business. He became a commissioned representative for some factories located in Europe. He also provided those European companies with insurance expertise, and handled their insurance needs. My mother was a French teacher until she got married. She later became a stay-at-home mom.

My mother had three siblings. Her oldest sister, Pava Kohen was married to Benjamin [I do not remember his last name]. They had three sons together; Marko, Suzan and Izidor. Another one of my mother’s sisters was named Suzan, who passed away at a very young age. As for her other sibling, she had a brother named Jak Kohen. Jak had a keen interest in hunting. The weather was apparently terrible during one of his hunting trips, and, as a result, he caught pneumonia. He passed away soon after. Unfortunately, medicine was not as advanced back then as it is today. Jak also had two children. Marko still lives in Rome today, and his brother Ivon, unfortunately passed away during the Second World War. Soon after the Germans invaded Rome, he caught pneumonia because of the poor living conditions surrounding the city, and passed.

My mother went to a Greek school, but the educational language of the school was French. She later attended a French school. I can say that both of my parents had good educational backgrounds. When my mother was attending high school, she was able to secure a scholarship to study at the Alliance Israelite Universalle. 4  She was going to go to France in an effort to further her French skills. But, my father, being her groom-to-be, talked her out of it. He actually did not let her go there. As a result, my mother took a job as a French teacher in a Greek school. French was a very popular language back then; students would begin learning French starting from elementary school.

My parents had, what I would call, an arranged marriage. My mother’s brother, Jak Kohen, happened to be my father’s best friend long before she and my father met. Starting from when my father was 14-15, he would go over to her house all the time to see Jak. My father and mother became very close over time. They got married when my father was 31. I would not call that a young age to get married because my father actually never attended the military when he was supposed to – during the Balkan Wars of 1912-1914. 5 6 During the Balkan Wars [Back then, Salonika belonged to the Ottoman Empire], Italians living in Salonika were expelled because the Ottoman Empire was at war with Italy. My father temporarily had to relocate to Italy. He lived in Milan for six months - until the War came to an end. His brother Isaac Modiano also went with him to Italy. As far as I know, they both worked in Milan for a while, but they did not have to stay there for too long. In the meantime, the War came to an end, and Isaac moved to Istanbul.

During the War, my mother actually managed to stay in Salonika. In 1914, soon after my father had come back to Salonika, the First World War broke out. They got married in 1918 – just before the War ended. When my father was living in Salonika, his mother was living in Istanbul. His two brothers, Isaac and Gabriel were also living in Istanbul. They were the Managing Directors of the German Deutsche Orient Bank, and the Bank of Salonika, respectively. They were both in-house managers, groomed to the management level within their own companies.

During the First World War, my father wrote a letter to my maternal grandmother, and asked for her permission to marry her daughter. My mother, Ester Modiano [Kohen] was living in Salonika at the time. Actually, it was not even necessary for my father to ask for permission to marry my mother, because he spent everyday at her house. Since my father was also a good friend of Jak’s, they all spent time together. My father was considered a member of their family.

Back then, official marriages did not exist, so they married at a synagogue. Marriage ceremonies at the synagogue were a rarity back then; most couples had their weddings at their parents’ houses. This was probably because most houses had huge gardens, and were sufficient to hold the ceremonies. Everyone would sit right next to each other; the weddings were celebrated just like the ones that took place in big Turkish villages. My parents also had a wedding ceremony at their parents’ house with all the relatives. We were a middle-class family, and we had a very modest lifestyle.

As far as I know, houses in Salonika were heated using coal furnaces. My parents owned our house. Our house had a garden, and our doors were always open to everyone. My mother’s brother, Jak, had an interest in hunting. He also had a dog named Fido. He got married in Salonika, and continued to live there with his wife. They had two children there. After he passed away, his wife and children moved to Rome, Italy.

We did not have an attendant in the house; my mother took care of all the housework…

In 1921, when my brother, Mario Modiano was only six months old, we moved from Salonika to Istanbul.

My mother loved to read. My father, on the other hand, did not have much time for that although he did enjoy reading. All I remember my father reading is the Journal D’orient newspaper published in French. 7 He read it everyday. My mother also read the paper as well as French novels. They did not regularly go to the library. My parents did not give me many suggestions on books; I chose the books I wanted to read according to my own taste. I had a library in my room.
 
My parents were both religious people, but they did not spend all their time at the synagogue. They did, however, observe all important Jewish Holidays, and specific traditions according to each Holiday. My father placed a special importance on keeping Kosher. He would always go to the synagogue on Friday evenings, Saturday mornings and on Holidays. My mother, on the other hand, would only go during the Holidays. Seats would be reserved for my parents at both the Buyukada and the Italian Synagogues. We did not get a chance to eat out much since keeping Kosher was very important for my father.

My parents, my sister Reyna, and my brother Mario were all members of the Misne Tora Association. I became a member as well, when I was 15. In her work with Misne Tora, my mother was responsible for distributing lunch to the students of Karma High School. In addition, she was responsible for collecting and distributing clothing for Karma students once a year. My mother also served as the Dining Hall Manager and as the President of the Women’s Commission at Misne Tora. My father served as a member of the Board of Directors there, but not in an official capacity because he was an Italian citizen. He would attend all major events and activities though.
 
This is the motto I would use to summarize my parents’ political perspectives:  “En los meseles del hukumet el ahali muestro no se karishtireya” in Ladino or “Our people do not get involved in the business of politics and government.” 

My father had significant responsibilities at Mishne Tora. He was also an active member of the Italian-Jewish Community. He represented the Italian-Jewry in Turkey at the Chief Rabbi’s office. At Mishne Tora, he participated in end-of-the-year activities every year. During these activities, a number of different shows were put on, including a play put together by the Youth Commission.

My father did not serve in the Turkish military because he was an Italian citizen.

Many of my parents’ neighbors in Salonika and Istanbul were Jewish. They all visited each other often. When I was one years old, we moved to the Galata neighborhood in Istanbul. We stayed at a 12-story apartment building, but the 12 apartments seemed to me like they were one because everyone was so close to each other. I remember that the apartment building was located at the Serdar-i Ekrem Yazici Street, and that it was No. 64. It was initially called the ‘Varon and Benardete’ apartments, but after the Wealth Tax was implemented, it was changed to ‘Lebar’ apartments. 8

My parents had many friends; Turkish and Jewish alike. I can however say that they had more Jewish friends. The street we lived on was mostly occupied by the non-Muslim population at the time.

My parents did not take many vacations; they did not need to because we owned a summer house in Buyukada. In some years, on the last day of Pesach, a couple of families from the community got together, and had a picnic at the Camlica Hill - provided that the weather was favorable. We would eat eggs, feta cheese, lettuce, etc. The families frequently visited each other.

My brother, Mario Mair Modiano, was born in Salonika in 1921. When he was only six months old, my parents decided to move to Istanbul. He began studying at the French St. Benoit High School when he was six. He had to transfer to an Italian high school when he was at the seventh grade because of the 1932 Mussolini official notification. He completed his education at the Italian Lycee, and graduated with a degree in Commerce. After high school, he attended the Istanbul University’s Business and Commerce School. He graduated from the university with a degree in Commerce.

In 1942, he and one of our neighbors in the apartment became partners, and opened a wholesale dried-goods store. This continued until 1950, when he resigned because of irreconcilable differences with his partner. That was when he and I started working together. We founded our own store, and named it the ‘Terakki House of Dried-Goods – Mair and Eriko Modiano.’

We worked together until 1958. That year, my brother decided to move to Canada. He had gotten married to Nina Eskinazi in 1948. He became diabetic because of all the stress he endured during his last partnership. The disease later spread to his eyes, and he unfortunately lost his sight. I always thought of him as a very brave person for undergoing eye surgery only two years after losing his sight. After the operation, one of his eyes regained about 25% sight. He had this operation in Canada.

He was a very alert-natured person. He always liked responsibility and being busy with something. This is probably why, after he lost his sight, he enrolled at a local university and became interested in photography. He studied the art of photography at the university. After he regained 25% sight on one of his eyes, he took many beautiful photographs. I remember him going through really hard times when he first moved to Canada, but he did not give up. He worked as a regular employee at several different companies. After a while, he became partners with a friend of his, and the two of them founded an import business for men’s and women’s shoes. For the business, they imported a wide variety of shoes from East Asia, Italy and France.

He had a son named Sonny Modiano. Sonny completed his education in Montreal, Canada. After gradation, he initially began working with his father, but he was not entirely interested in the job. Therefore, he decided to move to Detroit in the United States with his wife and two children. Today, he still lives in Detroit, and operates a successful yoghurt manufacturing business there.

My brother got really sick after catching a virus. He passed away despite all efforts to save him. That was in 1992.

My sister was born in Istanbul in 1923. She attended both elementary and middle school at the Saint George Austrian High School. She later attended the American Robert College for high school, but she had to drop out because my father’s financial situation had steadily deteriorated. 9 She got married to Edgar Tabah in 1946. Her husband’s job was not going too well, and therefore, their financial situation was not too comfortable either. In 1975, they were forced to immigrate to Israel to start a new life.

Their son, Albert Tabah, had already immigrated there some time before. He had served in the military, and fought during the Six-Day and Yom Kippur Wars. 10 11 Because of wartime conditions, he decided to move to Canada – near my brother. Later on, the two of them ended up moving together to California, United States. My sister’s daughter, Marcel, ended up staying in Israel. She got married, and gave birth to a daughter and a son.

My sister passed away in 1983. Unfortunately, my sister and I did not really get along well because of some monetary problems. As to my relationship with my brother, we always treated each other with respect and compassion. Anyway, my sister and I did not have the best relationship, and I did not get to see her one last time before she passed… So much so that I did not even want to do her Keriya when I got news that she had passed away. Everyone put a lot of pressure on me to do it; that is why I did her the honors. I would not have done it on my own.

I still feel very offended and hurt when I think about her. She actually took all of my parent’s assets – whatever they owned – with her to Israel. In a way she stole them, and took my parents with her promising to them that she would take care of them with that money once they were living there. But, she ended up sending my parents back home only after three months.  The timing was such that my father had to undergo prostate surgery…

The apartment building I spent my childhood in was located in Yazici Street, in Galata. The building was renamed ‘Lebar’ apartments after the Wealth Tax was implemented. I lived there until I got married in 1953. The building’s residents were all Jewish. We were all like a one, big, happy family. Specifically on Saturday nights, our doorman Mehmet, would buzz every apartment. For example, we were living in apartment No. 6. Mehmet would say “Apartment No. 8 is expecting everyone tonight.” That night, all parents in the building would go over to apartment number eight. They would talk, gossip and play various games with each other. While this was going on, we the children would also get together at another neighbor’s, and play. When we heard movement within the apartment, this meant that our parents were coming back, so we would quickly return to our apartments. At that time, I was around 13 or 14 years old.

If I were to give you exact directions to the apartment building, there was a photo shop, Foto Sureyya in the Tunel Area back then. One would have to go straight downhill from the shop to find the German Lycee. Our building was right across the street from that hill. It was at the end of the street that used to house the Registry Office. My wife and I actually got married at that Registry Office [that building is now Tarik Zafer Tunaya Cultural Center, and it belongs to the municipality of Istanbul].

There was a small vacant lot and a slightly larger one adjacent to the building we used to live in. During summertime, right after schools closed and before went to the islands, our doorman would take all the kids with him to the first lot so we would have a safe play to play instead of playing on the streets.  He would not let us go to the second lot, which was mostly covered with bushes. We the kids would try and convince him to take us there, but we were never successful.

Later on in my life, I came to learn an interesting fact about that vacant land. I was reading a book by Avram Galante. It was called “Historie de Juif de Turquie” [A History of the Turkish Jewry], and was published in French. In the book, Galante mentions that the vacant land from my childhood is actually a Karaite cemetery. 12  When the Karaites first came here during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, they settled in the Karakoy neighborhood. Back then, the neighborhood was called ‘Karay Koy,’ which stands for Karaite Village in Turkish. Over time, it was renamed as ‘Karakoy’, which can be translated as Dark Village. The Karaites, apparently, had their own synagogue around the area. In order to be closer to their synagogues, they had rented the vacant land adjacent to it, and turned it into a cemetery. I do not remember seeing tomb stones there, but it was probably because they were hidden by all the bushes. On top of that, the front of the bushes was covered with a wooden sheet. I do not remember seeing any sign that mentioned the area was a cemetery.

The streets in my neighborhood were clean, and were made of pavestones. Every apartment had a doorman, who would always keep the entrance of the apartments clean. Since the area was mostly occupied by non-Muslims, cleanliness was very important to everyone. The street we lived on was not too busy a street; I remember that automobiles did not pass very frequently, but that the street was often frequented by grocery salesmen, who carried their fruit and vegetables on horse carts.

It would probably be correct to say that about 90% of the people in my neighborhood were Jewish. Adjacent to our apartment building laid a cemetery, and next to the cemetery was a large commercial building. Back then, it was called the Kamondo Apartments. Its named was later changed to Boton Apartments, and when the Yapi Kredi Bank acquired the building, its name was changed to the Dogan Apartments. The building was composed of four different sub-buildings. It had a very large entrance, and was surrounded by apartments on all sides. It also had a tennis court, where most of the neighborhood Jews interested in tennis played. That tennis court has been there for as long as I can remember – from when I was six years old in 1932 until I moved away in 1953.

Most of the Jewish families in our neighborhood were middle-class. Everyone was close to each other. There were not many rich families back then. Even if they were rich, they would not show it off. They would lead a modest life. There were not any synagogues in our neighborhood. But, our neighborhood was in proximity to the Kuledibi neighborhood, where an Ashkenazi Synagogue on Yuksek Kaldirim Street as well as a Knesset [Apollon Synagogue] was located. Back then, the Neve Salom Synagogue had not been built yet. 13 The Italian Synagogue was located on Sair Ziya Pasa Hill, Bankalar Avenue. It was called Kal de Los Frankos at the time.

I personally went to the Italian Synagogue. When it was first founded, the Synagogue’s first rabbi was Rabbi Akal Algazi, the famous tenor. He later moved to Mexico. After Algazi, Eliya Eskinazi became the Synagogue’s rabbi. He was of Bulgarian origin. He served as the Rabbi for our synagogue for a couple of years, after which he transferred to the Buyukada Synagogue. Rav David Asseo, whom we referred to as ‘Maare Ata,’ became the new rabbi for the Italian Synagogue. The Italian-Jewish Community sent him to Rhodes to get educated in Jewish Religion and Affairs, taking care of all his educational costs. He graduated from the Theology University there.

Today’s 500 Years Foundation [500 Yil Vakfi] building was the Zulfaris Synagogue back then. All weddings would take place there. On Sunday morning, children of the Jewish families in the neighborhood would go there to attend Religion classes. My brother, at the time, taught the Torah in Hebrew, since he was one of the founding members of Auvar Ahim.   

The middle-class Jewish population of the time generally preferred living in Jewish neighborhoods such as Yazici Street, Kuledibi, Tepebasi, Kasimpasa. Families, who had a stronger state of finances, would live in the Taksim area while families, who might be called ultra-millionaires, lived in the Sisli and Nisantasi areas.

The Jewish families in my neighborhood held a wide variety of jobs including businessmen and craftsmen. When I say craftsmen, I am talking about being a hairdresser, carpenter, shoemaker, ironworker, etc. In our neighborhood, we did not actually have a Jewish hairdresser, but our hairdresser was a very interesting man. Sevket was his name. He had black hair, and a very dark, black beard. We would all go there for a shave. I remember being very afraid whenever I saw his beard; this was when I was really young. I would not want to go in his shop.

Across the street from our apartment building was a grocery store. Its owner, Yermiya, was Greek. We took care of all our grocery needs from there. I remember my father buying a box of Nestle chocolate from the Yermiya store every Saturday morning (some of the chocolate boxes came with prizes inside). He had actually made a deal with the owner; he would say to him “Listen, I am taking this box of chocolate, and I am going to start eating them until I win a prize. When I do, I will come back here and pay you only for the chocolates I have eaten, and you will agree to take the remaining ones back.” And, the owner Yermiya? He had accepted this!

Every Sunday morning, my father would summon his three children, and we would open the chocolates one by one until one of us located a prize. It was very interesting in that we did get to find the prize every Sunday. We found find a card in the chocolate that had the prize. One of the prizes, for example, was an Ataturk statue made from plaster. Another time, it was an ink-pen, and yet another time we found a camera. This really stayed with me as one of those significant memories I have with my family… I also remember finding photographs of movie actors in those Nestle boxes. Catalogues were given to the buyer with the purchase of the box. Whenever we found a photograph, we would place it in the catalogue. When the catalogue was complete, we would take it to the Nestle store down on the street, and the store owner would give us a present. 

I remember always having electricity in the apartment. We always had running water…

During my childhood years, I remember there being only one political party, Cumhuriyet Halk Party. This was until 1950, when Turkey adopted a multi-party system with the arrival of Adnan Menderes to the political scene. 14  Later on, political parties that we know today, were founded one by one.

I do not remember having to endure any type of anti-Semitism. I believe that one should separate the issue of anti-Semitism into two categories; the first is the anti-Semitism from the perspective of Turkey and the other from that of Italy. We, the Turkish-Jewry did not have to endure any type of anti-Semitism. The only event that comes close was the implementation of the Wealth Tax. As for the Italian anti-Semitism, it began when Mussolini’s Italy became allies with Germany, and the two countries began a war of anti-Semitism against Jews.

I went to an Italian school. I completed elementary school in the Galatasaray neighborhood, at the building behind the Galatasaray Lycee. Mine was an all-male school. As for high school, I attended the Italian Lycee, and graduated from there at twelfth grade.

Italy had celebrations and holidays very specific to its culture. For example, all Italian children in my school between the ages of six and twelve were members of the Figlio de la Lupa, which can be literally translated as the offspring of the wolf. This was a special group of youngster boy scouts. Between the ages of twelve and eighteen – until all of us graduated from high school – we belonged to a higher class of the boy scouts called Ballila. Ballila was, in a way, the Figlio de la Lupa’s Fashist arm. One category higher than the Ballila was a group named Avant Guardista, and yet another category was the Capo Centuria [captain]. I remember my brother reaching as high as the Cadetto class. Every class had its own uniform. For example, people who belonged to Cadetto, had to wear black shirts, green golf pants, jackets and boots. The children would wear their tokens of success on their jackets. These were awarded to them based on their success as a student and as a boy scout.

Both national and religious holidays were celebrated in Italy. During important religious holidays such as Christmas or Easter, we would go to the Casa D’Italya club wearing our uniforms. The club was located at the Tepebasi neighborhood. Today, it is known as the Italian Cultural Center. We also had the chance to attend religious ceremonies. Back then, the 24th of May was commemorated as the Independence day of the Italian Republic, and that day was celebrated through a variety ceremonies just like we commemorate the 19th of May holiday for the Youth of Turkey here. In those days, the 24th of May was always commemorated on a Sunday even if it fell on a different day of the week. We would get together in the backyard of the Italian Cultural Center and practiced gymnastics. We would all be wearing our uniforms on that day. I was the one chosen to carry the flag. Since my brother was older than me, he was in a higher class, and so he was responsible for carrying a larger flag.

The only Turkish holiday we celebrated as students in the Italian Lycee was the Holiday for the Foundation of the Turkish Republic. It is commemorated on the 29th of October of each year. That day, all students would get together in school. We would then join other students from the Galatasary Lycee, and go to the Taksim neighborhood together. Like every year, armed forced would be present in the area for the parade. Following the passage of the armed forces, students from all schools would pass through the parade in honor of the Holiday. Since I was the boy-scout responsible for the carrying the school flag, I would also carry the flag during the 29th of October holiday. During the parade, Turkish flags were the first to be carried through. Then followed the Turkish schools’, and finally foreign schools’ flags [such as the German Lycee, the French Lycee, etc].

I was at the sixth grade when Ataturk passed away in 1938. I remember that his coffin was put on the mausoleum in the Dolmabahce Palace. All students from my school had gone to the Palace to mourn Ataturk’s loss.

I have forgotten almost all of the anthems I learned as a kid.

Back then, students had to go to school on Saturdays as well – but only until lunchtime. In the afternoons, I would either stay at home or go out with my parents to visit my grandmother – depending on my age. When we went to my grandmother’s house, she would always give us a big hug, and ask us: “What can I get for my beautiful grandchildren?” She was always so thoughtful. She always made sure to give us some pocket money. As I got older, the pocket money would come in handy, because I would get my friends together to play cards or go to the movies. After 18, my friends and I started meeting girls. I remember getting together with our girlfriends as a group, and throwing a house-party every Sunday.

We did not have a neighborhood bazaar, but there was a store that sold fruits and vegetables (i.e. greengrocer) rather close to where we lived. I remember my mother calling out to the grocery store across the street from us. She would call out to the owner from the window “Yermiya!” She would say in Greek “Could I get a loaf of bread and a kilo of sugar?” She would then descend a basket all the way down to the ground floor. She would go the greengrocer’s, or send our attendant. 

My father had a keen interest in collecting things. He would sometimes buy things for himself, or he received them as gifts from friends. He would collect them, and later on, when he deemed the time was right, he would take them from his hiding place, and give them out. For example, he would bring home dried fruits and nuts. He did not want us to consume too much, so he would occasionally hide them – but with utmost secrecy.

My father took care of the shopping for the house. Back then, there was a big shopping arcade in the area where the Odakule neighborhood is today. The store was called the Karlman Arcade. Its owner was a Polish Jew. One could find everything he/she was looking for in his store – like today’s Migros Supermarkets. The owner had a unique sales tradition. Once every month, he would label all his goods in multiples of eight – eight cents, eight liras, eighty-eight liras, etc… [He would label each good he sold in multiples of eight depending on the specific good]. He sold glassware, pots and pans, clothing, scarves, etc…

As to my feelings towards important political events I remember, I believe that one of the most important of these is the expulsion f Jews from Spain, and the following immigration of Spanish Jews to the soils of the Ottoman Empire in 1942. 15 This is a very important event as we all know. In addition, many scientists and respected, educated men and women in their fields were forced to take shelter in countries such as Turkey, as a result of the negative pressure and anti-Semitism inflicted toward the Jewish population in Germany and other allied countries. These people became professors in universities based on their expertise. Another event I remember is that, during World War II, the Turkish Government allowed Jewish people from a variety of countries to pass through its soil on their way to Israel. Unfortunately, the Struma incident was a truly unpleasant one. 16  In my house though, these types of events were seldom spoken of.

Growing Up

I was born in Istanbul in 1926. When my mother was pregnant with me, my father’s sister’s husband had passed. His name was Rafael. My father’s sister apparently told him “if it’s a boy, I would like you to name the baby Rafael.” At the same time, my mother had a brother named Jak. He was very interested in hunting. After one of his hunting trips, he caught pneumonia, and he too passed away. After this event, my mother also told my father “If this baby is a boy, I would like to name him Jak.” When I was born, my parents apparently had to struggle with giving me a name for a while. My father suggested “Why don’t we name him something in between Jak and Rafael?” They named me ‘Iko,’ which combines the last syllables of ‘Jakito’ and ‘Rafaeliko.’ So they began calling me Iko…

Well, when it was time for me to enroll in school, my parents had to enlist me at the Italian Consulate. My father did not want to hurt anyone, and so he listed me as Giacomo Rafaello [both Italian names]. He also came up with the name ‘Enrico,’ which would still be a name that included Iko, my original name. Therefore, my official name was listed as ‘Giacomo, Rafaello Enrico Modiano’ at the Consulate’s official records and on the Italian passport I later received. The name Iko was not included within my official name, and therefore, in the Consulate’s official records.

Both my parents supported the family financially, and took care of the children during my childhood years. We also had an attendant in our house. She was a Greek woman named Elefteriya, and was originally from the Imroz Islands [Back then, the Imroz Islands were occupied by the Greeks]. She worked in our house – day and night – for a long time. Because of her, my two siblings and I learned how to speak Greek.
When we were living on Yazici Street, my sister was attending the Australian Elementary School located in the Kuledibi neighborhood. When I was five and a half years old, I also started attending pre-school at the Australian Elementary School. I have a memory from those years… We had Sisters in our classrooms as teachers. They would give us cardboards with holes in them, and we were supposed to create different shapes by way of passing thin ropes through those holes. I would sometimes create animal figures, sometimes flower shapes, etc…

I really liked the Austrian School, so I wanted to go there as well for elementary school. In 1936, right when I was about to begin elementary school, Mussolini passed a new law that affected me and my family members. According to this law, all males, who were Italian citizens, had to study at Italian schools worldwide. If not, they risked losing their citizenship when they became eighteen.

Italy was ruled by a Fashist regime in those days. At the boy scouts group, we had our own uniforms with black shirts. We had to wear dark blue khaki pants, black shirts, and triangle-shaped scarves. The scarves had Mussolini’s emblem carved onto them. On top of these, we had to wear black hats, which also had Mussolini’s emblem at the front. The hat had a pompom hanging down from its right side – just like the ones on the fez [old hats worn during the reign of the Ottoman Empire]. Every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, the school would be out of session, and so we would go the Casa D’Italia Locale, wearing these uniforms. 17

There were many theatrical activities in Casa D’Italia. I first went there in 1939. In 1943, when Italy signed a partnership agreement with Germany, the Jewish students were no longer allowed to be Fashist boy scouts. We could still attend the Locale even though we were Jewish, but we were not allowed to be boy scouts. Nor were we allowed to participate in the Locale’s activities. We were only allowed to continue being students after that year.

As a matter of fact, my brother, who was studying in middle school at the St. Benoit Lycee, had to drop out. He later transferred to the Italian Lycee to complete his education. As for me, I attended the Italian Lycee for elementary school, middle school and high school. The elementary school building was behind the Galatasaray Lycee building. Starting from the sixth grade, I started attending the Lycee on Tomtom Street – located next to the Italian Consulate.

There, I met and became best friends with Nesim Behar, whom I still work with today in the same Jewish organizations and associations. We sat together all through elementary school, but separated at the sixth grade. This was because the sixth grade was divided into two sections; Science and Accounting. I chose to study Accounting.

Accounting was my favorite course. I graduated with six students, one of whom was a female. We all received accounting diplomas. I liked all of my teachers, most of whom were Italian. Students and teachers were very close to each other. I did not study English at school.
I do not remember witnessing any anti-Semitic behavior neither from the students nor from the teachers. After 1943, Jewish students were banned from the Fashist regime’s manifestation at Italian Schools: the boy-scout group. I must say though that we were not being brainwashed in these groups except for the behavior of one teacher. He acted as if he was truly sent here to propagandize for the Fashist government, and to become a gymnastics teacher for the boy scouts.

I graduated from the Italian Lycee in 1948. I had taken violin lessons for eight years – wile I was at school. I could play a variety of musical notes, but I, unfortunately, discontinued my lessons after graduation. Today, I cannot even remember the notes…

As to my childhood friends, I do not remember a lot about my friends in elementary school. I ended up seeing many of my friends from high school after graduation. I still meet up with some of them to this day. One of those friends is Nesim Behar, who happens to be the vice-chair of the Italian Jewish Community. I have been friends with him since elementary school.

I was very close with two friends outside of school. One was Nesim Behar, and the other was Bensiyon Cukran, who unfortunately passed away recently. We always got together in a mixed, co-ed group. We had some Catholic students in our school as well. For example, the famous script writer Giovanni Scognamillo was my classmate in high school. He was very interested in movies - even at that age – especially in horror movies and literature. His father was a mechanic in the Elhamra movie theatre.

Outside of school, we would get together with friends on Sundays, throw parties and dance…

During my years in elementary school, and the first couple of years in middle school, I was very interested in playing with maquettes. There was a store in the Yuksekkaldirim neighborhood, and its owner was Mr. Friedman [his son’s name is Dario Friedman]. Mr. Friedman sold maquette and scale model components, and other items related to the constructing of the maquettes. There were different shapes in blue printed on pieces of paper. There were white carvings on top of them. I would make a dough-like substance using water and flour, and then spread the dough on top of the pieces of paper. I would glue these together using plywood, and wait until they were completely glued. There was also a tool to create small holes; I would open holes on the pieces that were still white. I would then get a bristle and pass this through the hole. Using a handsaw, I was able to create different shapes between the blue and white pieces. Sometimes, I would use natural raisin to stick different shapes together. I remember making a horse, an ink holder and once a blue wooden tray that was red on one side. I would love to find these maquettes today. No one had taught me how to make these; I had learned it myself.

I remember buying pieces of aircraft maquettes from a store right at the beginning of Akaretler Avenue. I would construct the maquette using a cardboard by gluing the pieces together – one by one. The craft’s propeller had a rubber towards its ending. After flattening the rubber, I would turn the propeller using my hand, and the craft would start flying.

I had another passion, which, unfortunately, I did not continue. I had taken seven years of violin lessons, but stopped after graduating from high school…

I had yet another passion when I was a teenager. There was a place called the Luxemburg Palace in Istanbul. This place was a three-story building, and had several pool tables. I loved playing pool there with my friend Jak Mitrani.

I was a member of both the volleyball and basketball teams at school. I did not participate in political activities much. As for cultural activities, I read a poem for the Etifani Holiday when I was in fifth grade. In order to prepare for my presentation, my father and I went to the Sumerbank store to buy some new clothes and shoes [Etifani Holiday is a Christian holiday, during which a cross is placed in the Holy Water].

I spent most of my weekends with my parents. There was an Italian Youth Camp, which was located in Italy. The school sent some of its successful students there. My brother, for example, went there three times. I also was given the opportunity to go once in 1938, but War was about to break out, and my parents did not let me go.

In my childhood days, we did not have to use cars for transportation on a regular basis; actually there was not a big need for it. We would use the tram instead. I would walk from home to school and back because it was very close. I did not own a car when I was a teenager. I actually had a hard time in trying to get a driver’s license. I had started taking driving lessons with a Renault 4. It was a small car. Back then, the Kagithane neighborhood was filled with greenery as far as they eyes could see. I would take my driving lessons there. One day, I was sitting at the driver’s seat and everything was going fine at first. Well, until a buffalo came running onto the street. I made a quick maneuver, but, unfortunately, the car’s front bumpers crashed into a wall, and were slightly damaged. All it took was five liras to make it all good.

I remember getting on the train with my parents to go to Yesilyurt…

I spent my childhood in Buyukada…

As for my memories with my brother, I can go all the way to his engagement. He was about to get engaged to Nina Eskinazi. The first time he brought her to meet with us was pretty interesting. Back then, I was taking violin lessons, and I had started to play some good musical notes such as the Turkish National Anthem. As a coincidence, I was playing the Anthem right at the moment she walked in to meet with us. This added the event a wave of ceremonial meaning – unintentionally of course. It had stayed with all of us as an interesting memory. Whenever we get together, she tells everyone “He welcomed me with the National Anthem.”

My father hit me only once in my life, and he once hit my brother…

The reason my brother got beaten up: We were in Buyukada. He must have been about 17 or 18 years old. He was playing backgammon with a friend of his, who is now deceased. My grandmother was seriously ill at the time. My father had reminded my brother “Go see grandma, and let me know how she is doing.” My brother, however, lost track of time playing backgammon, and so forgot to visit her. My father asked “Did you go and see grandma?” My brother said “Yes I did.” “How is she doing?” “Umm, she is doing my better.” “Was she standing up? Is she able to walk around?” “Yes she was” replied my brother. My father said “Fine.”

The next day, he went to see my grandmother. Of course, she is still in bed, and cannot walk. He asks her “Why are you still in bed?” “Yes, I never left.” “But, didn’t Mair come, see you yesterday?” “No, he didn’t” she says, but later perceives what is going on. ‘Yes… he actually did visit, I am forgetting,” she says. My father, of course, is aware of what is going on. My grandmother had lied to him to save my brother.

When he came home later, he asked my brother “Did you or did you not go see your grandmother yesterday?” “Yes, I did.” “How was she?” “She was fine.” “Was she walking around?” “Yes.” “OK, you go, lay down on the bed now,” he said to my brother, and began hitting his back with his hands.

My story… Well, there was a different reason: I was about fourteen or fifteen. One Sunday afternoon, my parents had to go to a wedding. Something came up, and they were not going to be able to attend. So, my father wrote a note to the couple in a telegram. He told me “Go, post this telegram from the Galatasaray Post Office.” I went there, and posted the telegram. If I remember correctly, they charged me 13 cents for it, and gave me a receipt. I have no idea why I acted that obtrusively, but I guess I wanted to keep five cents to myself, and so I changed the number 13 to 18. I came home. My father asked “Did you post the telegram?” “Yes,” I said. “Where is the receipt?” he asked. I gave it to him. My father looked at the receipt. On top of it says eighteen (one could probably tell it was changed from thirteen though), but at the bottom it says thirteen in writing. He asked me again: “How much did you pay for this?” “Eighteen cents” I replied. “You come over here” he said. “How much did you pay for this?” He began hitting me on my back saying “You really did pay them eighteen cents? Give me my five cents back.”

In my family, all traditions mandated by our religion were strictly followed. Holidays, Pesach and the Seder of course, Rosh Hashanah… My mother would make all kinds of puddings during Shavuot. During Purim, she would make a variety of pies made with honey or “Orejas de Aman” as well as “Borekitas del muez” [quiches]. In order to make orejas de aman, she would prepare some dough first. She would then roll it out, cut it in two pieces, and fry it with vegetable oil. We would eat it with margarine and melted honey or granulated sugar.

After graduating from high school, I started going to the Italian Synagogue with my father every Saturday morning. My brother also came with us. Since then, it has become a tradition for me to go the Synagogue every Saturday morning and during important holidays. When I was a kid, I remember going to the Buyukada Synagogue every Friday evening. This was during summertime of course. I went there from when I was eight to sixteen. The chief rabbi there, Rabbi Eliya Eskinazi was a close friend of my father’s. He taught me so much. I remember saying the Mirha and Avit prayers every morning back then. Rabbi Eskinazi had also put together a chorus group, which I was a member of. We sang during some prayers read on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings. I would only go to that synagogue during summertime because it was very close to our house in Buyukada.

I received schooling on the Jewish religion when I was a kid. I also studied very hard to learn Hebrew, but unfortunately, I could not. Today, Hebrew is a widely-used language, so I regret not having learnt it.

I went to the Mahaziketora, whose name was Aavam Tahim back then. Today, the building is the 500 Years Foundation [500 Yil Vakfi]. 18 I used to take classes at Midrash on the building’s ground floor. The upper floor was a synagogue, where many wedding ceremonies took place. During summertime, there were many courses at the Midras on the Jewish History and Religion. I also learned to observe important holidays from my parents. My father and I would pray on Shabbat evenings, and study the Torah…

During the War

Unfortunately, I did not get to have bar-mitzvah ceremony because the date of the ceremony fell on September 16th-17th. World War II had broken out on the 1st of September, 1939. And, therefore, all our bar-mitzvah preparations went in vein. We were supposed to celebrate it in Buyukada. After a religious ceremony at the Buyukada Synagogue, we were planning on celebrating it on Sunday at home with my family and friends. Many people had gotten invited. I specifically remember that food was going to be served as an a-la-carte buffet. Unfortunately, everything fell through with the beginning of the War. I put on my tefilim on a Thursday, and was asked to go to the synagogue on Saturday for a prayer. That was it.
 
I liked almost all religious holidays. After all, all holidays meant fun and celebrations. During holidays we celebrated at school, for example the Epifani holiday, we would all go to Casa D’Italya. We would celebrate the Holiday with theatrical activities, and everyone would give presents to each other. We also celebrated holidays such as the 24th of May or the 19th of May Youth Holiday…

When the Holocaust was taking place in Europe, my family and I were in Turkey. Since we were Italian citizens, we did not come across any manifestation of anti-Semitism. Italy and Germany had signed a peace agreement with Turkey so as not to go to war with it. Therefore, Jews in Turkey were not affected much by what was going on in Europe at the time. I can say this tough; a wave of negative feelings and behavior toward non-Muslims had started growing steadily in Turkey. As a result, the kinds of anti-Semitic laws that we all know about were passed. These include the 20 military classes and the Wealth Tax. 19

At school, until 1942, all students continued to be a part of the boy-scout groups, and wear black-shirted uniforms. When Italy joined the War next to Germany, the Jews in these groups were banned from being a boy-scout, and participating in the activities. But, my education at school continued as usual.

I do not have many memories about wartime. All I remember is that many foods were distributed based on a ration system. Everyone, for example, had a right to have half a loaf of bread daily. This was distributed with a ration ticket for bread. Coffee was also distributed based on ration tickets. Everyone one had to get their tickets as well as an official communication of demography and residence from the village headmen.

We had heard here that the Holocaust was taking place against European Jewry, and that the Jews were being sent to death camps. There was not a lot of news in the papers about that. We were following the events from the radio.

Actually, I had some relatives, who had managed to escape from Europe. They were initially living in the city Plovdiv in Bulgaria. One of my relatives had wanted to escape to Israel by ship. The ship, El Salvador, had arrived in Turkish waters, and stayed at the port for a period of 24 hours. Unfortunately, after that, the Turkish posts forced the ship and its passengers to vacate Turkish waters. The ship got destroyed due to a terrible storm close the Silivri Island, and sank. Most of its passengers, unfortunately, drowned. One of my wife’s relatives, Elvira Yahni [Yahni is her maiden name], however, managed to survive. She apparently was traveling with her boyfriend on the ship. When the ship started sinking, they managed to hold onto a piece of wood, and survived. She later returned to Bulgaria, and immigrated to the land of Israel afterwards with a different ship.

We received news about the Struma ship as well, and that it was one of the ships that sank in open waters. Its destination was also the land of Israel, but it, unfortunately, never arrived there.

When the Wealth Tax was implemented, the Government imposed a tax of 22,500 Liras for our family. My father could only pay 2,500 Liras, and he deposited this amount at the Treasury. His financial situation did not enable him to pay any more than the amount he had already paid for. Of course, since we were Italian citizens, my father decided to talk to the Consulate about this matter. He officially declared that he could not pay for the entire amount he was taxed. The Italian Consulate, in turn, forwarded this information to the Treasury Department. They were able to lower the tax from 25,000 Liras down to 10,000 Liras.

This was the best my father could hope for, but he still could not afford to pay this much money. He resisted payment as much as he could. But, one day, people came to our house and told us they came to seize all our belongings. My father was extremely disappointed. To this day, I do not know how he came up with the money, but on the 15th of March, 1944, he deposited 10,000 Liras to the Treasury, and paid his debt. That night, we heard on the radio that the Wealth Tax was abolished. I think that my father paid that 10,000 Liras just so the Government could not seize our house in Buyukada. It was his family’s home, and it had a huge significance for him. He never told us how he came up with the money…

I remember one more thing about the Wealth Tax; all the other non-Muslim families living in our apartment building were sent to Askale. Our now deceased doorman, Mehmet, was a person who loved and cared about all families living in his building. There was a laundry room and a grain cellar all the way on the top floor of our building. Our doorman took his son with him, and – without any hesitation – moved most of the families’ valuable furniture such as bedroom furniture, living room furniture, couches, etc up to the grain cellar. They did this every night at midnight. In this way, he was able to save so many of the families’ belongings from seizure. Still, the Government seized so much furniture. Since we were Italian citizens, my father was not sent to Askale because this law did not apply to non-Turkish citizens.

I do not have a lot of information about the 20 Military classes. I did not have serve in this unit since I was an Italian citizen. As far as I know though, they sent 20 military classes to Anatolia to supposedly work on construction projects.

As far as I remember, the “Citizen, Speak Turkish” policy was propaganda initiated by the then President, Ismet Inonu. They were forcing everyone to speak Turkish. So much so that if they heard someone speaking another language on the street, they would warn him/her: “Citizen, Speak Turkish!” Walls were covered with campaign posters. 20

I do not exactly remember the Thrace events… 21

I do remember the Events of 6th-7th of September very well for I had just returned from the Izmir Fair on the 6th of September. 22 When I came back to Istanbul, I went directly to my drapery store. I had an employee there named Suleyman. My wife was staying at her mother’s place in Sishane with my elder son. That night, I was going to go over to my mother-in-law’s house after work, take my wife and son, and go back to our house in Sisli. My employee, Suleyman, however warned me “Mosyo, I don’t think it is a good idea for you to go to your house in Sisli tonight. Go directly to your mother-in-law’s house, and whatever happens, do not leave her house.”

In fact, I began hearing loud noises and clatter coming from the street around eight o’clock in the evening. People were screaming and running in herds. As all this was going on, I remember Suleyman knocking on the door and saying “It’s me, open up.” He came in, and climbed the stairs. He advised “Turn off the lights, do not go into the balcony, and act as if you are not at home. I will be guarding the front door. Please do not even look out from the window.”

There was a bakery called Andon across the street from my house. The insurgents broke all the store’s windows, and threw everything outside including the baked goods. Actually, at one time, the insurgents tried to break the windows of a bakery store one floor below from us. Thankfully, Suleyman intervened and said to the insurgents “This is my store, and I am a Muslim. You cannot touch this store.” They did not cause any damage to the bakery.

Suleyman had also phoned my brother and sister, who both were in Buyukada at the time to warn them. He told them to put up their flags, turn off all the lights, and not leave their apartments.

When we woke up the next morning, everything and everywhere was in ruins. Every store’s goods were on the streets. There were even refrigerators and washing machines out on the streets. The insurgents did destroy many stores and their goods in Buyukada as well. They especially caused a lot of damage to Greek stores in Buyukada.

My wife, Ester Modiano, was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria in 1927. She was born seven months old, and the doctors did not have much hope for her to live. Her maiden name is Yahni. As far as I remember, her mother was born in Haskoy, Istanbul.

Since Ester was born in Bulgaria, her native tongue in Bulgarian. At the same time, she speaks French very well because she studied at a French school. She also had the opportunity to learn Hebrew while she was in Bulgaria. She finished elementary school at Saint Joseph in 1937. She was a very successful student. Unfortunately, she had to drop out of school at seventh grade because of the War. She had to leave Bulgaria. 

I am not sure as to how my wife’s father first settled in Bulgaria. I know that he had three siblings, and that they were all working in a toy and artificial flower plant, where thirty other Turkish employees were working. I know that Ester’s father also had an import business. Once, a shipment of goods he ordered from Germany was sent to Istanbul by mistake. They were supposed to arrive in Bulgaria through ship having passed through the Danube River and the city of Varna. Ester’s father went to Istanbul in an effort to track down the shipment. While he was In Istanbul, he visited his aunt, who had a talent for embroidery. There, he met my mother-in-law, Luna. Luna earned her living by embroidery after her father passed away. Anyway, the aunt tells Ester’s father “I have found you a very nice girl.” As soon as he laid eyes on Luna, he fell in love with her. Before he asked her parents’ permission, he wanted to learn her opinion about moving to Bulgaria, and living there.

Well, they got married in three months. Avram and Luna Yahni began living in the city of Plovdiv in Bulgaria. They had three daughters named Dorette, Ester and Suzi, all of whom were born in Bulgaria. Dorette was going to a French school just like Ester. She was later awarded a scholarship to attend Sorbonne University. The political conditions in Europe because of the War, however, prevented her from attending. Dorette was nine years older than Ester, and was born in 1918. She used to present conferences at school on French Literature. She got married when she was only 19, and she gave birth to a son. During the War, my wife Ester came to Istanbul from Bulgaria with her family. Dorette, however, was unable to travel because she had meningitis. She had to stay in Bulgaria with her husband and son (Albert). She must have passed there, because my wife tirelessly searched for her after the War, but she could not come up with anything. I believe Albert later became an aircraft engineer in Israel.

Suzi is Ester’s younger sister. She was born in 1938. She had to drop out of school in Bulgaria, because her family moved to Istanbul during the War. She attended the Karma High School in Istanbul for a while, but she caught asthma at a very young age due to the high level of humidity present in Istanbul’s air. She suffered from asthma all throughout her life. She did not get married. When I got married to Ester, Suzi started living at our house. She lived with us until she got into a diabetic shock in 2001. We transferred her to a retirement center in the Haskoy neighborhood after that. She passed away in 2004.

When my wife was attending third grade in elementary school, anti-Semitic waves had started becoming a reality in Bulgaria. The Jewish people were forced to wear the six-edged, yellow Star of David on their chests so as to identify who they were. The Turkish Consulate-General in Bulgaria was a very nice, whole-hearted man. Ester does not remember his name. Since Ester and her family were still Turkish citizens, he summoned them to the Consulate one day, and told them that they needed to urgently leave the country, and that it was not possible for them to survive the death camps once they were there.

Being a 13 or 14 year old kid, just starting to get to know life, and wanting to become a French teacher in the future, Ester, had to leave behind all her wishes and hopes in Bulgaria. She went to Turkey by train. Three months after she arrived in Istanbul, her parents and her sister, Dorette, arrived in Istanbul as well (I believe that was in 1940) [Her family spent their first couple of days in Istanbul at a hotel in the Sirkeci neighborhood.] Ester’s father, who was quite wealthy in Bulgaria, suffered great financial troubles during the period he lived in Istanbul. He could not accept this situation, and he committed suicide a year or two after his arrival in the country. I believe it was the second day of Shavuot in 1948…

Ester’s mother, Luna, suffered a panic attack in 1960, during my son Alberto’s circumcision ceremony. She was actually carrying Alberto from the maternity room to the ceremony hall downstairs when it happened. Luckily, my sister was bale to save Alberto at the last minute. Unfortunately, however, my mother-in-law suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and was immediately taken to the French Hospital. She lived for another week, maybe ten days, before she finally passed. My sister-in-law, Suzan Yahni, stayed with us from that day to the day she passed.

Anyway, back to when Ester’s family first came to Istanbul… After living in Sirkeci for a couple of days, her mother’s younger sister gave the family two rooms in her house to sleep in. They lived there for a couple of months. Afterwards, they moved to an old house on Mektep Street in the Sishane neighborhood. The money they had brought with them drained very quickly. They went through tough times financially. In all this while, Ester had started comprehending Turkish. She also started working because the family’s financial condition was quite rough. She first got a job at a stationary store. When the owner of the store sexually harassed her, however, she immediately quit that job. Luckily, she was able to locate a job through a friend at the Odeon Company’s Accounting Department. She worked there until we got married.

She became very good friends with a lady named Rachel Adato while she was working there. She also became the star of the department, and was quickly recognized by the owner of the Company. They began trusting her with secret Company information. My wife was taking care of most of the workload for the Department. She was working at the Company’s headquarters location. Odeon had three branch offices; in Kadikoy, Sirkeci and Beyoglu. She was controlling all incoming and outgoing goods to and from these branches, and trying hard not to make a mistake. As an accountant, she also had the opportunity to provide financial services for many famous persons such as Munir Nurettin Selcuk, Zeki Muren and Muzeyyen Senar.

At the time, I was governing Misne Tora’s [an association founded to help support poor school children] Youth Commission, and there was a wave of new candidates applying to become members of the Association. I, of course, had a secretary working with me - given my status as the President. Whenever a candidate wanted to apply, my secretary would have him/her fill out a form, and include a picture on his/her application.

I remember joking about it with my secretary when my wife-to-be’s application form arrived on my desk. I said to her “What is this, are we going to open up a school here or what?” because the picture my wife submitted with her application form was one that was taken when she was a student. My secretary said to me “You accept her membership, and then we can deal with it later.” My wife actually became a member 15 days after that. The first meeting she attended was during a Purim ball. She was sitting by herself on one corner of the ballroom. I asked my secretary “Who is this lady sitting over there at the corner?” She responded “That would be your student.”

As a coincidence, we were supposed to have our Association’s 50th-year meetings in a week’s time. A bunch of us decided to take the day off, and go somewhere. Some of us were going to Yesilkoy, and others were going to go to Tarabya. I was actually going to meet a lady friend at 3:00 PM in Tunel. I remember waiting for her until 3:30 PM, but she never showed. Well, I decided to go over to Tarabya to meet my friends there. My wife-to-be was there as well. This was my opportunity to see her in a closer manner. After Tarabya, my friends decided to go over to the municipal casino in Taksim, where the Ceylan Hotel stands today. I invited my wife there as my friend. We started dating shortly after.

My wife and I were dating around the same time she was working at Odeon. We were not sure as to whether we both wanted to get married. Plus, my family did not have a final decision. In an effort to get to know Ester better, my father went over to her workplace with an excuse for wanting to buy a three-wheeled bicycle for his nephew. He was also very close with Ester’s managers. There, he had an opportunity to see her and talk to her even though it was not too comprehensive a talk. Her managers, meanwhile, had given for her excellent references. In the end, my father decided that Ester and I should get married.

After the War

We got engaged on the 28th of May, 1952. We stayed engaged for about a year, and then got married on the 31st of May in 1953 at the Italian Synagogue. My father was a member of the Governing Board for the Italian Jewish Community in Turkey. This is probably why our wedding was really crowded and colorful. At the same time, my father was a member of the ‘Fakirleri Koruma Dernegi [Support Center for the Poor]. 23 So, all members from there attended our wedding with their significant others. Our whole family was also a member of the Misne Tora, and so all members from the Association attended our wedding as well. Actually, members of the Misne Tora put together a ceremony team for the special day. It was composed of ten male and ten female schoolchildren dressed in clothing specifically prepared for our wedding.

The 24th of March, 1999 fell on a Wednesday, and we had a meeting that day at the house of the Italian Jewish Community’s President. When the meeting was over, I came back home. That was when I learned that my wife had been in an accident. Like every week, that Wednesday, my wife was supposed to get together with her friends to play bridge. They had set the table ready for teatime at 5:00 PM. At about 3:15 PM, the electricity went out, and she wanted to go downstairs to open the apartment door so that other friends arriving could come in easily. Just as she was going down the stairs from the third floor towards the second, she fell and hit her head. She suffered a brain trauma. She was bleeding everywhere…

Dora Adut, her neighbor from the third floor, immediately took her to the Etfal Hospital. She had lost so much blood. By the time they reached the hospital, she had developed a cloth to her brain because of all the bleeding. That night, she was urgently taken to the emergency room for surgery. Her surgery took about five hours.

After the surgery, she continued to be kept at the emergency room of the Neurology Department for an additional two days. The hospital’s respiratory machines were, unfortunately, not sufficient for my wife’s condition, so she was transferred to the emergency room at the Cerraphasa Hospital’s Neurology Department in an ambulance. Her doctor there was Moiz Behar, who happened to be one of the most talented doctors in the Jewish community. Her 26-day emergency room stay passed as if she was in a vegetative state. She was later transferred to a regular room within the hospital, where she stayed for two more weeks. After that, she was transferred for a third time to the Balat Or Ahayim Hospital. 24 She continued receiving medical attention there for 26 more days. Only after that was she able to return home. Unfortunately, one year after this terrible accident, she broke her hip bone. Today, she can take care of all her needs herself…

I co-owned a drapery business with my brother between 1950 and 1958. We frequently did business in Anatolia. At the same time, I did some factory representation as well as helping my father with his insurance business. After my brother left for Canada, I began focusing solely on representation and exporting work. I did continue helping my father with the insurance business though. In later years, insurance brokerage became my main line of business. I retired last year, and sold my insurance agency to a friend because of financial difficulties.

At the beginning of the 60’s, I was trying to operate the insurance agency I took over from my father. According to the insurance laws in Turkey, a foreign national could not operate an insurance agency. That is why the agency was under my wife’s name. I wanted to become a Turkish citizen myself so that I could transfer the agency to my name. I submitted a request, but I was told that I had to bring a document with my application stating that I was no longer an Italian citizen. Once I completed this step, I had to submit a petition to become a Turkish national. I asked the government office “When do you think I can officially become a Turkish citizen?” They did not, however, give me a positive response. All I knew was that – depending on the result of the petition – this could take anywhere between six months and three years.

Moreover, when the petition is approved, my case was going to go to the Council of Ministers for processing. First, the Ministers’ approval is needed. After that, the President officially declares that a case is approved, and the approval is declared in the official newspaper. I asked “What citizenship am I supposed to hold in the meantime?” I was told that I could be given a temporary passport until then, but it was not going to be a Turkish passport. I did not want to be a person with this regular a passport, so I decided to continue being an Italian citizen.

My kids do not work in the insurance business. Nor do they want to learn anything about the business. My biggest desire was to be able to work with my children, and to transfer my business over to them someday. This did not happen though. Every one of them has different jobs today.

I have three children. One of them, unfortunately, passed in 1958 – eight days after he was born. He passed when a neglectful nurse was carrying her from the hospital to the salon, where he was going to be circumcised. Since he was only eight days old and was not yet circumcised before he passed, we could not give him a name. He was buried without one. One of the rabbis in the Italian Jewish community took our baby with him to an Italian Cemetery, performed his circumcision, and buried him there.

All my three children were born in Istanbul. Saul was born on the 15th of December, 1954. My son, who passed was born in 1956. My younger son, Alberto, was born on the 20th of November, 1960. Ester and I usually speak to the children in Turkish though both know Spanish, French and English.

My wife was the one who usually took care of the children. I would go to work early in the morning, and come home late. On weekends, however, I would take care of them, and we would usually go out together as a family. I believe that I have shown them the compassion a father should be able to show his children. I always tried helping them with their studies. Even though my wife had to drop out of school at seventh grade, she managed to continue educating herself at home, and augment her knowledge.

We have been living in the same apartment since my wife and I got married.

We used to go to the movies, plays and concerts together – as a family. At one time actually, we became members of the Konak Movie Theater in the Harbiye neighborhood. We went there every Sunday to see a movie. Before my wife had the accident, she used to go to the concerts that took place at the Ataturk Cultural Center every Saturday morning. I would come home on Saturdays after the morning prayer at the Synagogue, and read the paper or a book. We would go out together in the afternoons. On Sundays, we usually got together with three other families. The women played bridges together, and the men usually watched TV or chatted.

We went to Buyukada every summer. We had our own house there, so there was no need really to take a vacation and go somewhere during the summer. Only after selling that house in 1995, we began taking week-long vacations to Europe or different cities in Anatolia such as Cesme with some friends.

I used to frequently travel for business – mostly to Europe. I went to Italy, France, Belgium and Israel. My wife and I also took many trips to Europe with another couple.

The vacations I spent in Buyukada can be classified into several different periods - my childhood years, my teenage years, years when I was single and older, and finally my married years… When I talk about my childhood years in Buyukada, the first thing that comes to my mind is that we were four close friends back then. In fact, one of them recently passed away. His mother had a large dishwashing sink, which we used as a rowboat in the sea. I remember that once we almost drowned using that.

None of my children went to a Jewish school here, but they did go to the synagogue regularly when they were teenagers in order to attend Hebrew classes. They became members of the Arkadaslik Yurdu Dernegi [Friendship Center and Association] when they were teenagers, and participated in many activities there. I raised my children according to Jewish traditions. My children do not regularly go to the synagogue nowadays, but they do try and go on Yom Kippur or on some Saturday mornings – if they have the time.
    
The bar-mitzvah ceremonies for both my children were held at the Italian Synagogue on a Saturday. I remember them putting on the tefilim on a Thursday. On Saturday evening of the same week, we gave a cocktail party for friends and family; we cut the Bar-mitzvah cake…

I remember the berit-mila [circumcision ceremony] of both my children. In fact, my mother-in-law got sick during the circumcision ceremony of my younger son. Thank God, we were able to hold the ceremony as we wanted.

As for the important Holidays I celebrate, I love celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Pesach, both of which are Seder holidays. I also used to celebrate the Tubisvat Holiday for fruits and nuts so that my children would grow up knowing what it is for, but I do not celebrate it anymore.

My wife was a very good cook on her healthier days. She cooked a wide variety of foods, and all of them very well. She used to bake delicious cakes. I like all her cooking delights, so I cannot really choose one food over the other.

My parents were both religious people. They raised us so that we learned how to observe and behave according to important traditions. My kids are interested in their religion today as a result of experiencing my parents’ and my religious behavior.

Both my parents are buried in the Sisli Italian Cemetery as part of the Italian Jewish Community. My wife’s parents are buried at the Haskoy cemetery. I had the opportunity to read the Kadis prayer during their burial ceremony. My mother passed away one day before the Aasara Betevet Tubishvat Holiday. My father, on the other hand, passed on the fourth night of Pesach.

Almost all of the friends I have had to this date are Jewish. We used to get together with them at a couple’s house every week; the women played bridges and the men either chatted or watched TV. When I got together with my friends, our subjects of conversation were Israel, the fighting over there, and how the Country could grow. We used to exchange opinions on these subjects.

Both my children live in Istanbul today. My elder son, Saul, studied at the Sisli Ondokuzmayis Elementary School, at the Saint Benoit Lycee for middle school and at the Beyoglu Commerce Lycee for high school. He graduated from there at 18. He served in the military between 1979-80. He worked in a variety of businesses including insurance, tourism and textile businesses. Last year, he retired (officially) from his work as the Import-Export Manager of a firm that sells baby products, but he is still considered the Import-Export Manager of the firm today.

My younger son, Alberto, also went to the Sisli Ondokuzmayis Elementary School. He later began attending the private Hurriyet Lycee, and graduated from there. He served his military term in Van [a city on the Eastern side of Turkey] between 1982-83. Before he served, he was managing a cosmetics and perfume store in Buyukada with his mom. After he completed his military service, he began working as an accountant in a cargo business. He later took a job as the Accounting Manager of an international firm. He had been an accountant for seventeen years when my wife got into that terrible accident. This was when his occupation as an Accounting Manager came to an end. During the period in which he was unemployed, he got interested in photography. He was able to become a successful professional at a job he once viewed as a hobby. He is now working as a photographer for the Chief Rabbi’s Office and the Neve Salom Foundation. He has become quite successful. Whenever there is a ceremony or a party during which the services of a photographer will be needed, my son is there. He is also a researcher of photography.

The founding of Israel gave me tremendous pleasure and excitement. That day, I remember going over to the Consulate of Israel in Taksim, and watched as they hanged up the flag. I was so incredibly excited during that ceremony. My wife and I always try and follow important news about Israel. 

I did not really consider Aliya, or immigrating to Israel because of both my work here in Turkey and my age. But, I have visited Israel on many occasions, and seen many of its cities. My wife has some relatives there. My sister also immigrated there with her son a while back. I have so many friends, who have immigrated there. I try to keep in touch with some of them today. Some of them visit me when they come to Istanbul. Most of these people are my wife’s old friends and relatives. I do not remember having any problems here after the 1967 Six-Day-War.

I have a 42 year history at the FKD; the Association for Protecting the Poor. In fact, I was given an award when I completed my 40th year there as a member. I have also been a member of the Governing Council for the Italian Community since 1972. I have always tried to be an active participant in several other associations and support centers.

I have participated in many conferences. I remember giving a speech at the Kneset Israel Synagogue. That day, a ceremony was being held in honor of the FKD’s 50th-year anniversary. As the President of the Youth Commission, I gave a speech covering the activities of the Commission.

In 1975, I became a founding member of the Beyazit Lions Club, and started participating in several of the Club’s activities. I worked there for approximately 15 years as the President of a variety of Commissions within the Club. I retired from my volunteer work because of my age. I have also become a member of the Turk Yukseltme Vakfi [Turkish Ennobling Foundation], and volunteered there for a couple of years before retiring.
  
I always try and keep up with my religious duties. My favorite pastime and biggest desire is to go to the Synagogue on Saturday mornings and during important holidays.

I do not use e-mail or the internet.

My wife used to take care of the cooking in our house until she had that terrible accident. After the accident, we had to hire an attendant to help with the cooking and other housework. She cooks all our food nowadays.
 
Unfortunately, because of my wife’s medical condition, we do not get to see many of our old friends anymore. But, some of these friends call us to see how we are doing every chance they get. In this way, we are able to keep in touch with some of them.

I do not have a lot of political perspectives. I do not feel really bound by any political perspective because of my foreign citizenship.

I was at the Buyukada Synagogue, praying, when the 1986 Neve Salom massacre happened. 25 I actually happened to be sitting right next to the phone. The person sitting next to me answered the phone when it rang, and received the terrible news. None of us was really able to fully comprehend what had happened. I can say that we were quite shocked.

When the 2003 bombings took place, I was at the Italian Synagogue I always go to. 26 The Italian Synagogue happens to be just a few blocks away from the Neve Salom Synagogue, which was bombed. When I heard the explosion, I felt as if the Synagogue’s building I was in shook just a little bit. Thank God, there was not any damage to the building. I remember leaving though in the middle of the prayer’s, and passing through the Bankalar Street in trying to get home as soon as possible.

My wife and I speak French, Turkish or Spanish between each other. We speak Turkish, and sometimes French with our kids.

GLOSSARY

Jak Rutli
Istanbul
Turkey
Interviewer:  Yusuf Sarhon
Date of Interview: May 2005

Jak Rutli is 86 years old, can be considered tall for his generation, has silver hair, is superior to Hollywood actors with his speaking manner and his good looks that have not lost anything with age, is a little firm-sweet in demeanor, and is an elder that I am very fond of.  He lives in Mecidiyeköy on a ground floor with his wife Ceni Rutli.  I have spent my childhood with him due to the fact that he is a friend of my parents.  This interview has provided me with the opportunity to see them again after long years and to rekindle my childhood memories.  Witnessing his humor and vigor despite his age and the illnesses resulting from his age also made me very happy.

My family background

Growing up

My wife Ceni Rutli

Family life

World War II and the Turkish Jews

Glossary

My family background

I do not know anything about my great grandparents, neither on my mother’s nor on my father’s side.  I don’t know what they did or what language they spoke.  I guess my father’s side spoke Yiddish, because my grandparents and parents spoke Yiddish.  My father spoke Russian and Arabic, too, so they might have spoken Russian too. 

My mother’s father was Sami Rozental.  His name in Yiddish was Zolmen but he was called Sami here.  He was from Romanian origins and he was very religious.  He lived 110 years and was very much respected by everyone.  According to what I was told by my mother, people would come to get his advice until his last days; in other words he was able to dole out sane advice even at the age of 110.  He was a very religious, honest and wise man.  Also as far as I know, my mother’s father emigrated to Egypt with my mother and the whole family, but that is all I know.  I don’t even know the name of my mother’s mother.  I have no information on that.

My father’s father was Yitzhak Rozental, and his roots are from Lithuania.  According to what I was told, he was born there, he lived there and he died there.  I was only 16 when my father died.  They must have lived through a lot but unfortunately I don’t know anything.  In our community [the Ashkenazi community] it was customary to name a child after a  dead person, they wouldn’t give a child the name of a person if that person was alive.  So if a grandfather is alive, the grandson is not named after him; only if he is dead.  So I got the name of my mother’s father.

They must have been working to earn a living but I have no idea what they were doing.  Maybe they were tailors.  I don’t know which languages they knew.  I think they spoke Yiddish.

I think my father’s father had a beard, I saw it once in a photo.  I don’t know in what kind of house they lived in or what kind of furniture they had.  What I do know is that my father’s father left their house in Lithuania and ran away.  Either when the Russians came or when communism came, in the 1875’s, I am not sure which, they left and ran away.  Before those years Lithuania was independent, but then the Russians came and they left.  My father went to Egypt but I don’t know if it was with his whole family or just him.  I don’t know what happened to his family.  I just know that my father went to Egypt, there he met my mother and they got married in Egypt.

My father’s mother’s name was Zelda.  My grandmother did not wear any wigs like the Orthodox ladies, she wore the clothes that were in fashion at the time.  They did wear hats though, they would never go out without a hat. 

My father told me that because the mothers were different, they had other daughters. My grandfather, my father’s father, lost his wife at a young age. She produced 2 children, my father and a sister, then she died young and he married another woman. I don’t remember the name.  And he arrived, Fritz arrived, a sister, I don’t remember the name, arrived. They all went to France, but they were cool in their relationship. The reason was probably because the mothers were different. 

We were closer with one because he was here, in Istanbul, Fritz Rozental.  He was born here, lived and died here. Fritz had two sons and one daughter.  Leon Rozenthal, Izi Rozenthal and Eni rozenthal. His wife was Klara, she was religious, she read books. She died too. Only Izi is left from his family and Leon’s son, Izel Rozental.

My mother stayed in Egypt for 10 years, they lived there, then they came here, later when my father died, and my older sister, having married a doctor, settled in Israel, she went with them and lived there.

My father was born in Lithuania. I don’t know but he probably went to highschool, he couldn’t do more because he ran away from Lithuania. My father spoke in Yiddish. He knew German and Arabic. My father spoke Yiddish in the family among themselves and their parents. They spoke in Arabic if they wanted to hide something from the children.
My father was a serious and hardworking person and a very, very good father.  He was especially very fond of his children. He was excessively fond of them. We, 5 kids, went to school at the same time. All the children attended school.  At the Saint-George school, and there was a Goldschmith school at the time. He educated all of us. He was so fond of us that, in summer we would go to the sea as a family. He would go into the sea, he would only allow us to go in until the water reached our knees, he would not allow us to go deeper, he was scared that we could drown. None of us learned how to swim because of this.  He did not allow us to eat green plums. If we drank water following that, we could get sick.

My father worked at Carlmann before he opened his own store. There was Sümerbank  in Beyoglu [the famous district in Istanbul, which used to be called Pera], a big building. That building was Carlmann’s. And 3 stories were ready-to-wear clothing. My father was a manager there. After that he opened his own store. He opened a female and male tailoring store. My father did tailoring to earn their living. My father earned well, he was a good tailor for women and men. During the war there was no sugar here, there wasn’t this or that but my father imported it from Russia in blocks. The ladies of the Pasha and his entourage brought it for him.

My father was tall. He had a bulging hat. At the time you had to pay a penny to cross Karakoy bridge [bridge across the Golden Horn]. They would stand at the ends of the bridge with coin boxes, they would charge one penny on one way and one penny on the way back. He sometimes took me too, we would cross the bridge walking. When he was paying the official, the other would say: “Can’t you see?  He is German”. That’s what he looked like, like a tall German.  He dressed well of course. Because he was a tailor, he dressed well, he did all the ironing. My father did not go into the military at first because he was a foreign national, a white Russian.  He became a Turk later on.

My mother was born in Romania. My mother went to Egypt when she was 2 years old, she must have gone to school there. My mother spoke Yiddish, she spoke German.  She knew Arabic too, she spoke Arabic with my father. I don’t know what she studied. She was married at 15.

The clothing of my mother was the modern clothing of the times. My mother was very good too, her only job was to raise the children. But she walked around with a whip in the house.  There was a pole, with leather strips on the end.  Because there were 6 boys, 2 boys in each room, the pillows would fly in the air. As if this were not enough, the 6 children of my father’s sister would also come to our house. My mother of course walked around with that whip and everyone was scared. But the house was always clean and my mother was always busy with cooking. She would cook for lunch in the morning, and for the evening in the afternoon. One meal would not be enough for both lunch and dinner. There were 8 people in the house, and Swartz, makes 9, you have to feed these.
In our family the one who went (shopping) to the bazaar was my mother, my mother did all the shopping. There weren’t any vendors or merchants that they especially bought from.

My mother and father met in Egypt, but how, I do not know.  My father had moved to Egypt, they met there and were married there. In Cairo. First my mom went there, she was 2 years old then.  She stayed there for 15 years.  Later my father came and stayed there for 10 more years. But I don’t know how they met.  Was it matchmaking, or was it not, I was not told. I only know that they were married in a synagogue in Egypt.
Our family’s financial situation wasn’t very wealthy, but it was good. He educated five children at the same time, a big house, plenty of good food, and going out, that means he earned well.

The house we lived in was big. It had 7-8 rooms. The children stayed two per room. There was no bathroom at the time. Houses with bathrooms were very rare, there weren’t any in Kuledibi.  The inside of the house isn’t like the ones today of course. There were sofas and armchairs, a china cabinet, the kitchen had a stove that worked with coal. The gas was coal gas piped into buildings then, there were no gas tubes. There were coal stoves for heating. We had continuous running water from the tabs. We did not have a garden, we lived in a flat. We had pets in the house, we had a cat, its name was Pamuk(Cotton).  It lived with us for 25 years. We did not have helpers like servants, maids, nannies, au paires or laundry women. We only had a woman who came once a week.

We always had books in our house.   My older brothers had books, magazines, for example, there was Stern. There were a few religious books but we did not read them, my father did. My parents liked reading, but my father read more.  My mother, even though she enjoyed it, did not have much time from struggling with the kids. A newspaper arrived to the house too. The French newspaper, Journal d’orient 1 would come. They did not have the habit of going to the library.

My father could be considered religious. He applied Passover, Purim, Rosh Ashana and Yom Kippur among the Jewish traditions. They observed kashrut.  Pork products, shrimp and such would not enter our house. He even had different tableware served during Passover.  There were special plates for Passover.  Also my father did not like small plates, he liked to eat in big plates. There would be holiday celebrations in the house. We would go to relatives, they would come to us. My father went to the synagogue every Friday and Saturday. My family was a member of the Jewish community. My father had active duties in the community. The tailors had built the Schneider Temple [the old tailors’ synagogue, which has now become an art gallery] at the time. Schneider means tailor. All the tailors built that synagogue and they were all members there.

My parents did not have political views, they were not involved with any party, or political, social or cultural organization.

When we lived in Kuledibi, we had Jewish neighbors. There was Cansberg, the  Deutchberg’s, there was one Matild Moskovic, she came every day to our house.  The women came. My father had friends too. There was Roustein, he was a watchmaker in Beyoglu. He was Russian too. They would go out together.

We did not go on trips much. But my father did not like to stay home.  He would go out in the evenings, on Friday and Saturdays. He even went out with so many children.

My mother stayed in Egypt for 10 years, they lived there, then they came here, later when my father died, and my older sister, having married a doctor, settled in Israel, she went with them and lived there.

My father is buried in the Jewish cemetery here, my mother’s is in Israel.
Of course there was a rabbi at the funeral, and he was buried with a religious ceremony, we recited the Kaddish. I do their yartzheits on the anniversary of their deaths. A letter comes from our community to remind us, even my older sister Zelda’s letter comes for reminder even though I did not even meet her. Our community sends out letters because we are few. 10-15 days before.

My mother’s sibling, I do not remember his name, he was a technical manager at the Rozental Bomonti beer factory.  I did not meet any other sibling, there probably was none.  This sibling had a son, Charles, and daughters, Fani and Rasel . Charles went to Buenos Aires with his father, later he went to Rio de Janerio. Fani married here with Albukrek. Rasel also married here with Jak Palombo and went to Israel.

My father’s sister was Ida. Her husband was Eliya Huves, he was a tailor too. We lived across from them in Kuledibi. They left for Israel too about 30-40 years ago.  They had 8 children, 5 boys and 3 girls.

He had one brother, Fritz. He also had siblings in France, his relationship was cool with them. I neither met them, nor do I have information about them.

We were 8 siblings. I do not know the birth year of Zelda.  When she died I was not born yet.  She died at 18 years of age.  When my mother came from Egypt, she came with 5 children. She rented a house here.  My father did not know about shopping, just like me.  My mother did it to the very end. One day my mother had to go out.  She had a neighbor who had a daughter. She said, leave,  I will take care of her.  My mother said, I will be back in 10-15 minutes, I am going to the grocer. My older sister was a baby then. Maybe one year old.  Apparently she sat her on a high stool, she fell from it, hit her head and was sick. She developed epilepsy. She would start trembling. My father and mother did not refrain from seeing every doctor.  There was no cure. She was fine then.  She was big then, she helped raise the children of all the friends. She was fine till 18 years of age, but she would be afflicted with this sickness from time to time with a doctor and she died at 18 years of age. When she died I was not born yet.

Robert, born in 1900.  When he was around 20-21 years old, there were Jews escaping Russia, most of them came here. A lot of Jews came at the time, Russians also came, even princes came, the princes of the czar and such would sell flowers in the streets. They escaped from Russia when communism came.  There was Hotel Gendermann in Kuledibi, Kücükhendek, the Russians settled there.  My older brother met a girl named Frima, Russian Jew, and he loved her very much and married. He was married in the hotel. I remember, there was music and I was 2 years old, they gave me a small chair and I played.  They left for the U.S.A. the next morning to live there.  He died there.  When he was here, he did brokerage.  He did commerce there too.  He had one son, I don’t remember the name. He divorced while he was there.

Moris Rozental, I don’t remember the date.  When his older brother left for the U.S.A. when he was 17, he said, why should I stay here, I will go to be with my older brother.  But they were not giving visas for the U.S.A. then. It was free until then.  You would buy a ticket and you would go.  He made an agreement with a man to go to U.S.A.  There were 8 more young people that this man made agreements with. They traveled by boat.  The trip probably took 15-20 days. Just when they arrived, they said you cannot go in.  He left all of them on an island there. They stayed there for 3 days, they ate bananas and so on there.  3 days later, when the checking was easier, he smuggled them into the U.S.A. illegally.  Later he went to my other older brother. He stayed there, he married there.  He had two sons, one daughter. Soli, Vili and Beti.  He stayed in New York for a while.  Later he found NewYork too noisy, he left and went to Los Angeles.  He stayed there. At one time he came here and I met Moris because I did not know him.  They came to our house in Caddebostan. With his wife and one son. 

Alberto Rozental said I will not stay here, either. I will go to Buenos Aires, to be with my uncle, he said.  Next to my mother’s brother. He went ahead and left.  I don’t know his birth date.  He registered my birth date as the 6th of May.  He stayed in Buenos Aires for 10 years then moved to Rio. He married in Rio with Bronya Rozental, he did not have children.  As far as I know, and from what my nephew in the United States tells me, he became very wealthy.  He would even tell in his letters “it is midnight, I am still working”.  He had a construction business and a factory for locks.  And he did constructions.  He worked very hard.  But when El-Al was newly founded, Motle Schneider was the first manager.  He was the best friend of my older brother Davit.  One day he left for Rio. He met with my older brother there.  On his return, he said “listen, I have seen a lot of houses but I haven’t seen one like your brother’s”.  He was that wealthy. Later on the letters ceased.  My nephew in the United States said that there was a rebellion.  The street where my older brother resided was the place for bigshots, rich people. They cleaned out everything.  I wrote to the community, I did not get any news.  His wife also did not answer.  Because they had nephews, it did not suit her, I was a brother.  She did not let me know so I would not inherit.  My nephew did not tell us anything, I think they killed him.  There was a riot against the rich, what they call a progrom in Rio. 

But when he was alive, the fourth son that is to say my fifth brother Charles who was here was dating a Catholic girl.  He was born in Egypt too.  He also said I will not stay, I will go to Rio too. He went ahead and left for Paris.  He did not have a visa for Rio. My older brother said you stay in Paris and wait, I will send you a visa.  Charles got a permit for 6 months, in the meantime, problems arose for the visa, he could not get it one way or the other.  Consequently he got engaged to a Jewish girl who was an acquaintance, he went to  the Prefecture de Police  (Police Station), saying we are engaged, we are getting married, and extended his permit for another 6 months. In this way he extended it for 3 years.  In the meantime he worked there, he did tailoring, ironing, he did commerce.  The purpose was to earn his living. 3 years later the French said you are not getting married and revoked his passport, took him to the embassy, and because he hadn’t done his military service, he became a fugitive soldier.  And they moved him out of border to Italy.  When he went to Italy, the visa for Brazil came to Paris in the end, but he couldn’t go and came back her with the police.  He disembarked  in Sirkeci with the police.   My father waited for him, gave the guy 10 bucks, and the police let him go.  He did not go to the military for 3 years. He stayed here.

Davit was born in Egypt in 1915.  He also studied here in Saint-George.  Later there was an important brokerage agent here, Davit Leon Farber, he worked there.  But then there was an even more important agent, Emu Mayer, who was one of the wealthiest in Istanbul.  This Emu Mayer was such a merchant that when he passed through  Aşirefendi with his horse-carriage, all the merchants stood up.  Because he was a good employee, he removed my brother out of his job and took him under his wing. He gave him double his salary.  It was a huge place, there were a lot of employees.  Later he also gave him his daughter. He married Berta Mayer.  He had one daughter, Nadya.  She died recently, she was in her 60’s maybe.  My older brother and his wife had previously died in Istanbul.  My brother died at 57 years of age.  He had a myocardial infarction, he died while he was on a trip to Germany. He traveled a lot.  He was here for one month, in Germany for one month, that is how his life was.  His grave is in Germany, we went to visit it previously.  The Jewish community there did not want to give him up.  The Grand Rabbi there did not want to give him up.  We talked on the phone, we will send him with cargo, we said, he did not give him up.  The Grand Rabbi was very powerful among the Jews after Hitler, the government did not get involved.  The Grand Rabbi said, according to our laws, we can only send him to Israel from here.  As you know, in our tradition, the funeral cannot wait too much, you have to bury within 24 hours.  At the time, Turkish citizens could not leave the country more than once a year. My older brother and I could not leave because our passports were not suitable.  The brother of Berta was an Italian national, we sent him to get the funeral and bring it, they did not give it up and he returned.  The Grand Rabbinate there sent pictures and this and that and placed the tombstone.  About 20 years ago we left and went to Munich and visited his gravesite.

Ida was born in 1917.  She also studied in Saint-George.  She grew up here.  Later we went to the military.  3 brothers, we were taken into the 20 military classes.2  My two older brothers and I.  They took my older brother Davit three times to the military.  We gave a petition saying my two older brothers are soldiers, I do not have a father, I take care of my mother and sister, allow me to stay till one of them comes back.  The answer arrived:  one of them is in the reserves, since it is not known when he will be released, we cannot allow it.  I did not go to the military but I was arrested in the street as a fugitive and went to the military. My mother and sister stayed alone. When they were left alone, my cousin Bernard, the one I said had made fruit leather, the son of my father’s sister, he owned a building in Kuledibi, he took in my mother and sister.  They stated there till my older brother came from the military. Later we came back too from the military, my sister was married. She married Sami Reytan.  They had one son and one daughter, they live in Israel. Hayim Reytan and Rita Reytan.  They each have two sons.  My older sister lives in a nice villa in Ramat Hasharon, only, her husband died.

Growing up
I was born on May 6th, 1919  in Kuledibi in Istanbul.  I was born on the street they called Kal de los Frankos (the synagogue of the Italians).  We lived in Kuledibi all through my childhood.

There were maybe 7-8 rooms in the house we lived in.  Stoves were used for heating and we had many stoves.  The name of our house was Kuledibi apartement.  There was the Levi apartement, Broth apartement.  There was electricity and running water.  There wasn’t a central heating system for staying warm then.

There was a hill down the street from our house. Today there is the Beyoglu hospital, before it was the British hospital.  Then there was Saint-George school and Saint-George hospital across it.  Behind it there was the Saint-George school for girls.

There was a coffeehouse around Kuledibi.  The manager there was a Jew named Menahem.  Every evening, the best known families of Kuledibi, there were the Broth’s, the Suraski’s, they would meet there with their families.  We would sit with my father and mother, my father enjoyed the suka.  We, the young children played together.  Every evening more or less.  Our neighborhood was very clean, there was everything but there wasn’t a hamam, there was one in the Persembe bazaar, one in Beyoglu, that’s where we would go.  I remember going to the hamam with my father, I was young.  My siblings would all go together, along with cousins, a lot of teasing went on.  There was a famous hamam in Sultanahmet, they would go there as a crowd and had wonderful fun.  I could not go because I was young.  The age difference was big.  I was two years old when my oldest brother got married.

My mother raised me, there was no preschool or such then, in addition, we did not have a nanny or an au paire.

I do not remember the period before school, we usually played at home.  My mother and father had close friends, the Frumkin’s and the Ruthstein’s.  We played at home with their children, child games probably.  They did not allow us to go out to the streets. I went to elementary school in Saint-George school.  This was an Austrian priests’ school.  It was with tuition.  My mother would prepare food for us for after school when we went to school, later we did our homework.  We even had a German teacher who came to tutor us, my older sister and me.  Later on, of course the siblings would come, my father would come.  There was the radio then, we would listen to the radio.  We would go to the coffeehouse in the evenings with my father after dinner.  Starting from the time of elementary school, we went to temple to take classes, together with the other children in the neighborhood, for 1-2 hours after school.  This went on till 13 years of age, after the bar-mitzvah, we quit.

When I was little, we would board the trolly with my mother, father and sister and go to Sisli. Last stop.  There we would go on a horse-carriage and go to Mecidiyekoy. At the time Mecidiyekoy was an orchard of mulberries.  You could rent a tree for 2.5 liras.  We would put a white sheet that we brought from home under it, shake the tree, the mulberies would fall and we would eat there till the evening.  There were Jewish families, Turkish families, they always came. Everywhere was an orchard of mulberries.  We would go to Altınkum again with my mother, father and sister, after Büyükdere.  There was a beach there and there were a lot of restaurants in front of the beach. We would eat in those restaurants, then swim in the sea and return in the evening.

Again when I was little, we would go to the movies on Sundays.  My father, mother, sister and I would go.  The other siblings were all much older than us.  They would go out with their friends, they were grown up.  There was Modern movie theater in Tepebasi.  There was a variety show before the movie here.  Singers would perform, there would be theatrical plays, there would be songs, short parodies.  Then the movies would start.  There would be movies like dramas, comedies, adventure movies and so on.  I have not retained any of the movies I watched in my mind.  There was Cumhuriyet casino in Tepebasi on Friday nights.  There were big stars, Turkish style and European style there.  I remember that cover charge was 11 kurus then.  Money was valuable then.  When the famous stars appeared, the red carpet would be rolled out on the floor.   I do not remember the names of the stars of the time now.

When we grew up a bit more we started going to the movies with friends. For example there was first class in the movie theaters in Beyoglu, this was 35 kurus.  We would go to the movie theater, then we would go the milk-pudding store, or there were bakeries, we would go there.  We could not spend one lira.  Sundays were spent like this.

I attended Saint-George school for junior high and highschool too after elementary school.  Among our friends in school, there were Turks, there were Jews, there were 1 or 2 Armenians, mostly there were Jews and Turks.

All my classes were fine, my favorites were math and about animas (naturekunder).  I did not have teachers that I especially loved or hated.  I had a good relationship with all the teachers.  I played basketball in school for a few months but I did not continue.  We had a teacher named Maya, he would teach us.  I took music classes in school.  I was playing harmonica then, the whole school took classes of harmonica.

I did not encounter any antisemitism from my teachers or classmates, only at the very end, when Hitler came to power.  There were no German students in our school.  There was one Armenian, Medovic.  He was the son of the owner of Tokatliyan hotel.  He was a German national,  the German flag would come out, the Nazi cross, and there would be tension.  But there were Turkish students, we got along well with them.  Later on we finished school.  After a period, our school also displayed the German flag, the swastika.  Because Austria was invaded by Hitler, that’s why.  Later on the Austrian hospital also displayed the German flag, swastika.

During school years there were girls in Kuledibi who we were friends with, they attended the Austrian girls’ highschool. There was a friend named Lora,  we would go on the balcony in their house, we would dance, and chat.  There was Caroline Markus.   She was our friend, we were together because we were from the same street.  There even was a girl, she was Chaldean, she was a pretty girl, I don’t remember her name.  One day she came to my home, rang the doorbell, my father answered.  I was not home, my father said “come in, my daughter”.  The girl said: “I love Jak a lot, but he does not love me”.  Look at the girl’s chutzpah.  My father answered “is that so, my child, I will speak to him”.  In the evening my father related this to me.  I was about 14-15 years old then, a child, as you can imagine.  My father took this event very calmly, he was a very modern man.  They even laughed about it at home with my older brother.  My father had even said “pretty girl” about her to me.  Whenever he saw a girl next to me in the street, he would remove his hat and greet her.

We would go out on Saturdays and holidays.  There was a colony of Eastern European Jews on the side of Uskudar [a district on the Anatolian side of Istanbul].  There were houses resembling a small village, you could eat and stay at houses like Polonezkoy [a village on the Anatolian side of Istanbul founded by the Polish and which therefore had the name “village of the Poles”], there even was a rabbi, but there was no synagogue there.  We stayed there for 15 days.  Sometimes we would only go for the weekends, Saturday and Sunday, and we would return.  There were always Ashkenazim there, we would go there mostly with Ashkenazim.  My older brothers would go more often.
The schools were separate.  We were separated from girls.  We could not go into their school.

My friends outside of school were Jewish.  There was also a British girl, she was not Jewish.  Her name was Eillen Castle.  There was a house belonging to the British embassy, because this girl’s father worked at the embassy, they stayed in this house.  That’s where I knew her from, we would just meet with her.  We would go out when we were free, we would go to the movies, meet with the girls every day after homework, have fun with them.  There was Benhabib in Kuledibi, Izak Benhabib, he had a very beautiful voice.  There was a tallish rock under the tower, he would sit there and sing.  There was a famous singer called Tina Rossi, he would sing her French songs.  All the girls would come out to the windows around him.  We would tease and have fun.  We had this friend, Benhabib. Peyse Levi, Yonas Kohen, Lazar Arovas and one unlucky guy who drowned in Florya, I don’t remember his name.  One day we were going to go to Moda.  He made us get out of the boat at the last minute so we could go to Florya.  So we went ahead and arrived to Florya.  The water in the beach came up to your knees.  There were a few more beaches adjacent to our beach.  He suddenly turned towards us and said “I am going to the beach next door, I have a friend that I know” and he left and did not come back.  We looked and saw it is already 4-5 p.m., we will return in the evening, he still has not come. We searched and searched and could not find him.  In the end they found him in the sea, he drowned.  But the water is up to your knees.  Someone told us that sometimes there are potholes in Florya, one appeared in front of him, he was afraid of falling down so he held on to a woman next to him.  The man next to the woman punched him for holding onto the woman, and he fainted and died, they said.  Later on the police arrived and told us to go and inform the family.  The poor guy was lost.

The Jews here had specific professions of course, usually they were all merchants.  The Suraski’s had a big store in Sultanhamam [industrial district in Istanbul], selling fabrics and ready-made clothing, the Broth’s had a big store again in Sultanhamam selling British fabrics for men and women. Then there was Inselberg, Reitz, Dr Markus, and Schnitter.  These were all merchants and 80% of the Eastern European Jews were agents, they had brokerages.

There were good families in Kuledibi. 80% of the Eastern European Jews lived in Kuledibi.  There were no Ashkenazi Jews living in places like Hasköy or Balat.  They were all at Kuledibi and Tunel.  Later they slowly left.  I was in Kuledibi until I was 16.  All my friends were from there.  There was Benhabib, there was Levi, Yonas Kohen, Lazar Arovas.  We all lived close to each other there.  There were all Jews.
I cannot say anything as far as numbers but Istanbul was close to 100,000 people but I cannot know about Kuledibi, it was crowded.  The Ashkenazim had 3 synagogues only.  An Ashkenazi synagogue at Yüksek Kaldirim (a hilly neighborhood on the European side where the Jews did commerce), Schneider Temple next to Saint-George hospital and one more behind Yüksek Kaldirim but the environment was bad, there were brothels, and it closed.

There was a rabbi, an usher, a cantor, there was everything.  There was mikveh, Talmud Torah, and Yeshiva.

There was one great rabbi, Rav Shapira.  Then there was the Ashkenazi colony.  There was the colony of Ashkenazi Jews on the other side, we would go there.  This is how we grew up.

Later when it was time for Purim, we all dressed in Purim clothing in Kuledibi.  I had one older brother. He was quite arrogant as he had studied a lot, he would become a prince.  He would go around in a horse-carriage,  the other 2 siblings would be his attendants.  He would go around the street like this in a horse-carriage.  I had another cousin, named Bernard Huves.  The son of my father’s sister, he was a jokester.  He was a hairdresser for women and men.  The wife of Inönü 3 would come to him, he was that good of a hairdresser.  But he liked jokes a lot.  One day he bought a potty for Purim, new, he washed it.  His mother made marmelade from fruit leather, he filled the potty with this marmelade, a little later he ate out of this potty with a spoon, and he made a little bit of a mess all around too.  Everyone who saw the potty thought it was something else, and he came to our house like this at Purim. He went to other houses like this too.  That’s how it was done, we had fun, there was this much freedom in the streets.

I did not encounter any kind of antisemitism when I was a child.  I remember the military parades, the independence day celebrations from my childhood.  I especially remember the 10th year.  In the 10th year, there was a crescent moon and star bulb at every window in every house.  There were 10-15 bulbs around the moon, like stars and the lights were on.  Not only at every house, almost at every floor in every window it was on.  It was like daytime.  Everyone took care of their own flat.  The crescent moon and star were sold ready and we put up the bulbs.  Then arches were placed on the streets all the way from Tepebaşı down till Karaköy, the Jewish community did it, lit by bulbs.  That night songs were sung, we had fun till the morning. Nothing like this ever happened again, it was not done. I was around 14-15 years old then.

Another event I remember was the death of Atatürk 4.  When Atatürk died in 1938, there was a ceremony in Dolmabahce Palace.  I was supposed to go somewhere in Besiktas for work, I passed by with the trolley.  As I was passing in front of it, let me get down and go too, I said.  When I was entering Dolmahçe, they said without a hat or coat, it was winter then, I did not understand it well and I thought that they would take the hat and the coat, I cannot find it again in this crowd, I thought.  I changed my mind and did not go in.  Apparently holding it in you hand was acceptable, I was mistaken.  But in the evening we went with my mother and older brother to Dolmahce.  It was very crowded and there were people who fell into the sea from the throngs.  An Ashkenazi girl fell into the sea with her mother. There were deaths. 6 people died that day from the crowds.  There were policemen on horses.  When we saw this crowd, we went back.  That is how much Atatürk was loved by everyone.  Atatürk was different, everyone loved him.
I have a few more memories involving Atatürk.  Atatürk danced with my cousin.  I had a cousin Rapaport, she was married to my cousin Charles Huves.  Charles Huves was my father’s sister’s son.  He lived in Bombay for 10 years, then came here.  He was the manager in the firm he worked and the firm had sent him to Bombay.  There was Rapaport, he was very wealthy, he imported tripps. He married his daughter. I do not remember her name.  They had a villa in Suadiye. In summer when they were in the casino of Suadiye hotel, Atatürk came from the sea by motorboat.  The wife of my cousin was a very beautiful woman. Atatürk came and asked permission from her husband to dance with her.  After the dance, Atatürk brought her to the table and thanked her.  This happened in Suadiye hotel. 

There is also a memory of  Atatürk in Park hotel.  There was lunch for 110 kurus at Park hotel every day, there were 3 courses for the meal.  Also 5 musicians, they were Ashkenazi and without passports.  These were the ones who escaped from Poland and Russia.  When Atatürk came to Istanbul, he used to eat there and enjoyed the music. These people  played classical music.  Every time Atatürk came to Istanbul, he came here.  In the meantime a law was passed.  Only Turkish citizens would be able to work in jobs like musicians and waiters.  Consequently they let these musicians go, because they were all foreign. Atatürk came and sat down to eat and asked where the musicians were.  They told him these were not Turks, so they could not work there. Atatürk  was angry, “what do you mean they cannot work, find them at their homes and bring them here one by one”, he said.  They brought all of them, in front of Atatürk. Atatürk asked: “what is your name?”  One of them said, “Goldenberg”.  Atatürk: “O.K., let your name be Altındağ (in Turkish it means Golden Hill), you have just became Turkish, write it down”, he said.  He gave all of them a Turkish name and made them Turkish citizens.  “Now go ahead and play music”, he said.

Atatürk’s dentist was Günsberg.  His place was in Beyoglu.  My wife used to wait at the dentist’s door to be able to see Atatürk, when he came there.  When Atatürk came to Istanbul, he would visit with Dr Marküs too.  The old president of B’nai Brith.   Dr Marküs was our Grand Rabbi.  He was a doctor of philosophy.  Atatürk enjoyed talking with him.  Let me also talk about this. Atatürk got in line for the subway going from Karakoy to Beyoglu and bought a 2nd class ticket, and of course passed, everyone got up but he acted like a regular citizen.  Of course there were policemen in civilian clothing for security.  There was Tokatliyan hotel in  Galatasaray.  He would sit there with his entourage.  Sometimes we would see, he would wear a dark-colored capelike thing, and tall boots, we would look with admiration, he had such eyes, you could not stare, they were piercing.

The Austrian captain that I remember.  At the end of World War I, when the foreign armies that were here were leaving, the Austrian army, I have no idea where they came from, stayed for 3 days and returned to Austria.  A soldier with a captain’s uniform missed the return date and stayed here in the streets with his cane.  Just as my father was crossing the street in Tünel, he looks and sees an  Austrian soldier.  My father knows that the Austrians have left.  This soldier, his cane in his hand is shouting.  “Achtung (attention), Fire”, he shouts.  My father called him.  He asked his name: “Schwartz”.  My father understood that he was Jewish, he also checked, he was circumcised, he was not mentally normal.  They tried to help him return and asked around at the embassies.  They could find no connection, his family probably died during the war.  They looked for his family to send him back but could not find them.  He had to stay here.  My father gave him civilian clothing, found him a place to sleep.  There was a grocer, Jewish, “come to me every day.  You can deliver the orders”, he said.  He came to us too every evening for dinner.  We were together every evening at the table.  This lasted 25 years.  During this time he never begged, he even gave money to beggars.  There was one thing he loved, he always said give me a tie.  When I was in the military, there was an epidemic of smallpox and he died, I heard about it when I was in the military.

My wife Ceni Rutli

My wife Ceni Rutli (nee Romi) was born in Istanbul at Altinci Daire [a district on the European side of Istanbul]. On August 15th, 1923.  She studied in junior high. Her mother tongue is Judeo Espanyol, she also knows French. She worked for a very short while after school.  The Berber store of Soryano Hanalel.  They sold things like shirts and pijamas.  She did not work after getting married.  She had 2 siblings.  The older one Jak Romi, the younger one Albert Romi. They both went to Israel.  Jak Romi opened a hardware store there.  He had one daughter and one son.  Mahir Romi and Estella Romi.  Albert Romi married a woman from Egypt there.  He did not have children.

This is how my wife and I met.  I had a friend, Izi Goldenberg who was the owner of Grundig radios and televisions.  He used to manufacture gloves before, gloves for men and women.  He was at Sultanhamam in the five fingers building.  We also founded Rutli-Goldenberg, an agency specializing in hardware but it did not work afterwards.  My current wife was working in a shirt store around there.  When Goldenberg was working on gloves, she came one day to buy a pair and we met there.  I helped her carry the package she bought, we took it to the store.  She was a beautiful woman, “would you date me?”, I said.  “Yes, I will date you”, she said, but not alone.  I had friends, we went out together.  We went out one or two times.  Later we continued.  After a while she started asking about marriage.  I said, “I cannot marry before my sister is married”.  She told this to her mother.  Her mother said, “ask if she has money”.  She came to me and asked, “does your sister have money?”.  I told her that the older brothers that are in the United States and the ones here, they will all give.  She then told me “I know a doctor.  If your sister gets engaged, I will enter your house too, I want to get engaged too”.  I said, “o.k.”   We made a date at a bakery in Beyoğlu, so they could meet.  My older sister came with my older brother, and I with Ceni, and doctor Sami Reytan came alone because he did not have a father or such.  He was a good man, later on he became an internist, they liked each other a lot.  They decided, came to our house, got engaged and later on married.  They got married and we got married.  Following us, my older brother Charles also married.  And my mother lived with my older sister and the doctor.  The Doctor opened a clinic. There was a famous professor Frank here, who ran away from Germany, he was his assistant.  He did his residency with him. He became an internist.  Then he received a very good offer from Israel and went to Israel.  There he became a doctor at Kupat holim (national/public healthcare centers in Israel).  They had children there.  He bought a villa, he bought two flats for his children. His financial situation was good.  My mother went to Israel to be with them.

We were married in Istanbul in the Ashkenazi synagogue at Yüksek Kaldirim with my wife in 1947.  My wife is Sephardic.  I registered her to our community with a paper I took from the Sephardic community to be able to get married.  They have an agreement among themselves, they do not compete.  There is a difference in the way we get married in the synagogue.  Now, when you go to the temple, the groom comes with his mother and father just like the Sephardim, with us, I came with my mother, because there was no father, my older brother took his place.  With us, when the bride comes, she does not enter the temple directly.  She goes up the stairs, there is the first gallery there, she waits.  The rabbi comes, takes me and my mother, we go upstairs.  We open the veil to see that it is my wife. We say “o.k.”.  I go down alone, my mother stays with the bride and they descend together.  And this is why, it is in our history, Rachel for Leah.  This is it.  Because the guy wanted Rachel, they gave him Leah. [Story from the Bible: Yaakov wanted to marry Rahel and had to work for his future father-in-law for seven years to have her hand in marriage. However, on the wedding day, instead of Rahel they put the ugly older sister under the veil and married her off to Yaakov!]

The wedding went very well.  There was no evening party.  We got married, we immediately went home, undressed, changed, took a small suitcase and went immediately to the hotel. We went to Heybeli ada [the third one of the Princess islands, on the Marmara sea, south of Istanbul] for our honeymoon.  We stayed at a hotel there, Halki Palas, it was a nice hotel, the food was very good.  I remember there was a dish where they placed an egg on toast.  An egg over a toast, the yolk in the middle, however they did it, it was fantastic.  We stayed for 3-4 days there.  We were married on August 31st.  Our friends came too.  We went out on a boat.

For the first 3 years of our marriage we lived with my wife’s mother in Altinci Daire. Then we moved to Elmadag.  And we started to live on our own.

Family life

We had two children.  I have a deceased son. Norbert Noah Rutli.  My father’s name.   He was born exactly 9 months after we were married in 1948.  She became pregnant from the first night. Later on we went to Israel because he was sick.  He had a debilitating illness.  We stayed there.  He had an infirmity in his spine, there was a germ.  At the time I contacted Switzerland and the U.S.A.  Switzerland asked for a lot of money then.  Finally I got in touch with the ambassador and took him to Israel.  There were the sons of my father’s sister there. We stayed at their house.  He stayed in the hospital for one year. I stayed here during that time, my wife stayed there with the cousins.  At the time, the biggest professor in the United States who happened to be Jewish, had come to Israel for a visit.  We wrote to him and I don’t know how many thousands of dollars he asked for. My son had to stay 6 more months in the hospital then.  The doctor saw my son, why should he stay, let me operate and you take him with you, he said.  And he died during the operation.  But I think it was a mistake, I was not there.  It was what they call a shock operation.  Now, they had to put him  under before entering the operating room.  They brought my son the operating room without putting him to sleep. When my son saw the operating room and the lights, he went into shock and died.  Before putting him under the knife.  He was 5.5 years old when he died.  This illness started when he was 3.

After my son’s incident, my wife could not get pregnant for a long time.  From stress and anxiety.  Then G-d granted it.  My daughter Stina Rutli was born in 1956 in Istanbul.
When Stina was little, she ate with so much difficulty, that we did not want to have any more children.  The same morsel in her mouth for hours, we would say a birdie is flying, she still would not swallow.

We spoke in French with Norbert. He was very smart.  While his mother read in French, he would memorize it. We spoke in Turkish with Stina.  She does not know Judeo Espanyol at all.  We could not send her to a Jewish school- she attended a private elementary school in Pangalti, I do not remember the name, that school doesn’t exist any more.  She attended junior high in Saint-Pulcherie [French Catholic school]. She learned French there.  My cousin Eli Rozental was a teacher there.  He was a French teacher.
We raised our child according to Jewish traditions.  Even today, we celebrate the first night of Passover in Stina’s house.

We developed a lot of great friendships during the years we lived in Elmadag.  Esti and Mordo Peres, Zelda and Yomtov Behar, and us, 3 families lived in Elmadag.  Also Süzi Izak Sarhon and Izi Süzet Levi would come.  We would meet every evening.  Esti could not sleep at nights, she went to bed late, so she invited us all the time.  The place we lived at was called Uftade sokak (street).  We would go to the movies.  We would have conversations, sing songs, play games, we had a lot of fun.  During summers, we would go, again all together, to Caddebostan for years.  Later on when Stina grew up, we went to Suadiye for summer. [Two neighborhoods on the Asian side, on the seashore].  We got a nice home, that is to say rented it for summer.  The landlady had a son.  One day she came home, I wasn’t there, “with the decree of G-d, and the power of the prophet, I want your daughter for my son”.  Stina was still 14-15 years old.  We stopped going to Suadiye after this and started going to Büyükada [the largest and last one of the Princess islands].  A few years late she married Yusuf Jojo Baruh at the age of 18.  On June 1st, 1974.  Yusuf has a store about electricity on Bannkalar caddesi(Banks street). She had a daughter named Selin and a son named Ediz. Ediz is 27 years old, Selin is 25.

We had beautiful friendships in Caddebostan where we spent our summers.  We would go with them to the sea as well as play games, and dance, we laughed a lot, our days passed wonderfully. I can tell you this, the friendships that I just mentioned with the friends from Elmadag, we never found again.  There was such an intimacy that, for example one day, our friend Esti’s son Ceki was sick, they were scared that their other son Moris might catch it, we left our home, Mordo and Ceki went to our house, we went to Esti’s home. All three of us would sleep in the same bed.  But I have to go to work in the morning, it is the middle of the night, 3 or 4 a.m., Esti is still talking.  That is how we passed the time.  We were very very close.  This illness lasted for one month. Mordo there, us here.  In the choice of friends of course being Jewish was important.  But we also had very good Turkish neighbors and friends apart from this.  There was one Sara Hanim (Mrs. Sara) and one general colonel.  We were so close that the general colonel would come to stay with his relative.  He had a bag of documents, he would come and leave his bag at my house, so we could play cards, hide the bag so the guests cannot see it, he would say, he had so much trust in us.  I would hide it in the closet.  Also we were very close with Sara hanim.  We lived in a bungalow in Caddebostan. Sara hanim came to visit us.  She used to stay with us.  There was a hall at the entrance, we gave her a metal bed, she laid on it.  We went to bed inside in the bedroom.  Morning came, I have to go to work, I have to go through the hall, I open the door and looked to see if I can get out, I saw Sara hanım has dropped her cover and is lying half naked with her underwear and such, if I open the door and go out, she will wake up and feel bad, so I gently closed the door and left through the window of my bedroom.  We had such nice times.

We traveled a lot but not with the children.  We went to England 4-5 times,  we stayed in Italy, in Milan for one month, we went to Germany, to Munich, we went to Paris and Israel.

We used to go to my wife’s father’s house on seder nights, later when they went to Israel, we would hold it in our house.  Now we go to our daughter’s house.

We observed all the holidays in  our family.  Kashrut was observed.  At that time, one cousin, Mose was a butcher.  The meat, poultry was kosher, it would come from there.  Lobster, shrimp, pork would not enter our house, we observed Passover.  On Saturdays, my mother would light two candles, and I saw this at the movies later on.  She said a prayer, the table would be set with a tablecloth, a tuile cloth.  When my father came from the synagogue, the cloth would come out, the candles would be lit.

I would go to the Ashkenazi synagogue in Yüksek Kaldirim when I was little.  I used to go to Heyder (after school Hebrew classes) for two years, after school.  They would give classes to prepare for bar-mitzvah every day in Yüksek Kaldirim.  There was the rabbi Segal, there was Rav Shapira.  Usually Yiddish was spoken, the reading was in Hebrew.  We translated the Hebrew we read to Yiddish.  When my father died, I went to temple every morning for 11 months.  Kaddish is very important for us.  When my father died, it wasn’t like it is now, a rug used to be placed on the floor and we would sit on the floor for 7 days, that is how it needed to be done for mourning.  I was working then, there was a boss, Hamburger, he was Ashkenazi too, he was on a trip.  I was alone in the office, I would sit on the floor.  But 2-3 days later, I had to go and see if there was mail or telegraphs, so they put ashes but thin ashes into my shoes so I could not walk comfortably, I had to be sitting for seven days.

Currently I still go to the synagogue on Rosh hashana, on Yom Kippur.  There are now only about 100 families left as Ashkenazim.

When my father went to the synagogue sometimes I accompanied him.  Again my father would pray on the day of the Sabbath at home with wine, and we would listen.
We had the bar-mitzvah in the synagogue, at the Schneider Temple.  There were no balls or such outside then, 80 years ago.  I remember reading a lecture, one rabbi even gave me a book, a bar-mitzvah book and shoes as a gift.  I don’t remember if we did anything at home.

When I was little, I liked Passover the most because my mother cooked delicious dishes, our foods. There was Lorkes, Kugels, Matzo balls, Gefilte fish.  Gefiltefish:  You buy one big striped mullet and one mackerel.  First you clean the scales, then you remove the skin especially from the mullet without tearing.  Then you remove the bones of the fish and the flesh of the fish is ground with a meat cleaver.  Then it is mixed with a sauce made from eggs, salt and pepper and refilled into the skin that was removed from the mullet and cooked.  After it is cooked, it is sliced.  The meat that does not fit into the skin is made into meatballs.  My father used to love Passover a lot, he did not want it to end.  He would say I wish it continued for another month.

There were no “donme”s 5 from Salonika among our friends and relatives, only an acquaintance where I worked was Karay 6,  Levi.  We worked together in Becker pharmacy.  When Becker imported drugs, we needed a pharmacist to import the drugs, and that was Levi.  I thought he was Spanish, but he was Karay.  He spoke Spanish better than me.  He later opened a pharmacy in Tophane. The Karays resemble our Sephardim, only they believe in the Torah, they do not believe in the additions of the rabbis.  I learned Spanish from my wife and my friends.

World War II and the Turkish Jews

I was a soldier when the Holocaust was taking place in Europe, from 1941-1944.  and Anatolia was in the dark.  The lights would be out in Kayseri, in Malatya [two cities in the central section of Turkey called Anatolia], there was no electricity at night.  We were 550 non-Muslims in the military, Greeks, Armenians and Jews, ten corporal sergeants and one officer.  They gave us blue uniforms for the airport, then an order came, they removed the Armenians, they gave them brown uniforms, to build roads.  We went from town to town and were discharged from Canakkale [the Dardanelles].   I did not encounter antisemitism during this time.  There wasn’t any in Istanbul either.

About the war, we were afraid in general during that period.  Stalingrad comes to Russia and what will happen and so on. We were in Bandırma then, we built 3 plazas on the hill and 2 Jewish soldiers had a fight between themselves for whatever reason.  One sergeant said the non-Muslims have rebelled.  When we were getting up in the morning, all of a sudden, don’t move, we are surrounded, a load of soldiers have circled us with machine guns.  Then they looked, nothing is happening, they retreated.

I remember the first time we heard about what was being done to the Jews in Europe.  Of course, now even today, I do not wish to see Germans because of this.  The Germans took and killed 3 siblings of my father-in-law.  One was in Lyon, the other in Marseille, and one more in Paris.  They took all of them, sent them to camps, which camp I do not know.  But one of them returned.  He returned to France weighing 40 kilos (88 lb.s).  They gave him food slowly, little by little, cookies and such, because the stomach became smaller.  He also had a large number on his arm.

During World War II, a boat full of Jews came to Istanbul, they had run away from the Germans.  They kept them here.  The community intervened, as far as I can remember, they took them to Barinyurt [old people’s home], it was Goldschmith school then.  And everyone went there to visit them.  But they did not allow meeting them.  There was the police.  But I gave a sweater to a child.

I don’t know if this boat was the Struma 7 or another boat.  Later they returned all of them to the boat, we heard later on that it went under while leaving Çanakkale.  But was it Struma, or another boat, I cannot know.
We were soldiers when the Wealth Tax 8 was implemented during wartime.  They did not impose it on me but they did to my older brother, the one who married Mayer.  We even went to the mayor, my older brother asked for time, he said let me finish my military service and then pay.  They did not accept it.  He had a big apartment in Beyoglu, on Sürterazi sokagı (street), Mayer Apartment.  At the time it was registered for 350,000 in the registrar’s office.  They sold it with foreclosure for 110,000.  A wealth tax of 256,000 liras came.  And they said, “thank your lucky stars that you are a soldier, otherwise you were going to go to the military”.  That is how he was saved.
Also about the 20 military classes 9, at the time they took the men into the military, there were no young men left.  The women had to go out to the streets and sell lemons and such in Kuledibi, in Şişhane, because there were no men.  I went as a bakaya [new conscript who, because they were not present at their first muster, are charged with desertion] to the 20 military classes because I did not go when I should have.  I did 3 years of military service.  But I was comfortable.  I was giving German lessons to the officer who I was an orderly for.  Later my older brother came.  He came the third time.  He stayed for 7 months because he was old.

We heard about the Thrace events 10 but I don’t remember much.  The ones from Edirne know about it.

We were delighted with the birth of the Israeli nation.  There was our rabbi in Taksim. 
Rabbi Saposnik. Saposnik was Austrian.  He was a cantor in reality.  When there was no loudspeaker in the synagogue in Yüksek Kaldirim, his voice reverberated there.  Later on he changed to Israeli citizenship.  When the first Israeli embassy opened in Taksim, I remember, the daughter of Saposnik, I don’t remember the name, had raised the flag.  The Jews all congregated there.  Later on the embassy moved.

We did not have the opportunity to do aliyah there.  I worked at Becker for 10 years.  It was a big firm based in London.  You know, Unilever, same firm, they are part of a group.  Becker decided to import and to work as representatives, they will close the other departments and they left.  They told me let’s place you in Unilever.  I said I don’t want to be in an office, I want to be out in the market.  I told the manager, you are leaving these firms, then put them in my name.  We were 3 employees who left Becker, we opened an office and became the representatives of these firms.  The ones I remember were British firms like Rank Taylor Hopson,Edwards High Vacuum, and Baird & Tatlock ltd.  They were big firms.  Becker did not work with little firms.  If it wasn’t for this job maybe I would have gone to Israel.  But I could not go after taking on this work.
But among our acquaintances, the older and younger brother of my wife left.  My mother and older sister left.

We would talk about the subjects of Judaism and Israel among our friends.  We talked a lot.  For example, I do not allow talk against Israel, I react.

Today our communication with the Jewish community hass lessened.  We are not members of any society or club, we cannot take part in any activity but we continue applying our religion as before.  We try to go to the synagogue on holidays but it is now difficult for us to go from here.

When we are alone with my wife, we sometimes talk in Judeo Espanyol, and sometimes in French.  We talk either Turkish or Spanish with our friends, and Turkish with our daughter.

We did not live through any disagreements with our children as far as raising our grandchildren according to Jewish traditions.  They know that they are Jewish.
We used to gather the family before and my wife would cook, but we cannot do this anymore, our daughter does it now.

From the beautiful friendships we had in the past, now we have one Zelda Behar, and one Fani Romi, we get together with them.  We play a card game named Burako.  It is a game like Canasta.  We see each other once a week.  A year ago, I had to sell my car.  I developed cataracts in my eyes, I couldn’t see well anymore.  I had surgery in one eye and sold the car.  When we had the car, we could go out, stroll, eat out.  But now it is difficult without a car.

We were living in Sisli when the massacre in Neve Shalom in 1986 11 happened and while we were shopping from the greengrocer, he told us that a massacre happened in the synagogue.  We were very worried, immediately we called the kids.  Telephone calls came from Israel, from France, asking if anything happened to us. One of my friends died there. At first I did not know who had died, then I looked at the names, I saw there is a Barokas there.  When I was working in Becker, he was working in our export department.  He retired, I now have a house too, I will be comfortable now, he was saying.  We felt very bad.  They interned him in our Ashkenazi cemetery.

We felt very bad when we heard about the bombings in November of 2003 too 12.  We heard about the sounds of the bomb all the way here.   Our daughter immediately informed us.

Glossary

ZELDA ERS
Istanbul
Turkey
Interviewer: Yusuf Sarhon
Date of Interview: February 2006

Zelda Ers was born in 1934 in Istanbul. She has been living alone in a flat in Gayrettepe for the last 10-12 years since she lost her husband. Since her older son  Salvo lives in the building right next door, she is not lonely. She is a very warm, pleasant  and cordial person. I have to say that she is also very hospitable. The day I went to interview her, I was invited to lunch along with her son Izzet who is my friend, we had lunch all together. My work with her took place in a very pleasant atmosphere.

Family background

Growing Up

During the War

After the War

Glossary

Family background

From what I’ve been told my great-great grandfathers were all from Balat, I do not know where they came from and who they are before that. I don’t have stories about them. I just know that they were very very honorable people.

Among my grandparents, I did not know any on the paternal side, I don’t have much information about them. My paternal grandfather’s name was Izak Levi. My maternal grandmother’s name was Zimbul Levi. I do not know her maiden name. I know they lived in Istanbul, spoke Ladino 1, and that they were religious.

My maternal grandfather, Smuel Behar was a rabbi, he was either the rabbi of Apollon or Zulfaris, he was a great rabbi. He was a person with great power. My maternal grandmother was Lea Behar. I do not know her maiden name or their birthdates. They were from Balat. The financial situation of my mother’s father was very good. They earned their money from the rabbinate. Their life changed after World War 2, their sons  Albert Behar and Vili Behar left for the United States and took their mom and dad with them. Only my mother remained here. They used to speak Ladino.

I did not meet them, they left before I was born. From what my mother told me they were very respectable people. My mother’s dad was a respectable, knowledgeable person who always helped the people around him as much as he could. He was not a person who told jokes, he was a serious, quiet, esteeemed person, he rarely laughed. They were always involved in the synagogue, their constant job was learning, obtaining more knowledge. His real job was an antiques dealer but I don’t know if he had a store. They talked Ladino amongst themselves. They also spoke French because they studied in the schools of Alliance 2.

At the time they wore old-fashioned clothes. I saw this in pictures but later I have no idea where my mother put these pictures. My grandfather had both a moustache and a beard. He used both a yarmulke and a hat. Yarmulke underneath, the hat over it. My grandmother did not wear a wig like orthodox ladies, she always wore a scarf, both at home and outside. She wore old-fashioned clothes, she did not have a special hat or any  jewelry.

I do not have any information about a house or flat that they owned because they had already moved away to the United States when I was born. They observed religion piously since they were a rabbi’s family. They applied the Jewish traditions completely. Certainly they observed the rules of kashrut and the Sabbath. Since he was a rabbi, there is nothing to say. They continually went to the synagogue. They celebrated the Jewish holidays at home.

I do not know the political views of my grandfather. I don’t think he belonged to any political party or organisation. But because they were very civilized people, maybe they belonged to a social or cultural club.

Their relations with their neighbors was very good. Their relations with everyone was good. My grandfather was someone who always helped out, he would host people who could or could not afford celebrating, in his home during holidays. Passover etc. And feed them. Of course I am talking about things I have heard.
Their neighbors were Jewish, I don’t have information about their friends.

I did not get to know my father, Yesua Levi, since he died when I was young. I am guessing that since the family was from Balat, that is where he was born. I know he was 2-3 years older than my mother, so he could be born in 1898. From what I have been told, my father was a very smart, wise and talkative person. He was very understanding and mellow. His education level was midddle school. There was a Maccabi school then, he was from Maccabi. His mother tongue was Ladino. I don’t know how religious he was. My father was a tailor. He was a great tailor. He would saw pants for officers. My mother tells me that he would go to the military and saw silk-lined suits for them. My father always lived in Istanbul and died in 1934 in Istanbul.

My mother Janti Levi (Behar) was born in Istanbul in 1901. She was smart like my father, talkative, she was not serious or quiet. My mother used to be mellow, she hardened later on. She had a good rapport with her neighbors, even though she worked all day, she was a person full of love. She would worry about feeding her children.She made sacrifices so her children could live well.

She lost a child in a traffic accident. My older brother was 36 years old. My brother Izak was married, had two daughters. He had a very very successful business. He sold glassware and china. They were 3 partners, I was newly married then. He opened a store for my husband and my other older brother. So they could have jobs. My brother was very rich. My mother was like a queen in my brother’s home, they lived together. My brother had everything. At the time, (he died in 1960, a little before the hanging of Menderes 3), he bought flats, bought a car, noone had a telephone then, he bought one, crystal chandeliers, he was that rich. One day his car breaks down, at the time Vatan caddesi (street) was being newly built, an Israeli firm, Soley Bone was constructing the street. He gets up and goes all the way there, takes his car to a repairshop. He had a clerk, he says “come with me, we will go and come back together”. But the clerk declined. He goes alone. He takes the car to  Vatan caddesi. And there he hits a tractor trailer. The steering wheel hits his heart. He gets out of the car, he is fine, he was talking. He walked to Capa, he went to the hospital walking. As soon as he entered the hospital, “save me, I feel very bad, I had an accident, my car stayed there, help me” he says. They kept him there till the evening. While waiting he had internal bleeding and died there.  He was 36 years old, he left behind two girls. One was 10 years old, the other 6. My mother was very distressed and became agitated, cranky after this. She developed diabetes and other diseases.

My mother’s education was very good. There used to be a school in Kasimpasa, If I remember correctly, Alliance. French was spoken there all the time. She studied in that school. Her mother tongue was Ladino, in addition she spoke French, German and Greek. My mom was a woman who knew about everything. She was also very religious because her father was a rabbi. She applied all the Jewish traditions. She observed kashrut rules. Every Friday, every holiday and every Saturday morning she went to the synagogue. She had holiday celebrations at home. We would combine our food with neighbors and such and celebrate together.

My mother was a tailor, she helped her husband. She sewed at home while my father was alive. I do not know how my mother and father met, I was never told, probably they must have married by a matchmaker because that is how it was then. They married in Istanbul around 1918-1919, in the Zulfaris synagogue.

The financial situation of my family was mediocre. The house we lived in had one room.  Our house was like a large commercial building. When you went up one flight of stairs, there were lots of rooms. Every family lived in one room no matter how many people.  There was no bathroom, no kitchen, there was a hallway, let me call it a corridor. There was a shared space there for all the rooms, and we would cook our food there.

There was a Turkish style toilet on the first floor, we shared it. The bathroom was a neighbor’s, we went to her house to use the bathroom, we shared it. We did not have running water. We carried it in buckets from the fountain. We carried water to clean the bathroom. Cleaning was done by turns, everyday one of the neighbors did it. There were huge huge mice in the bathrooms, we would make noise, bang on the door so they would scurry away and we could go in. There was a big tree right across our house and there was a source of water around this tree, it wasn’t a fountain, it was like a stream. Because we lived together with Turks, they always had their turn first, the Jews were last. But they would feel pity that I was so young, they would give me permission to fill the buckets.  This water was only used for cleaning and the bathroom. We bought water for drinking and cooking from the water-seller. We heated up bucketfuls of water to bathe. We poured water with a bowl over our head. For heating, there was a stove, a brazier, we used coal.  That is how it was many years ago. There was poverty then.

We did not have a garden. Our neighborhood was a poor neighborhood, there were no luxuries. We lived alongside Turks. The Turks loved us, we loved them back.  We would visit them on holidays, they would visit us on our holidays. We had no pets in our home.  We did not have helpers like servants, maids, nannies or laundry women.

We had books at home. We had religious books and French books. My mother was partial to French novels, usually she read romantic novels. She liked reading. She would recommend books to me, she wanted very much for me to read. I used to read. When my mother became ill, I could not continue. At the time the middle one of my older brothers was in the military and sent a letter. For whatever reason, he asked for 30,000 liras as emergency money. I was around 8 or 9 years old then, I don’t remember well. My mother found a way to find and send the money but she was so scared that the fear paralyzed her legs, she couldn’t walk. There weren’t many doctors then. There was a pious woman then, she healed with prayer and said to my mother “I will cure you but you cannot leave the house for 9 days, noone can see you”. I don’t remember what she did, but I was obliged to leave school and stay in that room. They would bring us food from the outside. The neighbors would bring us meals and no one saw my mother for those 9 days. On the ninth day she got up in the morning, went to the hamam and returned home walking.

We didn’t read newspapers at home. They did not have the habit of going to the library either. They did no have active duties in the community. The poor ones, they struggled to earn enough money to live on . My mother struggled to raise us.

I don’t have information about the period of my father’s military service. But I have information about my father-in-law’s. My deceased father-in-law, Eliyazer Ers, was a very knowledgeable, educated man. He studied in Allience like my mom. He was a wise and well-read person. He would always tell us: “I went into exile. They sent me to the Russian border for military service. There was a war then”. I think that was around World War 1. “I only had a mother, no one else” he says. “I had a sibling, he starved to death”, he always told us that. He starved to death, he died here. My father-in-law’s family was all from Balat. He says that he had 4.5-5 years of military service. “We were in Russia. Then I could not return to Turkey. I stayed in exile. I had no money, nothing, I could not return” was what he explained. This happened during military service. He always told us that. Because I had not known the love of a father, I had a very good relationship with him. He had a lot of good qualities, he would come and tell me: “We came to Turkey with a convoy, I did not have a penny. My military service was supposed to be two years but I could not return even though World War 1 had ended. I went back to my neighborhood, I could not find my mother or my sibling. They died of poverty and starvation. I was alone”.
My deceased mother-in-law, Anetta Ers, was a little ignorant, she was a peasant woman. She would say: “Friends and neighbors got together and married me to him. I did not have a spectacular life. My father-in-law’s job was to inscribe on tombstones things like poems. He was a sought-out person.

My father had two siblings named Fortune Levi and Albert Levi. The only thing I know about his older sister Fortune was that she would cook for a royal British family. She had great knowledge about food. She had a daughter named Deyzi, when her daughter grew up, she decided she couldn’t provide a dowry for her since she has lost her husband, so she left for Israel around 1975 and died there. Her daughter currently resides there.

His brother was a tailor. He had a daughter and a son named Sara and Pepo. He died around 1975-1980. I have no further information about them.

My mother had two siblings named Albert and Vili. My uncle Albert was in the business of wholesale nuts in the United States. I don’t have many details about them because I never met them.

Vili was in the carwash business in the United States. He married Seydi Behar who was an American citizen. He had three children named Leonor, July and Sami. I know he died in 1960.  I met all the children when we went on our trip to the United States.

Both my uncles were studying in Istanbul, in the Maccabi. The name of the B’nai Brith school was Maccabi then. This was happening at the time of Hitler. They saw that the situation was very bad, my mother was married then. My uncles ran away from school, they went directly to Spain. From there they emigrated to the United States. They both found a woman each, to be able to stay in the United States. Both passed on. Their life there was wonderful. At first they struggled but then their situation improved. They lived in Miami. They remembered their sister 40 years after they left, my mother. They tried calling by phone, couldn’t locate her, they called the community, they said we are looking for such a person, they couldn’t. They couldn’t reach us. Finally one of them gets up and comes to Turkey, I had just given birth to Izzet then.

My younger uncle came, found my mother and it was a big event. In reality my mother contacted them through the American consulate. That is how my younger uncle came here. Then he took my mother to the United States. My mother lived with them for a while. She lived well but returned with yearning for her children. In the meanwhile my uncle became a cardiac patient after he married his son and told his son Semi Behar: “you will take care of my sister and the children” as a last request. “If necessary, bring the whole family here” he said. Appropriately, my older brother applied to the American consulate to become an immigrant. But his immigration paper came after he died. In the meantime my uncle died and his son, as soon as he married Deni Behar, -I don’t know her maiden name-, came to visit Turkey around 1970’s and found us and my mother. We had pleasant days with them, and for about 10-11 years, they came every year. They stayed with us, we did not let them stay in a hotel, we opened our house.

One time, they said it is our turn, they invited us to settle there, first come and see they said, and arranged everything, up to the airplane tickets. And we went there and lived there for 40 days. We stayed in New York for 15 days and in Miami the rest of the time. I loved it there and I wished a better life for my children, I wanted to settle but my husband did not want it. If you keep me here I will die he said. In reality he was right, it was a very calm and quiet place. The place was full of villas. There wasn’t much to do. At best, we went out on a motorboat on the weekends to fish. My husband did not want this lifestyle.  But they insisted and said “you are coming” and arranged a house for us, a carwash business, and a language school for my son Izzet so he can learn and direct the family. He prepared everything. But they did not let Izzet. The ambassador did not let him. They wanted a house, they wanted money in the bank. They even called and said I will send a permit, I will provide everything he said. But neither he was able to do it, nor anyone gave a viza to Izzet. How could we leave Izzet  behind we said and we couldn’t go, we stayed.  What a pity that we had everything ready.  It wasn’t to be.

My older brother Izak Levi was born in Istanbul Sishane, in 1921. He studied in the Jewish highschool, completed junior high. He did not go to highschool. He raised himself since he was a smart and active person. He worked in Taksim in a textile factory at the age of 17. The owner in the textile factory was a Druze, named Cikvasvili. He worked there until he went to the military. While working there he got engaged to a girl named Merkada Eskenazi. The person who became his wife later on, Korin Leon lived above us and was very much in  love with my brother. She heard that he got engaged and was very upset. She sends her mother over and says to my mom: “why were we not made aware, whereas Korin loves Izak very much”. My mom relates this to my brother. After a while, they weren’t getting along with Merkada and they separated. Following this my brother got engaged to Korin, they stayed engaged for 7 years. Since they were engaged so young, their engagement lasted a long time, in the meantime he went to the military. He had a good military service in Ankara. They marry a while after he got back. She was a very good woman. She loved me like a sister, took care of me when my mom wasn’t there, we lived in the same house. She was 10-12 years older than me. They had a daughter named Janti a year after they got married, and 4 years later another daughter, Suzet. He was very successful at his job during this time. His job was boxmaking in Eminonu. He had a lot of acquaintances in the market. He had a friend, Albert Morhayim, and there was another one, the son-in-law of a pharmacist at the kal de los frankos (ashkenazi synagogue), I don’t remember the name, they became partners in the glassware business. They obtained a big warehouse in Eminonu. At the time the crystals from Chekoslovakia were famous, they were selling those. They became incredibly rich. When they were married they lived in Kuledibi, they attracted attention because of their wealth. They bought a house, they bought a car, they had everything. Ten years pass and the accident happens.


My other older brother Albert Levi was born in Istanbul Sishane in 1925. He also completed junior high in the Jewish highschool and started working. There wasn’t much studying then. After finishing school he became an ironworker until military service.  Later he did his military service in Malatya. When he returned, he opened up a business of children’s bicycles. He maried someone named Sara Bicaci from Tekirdag. She was a very good woman. They had two daughters, Jaklin and Meri. They lived in the 6th flat.  With time the girls grew up. After the events of September 6-74, emigrating to Israel was common. First let’s send the oldest girl so she can learn the language, then we will follow he asid. The older girl Jaklin left in 1962, they went in 1964. They currently live there. Now he is retired. We still communicate but we are not close because of beatings  that happened when I was young.

I tried to forget these events, I had a lot of therapy, with time I forgot all of it. After my brother left in 1964, my mother went to stay with him in 1968. Our financial situation wasn’t that good. We were struggling to raise our kids. My husband’s business wasn’t that good and he also needed to take care of his parents. My mother wanted to go there. At the time the Israeli government would provide a house for the immigrants, they would provide money. And she went there. My oler brother said “I will take care of my mother, do not give her a house, give  me the money”. My mother settled in my brother’s house. She lived there but couldn’t get along and left to rent. The situation became so bad that my mother took to crying in the streets, lying on the benches. I was going crazy reading the letters. In 1977 I told my husband that I had to go take care of this no matter what. I left and went there. Truly, I found my mother in a deplorable state. I went to my brother and said “I am not in a position to talk, you are more powerful than me”, I boosted his ego. “I have two sons at home, my husband, his parents, who should my spouse take care of first. My mother has not been well since the death of my brother, anyways, she needs a doctor, she needs medicine, I cannot afford all that. Please treat her well, who knows how many years she has left, it is a pity” I said. In the meantime my older son Salvo has an accident with our car, and my husband writes me a letter and calls me back immediately. I left everyone and went back. Later I received a letter from my mother: “What did you do to these people, you put them in line, my granchildren are coming to see me, my son comes, my daughter-in-law comes” she was telling me. I told her that I took care of it using kind words.  My mother was very happy that I had taken care of the situation and prayed to me. But a short while after everything was o.k., my mother died.

Growing Up

I, Zumbul Ers (Levi) was born in Istanbul in 1934. I never went to preschool, my mother and siblings raised me, there was no such things as nannies with us. I was mostly alone through my childhood. After my father’s passing, my mother started to go out to work. She was a tailor. She worked and I stayed alone in the house. My childhood was very bad, I had a very bad childhood. All this stayed in my subconscience, I had a lot of therapy after my husband died. The psychologist revealed that it all was because of my childhood.

I was someone afraid of the dark, who went to bed hungry, then. I would fall asleep before my mom got home. The younger of my older brothers, Albert was a harsh person, I suffered because of him. He was very strict, he beat me up a lot. These beatings created psyhological problems for me. My older brother left for the military after a while. My mother would prepare green beans for me when I was 6 and say you will cook the green beans. My sister-in-law lived upstairs, the fiancee of my older brother and her parents.  I would go to them and beg them to show me how to cook it. They would tell me do this this way and that, that way, they would instruct me. I would cook coals on top of a brazier to cook food, and when it wasn’t done, my brother would come and beat me. My mother who could have stopped him would come home late, and when she did, I was asleep.  We did not have running water, I would pour water over his hands with a bowl, he would slap me with the back of his hand and blood would pour down my face. I was around 7 years old or younger. The neighbors would intervene “what are you doing, you will kill this girl”. It was as if he was exacting revenge on our poverty. I don’t know what to say. All this created psychological problems with me with time. I became a girl who cried constantly, who never found pleasure in anything. At the time, the children, girls and boys, we would all sit outside our doorsteps, a little conversation, a few laughters, a little singing, we would pass the time like this. Because there was nothing else to do then. In the meantime I grew up, started working. I put on airs about having grown up. I started having self-confidence. My older brother returned from military service. He was a very good person. He acted like a father to us. In the meantime the younger brother went to the military, I reached puberty at the age of 12. Of course, I flourished, I am walking with girl and boyfriends, I am talking to them, I forgot about the past. In the meantime the neighbors are telling my older brother what the younger one had been doing. One day my younger brother came from the military. My friends were calling me from downstairs, 
Zelda, come out to the door so we can talk a little bit. My brother immediately stopped me saying where are you going. And I replied that I was already grown up, that he couldn’t tell me what to do anymore, to go mind his own business. How dare I talk back, he starts hitting me and hitting me. My older brother hears the sounds from upstairs. Right away neighbors gather to check the commotion and my older brother beats my younger brother with a stick in his hand and this was the last time. He could not touch me again. But these events had an effect on me, they stayed in my subconscious. For a long time I could not enjoy anything, I will not forget that.

I went to the second coeducational school, this was a Jewish school. My favorite class was mathematics. Ask me today I will answer you rightaway. I liked math and Turkish a lot. In the classroom, I remember, the richest kids sat in front, the poorest in the very back. The teachers arranged the seating system. However, the ones in the very back were more successful than the ones in front. I liked all the teachers in general but we had a teacher named Madam Benyakar, she was very tough, she would always beat us with a ruler. But not me. She beat the ones who couldn’t answer, she would hit thir fingers with the ruler, right on top of their knuckles. That is why I did not like her but I liked the rest. I was so well-behaved that I would get presents like notebooks and pencils, the school would clothe me and feed me.

I could only attend third grade in primary school. That year my mother was very sick and one of my brothers was a soldier. I had lost my father at a young age. My mother was very ill, her legs became paralyzed, she wasn’t able to walk, I think her legs became immobilized from fear and she was unable to walk. That is why I stopped going to school after 3rd grade so I could take care of my mother. I started working at 9 years of age, I started caring for my mother at 9 years of age. There was a pantyhose factory in Kasimpasa belonging to some Druzes, I started working there. First I started working in the weaving, I would attach labels. Then I would make straps for bras. We paid the rent with the money I earned. One of my brothers was a soldier, the other had just returned and did not have a job.

I had a bad childhood, I could not get an education. Whereas I was a hardworking student, in third grade, after I quit school, a committee from the school came to my home to ask that I return. To ask why you are not sending your daughter to school. They saw my mom’s situation, my mother was sick. I couldn’t go. In the meantime there was a government law stating that it was mandatory to finish elementary school. Because of this they would permit me to leave work at 3 o’clock and I would go to night school after that. I finished elementary school this way. I got my certificate. Then I continued working.

During the War

In my childhood I do not know the population of Jews in our neighborhood, Bedrettin Mahallesi but the majority was Jewish. I think there were around 50 families. The Turks on the other hand lived one street behind. Our vicinity was all Jewish. It was mostly like a ghetto. Kuledibi was a ghetto. The area we lived in was also a ghetto.

At the time we did not have anything to do with the community, that is to say we did not have any relationship with the community officials. There were 2 synagogues where we lived. Apollon and Zulfaris. Here there were 3-4 rabbis.  There were religious members such as usher, cantor etc. There was a mikvah, Talmud Torah, a Yeshiva.

When we were young, celebrating events such as noche de shabbat(Friday evening), attending synagogue on Shabbat morning, kashrut, holidays, were all done together with our neighbors and relatives.

We attended synagogue like everyone else, my mother would take us on every holiday, every Shabbat, every Selichot no matter what. The upstairs floors of the house we lived in were all Jewish. Besides, the future wife of my older brother and his in-laws were all our neighbors, we were always with them. They were so religious that we would get together at night, towards dawn and go to the synagogue to pray. I learned everything concerning my religion from them. I learned piety, kashrut, everything I did or applied, I learned from them. Other than them, I learned Hebrew and religious studies in school. In addition I went to Mahazike Tora 5,  there was Nesim Behar [a very eminent rabbi at the time who educated nearly all the children of his time. In later years he went to live in Israel and died there.] then, I learned religion from him. As far as holidays are concerned I like all of them.

The Jews here had different jobs. But then the rich and the poor live in the same area and had the same conversation. There was no separation. Some of them were factory owners, some grocery store owners, butchers, water sellers, produce sellers. These would come to our door, that is how we did our shopping. There were merchants. Printers of cloth would come to our home. My mother prepared my dowry from a Jewish printer, she bought sheets, comforters, fabrics and underwear.

Payments were done weekly. I was young, I remember, my dowry was in the closet, it was ready. There was a dark-colored and a light-colored suit, a black and a light silk dress and a lot of everyday skirts and blouses in my dowry. The dowry would be hung on ropes in the house a week before the wedding, and displayed with pots and pans on the floor close by. First the mother-in-law and her family, then the neighbors would come and look. Showing this was mandatory then.

There were horses and vehicles in our neighborhood. The trashman would pass in a vehicle. When I was young we would run after the horse carriages, we would get on them. I remember, we were about 2-3 years old then.

We did not have electricity or running water in our house at all. We had a gas lamp in our house. My mother was a tailor, she would sew in the light of the gas lamp hanging on the wall at night. We didn’t have running water either. There was a tree across the house, there was a big fountain there. We would go there and bring bucketfuls of water home. I remember when we went to the fountain to get water the Turks also came. We mingled well with them, there was no discord among us. But later someone would come out and say “dirty Jew” in one of our best moments. In reality we got along well but if something went awry, they would say dirty Jew. But some among them would instantly protect us.

There was a hamam in Kasimpasa. We would go to the hamam with our mother. We would go once every 15 days or once a month. We couldn’t go more often because our pockets didn’t have much money. We would go, bathe, and in the very end, we would throw 41 bowls of tevila. Every time we went, after we bathed, the tub would be cleaned thoroughly, refilled , and we would pray by throwing 41 bowls of water  and we would get out. We  learned this from the rabbis.  This was a tradition, [actually a wrong and superstitious practice that had nothing to do with religious practice] that’s how it was then.

In our neighborhood, the military parades, special celebrations or independence days would be celebrated in Sishane caddesi(street). Turkish Independence Day 6 would be celebrated, there would be military ceremonies. I remember, there was a fire department in the Sishane plaza, there was an amusement part next to it, and Sari Madam(Yellow Madam) next to that. Sari Madam was a coffee house in Sishane and two thirds of it was Jewish. My mother would bring food on the weekends to Sari Madam and we would eat that with tea or coffee. That was our biggest pastime. People would meet up here, and chat. On Independence Day, columns would be placed in front and there would be official parades. My mother would take me and my older brothers to watch these.  I even remember the death of Ataturk 7, I was around  4-5 years old, we went to sishane meydani(plaza), we all bawled. I remember it as if it was today, there was noone without tears. They brought the coffin from Dolmabahce. They took it from Dolmabahce to Sishane and from there to Taksim. I don’t know how far we went with my older brothers, we followed them, sometimes on someone’s lap, sometimes holding their hands. I remember it as if it happened today.

I had a lot of friends from school. The majority were Jewish. I still have friends that I visit with. Emeli Haleva, Sarika Azuz, Suzi Filiba. We currently meet and visit each other with them. Apart from the school, I had friends from the neighborhood also. I don’t remember them much. Our biggest pastime was a rope. We would jump rope then, we would play ball.

In my spare time, I’ve had a lot of projects, a lot of hobbies. I raised myself, I would cut my old dresses and make blouses. I started these when I was 6 years old. I would put corks on the ends of my mother’s hairpins and I would knit. I would knit scarves at the age of 6. In this way I knit  a lot of things now. Sewing, knitting became my hobbies. I did not go to school but life educated me. Today I am someone who knows all there is to know, I don’t lack for anything. Today I have a lot of friends who are graduates of college, you won’t believe me but I am superior. I raised myself. I raised myself by reading.

I liked walking as a form of exercise.  I used to walk a lot.
I never went to a club or social association.
Until I got engaged I never did anything on Saturdays. I don’t know if it was because of religion but we never went out on Saturdays with friends, it wasn’t permitted.

On Sundays, there wasn’t much to do, we would go out to the street, we would play ball, jump rope, there wasn’t anything else. When I was young there was no such thing as pleasure trips, eating out at restaurants. Our most important event was for adults and children to gather in a house on Saturday evenings. Songs would be sung, games would be played with coffee cups. This was how this game was played; something like a coin would be put inside one of a lot of upside-down cups, whoever found it would win who knows how many pennies. This was called coffee cup game. Lotto was played. We would play as a crowd, with adults and neighbors. These were our pastimes.

After the War

I got in my deceased brother’s car forthe very first time. He took us touring, it was superb. My first car ride was around 1945. My mother also took us around on train, she would take us to Florya. She would take us to the sea in Kucukcekmece. We would pack food in baskets along with the neighbors, get on the train from Sirkeci and go to the sea.

It was my mother who went to the bazaar in our house. There was a special butcher, greengrocer, printer she shopped from, she always bought from them.

I remember the wealth tax 8 from my youth. After my father died, my mother continued with the business, she would sew pants. They would bring her items for her to work on, they would take it after she sewed. If I am not wrong she received a wealth tax of 500 liras because she did this. The smallest wealth tax was 500 liras. My mother quit the business because she could not pay it. “I cannot afford to pay this, i don’t have money”  she objected. We had a coalman in or neighborhood, our mukhtar. One day I went to buy coal, I had just started elementary school. There was a woman, an informer, she lived above the mukhtar. “E, Zumbul, what are you doing?” “Nothing”, I said, “I am going to school”. I was only 7 years old. “What does your older brother do” “My brother is an ironworker, he works” I said. “Your oldest brother?” “He is a soldier” I said. “Your  mother?” “My mother is at home” I said. This woman tells all of this to the mukhtar. And the mukhtar sues us. Why? Because at the time they would pay a salary to the family of the person who was a soldier, either 150 liras or 200 liras. But of course in order to get this money there shouldn’t be anyone working in the house. All of a sudden we receive a summons saying you have someone working in the house. The day came when the trial took place, they made me testify. But they were wrong about one thing. My working brother was Avram. Instead of writing Avram, they wrote Zumbul. They took me to the courthouse. We did not have a lawyer or anyone, only the lawyer appointed by the government. They asked my mother, do you work, she said no, I was, but I quit. They asked my sister-in-law she said I don’t work, I stay home. They said to me you work. No,  sir, I said, I attend the Ikinci Karma [2nd coeducational] Jewish school. “What grade are you in?” “I am in 3rd grade”, I said. “O.k., give us the address of the school”, they said, and they went to the school, they asked, “yes”, they said, “she attends the school” and in this way we won the lawsuit. We had received a fine of I don’t know how much. We didn’t have a single penny to pay this. We left the place and at first we didn’t know if we won the lawsuit. My mother asked the attorney what happened. The attorney said “You are lucky, there was a mix-up with the names, you won in the court”. And so we won the lawsuit.

There was a lot of poverty at the time of the wealth tax, we used to buy bread with a ration card It was wartime at the same time. I remember, I slept with my mother, we had something like a small cloth bag under our pillow. In it we kept our birth certificates, important papers, 1-2 pieces of underwear. The lights would go out at midnight. Our curtains were dark blue roller blinds, light should not be seen from the outside. Airplanes would pass over, sirens would be heard immediately. I wasn’t going to school then, I was about 4 or 5. We would all leave the house and run to a shelter a little further down from  Sishane. We would all wait there, we would all gather one on top of another. Whenever the whistle ended, that is when we returned home.

My spouse Nesim Ers was born in Istanbul in 1928. He finished elementary school. His mother tongue was Ladino. His father’s name was Marko Eliyezer Ers and mother’s name was Anetta Ers. My husband had 3 siblings. His older sister Suzan Ers (Mizrahi) had 4 children: Sara, Eliyezar, Klara, Smulik Mizrahi. His older brother Izak Ers had 2 children: Eliyezer and Moiz Ers. His younger brother Sami Ers never married, did not have children. All 3 siblings passed away.

When I was around 15, they settled in the flat underneath us as a family. My spouse’s mother and father, Anetta and Marko Eliyezer Ers had left for Israel around 1948. When they couldn’t manage there, they returned within a year. When they came back they were looking for a house. They knew my mother and my mother told them there is an empty flat underneath us, come and take a look. They came, they looked and decided to rent the house and started living here. We did not see each other with my husband then. He would go to work, I would go to work. My husband had close friends in the neighborhood. He did not socialize with us. We never talked or anything. One day, a friend of his named Albert comes to our house and says to my mother: “we are going to gather in my house on new year’s eve, girls and boys, is it possible for your daughter to attend, we are short one girl?” My mother says “listen, if my sons hear about it, they will be angry” and the kid says “don’t worry, we are very close anyways, we will just have fun together, keep it a secret, nothing will happen”. My mother finally gives permission. I wasn’t even 16 then. I went to that meeting that night. I had a very nice evening, we ate, we danced. The place we went to was in Kurtulus. At night to return home, since we are neighbors, my husband accompanies me and brings me home. I felt the electricity at that meeting. Two months passed. We used to go to the same place for work, to Eminonu.  There weren’t a lot of vehicles at the time, we would walk. We always walked both directions then. One morning, as I was going to work, there was a newspaperman in  Sishane, he would sell newspapers on the floor. My husband is waiting in front of the newspaperman. As I am about to pass him, he stops me and greets me. In reality, we had already met but it was evident that he wanted to become friends with me. But I was in love with another young man, Jano Alkabes, but he was much older than me. I was 16, he was 27. But I was very much in love with him. But they were about to emigrate to Israel as a family, I had to separate. By separate I mean, we didn’t socialize much but we had an intimacy. He was the friend of one of my friend’s older brother and we would meet every Sunday and dance. Truly, I don’t know if it was puppy love but I loved him a lot.  When my husband appeared that morning we went to work together chatting all the way. At the time my deceased brother also went to work in Eminonu. Sometimes we went together, sometimes we met on the way, we would return together. Our work places were close anyways. If needed, I would go and come back with him. Next morning, I see my husband is there again. Again we went to work talking all the way. This went on for 1-2 weeks. Gossip spread right away then. I had cousins, they immediately informed my mother. Zumbul is constantly going with someone, who is this, they asked. My mother was a smart woman, she was aware that I was walking with the neighbor but she did not say anything. This lasted almost 3 months, we started returning together from work in the evenings as well as mornings. One evening, after work, we spent too much time walking around and I got home at 9 instead of 7. I said I cannot enter home, who knows how my mother will confront me. He said don’t worry, I am here. Just as I entered the house my mother confronts me with a stick. As soon as she said: “May you be cursed, where have you been?”, my mother-in-law appeared, “don’t worry, she comes and goes with a Jew, what is wrong with my son, does he lack anything?” she said and shut my mother up. Later on my mother said: “they are going to be engaged this week, this subject is closed”. And that is how it happened. We married in the Zulfaris synagogue in 1953.


We got ready early in the morning on the wedding day. There was a lot of snow that day, it was the 15th of March. We went to the synagogue, we got married. We came home after the synagogue. There was a hotel in Tepebasi, Park hotel, I think it is still there, we stayed there one night. The next day, my sister-in-law used to live in Tunel, we went to her house and ate together. In the evening we went to our home. At the time we married in poverty. We found our house a month before our wedding. My mother had given 1,000 Turkish liras as dowry then. We furnished our house with that money. The house had 2 rooms. We used one as a sitting and bedroom, the other as the livingroom. We had a large divan and a table in the livingroom. We also had a big radio, it was very valuable at that time. We had a bathroom but no kitchen, I had converted the hallway into a kitchen.

My husband was a textile worker first, then he started commerce. He worked in the business of dry goods for a while, then started working on his own. He was in the same business. He would buy goods, take them to the vendors in the bazaar on his motorcycle. He started earning well. We moved to a beautiful house, thank G-d, he provided me with a good life. We were much better compared to before.

At first, when we just got married, we were friends with his older brother.  His brother had 2 apartments, when I gave birth to my older son, we moved to one, they moved to the other. We had a very close relationship with them and the neighbors. In the meantime my husband bought a car, we had such wonderful days with that car. Our days passed with wonderful, sweet conversations, with songs, with strolls. My sister and brother-in-law were talented in vaudeville. Those laughters were life-affirming. Our husbands worked on Sundays too. We women had a great time, we would prepare tea, cakes, everything for our husbands when they came home. There was no financial discord among us. The in-laws were rich, we were so-so but we got along well. We lived in their apartment. Much later on, there appeared a lack of harmony among siblings. Things like I want to go to this place, I don’t want to go to that place. My husband suggested taking a break and not socializing as friends so that the brotherhood would not be affected. After these events we had another circle of friends. We had lovely days and evenings with them also. We always went to the movies, theatre, and concerts.

We spent our summers in Buyukada [the largest one of the Princess Islands]. We had a house there, we went every year. Later on, we had to sell it due to the illness of my husband. We had wonderful days until he became sick. Many years ago he had jaundice when he was young. He had to be on a strict diet after this but he did not pay attention.  Whenever he was under the weather he never asked for a doctor and he never went to see one. 8 years before he died, one day, when he was getting dressed to go out, he had blisterlike things on his legs. These blisters opened up and started to ooze. Let’s go to the doctor, I said, he told me nothing happens and shut me up. This went on for a while.  We decided this couldn’t go on, my daughter-in-law Arlet, wife of my son Salvo, devised a plan. She invited us for a visit, and also there was a doctor Mesullam, she invited him too. And he examined my husband in the home of Arlet. This is important he said, he prescribed tests. We did the tests later on, and the diagnosis was liver disease. If it is not taken care of properly, it will turn into cirrhosis, they said. Therapy was mandatory but he did not take care of himself and it became aggravated. Later we took him to Balikli hastanesi (hospital) for a check-up. They did all his tests. And they discovered that it was cirrhosis. He has five years left they said. G-d knows how we suffered for 5 years. He died on September 14th, 1994. My husband was interned in the Ulus Jewish cemetery with a religious ceremony. There was a rabbi at his funeral of course, Kaddish was recited.  We have his yartzheit every year on the anniversary of his death.

My older son Salvator Yesua (we call him Salvo for short) was born in Istanbul in 1955 along with his twin. When Salvo was born, he was 1.7 kg., the other one was 2.8 kg.  Salvo’s twin lived for 4 months. One day I put both in their stroller and took them to Tozkoparan to get some fresh air and to feed them their formula. He died suddenly until we reached home. We called a doctor, he said “teila amen”, there was no cause, he was fine. Some said it was because of evil eye. The fat one died, the thin one lived. Because Salvo was very thin, he couldn’t be circumcised after either 1 month or 3 months, only 6 months later was it possible. His weight was not sufficient, we had a lot of difficulty. His weight was checked every month. When he was up to his normal kg., then he had his circumcision. We celebrated Salvo’s bar-mitzvah in a ballroom that was under Site sinemasi(movie-theater). There were no hotels and such then.

He studied in the 11th elementary school in Sishane. He went to B’nai Brith for junior high. Then he went to night school for English. We sent my older son to Nesim Behar to learn religion. But Nesim Behar put a lot of pressure. He was a child then, religiously children should not be pressured. On Saturdays you will not touch money, you will not walk, you will not turn on the radio, you will not play ball, you will not go out, and so on and so on. In the end the child rebelled, now he has nothing to do with religion.

When Salvo was 18 years old, he met Arlet Munteanu. They came from Romania, rather from Romania to Israel, and from there to Istanbul. My son and Arlet formed a friendship. When my son reached 19, just as he entered 20, he was supposed to be called to military service. But Arlet and her family wished fervently to have a civil marriage just so she could stay here. Consequently she wasn’t able to stay in Turkey. They were calling her to military service in Israel, or she should be enrolled in university. She then studied here in university. One day Salvo brings Arlet to me, the families haven’t met yet. Listen mom, I am leaving for the military on Monday, I am entrusting Arlet to you, we got engaged between ourselves, but we will make the final decision after I complete the military service, and he left. In the meantime I would call Arlet for my son’s sake, we would take her out to eat on Sundays. Later she would return home to study. Two months hadn’t gone by, one day her mother calls me: “I am Arlet’s mother, if I invite you over for coffee, would you come?” I said thank you very much, let me consult my spouse, I will let you know. We accepted the invitation, met them, had coffee, conversed. In the meantime Arlet’s father comes up and says what do you want for dowry. How am I going to talk in my son’s place, I said, my son hasn’t made his final decision yet, don’t pressure me. Let my son return from the military, let them decide, then we will talk about the dowry. They talked already, he said, you promise me, are you giving your son to us. I am giving 600 dolars now, until they get married this money will be saved and we will give all of it, he said. I did not say yes or no. Our father did not talk, he was always the quiet type. I came home, I wrote my son a letter. You entrusted this girl to us, but you cannot entrust, this is their only daughter. They want to bring this to its finality, they pressured me I said, he could not say anything. The very next week, father and daughter and my husband went to Amasya to see my son. Later on, my son came on leave before his service was finished, and immediately we had the civil cerremony because Arlet was completing 18 years of age. They got married so she didn’t have to go to Israel for military service. The wedding happened after the military service. They got married in Neve Salom 9 . He had two daughters, named Elza and Raiza. Elza went to Bilge ilkokulu(elementary school) in Maslak, and Lala Hatun ilkokulu in Nisantas. Later she enrolled in Robert Lisesi (highschool) 10 having won first place in Turkey in the entrance exam. Then she went to university in France. She studied art, she’s done, now she is still there, both to improve her French and to have a career. Raiza is studying in  Koc lisesi(highschool), she will finish and go to the United States.

My son separated from his wife Arlet in April of  2000. One Passover night, when he was over here, he said he doesn’t want to go home anymore. I said o.k. Anyways they weren’t getting along for a while, he constantly came to me. He would go to play ball, then he would stop by, o.k. one night is fine, 2.night is fine also, 3rd. night again, then I said, come talk to me openly, what is happening. You weren’t someone who came here every night. Mom, we decided with Arlet to separate, don’t get upset, he said. I said o.k. And a month later he left home. He wanted to stay in a hotel, I did not let him, I said you will come and stay here. He stayed for 1-1,5 years. He met Zeynep, became friends, said I will marry Zeynep. Zeynep wasn’t Jewish, she was Muslim. At first I refused, but later on after I met her, I liked her and I said my son’s happiness is more important and I accepted. And he got married a second time.

Izzet was born in Istanbul in 1961. Izzet had a normal circumcision. There was Istanbul Hastanesi (hospital), I gave birth there. We had his circumcision 8 days later. We had a nice b’rit mila with neighbors, friends and our Turkish friends.

Izzet studied in Kurtulus Kuvayi Milliye ilkokulu (elementary school) the first year, then finished in sisli 19 Mayis ilkokulu. He went to junior high there too.

Izzet did not want a bar-mitzvah outside. Spend the money you would have spent on me, he said, and we got him a new bedroom set and had a reception at home for about 30-40 people. Of course he wore tefilim in the synagogue. It was summer then, the month of June. The tefilin ceremony was in the synagogue in Buyukada. Then we waited for the end of the summer season. On our return to  Istanbul we had the reception at home.

Izzet went to the military when he reached 20. When he came back from the military he met Perla Benveniste, they dated for a while. Then the families met, talked, the decision was made and we hade the engagement. They were engaged for about 2 years, then got married. At first they rented a house in Bomonti and lived there, then they moved to Sisli.  They had one child, Igal Ers, his circumcision was in Divan. When they become one month old, kucaras de plata(silver spoons) are given, we had the pidyon. That day the rabbi came, he was given the silver, and he asked "A baby arrived. I will take the baby, I will give you the silver, what do you say, do you want the silver or the child?". We said  "we want our son". At this point the rabbi said: "look, the silver is more valuable, I suggest that you take the silver". We said "we want our baby”and we took the baby, left the silver with the rabbi. Naturally we followed our traditions. Of course later the silver is returned but this is what is done for tradition. 3 years ago the bar-mitzvah was done in  Neve Salom synagogue. It was a snowy day. First a very nice ceremony was done in the synagogue, then the celebration happened downstairs and food was served. It was quite crowded and it went well. Now he studies in Koc lisesi, he is a very successful student.

We always talked in Turkish with our children, tried to raise them according to Jewish traditions, celebrated the Jewish holdidays all together. In the first years of my marriage, all of the mothers and fathers and siblings, we would have a wonderful evening all together. We would gather at my home or my sister-in-law’s home. We would gather in  my home the first night, at my sister-in-law’s the second night.

My children only went to the synagogue on holidays. But my younger son Izzet now goes continually. He started going continually after his father’s death. The older one never goes anymore.

I cook sephardic foods, I cook Turkish foods also. Currently I am cooking more Turkish foods, the children prefer this. But I cook sephardic foods too because there are low calorie meals among them, there are vegetables, poached foods, I prefer that. But when they come to visit, I cook mostly Turkish food. My favorite foods involve vegetables. Turlu(mixed baked summer vegetables), apyiko(cooked celery roots), these are good for old people like us. And my favorite traditional sephardic foods are roasted lamb and peas, I also like koftikas de pirasa(leek meatballs), koftikas de patata(potato meatballs).

This is how you make koftikas de pirasa: You boil 1 kg. leeks, squeeze the water out of them. You boil 1-2 potatoes, puree them, add salt and pepper. You add 200gr ground beef and mix up the leeks,  potatoes with one egg and make meatballs out of that. First you dip them in eggs, then flour and fry them in hot oil.

The subjects of Judaism and Israel would be discussed with friends from the vast community. For example we were quite upset and saddened by the war in 1967 11. Same thing with the Yom Kippur war 12. We would constantly follow the news from the agencies, how is Israel, what is happening there. Even today whenever we hear bad news about Israel, our sorrow is infinite.

I did not notice an increase in antisemitism in Turkey during the time when the Holocaust was taking place in Europe. Sometimes there might have been minor events. We were close with the Turks. Our life was very nice with them. They had even taken my mother under their protection, all the neighbors. We lived a long time with Turks. But at the smallest provocation, for example when we went to the fountain, they would put me to the end of the line. There have been times when they said dirty Jew. The same people would get along well and at the same time behave like this. But these were minor things. We did not experience a big evil or such.

I also remember the events of September 6-7, 1956. 13 I had twins at the time of Salvo’s birth. As soon as I delivered, I came home. We were close with the Turks, we had a good relationship. There was a cofeehouse in Sishane, in our neighborhood, it belonged to the Greeks. I was aware that something was being mentioned in our house. My mother, my brothers, my father-in-law were all talking about something. I was asking what happened, they wouldn’t tell me anything. In the evening, I was in bed, I was recovering from childbirth, all of a sudden, there was a loud noise, a demolishing noise. They destroyed the coffehouse of Yorgo. I felt afraid, took the children next to me. What did our Turkish neighbors do, they got small flags, came in front of our door and protected me. At the time I was living in a small house like a villa. They came all the way to the door, asked are there Greeks here, are there Jews. No, this is a Turk’s house they said and protected us. My mother turned off the lights from fright. We waited in the dark. I started shaking from fear, my husband left around 9 or 10 to save his store. When he came back he said that nothing happened to his store. But they destroyed my older brother’s glassware store, they broke everything and threw it to the streets. The store was in disarray. They messed up everything. All the curtains, fabrics, refrigerators, machines were all over the streets.  That is what people were telling, I was recovering from childbirth.

My brother restored his store later on. Not even a week passed when they took my husband to the military service for a second time for one month. There was the draft then because of the Cyprus problem. He went to Hadimkoy. My brother took me and my children to his home. I lived with them for a month until my husband returned. I don’t remember the name of this, it was a preparation of drafting us in case of war.

There was the politics of “Citizen, speak in Turkish” 14at one point. We always talked in Turkish. My Turkish was very good, you could not differentiate. We talked constantly in Turkish until getting married, until my children grew up. Much later, when my father and mother-in-law came to visit we started talking in the Jewish idiom to converse with them. We would even warn people talking in Ladino, talk in Turkish so there won’t be a problem. Of course the older women could not speak Turkish well, they spoke it flawed.

We were very happy with the birth of the Israeli nation. I wanted very much to do an aliyah there, to live in Israel, I thought a lot about it, but my husband did not want it, we could not agree as a family. When my husband was sick and we went there and saw the place my husband said I wish I had listened to you. He liked it a lot there.

My second older brother lives there. He has daughters, they have a very good life, one of them works in the municipality, the other takes care of children in a college. They all have homes, cars, they have everything. My brother has a home, superb, his life is wonderful. My sister-in-law, my husband’s older sister lives there. Her daughters live there. I went to Israel 6 times, I always stay at the home of my sister-in-law’s daughters. They are like my own daughters.

I do not have much involvement with the Jewish community nowadays, I am not a member of any organisation or club. I used to go help Misne Tora a lot before. The inside there used to be all stone, marble. It was so cold, that it made me ill and I pulled back. Now they improved that place and it became very comfortable.

Again, before, I used to attend Haleva’s seminars about Judaism in Yildirimspor.
Today I do everything that is religiously necessary. I celebrate the holidays, I observe kashrut. I don’t go to the synagogue very often any more. I only go on the holidays. I am able to go for weddings.

I did not have any problems with my children as far as raising my grandchildren according to Jewish traditions. I still gather the family and cook food.

I have a lot of friends. But I have a problem, they smoke a lot. Because I suffer from cardiac problems smoking bothers me quite a bit. I used to socialize a lot but I had to pull back. But I still see them but not as often as before. I couldn’t live without friends.

We were in Buyukada in 1986 when the massacre in Neve Shalom 15 happened, we heard about it, we were devastated, we didn’t know what to do. There was nothing to do anyways but we were very upset. It was either the eve of Yom Kippur or Rosh hashana. We had a miserable holiday.

I lived through very difficult times in the bombing events of November 200316. That Saturday morning I was in the kitchen and I was washing dishes when I suddenly heard a sound like boom, I thought someone had a flat tire. A few minutes passed, a friend of mine called. It was 10.30 a.m. “Did Izzet go to the synagogue?” I was immediately worried, “why are you asking me this, he goes to the synagogue every Saturday”, I said. “What happened, did something happen, please tell me, don’t hide it from me”, I said. “See, a bomb exploded”. I heard about the bomb, I started hitting myself in the head. I called Salvo rightaway. Zeynep answered, the second wife of Salvo, she told me she heard it on the television, “don’t be afraid” she said. But I could not stay still, because my son Izzet was inside. Zeynep woke Salvo up immediately, I got dressed, and rushed out to the street, one shoe on one foot, the other bare, Salvo met me to ask where are you going. I yelled that I was going to Sisli. I was so agitated I didn’t know what to do. My son calmed me down. “If you behave like this it will be worse, let’s wait a little and find out what happened and what didn’t”. We immediately turned on the television. I do not know what I did, what I lived through, what kind of crisis I was in during those moments. In the meantime we called Izzet’s store, Izzet would go to his store to work after the synagogue. His neighbor answered, I excitedly asked about Izzet.  “Don’t worry, Izzet just came but took a wounded person to the hospital”. I told him to have him call  me when he returns, I want to hear his voice, only then will I breathe easy. At any rate when Izzet came to the store he called me rightaway. “Mom. Don’t worry about me, I am fine” he said but I was still trembling all over. Later on he came here. Following him, friends, relatives all came to say: sorry, hope you will recover soon. That was a miserable day.

GLOSSARY

ALBERT OZLEVI
Istanbul
Turkey
Date of Interview: April 2006
Interviewer: Yusuf Sarhon

Albert Bey (Mr. Albert) and his wife Lusi Hanim (Mrs. Lusi) live in a beautiful flat in Gayrettepe along with their housekeeper. When I went to visit them for this interview, they were very hospitable. They are both very warm, pleasant and talkative people. Albert Bey is 70 years old, he stands out with his silver white hair and smiling face. Despite his age, he is very active and has an energetic personality. If Albert Bey is present in a gathering, that means that they are having a lively conversation. In the present, he is recuperating from surgery for a kidney problem, I wish him a speedy recovery and a long and healthy life.

My family background

Growing up

My wife Lusi

Family life

Glossary

My family background

I do not know where any of my great greatgrandfathers came from. What kind of a business they had to earn money, how they lived, what languages they spoke, I cannot know, because I have never been told anything about them.

My paternal grandfather, Sabetay Ozlevi was born in Edirne and lived there all his life.  I do not know his birth and death dates. Our last name was really Levi. When the surname law 1 was passed, there were a lot of Levi’s in Edirne. Some of them were given the surnames Delevi, some of them Allevi, and we were given Ozlevi.
I do not know their education level, I am guessing elementary school. Their mother tongue was Turkish and Judeo-Spanish. He was fairly religious. He was a quiet, inoffensive and a very serious man. The languages he spoke were Turkish and Judeo-Spanish.

My paternal grandfather dressed well, he dressed like a gentleman. He would wear a suit and vest, and a felt hat. He was always shaved, he did not have a moustache or beard.
His occupation was the making of stoves and tin materials. In his later years, he left his business to my father. The business of stoves and tins has been passed to my father from his father. Apparently he said: “I am leaving my son a golden bracelet [meaning a lucrative career], I am retiring, from now on my son will take care of me” at the age of 55. In reality, he stayed with us until the day he died, sometimes he stayed with my uncle too, he lived there too.

My grandfather did not have specific political views. He wasn’t a member of any political organization or party, neither was he a member of any social or cultural club.
I think he died at the age of 55. As far as I know, my grandfather did not have siblings.

My paternal grandmather Bohora Janti Ozlevi was born in Edirne. Because she was the firstborn they called her Bohora. I do not know her maiden name. She was a housewife.  Her mother tongue was Judeo-Spanish and she talked a flawed Turkish. She always lived in Edirne. She died in Edirne in 1954.

I know she had about 8-9 siblings but I do not have any information about them. The only thing I know is that they all emigrated to Israel in 1948 as a group. When my grandfather married my grandmother, these siblings did not have a dad. Of course the subject of dowry was very important then. As a result, my grandfather married off his sisters-in-law to whomever wanted them. Because their financial situation was not very good, in 1948 when Israel was founded, all the siblings emigrated together.

My maternal grandfather Bohor Avram Rodrik was born in Dimetoka in Greece. I don’t know the date. Afterwards he came and settled in Edirne. I don’t know how he came or why he came. My maternal grandfather dressed more simply, he didn’t take that much care. He did not have a moustache or beard, he was always shaved. He  normally had a shirt inside his suit and in winters a short embroidered jacket over his shirt because he was out in the streets all day. He also wore a cap. He knew Turkish and Judeo-Spanish.  They spoke Judeo-Spanish amongst themselves.

My grandfather did his military service in Syria, I do not know during which years. My mother used to tell that when she was around 5, her father went to the military to fight in the war, there probably was a war then, he stayed in the military for 4-5 years. When he returned diskempt with long hair and beard, my mother started crying from fear, not knowing who this man was. This is your father they told her and my mother did not believe them, my father cannot look like this, she said. Later on, he took care of himself, cut his hair and shaved his beard,  looked like himself again.
My maternal grandfather used to carry flour to the bakeries with a horse and carriage for as long as I remember. His financial situation was quite good. He even carried his merchandise himself, to earn more money.

My maternal grandfather had a fickle personality, at times he was very cranky, they even called him “Bohoraci el Kufur” [Ladino for the firstborn curser]. It means cranky as far as I can understand. At times he behaved in a very tolerant manner especially towards us. When my brother Yasar was born, they used to live in the neighborhood just north of us, we used to live somewhere called Kaleici, he would come to see my mother every Saturday morning after temple, at the time my father would also be home because the store would not be opened on Saturdays and my father never opened his store on a Saturday until the day he died, my mother would sit and complain to her father like all Jewish women do.  My grandfaher, I remember it so well, would not utter a word, he would only look at Yasar, caress him, would eat a sweet or borek(pastry) or a leftover from Friday night, and then leave without saying anything.

I do not know if my grandfather had any specific political views. He was not a member of any political organization or party, he wasn’t a member of a social or cultural club either.
When the nation of Israel was founded in 1948, he went there to be with his middle son Izak Rodrik and he died there.

My maternal grandmother Rahel Rodrik was born in Palestine, I do not know when she was born or how she came to Edirne. I know she was a housewife and quite religious.  She emigrated to Israel with my grandfather and she died in Israel.

Neither my maternal grandmother nor my paternal grandmother wore wigs like orthodox ladies. They did not wear scarves either. They both wore dresses called “fostan” during the day, made of printed cloth in summer and a woollen velvet fabric in winter. When they went out, my paternal grandmother would dress better despite her financial situation. They both had gold chains. My maternal grandmother had a long ring, it was very valuable.

My father’s side of the family lived in a neighborhood at the beginning of the hill of Kurtulus okulu (school), I don’t remember the name now, they lived there in a 3-room, one story house. The neighborhood where they lived was a good neighborhood. The life of my father’s side of the family, and us 4 siblings was more limited. They had electricity in the house, I don’t remember if they had running water or a well. They had a wood stove for heating, they would light that. They did not have nannies or women helpers in the house. They followed religion in a normal manner. They observed kashrut and the Shabbat. They would not light candles on Fridays in the afternoon after 4 p.m., since the Shabbat started. They occasionally went to the synagogue, not every Saturday. The Jewish holidays were always celebrated.

My mother’s side of the family lived again in a 3-room house on a side street about 150 south of them. It was a one-story house on a big empty lot with a barn. At the time, the houses in Edirne were one-story and had bay windows. The furniture was better on my mother’s side of the family. Their life style was also better. They had electricity in the house. I don’t remember if they had running water. What I remember is that there was a well in the garden of the house. They would pull water out of the well especially on Fridays. They had something called reso to warm their house. It was a metal stove with 4 openings. It was European, all stoves were European anyways. There were no nannies or female helpers on my mother’s side of the family also.

My mother’s side of the family observed religion more. They observed kashrut, the Sabbath. On Saturdays the lights would not be turned on, candles were not lit. When they had to warm food, there was a woman called “deli [crazy] Ayse” in the neighborhood, she would walk the Jewish neighborhoods from one end to the other and light everyone’s stoves. And they paid her something. When deli Ayse came, she would light the stove, the food would be placed on top, warmed up, and to turn it off, again Ayse would come. My grandfather would even be angy at my grandmother when the food was warmed and she took them down. My mother’s side of the family would go to the synagogue every Sabbath and the holidays. My maternal grandfather was an usher in the synagogue. He was an usher in a synagogue in Tahtakale, I can’t remember the name. There even was a kosher butcher there, I remember, they called him “Davit el shochet”.  When they had to cut chickens, it was done in that synagogue.

The Jewish holidays were always celebrated at home.
All their neighbors were Jewish. As a matter of fact it was a Jewish neighborhood there, I don’t remember the name. It was a Jewish neighborhood from one end to the other. It was adjacent to a highschool’s lot. It was a long neighborhood from one end to the other.  Their relationship with their neighbors was at a very good level.

My father Yasef Ozlevi was born in 1907 in Edirne, 1323 in the old calendar [Muslim calendar]. His mother tongue was Judeo-Spanish and Turkish, he also spoke French well. He dropped out the last year of Alliance 2 school, that is to say the first year [class numbers went from higher numbers to smaller ones, so grade 1 was the senior year]. If he hadn’t dropped out of Alliance, they were about to send him to Paris, so he could study there and have an occupation. But my grandfather said: “why should I send him there, I will give him a gold bracelet” and took him under his wing.

Later on my father worked with my grandfather until my grandfather reached the age of 55 and decided to retire. Following that my father took over the business. His job was about stoves and tin materials.

My father went to the military twice, once when he was drafted and once for his normal military service. I do not remember the dates at all. I don’t know about his regular military service, the second one he did in Sarikamis. He was drafted a second time because there was a war, during 1940-41. This was a military service just in case. I don’t know what he did over there. My father was a very cultured and understanding person who did not show it. He was a little introverted, he was a very good person. He was a person loved by everyone. All his friends’ financial situation was good, for example his friend Pepo Sarfati was a grocer, Bohor Bakis dealt in paper, another one of his friends was a seller of sundries and notions. They earned well. My father, on the other hand, was a small-scale retailer and had a family with 4 children and did not earn enough. According to the conditions of the time, artistry was an important career but did not pay well. I think that is why he was closed up, he felt opressed. My mother also was more dominant than my father. I don’t know to call it shrewdness or willpower, maybe that is why he was introverted. My mother’s authority was more prominent on us. My father was more tolerant.

My father would go to the dairy barn at midnight, around 3 or 4 in the morning on summer nights to glue the cheese tins. He would come home in the afternoon around 4 or 5. This would go on from May till September. After September he would work on stoves. He would leave at 7 in the morning and return at 4 in the evening.

When they got together with friends, they would converse and play a card game called kumkam. He would go to the synagogue on Saturday mornings and nap in the afternoons. In the evenings, he would go to Gazi parki (garden) in summer, and to the movies in winter.

My mother Sultana Ozlevi (nee Rodrik) was born in Edirne, I do not know the date. Her mother tongue was Judeo-Spanish, and she had a flawed Turkish. As far as education is concerned, she dropped out of the 2.nd grade of the school of Alliance, therefore spoke French well. Her family placed her with a tailor so she could learn how to sew as soon as she left Alliance. My mother and father spoke Judeo-Spanish among themselves because my mother did not know Turkish well. My father would write her letters when he was in the military, “Dahling Pepo”, her Turkish was so flawed that instead of darling she would say dahling. “I bought two loads wood, G-d willing we’ll burn together in winter”. Her Turkish was that bad. My mother was very smart, very talkative, very tough,  like a dictator who never made concessions. She was the one in charge of the house.

This is how my mother and father met.
My father was between my uncles Izak Rodrik and Selomo Rodrik in age. He was friends with my younger uncle Izak. My older uncle considered himself older than them, he didn’t pay attention to them. My younger uncle and father were friends in a group and my mother would tag along with this group and they knew each other from there. They were friends with the same group, the same people. From what my mother and father tell me, they liked each other since that time. My father liked my mother, and my mother was inclined towards my father. One day my father tells my uncle that he likes his sister and wants to marry her. My uncle relates this to his father, that is to say, my grandfather. My grandfather considers this positive, he is a good kid, he says. They give my father a very good dowry relative to that time but I do not know the exact numbers. My mother used to say every once in a while: “la dota ke tomates”(the dowry that you got), and my father said “i yo te tomi ke teniyas korason i todo”(and I married you even though you had heart problems and all). My mother always denied it but my father always said that my mother had cardiac problems before she got married. My mother and father would have sweet arguments sometimes. I believe my father in this regard. My father used to say “you had heart problems before we got engaged, my mother and father even said, don’t marry this girl, she has cardiac problems, I married you despite everything”. I think my mother had rheumatic fever when she was young, they used to hang laundry in the balconies under the conditions of the time, she did not pay attention to her clothing in the cold, caught a cold with the wind, and had rheumatic fever I suppose, I do not exactly know. My father married my mother despite everything. They got married in this way.

They married in 1932, in the synagogue in Edirne, they had a civil marriage before. My older brother was born in 1934. I am not sure exactly, I think they wanted a child rightaway but couldn’t have one for one year. My mother was a very modern woman. She took care with her clothing. I remember, I was around 13 years of age, we had bought some kind of British  fabric for a coat for 29 liras and my mother had it made. It was a coat that sparkled like snowflakes. My mother liked dressing my father up too. My father would leave the house with his tie and vest, like a count, on Saturdays.
My family’s financial situation got much better when I turned 15. It wasn’t very good before. When my brother won a store in the lotto and started selling draperies and haberdasheries, our situation started to improve. At the time the stores were given out by lotto, but they paid attention to their clothing. They would say, let it be one but let it be mine.

I think I was around 5 or 6 when we lived together with Madam Luna Bakis. When I was around  9-10, we moved to Kaleici.  It was a 2-story, beautiful house. It had a yard next to it with big walls. There were 3 rooms, if I remember correctly, there was a kitchen, bathroom, there was something called pastera [Ladino for large basin] to bathe in, we took baths in it, there was no bathtub. I slept in the same bedroom as my older brother.

There was either 1 m. or 45 cm. height between the ground and the window in our room on the ground floor. There was a cushion in that room. One would sit on the cushion and watch the people coming and going. If you wanted to look at someone, you could lean down and look from the back.

We had running water from the taps, and we had a well. At first, we did not have a servant or a maid. After a few years, a woman started to come, a gypsy woman. She came every day, did not stay the night. The gypsy who came to our house was either 35 or 45 years old, she had no teeth in her mouth. Our parents and their friends, 3-5 people, would arrange for card game nights, “there will be guests at night, Atiye, stay here” they would say. She would reply: “Noo, Sultana, I cannot stay, when it is nighttime I have to be in my husband’s arms”. She would never stay. When it was late we would take her to her home in the gypsy neighborhood in a horse-carriage.

We had books about religion at home, the novels that my mother read, and also comics like Tommix and Texas. We didn’t really follow the newspapers. There was no habit like going to the library. My parents were fairly religious. That is to say they were not overly religious.  They observed the Sabbath and kashrut.

In my family it was my father who went to the bazaar. Because my mother had cardiac problems she did not go out much. They did not hace specific merchants or sellers that they bought from.

Among the Jewish traditions, they observed the holidays, they observed kashrut a long time ago, I don’t know why we neglected it with time. They would go to the synagogue every Sabbath and every holiday.

There would be holiday celebrations at home. My mother tried to gather all the relatives especially during Passover. My aunt also would want to have all her family. There was a matriarchy in our house. They had the same matriarchy in my uncle’s home. My uncle was also a very good person, a quiet person, they had wonderful personalities. They probably did not want to quarrel with women so they were matriarchal too. My aunt would say I want my family. On the one hand, the family is very large, it will be too many people. As a result we did not celebrate with the family of my uncle , we celebrated with my grandfather’s family. At first we would go to my grandfather’s to celebrate the holidays. After they emigrated to Israel in1948 my mother started gathering all the relatives.

Their friends, their neighbors were all Jewish. Anyways they were all from the same neighborhood, from Kaleici. For example, Luna Bakis was my parents’ friend for as long as I remember, and they stayed friends till their demise. There was Pepo Sarfati, the grocer Pepo Sarfati; we had a friend named Deyzi, her mother and father. There was a person they called “Pepo el Sobaci” [Ladino for Pepo the stoveman]. They were friends with 5-6 people like this. My parents did not go on vacations, there was no such thing as going on vacation then anyways.

Again during those times they did not know what a restaurant was. When I say they did not know I mean they didn’t go.  Or maybe they did not want to go, I cannot know, after I turned 18, our family’s financial situation improved slowly slowly until it got to be quite well. I say our family because each one of us worked for the whole and the whole for each one of us. My older brother and i worked, my siblings were studying. When the one younger than me was in highschool, the second youngest was in elementary school. Even though there is 5 years difference between me and my younger lawyer brother, he has not suffered any of the pain I suffered.

My parents did not have active duties in the community.  They did not participate in any political, social or cultural organization.

My mother’s funeral took place in Edirne in 1969, she had a heart attack.  There were barely 10 people at her funeral. There were very few Jews left then. My father’s happened in Istanbul. He was buried here in Ulus cemetery. They were both buried with a religious ceremony in the presence of a rabbi.  Of course I said kaddish for them. We bought 2 plots then. Following the burial of my father, a few years later, we buried my mother also in Istanbul Ulus cemetery. One day we also had our undershirt cut for krya, according to the religion. We observe their meldados [Ladino for yahrtzheits] every year on the anniversary of their death.

My father had two siblings named Salvator Ozlevi and Rebeka (Krespi) Ozlevi. Salvator Ozlevi was born in Edirne, he sold dry goods and notions. He married Berta Ozlevi. They had a son, they named him Hayim Ozlevi. In reality they had several children, because they all died, they named their last child Hayim.

His sister Rebeka was born in Edirne also. She married Izak Krespi. They had two daughters. Rika Krespi (Franko) married Rifat Franko. The other daughter Inez Krespi (Reytan), married Moiz Reytan. When Rebeka married Izak Krespi, they had a store selling dry goods and their business did quite well. I do not know the reason, after a while they closed the store and settled in Cuba. After they lived there for a while they returned and settled in Ortakoy.

My mother had two older brothers named Salamon and Izak Rodrik.
The only thing I know about Salamon Rodrik is that he ran away to Cuba before 1936. He felt embarassed because my grandfather would carry flour to bakeries with his horse-carriage. He himself, had finished the Alliance. He did not think this profession worthy of his father. However, my grandfather said this is how I earn my living. I do not feel embarassment, he would say. He had a horse-carriage and his financial situation was very, very good. The barn was far away from the house. My uncle had finished the Alliance. My uncle said to his father, you either remove the horses from here or I leave. My grandfather said do whatever you wish. So he left for Cuba.

He lived as a bachelor, he never got married. I think he was a follower of Castro. At the time no one knew what he was doing. Apparently he was in jail. In a place called Isla Pipinos. In fact, he died in jail. He was a follower of Castro, but he got caught before Castro came into power and became a political prisoner. He died in jail before Castro ascended to power. I don’t know how long he stayed in prison, but apparently quite a few years. He would write such letters to my mom, “The day will come, the grass will grow green and I will bring you here, you will have a very good life” he would write.

Her other older brother Izak Rodrik also left for the same reasons, he crossed the border with Syria, traveled over the Golan heights and went to Palestine. This is what my mother tells me. I do not know the dates at all.

My younger uncle had 3 children, two girls, one boy. The boy, Avram Rodrik died in a traffic accident at 13 years of age. The oldest one Zelda Sides lives in Israel.
The other one Henda, her husband is Ashkenazi, I do not remember their last name. 

Growing up

I, Albert Ozlevi, was born on May 3rd, 1936 in Edirne. We did not have nannies, babysitters in the house, I did not go to preschool at all. My mother raised me. We have  20 months between my older brother and me, we grew up together. Because I grew up with my older brother I grew up as someome older than my age. Because we were always together with my brother.

I don’t remember what we used to do before school, of course we went to school when it was time.

I started school a year early. My grandfather used to carry flour to bakeries at the time. The principal of the elementary school was either the friend or best customer of the place where he delivered flour. As a result, due to his request, I enrolled into Gazi elementary school right below the the religious school that was below Selimiye Camii (mosque). My older brother attended Kurtulus Ilkokulu (elementary school) a little further down. These were public schools. My older brother and I are 20 months apart but because I started early, we were only one grade apart.

My favorite subject in school was math. I was interested in mathematics. I didn’t like subjects like history that required reading constantly. Even then they used to call people who studied these subjects a nerd, they would say, are you behaving like a nerd.

My elementary school teacher Behice ogretmen (teacher Behice) was my favorite teacher. I had a friend named Cemil, we were very unruly. He was a year older than me, and he had an older brother, Zeki, due to his repeating grades, all three of us were in the same class. There would be special prayers for the dead in Selimiye camii (mosque) on Fridays. When there were prayers, there would be hard candy and Turkish delight underneath. The candy and Turkish delights would clink together in cones made of paper bags. We would get other papers beforehand and put the candy in it so it wouldn’t make noise. First we would all go to the prayers together. I worshipped with everyone else. I would do whatever they were doing. With time these stayed in  my mind. I studied a lot about Islam too, I was interested. Selimiye Camii (mosque) had 4-5 doors. The prayers would end, we would get out one door and get a cone. We would empty the candy in the cone into the paper we brought, otherwise they would clink in their original container. We  would reenter from the same door, we would go out again from another door and get another cone from there too. We would get a few cones and go to school. There was the principal, Ihsan bey (Mr. Ihsan), he would wait for us at the door, twist our ears and say I will fail you in your class, because we ditched school and went to the mosque.

Behice ogretmen (teacher) was single and lived with her older sister. Even after I got married, I would go to kiss her hand on every holiday. We were unruly students but we were successful at the same time. We only did not like history. But we put in effort in the other classes. And she approved of us and liked us. She would protect us a lot at the time. Sometimes we ditched school, we would go jogging at a place called Tabya. Behice ogretmen(teacher) would protect jus, would not inform the principal’s office.

One teacher I didn’t like, there was a Turkish teacher in junior high, Tarik bey (Mr. Tarik). We were very mischievous, we would chat during class, we would act juvenile, for example we would make paper planes and throw them. Then the teacher would come, make a fist with his hand, extend his middle finger and bam, hit our heads. When he hit, it would come down like a sledgehammer. It was that powerful. Of course no matter how big the mosque is, the imam (prayer leader) would still do what he always does, he would hit, an hour later or the next day, we would repeat the same things.

I finished Gazi ilkokulu (elementary school) thanks to Behice ogretmen (teacher). I went to Ismet Pasha 3 elementary school in Kaleici before. On the very first day, in the morning, I hada fight with our next-door neighbor Niso Hazday, before we entered the classroom; they enrolled me in another school again in Kaleici, I did not last 2 days there either, at last they put me in Gazi okulu (school) in Behice ogretmen’s class, I was able to get an education there, I was very mishievous.  I never felt any antisemitism among my teachers or friends.

I started working at nights making paper bags at the age of 11 or 12 in Edirne, after I quit junior high. I learned this career from my father’s friend, Bohor Bakis, he was in stationary and I said I would do this job. I worked in a haberdashery store during the days.

I helped my family under the conditions of the time till I reached 15 years of age by producing paper bags during nights. Evidently, at the time, the bread you earned wasn’t in the lion’s mouth, it was in his stomach. As a result my older brother and I decided to undertake this job. Together, starting at 7:30 we would make paper bags at night. Waking up was at 6 a.m., a 12-year old boy, with a tote bag weighing 15-16 kg.s, wearing  rough woollen, worn-out short pants, my whole legs would be raw from chafing in that cold. My pants were made of a hairy woollen fabric. But under the conditions of those days, that was indispensable. As a result, we would sell those paper bags in the farmer’s market. Starting at 6.30, it would stretch from the place called farmer’s market all the way to the mosque with 3 balconies around its minarets. And those paper bags, 10 kg.s of paper would be bought altogether, newpaper, there was a place called Ikinci Kopru [Second Bridge], there some kind of glue called “paspal” would be manufactured with the residue of flour. The residue of flour is called paspal. You put flour in a pot, add water and and mix it well and make a paste out of it and this was used as a glue in the making of paper bags. By smearing this paspal on the sides of the paper bag, 6-6.5 kg.s would be gathered.  As a result we would make a profit of 15 Liras with those days’ money. We would also get 15 Liras salary weekly from the apprenticeship in haberdashery. We would both manufacture paper bags and sell them and work as apprentices in haberdashery. We would start work around 8-8:30 a.m. in the mornings. At the time the relationship between boss and apprentice wasn’t like today, it was the concept of don’t spare the rod. Consequently, you had to be at the store around  8-8:30 in the morning. The store had to be opened, the stove lit, the floors mopped, everything wiped down, so that at 8:30 the boss would come, drink his coffee. The store we worked at was a haberdashery but it was upscale haberdashery. There was Saraclar caddesi (street of leather goods), that was where our business was. The paper bag job, we did at night at home. Our work would go till midnight around 12-12:30. Because we were children then, around 11:30-12, my head would start to nod onto the counter with the paper bags both from exhaustion and my age, and my face would be covered in glue. I would be so sleepy that around that time, when it was later than 12.00, my mother and father would say: “ade ijo dela madre, presto vate a la kama” (come on, my son, immediately go to bed) and I would go to bed. My mother would wipe and clean my face with a wet towel. It was difficult getting up early in the mornings. But the desire and force to earn money continually pushed us.

There were a lot of horse-carriages where I lived in my childhood. Most of the main streets were paved stones. That means they were floored with stones. But they were done in an orderly manner. When they made these stones, they would get plumb lines, they would make them with plumb lines. Plumb lines are ropes with a weight on the end to measure the straightness of a wall. First they would do the center of the road from one end to the other, then the sides with a slight slope. The streets were very wide based on the times. Afterwards, years later when I took my children there to show our houses and where we lived, then it looked very small to me.

99% of our neighborhood was Jewish, but I don’t know the exact number. The Jewish community was in the hands of one person only, I regret to say. Yuda Romano. Yuda Romano was the head of Edirne community. There was Dr. Sarih Araz in the community, there was Moiz Kohen, there was Hayim Derazon. These were leaders and supposedly concerned people in the Jewish community. But Yuda Romano never allowed them to act, never gave them any responsibilities. Everything was in his hands. In a community there should be a directors’ board, this or that, but there was no such thing here. They were like puppets. Whenever they dissented a little, Yuda Romano immediately would say “I am not here, take the keys”. I consider this person as the cause of certain things based on my experiences. He would act without ever getting the board of directors’ approval. He was like a dictator. For example when I was 13, I was going to mahaziketora 4. There was a teacher called Mosyo (Mr.) Hason. He was a very polite, very self-assured, very knowledgeable person. One day Natan Eskenazi, Avram Mitrani and I, 3 friends, we went to the temple. We sat in the 2nd or 3rd row. Yuda Romano yelled “get up rightaway, rightaway, go to the back seats”, he yelled a lot. We are obviously children, how dare he yell at us, we said we won’t go to the temple again. I did not go to mahaziketora again after I was 13, we were 26 in the mahaziketora, my older brother and a friend of his were 1st and 2nd in the mahaziketora and I was 3rd. And I really liked it then. After that day, until I turned 33 when my father died and then 49 days later when my mother died, I did not set foot in the temple. There was also someone named Pinto, he later became the chief rabbi in the Istanbul sisli synagogue, even he clashed with Yuda Romano  about some subjects, subjects I don’t know about, and was obliged to come to Istanbul. There was someone else, a friend named Azuz, he served as cantor. What I am talking about is happening around the 1970’s. He was teaching religion to the kids at the age of mahaziketora so well. The guy was saying, I can play poker if I want to have fun, I can sing and play, he had a very nice voice because he was a cantor, I am a cantor, he was saying, I will have fun as I see fit. Yuda Romano said, no, you have to be serious, and they couldn’t get along and Azuz took off and left for Israel. All of this caused the community to slowly leave for Israel and Istanbul.

As far as I remember, there was a synagogue at a place called Kaleici, I don’t remember the name, there was one in Tahtakale where my grandfather was the usher, there was one big temple, there was one mahaziketora, and there was one right across Cumhuriyet sinemasi (movie theater) on the top floor, in the 2nd room. There were 5 in total, I don’t remember the names of any of them. There were religious members like rabbis, cantors ushers in these synagogues, but I don’t remember the numbers.

I don’t remember if there was a mikvah, Talmud Tora, or a yeshiva either.
All the Jewish traditions that are practiced now were applied in our home during my childhood, I can even say that they were carried out more strictly. For example,  on a Passover evening when Alahmanya(Hebrew prayer) started, it would be read in Hebrew, and then repeated in Spanish.

I went to the synagogue every Saturday until I turned 13. After 13 years of age, because of the obvious incident, I did not go to the synagogue except for weddings or funerals until I turned 33. At the age of 33, when my mother and father died within 49 days of each other, obviously going to the synagogue is a must. My mother was a cardiac patient, she died from heart failure, 49 days later, my father has bleeding in his stomach even though he is a healthy man, he had hardening in his arteries genetically. Due to the hardening in the arteries, he experienced blockage. He was healthy as a horse, however.  For example he would wrestle with us, 4 siblings on the upper floor in Edirne. My mother would yell from downstairs: “ya mestaj  yikteyando la kaza”(you are bringing down the house). My father would say, don’t worry, enjoy yourselves. He liked wrestling with us, having conversations with us. My father would connect with us even though he was his own man.

The holiday I enjoy the most is Kippur. Normally, if I don’t have breakfast in the morning, I get a headache, feel bad, I don’t know why. On a kippur day even though we start fasting starting at 6 in the evening, the next day, I neither have a headache nor feel bad. I don’t know if it is psychological or not. I go to the temple in the morning and I leave when kippur ends.

The Jews lived in two specific areas, one of them was called Kurtulus bayiri(hill), and the other a place called Kaleici. There were few people in Kaleici. The high society of the day, I can say. There was a big gap financially between the high society of the day and the other group of working people.

The Jews there had different jobs. There was more or less every kind of job, most were sellers of dry goods and notions. There were grocers, stove and tin merchants, greengrocers, butchers. The father of my uncle’s spouse was a butcher. I do not remember the name.

We had electricity and running water in our homes. There was a rabbi in our neighborhood and we visited often. In my childhood, at first I used to go with my mother, then later I went with my father occasionally. Later on I went every evening. When I was very young, I remember my mother would take me to the hamam for women. All the ladies would be covered with towels up to above their breasts. The only thing I remember, they would say “serrate serrate” [Ladino for close up, close up] to each other, “serrate serrate ay kreaturas” [Ladino for close up, close up, there are children]. We would go to the hamam on Fridays, there were times when we went during the week too. After I grew up, there were times when I went every day.

When I was around 33 or 34, my mother was a very meticulous woman, she died from her fastidiousness anyways. We had an upper floor. One day she was going to clean up for Passover, the weather was very cold, there were tables called gypsy tables, she died of cardiac arrest while pulling them. I was in Istanbul then, we had just moved from Edirne, they called by phone. 

We had to change underwear Tuesday morning, Thursday morning, and Friday evening, this was the law. Around 23-24 years of age, we went around with friends a lot, we drank, we would go to the hamam and lie on the marble all night to get rid of our toxins. We would get up around 5-6 in the morning because we had to go to work around 7-7:30. If we were late, we made fun among friends or merchants saying even the mayor went to work. We would leave the hamam, stop by the house and then go to work. We would lie down in the hamam all night. We would drink a little. We would lie down in our towels on top of the marble so the toxins would be eliminated.

When we were children there was no kind of antisemitism around here.

When I was young, there were military parades, special celebrations, or independence days in our city. At the time my only hobby was to play  Mi bemol [E flat] clarinet in the band.  I was an amateur bandmember starting at age 13. When I was in the band we went to practice every evening, after I turned 15, after this paper bag business was done.  There were 7-8 people working in the band. For example, there was someone named Misel Ovadya, he learned trumpet there. My older brother played an instrument resembling the French  horn, it was a blowing instrument but he didn’t want to continue. We practiced in the old public building. Every evening, we went there to practice. We learned the musical notes, we had learned the national anthem, the anthem of Izmir and such without knowing the first thing about music. I was an apprentice then. They would give us outfits for Liberation day, Independence day, or holidays like May 19th, or April 23rd 5, and we would play. Especially on Edirne Liberation day, they would put an arch for the liberation of Edirne, we, the bandmembers would be right across it. We would play anthems for official parades. At the end of the parade, there would be a bargaining about a cow between 2 peasants, most of whom were gypsies. It had become a tradition for every Liberation day, which was November 25th. A new mayor or a new public official would choke with laughter when they saw the bargaining. At first there would be a discussion of I will give the cow or I won’t give the cow for about 15-20 min. When they were right in front of the arch, next to the mayor, they would be fighting about “what kind of a man are you, I sold it, no, I didn’t sell it”, one of them would come up short for money, who is going to vouch for him, they would turn toward the mayor and say: “Mr. Mayor, are you going to vouch for him?” The mayor would be stunned. Not knowing what to do, he would say, “I’ll vouch, I’ll vouch”. Everyone would laugh, it was very pleasant. They would do this every year to a new civil officer.

I used to work on Saturdays. Starting when I was 13, the Jews began to open their stores on Saturdays. People wanted to do more business, I guess. I became an apprentice to Ilya Aziz on the streeet, he was our neighbor. He had an upscale haberdashery store. I worked there till I was 18. I had a very pleasant apprenticeship there.

We did not do much on Sundays until I was 15. That’s because we worked on Sundays too, we made paper bags. We started going out at his age, our paper bag business was finished by then. We would go to the nightingale park on Sunday mornings, and Tugay park to dance with girls on Saturday evenings. This happens in summer of course. In winters we would read newspapers, magazines or periodicals, or play poker or backgammon at the city club.

In the old times there were 2 big clubs, Mericspor and Edirnespor and other small clubs. We would go to a game every Sunday, to watch it. We supported Mericspor because our Turkish friends played in it. There was rivalry between Mericspor and Edirnespor just like between Fenerbahce and Galatasaray [the two major soccer teams of Turkey]. We went to a game every Sunday, other than the game there was a park named Gazi parki, we would go there.

In our youth we loved to dance. We had parties at homes. This type of lifestyle happened after I turned 15. We couldn’t even buy  a gramophone then, or it wasn’t bought for us. We would sing the songs ourselves “here is a tango for you, this is my last memory for you” and so on and we danced. Later on we bought a gramophone that was part of a huge furniture. But it was difficult to transport to houses, from here to there, the furniture was very heavy. My older brother was good at solving these type of dilemmas. Whatever he did, he separated it from its furniture and it became easy to transport it from house to house. We had great times. We had 3-4 groups of friends then. First of all, I don’t remember the names now, we were 3 girls, 6 boys. The girls first moved to Istanbul, then to Israel. Others replaced them, we formed a new circle of friends.

I do not remember anything from the Thrace events 6, I know what I heard from my mother and father. During the Thrace events, our families moved to Istanbul. They all came to Istanbul because Jews were being kicked out. My parents are newly married, in one night, they sold all their furniture and moved to Istanbul. They were afraid probably. My mother’s father said I will not go anywhere and stayed there. My family stayed in Istanbul for 15 days or maybe a month and returned to Edirne. This time, Inonu gave a speech at the public house, gave reassurance to the Jewish citizens, saying things like “don’t believe rumors”.

My older brother Sabetay Ozlevi, he is 20 months older, he was born in Edirne in 1934, the one younger than me, Selim was born in 1941, and Yasar was born in 1949.

Because we were born close together with Sabetay, we started working together and were always together until we moved from Edirne to Istanbul on Jan. 1st, 1969. Even though we were 20 months apart, we grew up together, I tried to adapt to his age. Even our friends were together, anyways our friends were usually from my age group. He studied in Edirne highschool till 3rd grade in junior high. In 1964, he married Neli Nahmiyas who lived in Istanbul but was originally from Bursa. They lived in Edirne. He had two children named Yusuf and Hayati.

Selim, on the other hand finished highschool in Edirne, after highschool he studied at the law school in Istanbul, became a lawyer and started his career in Istanbul. When he was in university, he only came to Edirne in summers for vacation. He married Ida Barha. He had two sons named Yosi and Erol.

As for Yasar, he lived in Edirne too. He went to military service at 18 years of age. He returned to Edirne again after the military. In 1971 he moved to Istanbul with the whole family. He married a lady named Suzi, he had two daughters named Lora and Jale. 

I was very young at the time of the Holocaust in Europe, I do not remember much of anything pertaining to that time. In 1940 we were in Karaagac. The European trains came to Karaagac, after Karaagac, it would go through Greece until it got to Uzunkopru then, now it is changed, and then it would go towards the direction of Istanbul. I remember very well, I don’t know if it was German customs agents or policemen, they would get down from the European train with their sharp pointed helmets on their heads, walk around and reboard when the train was starting. The train was a passenger train actually, they must have been on duty. I remember this well.

There are things I remember my mother talking to my grandfather about, at the time my father was in the military.
There was a French newspaper named Parrot, I don’t know if it is published in Istanbul or Europe. They called it “Jurnal Papagayo”. The Germans came to Edirne until the Greek border and stayed there. I remember them telling this. During that time we went to Istanbul, to Ortakoy with my father’s side of the family. We would sit at the edge of the water in front of the Ortakoy mosque and dangle our feet into the water with my older brother then. We would carry water to the house in pitchers from a fountain there on our way home. There was a Jewish grocer there, he would give us a hard candy each when we passed by.

I do not remember much of anything pertaining to the Wealth Tax 7 imposed during wartime but there was an anecdote that my father-in-law always told. My father-in-law’s family was in Balat, he was around 12 or 13 then. When the Wealth Tax happened they called his father who was a grocer. His father was very ill at that time, he was in his deathbed, they took him to the police station with a lot of difficulty. The police chief took a look at his father being in such poor health, “take this man away quickly from here, neither I saw him, nor you saw me” he said. At any rate, he dead a very short while later.

I remember the events of 6-7 September 1955 8. We used to close up our store between 7:30-8:30 every evening. On our way home, there was the residence of the mayor on Cumhuriyet caddesi (Independence Street), we would pass in front of it. This place used to be illuminated with lightbulbs outside on holidays. When we were returning home on the night of September 6-7, we saw that the lights were on at the residence and we were surprised “my goodness, there is no holiday or anything, who knows who came or went that they decorated like this” we said. That evening we came home, there was no television then of course, we only listened to music on the radio so we were unaware of the events. The next morning we learned about the incidents against the Greeks, of course it rubbed on the Jewish citizens too, unwittingly. From what I heard, all the fabrics in Beyoglu were thrown to the streets, people with knives in their hands cutting up the fabrics, people looting and so on. Later we opened our store, a civilian officer named Bahri came to our store then “Albert my son, look someone might come, try to break the glass, who knows what he tries to do, you will run away immediately, you will yell for help. We are behind the wall of Is Bank, you yell help and we will immediately come, do not try anything” he said. They knew me, if it is a fight, fight I will. Like me, all the citizens in Edirne were told this. But Edirne is a very modern, very good place, nothing happened. I always say, my country is worth sacrificing for every stone, every piece of dirt. My best years were spent here. I still love it a lot.

I came from Edirne to Istanbul after I turned 33, I could never get used to Istanbul. Because they call a cross-eyed person superior in a country of blinds. We were people that were loved and respected there. Here on the other hand, you get lost, this is a big city. 

My wife Lusi

My wife Lusi Civre was born in Istanbul in 1949. Her mother tongue is Judeo-Spanish and Turkish. She got her education in Notre Dame de Lour, she dropped out in 3rd grade. She never worked. Women didn’t really work in those days. We used to say what do you mean working, what do you mean studying.
Her father Kemal Civre had a business of shirts in Riza Pasa, he was a manufacturer and wholesaler. Her mother’s name is Eliza Civre.

I met her through my father-in-law’s uncle, Marko Civre, in Edirne, by matchmaking as was befitting the times. Being the man myself, we came to Istanbul one Saturday. My father-in-law’s store was in Riza Pasa then. The people who arranged our union, Mesulam Telvi and Marko Razon, who were my father-in-law’s neighbors, knew me well. They were originally from Edirne too. Marko Razon was in haberdashery, we were in haberdashery. When my older brother went to the military, I would take care of the haberdashery store in Edirne, in Alipasa, they knew me. Marko Civre,  Marko Razon and Mesulam Telvi, all introduced me to them with the understanding that I am a really good kid. We left there, together with my current wife Lusi and our families, we went to Asiyan all together. We had tea all together. Later, they said “go on, take a stroll”. I was 27 then. We strolled together. In the evening, there was a place called Club 12, I took my wife there. The next day we met at noon again, there was a show at the sports arena, I can’t recall what show it was, we went there. Before when we were walking, she said “ah, what a beatiful t-shirt” admiring a man’s shirt when we were passing in front of a store. I immediately went in and bought it. I took off my shirt next to the sport arena in the open and put on the t-shirt. She liked this a lot.

I came to Istanbul every weekend for 3 weeks more or less, we went out together. In reality, my business wasn’t that accommodating. Because we dealt in luxury haberdashery, Saturdays were our busiest days. There would be a lot of business because government employees were off. Edirne was a city of schools, there was no school Wednesday afternoons, there would be a lot of work, very good business transactions. After going to Istanbul 3 weekends in a row, we came to a decision and said “let’s get engaged”. My father and mother absolutely wanted me to get engaged. I was more interested in Muslim Turkish girls then. That is why they wanted me to get engaged rightaway. No one ever thought of assimilation then. We decided to get engaged at the end of 3 weeks. But my father-in-law had a condition, “my daughter is still young, you will marry in 2 years”. I said fine. She was 14 then. They wanted her to continue school for two years. I did not accept that. “She will be with me, what school” I said. She should finish school they said. “No, her school is being next to me” I said and objected. As a result, while she was studying in Notre Dame De Lour, they had to remove her from school.

I came to Istanbul to buy merchandise every week, I even came twice a week at times. I would take her to Edirne during these trips and she would stay 2, 3 months with us. She would stay in Istanbul for a week or 10 days, then I would bring her to Edirne again. 2 years passed like this. My father-in-law had a second condition, “I want the wedding at Neve Shalom 9, I have a very large circle of friends” he said. We said o.k., and had the wedding at Neve Shalom. My father-in-law was much younger than my mother and father. They invited my parents to their home, they stayed there and slept there. A groom cannot stay in the house of the bride before the wedding, so I had to  stay in a hotel in Sishane where the Jews from Edirne stay with my older brother. My sister-in-law had just given birth during those days.

The day of the wedding, we need to get lunch,  so we eat navy beans etc. at a restaurant there, then we went to the hotel with my brother, got dressed and met my parents at the temple and went in. Later on my wife came, the wedding took place. My father-in-law had a pretty large circle of friends then, and together with people who had moved from Edirne to Istanbul who knew our family, it was a fairly crowded wedding. From there we went to Osmanbey, to the photographer Tanju, pictures were taken. Afterwords, my father-in-law invited us home, an afternoon meal was served. The evening took place in Ortakoy Lido. We wanted a covered place because it was
September 12th, 1965. But because they reserved the inside for other people, there was an Armenian engagement party, they seated us outside in the open. We objected but could not convince them. But thank G-d, it was outside, the weather was so nice, we had a much better time. Besides, the people attentding the engagement party in the closed place felt the need to go outside and came to our wedding. It was a pleasant wedding evening, we were about 90-100 people and we had a lot of fun. We spent the night in Bebek hotel.

On Tuesday, we had the circumcision of my nephew, the oldest son of my older brother, at 11. When we were strolling around on Monday morning, we decided to go to Bursa Cekirge, on an impulse. I immediately went to Karakoy. There, there was a baggage checkroom called Emanetci Sultana, we left the luggage there and went to Yalova by boat and from there to Bursa. We walked around in a park, went dancing, spent the night at the Gonluferah hotel. We had to get up early in the morning and make it to the circumcision by 11. In the meantime, we got our luggage from the baggage checkroom and barely made it to the circumcision. The circumcision was done at the Guzelbahce clinic. Circumcisions were done in hospitals then. After that we came to Edirne. We rented a house there. We moved in with a Jewish person named Madam (Mrs.) Ameli. Our upper floor was the landlord. It was a house in ruins. There were gaps 2 cms wide in the windows, snow and the cold would seep in. Because we were on the first floor, the floor was linoleum then. Since there were gaps in the bottom, on very windy days the linoleum would sway slightly. We bought a coal stove for that place. There was so much cold coming in from the bottom that I would hold the thermometer at waist level, it would show 8 degrees, I would lift it, 33 degrees. There was so much difference in heat. We put a stove in the bedroom also. We lived there either a year or less. We moved to an apartment flat that was being newly constructed. We found our comfort there, all the rooms were heated with one gas stove. Until we came to Istanbul, we continued our life here. 

Family life

In the meantime, my son Yusuf was born on July 1st, 1966. He was born in Istanbul, but we still lived in Edirne. We had his b’rit mila at he hospital where he was born, Guzel bahce klinigi (clinic) in Istanbul. My mother had suffered a stroke, therefore one of her legs and one of her arms was not functional. My mother-in-law and I helped her carry the baby, which she did with great difficulty, afraid that she might drop the child. The circumcision took place. I remember this from that day. We used to tease my father. We used to say “dad, look, you have one grandson, his name is Yusuf, this grandson is also Yusuf. Too many Yusufs, instead let’s give him the name Kemal (my father-in-law’s name). Otherwise I would never think of such a thing. My father would only say one thing: “I will give everything I have, but even if I had 100 more children, I would name them all Yusuf. You can name him Ahmet, or Mehmet, the only thing that interests me is that during the b’rit, while he is being cut, they will call himYasef Yusuf Ozlevi, that is the only thing that counts for me, I will give everything but I will not give this up.
My son Yusuf, started preschool in Sisli Terakki lisesi at the age of 3. Then he attended elementary school, junior high and highschool. We had his bar-mitzvah while he was in junior high.

We stopped by the grand-rabbinate for his bar-mitzvah. The grand-rabbinate said, o.k., we give you permission but first you will pay the kizba 10. I responded, look, I give my kizba every year in september or october, what do you mean. If you don’t pay up now, we will not do the bar-mitzvah, they said. I paid every year whatever they asked, regardless if my financial situation permitted it or not. Why do you ask for this money  now, I always give it in October every year, I scolded. I argued quite a bit with the people there. I said, I will definitely not pay it, don’t do the bar-mitzvah. Get me Hayati Zakuto on the phone, I said. Hayati Zakuto was the person who determined my kizba, knew commerce well, and someone I loved like a brother. He was in charge of kizba coordination. They connected me to Hayati Zakuto. If I may be excused, I swore a little and told him what they were doing, that they were asking for this money from me. When he saw how upset I was, he said “Albert, please, be quiet, get me one of the people there on the phone now”. After this talk, they said, sir, you can leave. I left muttering and complaining. This was like catching the sick man in his bed. I was paying my kizba every year, this rubbed me the wrong way. Such an event happened to me then.

Of course the ceremony, the bar-mitzvah took place on Saturday morning in the Sisli  synagogue. There was the usher Niyego then. There was one other bar-mitzvah there that day, my son’s best friend’s bar-mitzvah. At the time you bought 3 of what we called mitzvahs at a bar-mitzvah. We bought these. My older brother had just gone through stomach surgery. They gave two of them to us, but they did not want to give the third. There were three mitzvahs, opening of the arc, adama and I cannot remember the name, opening and closing. These services cost this much. In reality, there should be one bar-mitzvah in the synagogue at the time. That week there were 2 bar-mitzvahs, this should not have happened, I exploded. Years passed, I still do not greet Niyego, because he did not act ethically. There should have been one single bar-mitzvah. Actually, these are the things that alienate the Jews in Turkey from religion and the community. We invited our guests to Macka oteli(hotel) in the evening. It was a pleasant event, there was music, we had a lot of fun.

My son studied industrial engineering at the Istanbul Techcnical University after finishing highschool. He graduated in 4,5 years and then went to England to improve his English. He married Emili Ozlevi (Altaras) in 1992. Her father is from Tekirdag originally and is one of the best friends of my brother Yasar. After he returned from England he wanted to go to the military. In the meantime he was with this girl. We told him, you will go to the military, how are we supposed to treat this girl. His mother said “I want to know, if you are going to marry this girl, I will behave accordingly, think about it for a week, and let us know. A week later, he said “Mom, I will marry this girl”. When he went to the military, he was assigned to Izmir. We went to see him a few times. We would board the bus with the daughter-in-law and go. These trips were tormenting. Later on he was transferred to Golcuk. We were on the islands then. We left the island, went to Golcuk, I showed my wife where to stay, where to go, after that, my wife went to visit my son along with her daughter-in-law every weekend, I did not because I was tired from work. Afterwards, my son came on leave at times, and completed his military in this way. After  the military, they got engaged, the engagement ceremony took place and then they got married. We bought a house for my son, they settled there. They had two children named Alp and Eran.

We decided to move to Istanbul on 1.1.1969 and settled in Istanbul, in Sisli Kocamansur. In the meantime, my wife was pregnant with my daughter Cela. After we moved, my daughter was born on February 9th, 1969 in Istanbul. She studied in Sisli Terakki like my son. She started  preschool at age 3, she was in this school through primary school, junior high, until she finished highschool. I did not send my daughter to the university after highschool, I was afraid she would be assimilated. I did not send her with the fear that she would hook up with someone and become assimilated. We made the biggest mistake, her mother and I. To be honest, I wanted it, my wife didn’t. I had the power to enroll my daughter in the conservatory. She had a talent for music, her ear and voice were very good. My wife said “kualo calgici levaz azer”(what, you are going to make her an instrumentalist). And the matter rested. While we were telling her to go to special courses, go here, go there, she married her ex-husband Jojo Motola. She had a son named Melih. For various reasons, the marriage did not work and they separated at the end of the 5th year. My grandson Melih Motola stayed with my daughter. Today, they still interact with each other quite well. They do not create problems for the sake of their son, my daughter is now an exporter, she works in textiles, exports dresses and blouses.

We generally spoke Turkish with our children. We spoke Judeo-Spanish at times so they would learn. Today they understand Judeo-Spanish but they cannot bring themselves to speak it.

We tried to raise our kids according to Jewish traditions. We used to celebrate all the Jewish holidays. We did whatever was necessary. We even bought the presents on the holidays. The children know the religion but they do not go to the synagogue much.

While the children were growing up, we would go to the movies, theatre, concerts all together. I especially loved the movies. The movies are still my hobby. I like listening to music in my spare time.

Other than this, we used to go and see friends and families most of the time. We visited with all the relatives. We couldn’t go on vacations for a lot of years.  Until 1974-1975. After this date we went to Buyukada for the summer for one year. I do not know the reason, it did not sit well with me, we did not go again. After two years we moved to Suadiye during summers. 7 friends, we lived in the same apartment. All were Jews. The landlord in the apartment was our friend too. We went there every summer until the 1980’s. We had very pleasant days there. We still recall and miss those days.

The birth of the Israeli nation made us very happy of course.
We thought about doing an aliyah there but we couldn’t because when the Israeli nation was founded my mother had a knot inside. Her older brother rotted in Cuba in jail for the sake of an ideology, another brother went to Israel alone for years and years, was burned out and died at a young age. My older brother and I even went on a hunger strike within our means. Consequently, my mother said, I will go with you, I will not leave you alone. This time, we are still working, my mother sells one or two chairs at a time, time passes, she sells an armchair, slowly, she empties the whole house. This lasted 2 years, our passion, desire to go, sizzled completely because in the meantime we had started earning money. Our life had become more comfortable, more leisurely. As a result, this idea was slowly erased all by itself. And my mother was obliged to rearrange the house.

A lot of acquaintances left to settle in Israel. Two of my best friends, Avram Mitrani and Natan Beskenazi settled there. These two left in 1948, they returned a while later for some reason that I do not know, they left again in 1958 before going to the military. During those years, some of the Jews in Edirne left for Israel, some for Istanbul, and some for other countries, and slowly, in time, they all left Edirne. Slowly, there was no longer a community, a rabbi, a rabbi would come to butcher animals twice a week.
Edirne was a modern place, we never had any problems.

Today I am not a member of any special organisation or club. I do not have any activities involving the community, my wife was active in dostluk yurdu dernegi(home of friendship, a Jewish organisation) for close to 20 years.

I carry out everything pertaining to religion today.  I go to the synagogue every Saturday without fail.

I do not use the internet or e-mail to communicate with my family.

I did not have any disagreements with my children about raising our grandchildren according to Jewish traditions but I wanted my grandchildren to attend mahaziketora4, but one of my kids said, not necessary, the other said we’ll see, now there is the internet, they can learn from there when they want to, they did not favor sending them there.
Today my wife still cooks and gathers the family.

Our grandchildren do not attent Jewish schools. For a while, my daughter’s son went to the Jewish school for a couple of years, but I think it was not challenging and she transferred him to another school.

In 1986, when the Neve Salom massacre happened 11, I had just started opening a factory, rather a workshop, for machine-knit fabrics, that day I was involved in this business, I was very upset when I heard it.

I was in the Sirkeci synagogue the morning of the bombing in November of 2003 12. There was a rumor of a bombing for a while but no one quite understood what happened. Our usher, Yusuf Reyna tried to finish the tefila(prayer), saying nothing happened. I normally keep my phone turned off but that day I forgot to and my phone rang, my son said where are you, I said I am at the temple. How can you still stay there, two synagogues were bombed, he said. We left the tefila halfway and went out. In reality, it was wrong for the usher to try and finish the tefila, something could have happened here too, we should have evacuated rightaway. Of course we were very upset with the events.
We always speak in Turkish with my wife, when we are alone or when we are with friends or our children. 

Glossary

[1[  Surname Law:   Passed on 21st June 1934, in the early years of the Turkish Republic, requiring every citizen to acquire a surname. Up to then the Muslims, contrary to the Jews and Christians, were mostly called by their father’s name beside their own.

Larisa Radomyselskaya
Uzhhorod
Ukraine
Date of interview: July 2003
Interviewer: Inna Galina

Larisa Radomyselskaya is an elderly woman with typical Middle East Jewish appearance. Her resin black curly hair has turned gray. Her two grown up daughters looking very much like their mother live with her. They and Larisa’s only grandson have this specific looks.  Larisa’s family lives in a small-size thee-bedroom apartment of Khrushchev’s period design of the 1960s called Khrushchovka 1 when they economized on each square meter of the living space. They have furniture bought during that same period. It’s a clean and cozy apartment. It shows that the family has little to live on, however. It hasn’t undergone renovations for 40 years since they moved into it. Three women have maintained it as well as they could. Larisa had a stroke few years ago. Her older daughter is a single mother. Her younger daughter is an invalid. All three women dote on Igor, their ‘sunray in the women’s realm’. All three generation care about each other. They are very friendly, shy and quiet people. Larisa moves little after her illness. She speaks so quietly that at times it is hard to figure out the words. Her life has been as quiet as the way she talks. Larisa stays at home alone during a day while her daughters are at work and her grandson is at school.

My family backgrownd

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

I didn’t know my paternal grandmother or grandfather. My father told me that his family lived in the small village of Rubanovka of Kherson region [500 km from Kiev]. My grandfather’s name was Michael Lifshytz, his Jewish name was Moishe. I have no information about my grandmother. I don’t even know her first name. I don’t know where or when my grandparents were born. I don’t know what my grandfather was doing for a living. They had five children: three sons and two daughters. My father’s brother Zinovi was the oldest. I don’t know his year of birth. Then my father Yefim was born in 1904. His Jewish name was Chaim. I don’t remember any dates of birth of the other children. All I know is that after my father came his brother Mark, whose Jewish name was Morduch, his sister Sarra and the youngest sister whom I didn’t know. My father told me very little about his family. He was reluctant to talk about it. In 1926 my grandmother and grandfather and their youngest daughter emigrated to Palestine on religious motives. They left their other children here. My father was 22 years old and Sarra was a teenage girl. As far as I know none of the children had any contacts with their parents. I have no information about them.

I don’t remember what my father’s brothers were doing to earn their living. Zinovi perished during World War II, he disappeared. As for Mark, I just can’t remember anything. I don’t know much about my cousins, my father brothers Zinovi and Mark’s children. Mark had two daughters: Inna, born in 1934, and Valeria, born in 1938. Inna and her family live in Haifa in Israel and Valeria lives in St. Petersburg. Zinovi’s daughter Sophia, born in the early 1930s, lives in Moscow. So this is how our life scattered us around. My father’s younger sister Sarra graduated from the College of Journalism in Novosibirsk or Krasnoyarsk. She was single. My father and his brothers and sister were convinced communists. Of course, none of them was religious or observed Jewish traditions.

My father finished 10 years of a Russian secondary school and at the age of 18 he was recruited to the army. He served in the Navy. My father told me little about that period. All I know is that they often sailed abroad and my father visited many countries. After the army, in 1925 he was sent to work in Kharkov [a big town in the east of Ukraine in 450 km from Kiev, before 1936 capital of the Ukrainian SSR], to the turbogenerator plant. My father was clever and he quickly grew from an apprentice to a qualified worker, manufacturer of turbine blades.

I don’t know anything about my mother’s family either. My grandfather died of a heart disease in the early 1920s, long before I was born. My maternal grandmother’s name was Maria Pinchusovich. I don’t know her maiden name or her place of birth. My grandmother was born in the 1880s. I knew one of her sisters: Sonia, whose last name was Leiberman in marriage. Sonia had four daughters: Fania, the oldest, whose year of birth I don’t remember, Ghita, born in 1917, Ida, born in 1919, and Ghenia, born in 1925. I don’t know any details of their life.

My mother’s family lived in Kherson in the east of Ukraine [500 km from Kiev]. My mother and her two sisters were born there. I don’t know my mother’s older sister’s name. She died when she was young. My mother Ida was born in 1915. Her sister Sarra was a little younger than my mother.

I don’t know what my grandfather did for a living. My grandmother worked her whole life. I don’t know where she worked. She left home in the morning and returned in the evening. My grandmother wasn’t religious and didn’t observe Jewish traditions. She didn’t go to school and she learned to read and write by herself. My grandmother spoke Russian, but she knew Yiddish as well. In the late 1920s her family moved to Kharkov. I don’t know for what reason they moved.

I do not know the history of acquaintance of my parents, I was too small, when my mum has died and I didn’t have time to ask her anything. I know only, that my parents got married in 1933 in Kharkov. It was an ordinary wedding of their time: they registered their marriage in a registry office and in the evening they had a small dinner. My father received a room in a communal apartment 2 from his plant and my parents moved in there. I was born on 20 July 1934 in Kharkov. I was given the Russian name of Larisa. I didn’t have a Jewish name. My parents were atheists and believed everything related to Jewish traditions, history or culture to be vestige of the past. From the time I remember I lived with my grandmother Maria, my mother’s mother. My mother was always ill: she had a congenital heart disease. Perhaps, she inherited it from her father. My mother couldn’t take care of me and my grandmother was raising me. She lived in a small private house in the center of Kharkov with the family of my mother’s younger sister Sarra. Sarra had two daughters and we were growing up together. I don’t remember Sarra’s husband or her last name in her marriage. He left for work very early in the morning and returned home when I was already in bed. Sara was a housewife after she got married. When grandmother Maria went to work I stayed with Sarra. Neither my grandmother nor Sarra were religious and I didn’t know anything about Jewish traditions or holidays. Of course, I was too small at the time to make any assessments of the situation, but later I came to understanding many things. It was 1936-37, the period of mass arrests [during the Great Terror] 3. Everybody was suspected of espionage and of being an enemy of the Soviet people. My father had relatives in Palestine and this might become reason enough to arrest him, even though we had no information about them. Besides, Soviet authorities struggled against religion 4. They were closing temples, arresting clergymen and persecuting believers. This is the way it was. Perhaps, this was the reason why even the word ‘Jew’ was said in whisper in our home. Fortunately, my father wasn’t arrested, but later I got to know that there had been arrests at his work.

I saw my mother rarely, only when my grandmother took me there visiting. In 1940 doctors offered my mother to have a surgery in Kiev. Heart surgeries were just beginning to be performed. My father was going to take a vacation, accompany my mother to Kiev and wait there until she could go back home. Regretfully, it didn’t happen this way. My mother died shortly before she was to go to Kiev in 1940. My father was a member of the Party and a Jewish funeral was out of the question. My mother was cremated and buried in the town cemetery in Kharkov. After she died my life went on as before: I continued living with my grandmother and my mother’s sister Sarra. My father lived alone. He was provably feeling lonely since he asked my grandmother to move in with him and take me with her. My grandmother kept working and my father’s sister Sarra came from Siberia to take to my bringing up. She didn’t have children and was happy to take care of me. Aunt Sarra worked as a journalist in a small publishing house and she could take her work home and then she could spend much time with me. She taught me to read and write and before going to school I could read in Russian very well. When my aunt was working I used to sit beside her with a book and I could spend hours reading children’s books by Russian and Soviet authors. We spoke only Russian in our family. I didn’t hear one Jewish word, I didn’t know any Jewish traditions and I didn’t know who Jews were.

During the war

In September 1941 I was to go to school. I looked forward to this day. Nobody could imagine that a war would shatter our peaceful and quiet life. On Sunday 22 June 1941 my aunt Sarra promised to take me to a children’s movie in the cinema and buy me ice cream. It was a hot summer day. We were at home and I was hurrying my aunt when our neighbor ran in. She said that the radio was broadcasting a speech by Molotov 5 and that fascists attacked the Soviet Union [and so began the Great Patriotic War] 6. They turned on the radio and I heard Molotov saying that we would win the victory. Then Stalin spoke with an appeal to the people. The adults were very anxious, but I, of course, did not understand how serious this was. If Stalin and Molotov said that we would win then it will be so, I thought. I can still remember how angry I was with my aunt who said that we would go to the cinema after the war since we had some more important things to do.

Things were quiet in Kharkov on the outside. There were refugees from other towns coming to town. My father was waiting for a notice from the military registry office. He insisted that my grandmother, I and his sister evacuated before he went to the front. I don’t think my grandmother was willing to leave her home. Before our departure my grandmother took me to my mother’s grave in the cemetery. There was a wall with numerous boards and there was quiet music playing. I couldn’t come to my mother’s grave after World War II: the columbarium was destroyed during a bombing of Kharkov.

We evacuated from Kharkov by the last train in September 1941. German troops were approaching Kharkov. There were three of us leaving: my father’s sister Sarra, I and my grandmother. We went by a train for cattle transportation. Our carriage was overcrowded. People slept on their suitcases and bags. We had little luggage and food with us. Our train was bombed almost every day on the first half of our trip. There was no water and toilets didn’t work. I remember that when the train stopped all passengers ran to the toilet at a railway station and then hurried to get some water. Sometimes we managed to get some food, but there was not enough to eat. Later hunger became our habitual condition.

We arrived in Sverdlovsk region [approximately 1,000 km from Moscow]. The train stopped at a small station. There was a woman who said that she could accommodate one family in her house. My grandmother was very weak at the time and we decided to get off. It was a district town. I don’t remember its name. We accommodated in the house of this woman. Her husband was at the front and she lived with her old mother and two daughters. They welcomed us and supported with whatever they could. They were poor, but they shared their clothing and food with us. They had a log house with two rooms. They gave one room to us. I remember that all residents of this town seemed different to me. All men and women were big, fair-haired and beautiful. There were many children in every family. There was a family with 18 children. I remember that children often gathered to listen to me telling them about life in a big city. They couldn’t imagine many-storied houses and trolleybuses and trams commuting in the town. I told them about our apartment and that there was a balcony in it. My stories were like a fairy tale for them.

Kharkov turbogenerator plant evacuated to this town and my aunt went to work in a shop there. It had nothing to do with her profession, but workers received almost three times more bread for their food coupons and this became a decisive factor. My grandmother and I had dependants’ coupons receiving 300 grams of bread per day while aunt Sarra received 1 kg of bread. This bread was baked with bran and sawdust and it was heavy. 300 grams made a 2 cm thick slice. We had to stand in lines for days to receive bread. My aunt returned home from work late at night and went to sleep immediately. She left early in the morning. My grandmother was our housekeeper. She knitted socks, mittens and sweaters for sale and her customers paid her with food that was much more valuable than money at the time. Of course, we never had enough food, but we didn’t starve either. From spring till late autumn my grandmother worked in a local kolkhoz 7: pricking out, weeding and harvesting. After school I ran to the field to help her. They paid with agricultural products for work. I remember that I had a dream when in evacuation to have a whole crispy fresh loaf of bread just for myself.

I went to the first form of a local Russian school. About half of my classmates were children in evacuation. I don’t know whether there were Jews among them. At that time issues of this kind didn’t matter. There was no anti-Semitism. The local population sympathized with those who were in evacuation in their town. Local children used to bring a potato or a pie to give them to evacuated children. I studied well and had no problems at school. In the first form I became a Young Octobrist 8. I became a leader of a ‘little star’: an Octobrist unit of 5 children. I remember that ‘little star’ group went to help one old lady whose only son was at the front. We fetched water from a well and washed the floors in her house. 

At first we didn’t know about my father. In February 1942 we received his first letter and from then on we corresponded regularly. My father found us through a search bureau that had information about those in evacuation. I don’t know at which fronts my father was. All I know is his field post number. He told us that my mother’s sister Sarra and her children evacuated to Uzbekistan. We didn’t correspond with them and only my father wrote us about them every now and then. Actually we rifted apart then. After World War II my mother’s sister Sarra moved to Kirovograd and we only rarely wrote her. She died shortly afterward. Her last name in her marriage was Gurevich. She had two daughters: Fira, born in 1931, and Sima, born in 1937.

In 1944, when we heard that Kharkov was liberated grandmother began to pack to go back home. She and I went home together. My father’s sister Sarra decided to stay in Sverdlovsk where she was working at the plant. Sarra was hoping to build up her personal life. So my aunt and I rifted apart.

I don’t remember our trip back home. All I remember is that the train was too slow while I was eager to get home as soon as possible. My grandmother’s home was ruined by bombing, but the house where my parents’ apartment was there. My grandmother and I moved in there. There was a school near the house and I went there to submit my documents to the 4th form.

I remember 9 May 1945. In the morning our co-tenant came by to tell us that the war was over. My grandmother turned on the radio and we heard an announcement about complete capitulation of Germany and that the war came to an end. Strangers in the streets hugged and greeted each other. Many were crying. In the streets and squares people were dancing, and signing and there were fireworks in the evening. Everybody was happy hoping for a happy life in the future.

After the war

In late May 1945 my father returned home. The three of us shared one room. My grandmother was very concerned that my father was single. She kept telling him that he needed to get married and that I needed a mother and that he was too young to be living alone. My grandmother introduced my father to her niece, her sister Sonia’s daughter Ghita. Ghita was my mother’s cousin. Her surname in marriage was Wainshtein. Ghita’s husband perished in Sevastopol on the first days of the war. Ghita’s son Edward was born in March 1941. Ghita was in evacuation in the Ural and from there she moved to Kharkov. My father and Ghita registered their marriage in a registry office and Ghita and her son came to live with us. In 1947 my father and Ghita’s son Mark was born. 

We didn’t observe any Jewish traditions or celebrate Jewish holidays. We, children, didn’t even know anything bout such. We celebrated Soviet holidays: 1 May, 7 November [commemorating the October Revolution Date] 9, Victory Day on 9 May 10. We celebrated these holidays at home and at school. My parents tried to avoid any mention of Jewish subjects or Israel. Now I understand that they were just frightened. Between 1948, campaign against cosmopolitans 11, and until Stalin died in 1953, Jews were arrested. Jews lost their jobs and there were continuous article in newspapers stating that Jewish cosmopolitans were enemies of the Soviet power. I think my father was afraid that they could somehow figure it out that his parents and a sister lived in Israel [it was dangerous to keep in touch with relatives abroad] 12. We, children, thought that it was shameful to acknowledge our Jewish identity. 

My grandmother didn’t get along with Ghita and moved to my father’s sister Sarra in Sverdlovsk. She lived there until she died. My grandmother worked as janitor at a military storage facility and occasionally we received short letters from her. She died in the early 1980s at the age of over 90. I don’t know where grandmother was buried or whether there was a Jewish funeral. Aunt Sarra with whom my grandmother lived died few years after my grandmother passed away. 

I was a difficult child. I couldn’t find a common language with my stepmother and her son and I was jealous about my father and them. My father often went on business trips. He spent home few days per month. After my grandmother left I felt very lonely. I was nervous and restless. I studied at school hazardly and my teacher had many complaints about my studies. I couldn’t wait to become independent from my father and his wife. After finishing the 7th form I began to consider getting a profession. I didn’t want to think about finishing school and entering a college afterward since this option meant few more years of dependence on my father. There was a Construction College. I passed my exams successfully and entered the Faculty of Civilian Construction. There was anti-Semitism at that time and I was aware of it. Some of my friends told me that some of them got a refusal to admit their documents and some were plucked at an exam. However, I didn’t face anything like that. My co-students and teaches had a friendly attitude toward me. When I was the first-year student I joined Komsomol 13 and I was very serious about it. I dedicated much time to Komsomol activities: I was an agitator and propagandist and participated in all Komsomol events. There were few Jewish students in our group and there was unprejudiced attitude toward them. Even the Doctors’ Plot 14 that began in January 1953 did not impact these attitudes. I was a Soviet child raised in patriotic spirits and with strong belief that Stalin or Communist Party could not make mistakes. I believed that those doctors who wanted to poison Stalin were guilty. When in March 1953 Stalin died it was a terrible shock for me. On the day of his death I stood in guard of honor by his monument with tears pouring down my cheeks. I couldn’t hold back my tears for several days. All people around were crying. They were not ashamed of their tears. I remember my stepbrother Edward sobbing on the sofa ‘Why him? I wish I had died rather than he’. We believed in Stalin, this was how we were raised. His death was a terrible tragedy for millions. All of them kept asking one question: how we were to live on? A big shock for me was Khrushchev’s 15 speech on the 20th Party Congress 16, when he denounced the cult of Stalin and told about the crimes committed by Stalin’s regime. It was hard to believe what I heard, but I couldn’t help believing what the Communist party was saying. In general, I believed piously radio broadcasts and was convinced that radio could only tell the truth. Few years later I learned to live with the thought that my idol was a criminal.

After finishing college I asked them to issue me a mandatory job assignment 17 to Uzhhorod in Subcarpathian region [800 km from Kiev] 18 where my cousin Ghenia whose family name was Cherchis and her children lived. Her husband was a military doctor. He served in Chop [700 km from Kiev, 30 km from Uzhhorod] near Uzhhorod. Ghenia and her daughters Elena and Marina, who were the same age as I, lived in Uzhhorod.

My friend Ada Trudler also got a job assignment to Uzhhorod. We became friends when we were first-year students. We went to work in Subcarpathian regional construction trust where we received a double room in a hostel. I liked Uzhhorod very much: it was a quiet, beautiful and cozy town. It became part of the USSR after World War II. It belonged to Austria-Hungary before 1918, then Czechoslovakia and in 1938 it became apart of Hungary. Since I grew up and was brought up in the USSR I was amazed to hear Hungarian in the streets. Jews were not afraid of speaking Yiddish or demonstrate that they were Jews. I and Ada met few local Jewish guys who began to take care of us. One of them was Wolf and the name of another was Misha. They introduced us to their friends and families. They invited us to celebration of Jewish holidays where they told us about Jewish history, traditions and customs. This was all new and amazing to me. For the first time in my life I identified myself as Jew. There were many Jewish employees in the construction trust where I was working. The local Jews were surprised that neither I nor Ada knew Yiddish or received at last elementary Jewish education. The big synagogue didn’t operate by then. It housed the Philharmonic. There was a small synagogue in Mukachevskaya Street and prayer houses where men got together to pray. At Pesach women made matzah. Later they began to supply matzah from Hungary. 3 years passed. At first we socialized with Jews only, but then we began to make other acquaintances. Many people moved to Uzhhorod from the USSR after World War II. I didn’t face any anti-Semitism in Uzhhorod at that time. I think it emerged a little later and that those that had moved from the USSR were its carriers for the most part.

I met my husband Isaac Radomyselski in 1956. He was born in 1929 in Chopovichi town in Zhytomyr region, Ukraine, [150 km from Kiev]. My husband’s mother Rieva was born in Chopovichi in 1888. Isaac didn’t know his father Yakov Radomyselski: his mother left her husband when she was pregnant. She was raising her son alone and then she married a widower from Kiev who had five children. She moved to her husband in Kiev. Isaac was growing with his stepbrothers and stepsisters. Rieva was a housewife. She didn’t get along with her stepchildren. She was a rough woman and she couldn’t even find a common language with her own son. I don’t know how religious Isaac’s family was, but he knew Yiddish well. He often talked Yiddish with his mother. Before World War II Isaac finished the 6th form at school. In 1940 his stepfather died. During World War II the family was in evacuation in the Altay region. After the war they returned to Kiev. Their house was ruined during bombing and Isaac and Rieva had no relatives in Kiev. Rieva’s stepchildren stayed in Kiev and Rieva and her son moved to Lvov [500 km from Kiev]. Isaac didn’t go back to school. He didn’t get any education at home: his mother was too busy trying to survive through trying times. Isaac went to a factory vocational school at the mechanic plant and spent his leisure time with other children like himself. They even used to steal food from vendors at the market. At the age of 18 Isaac went to the army. My husband told me that service in the army saved him from the way of life that he had led before: at least, he got food and clothes in the army. After mandatory term of service he remained in the army. He had no other alternative. When he was in the army he finished an evening higher secondary school. This was all education he got.

When my husband became a professional military he received a room in a barrack in Uzhhorod. His mother joined him there. After we got married we lived in this barrack for few years. We registered our marriage in a registry office and then had a small wedding dinner with Isaac’s mother, my aunt Ghenia and her daughters and my closest friend Ada. None of us was religious and we didn’t even mention a religious wedding. My mother-in-law also was an atheist.

Shortly after we got married, in autumn 1957, the military unit where my husband served was given the alarm and they moved to Hungary [because of the Soviet invasion of Hungary] 19. He didn’t stay there long and returned to Uzhhorod. The Hungarian events that became a concern for many active residents of Subcarpathia didn’t interest us. We grew up in the Soviet Union and were taught to blindly believe official explanations of events. We believed that if the Party and Government decided it was right to take troops to Hungary, then this was necessary. Thus, when in 1968 the USSR brought its troops to [invade] Czechoslovakia 20 and Isaac also went there, I began to have doubts that it was right. My husband didn’t take part in military action. He was in a supporting unit deployed at some distance from the area of combat actions. However, I was terrified to hear what he told me about beating and arrests of peaceful civilians. I understood that the USSR conducted tough policy with regards to socialist countries, but I thought that it might be some political necessity in this. In general, I took no interest in politics. I had other problems to think about.

In 1957 our older daughter Irina was born. Our second daughter Galina was born in 1961. After my older daughter was born I didn’t have milk and gave her cow milk right from her birth. We didn’t have any problems and Irina was growing a strong and healthy girl. I began to have problems after Galina was born. She was born prematurely. She fainted after each breastfeeding. Only few days later we had tests completed and I was told that I couldn’t breastfeed her due to rhesus incompatibility. I guessed there was something wrong with my daughter. She looked and behaved different from other babies, but doctors calmed me down that it would pass. They wrote in the certificate that I received before release from the hospital ‘Healthy baby’. My daughter was a difficult girl and didn’t develop like other babies. She couldn’t even sit when she turned one year old. My husband was terrified to look at her and he even said it wasn’t his baby. When I took Galina to a professor pediatrician he said that she had ‘children’s cerebral palsy’. He told me that my daughter would never grow to be a normal person and that she would remain a creature with no mind or motion and would be not able to lead an independent life. But I didn’t believe it was a final sentence. I took my daughter to doctors in big towns and was hoping for good luck. A professor in Kharkov who specialized in cerebral palsy gave me hope saying that if I attend to my daughter she would learn to move and do everything necessary and she could develop her mind. It’s horrible to recall what my baby and I had to bear, but it worked. At the age of 8 my daughter went to the first form of an elementary school. She could read and write already. She couldn’t walk well. She often fell injuring her knees. Her schoolmates teased her for her handicaps. Galina had a strong character and strong will and she finished school with a golden medal regardless of anti-Semitism of this period. It was next to impossible for a Jew to receive a gold medal, but my daughter did it.

After finishing school my older daughter Irina entered the Faculty of Mathematic of Uzhhorod University. Irina was a good student. She was number three on the list of best students of her faculty. Irina got a job assignment and went to work as a teacher of physics at school in Artyomovsk town in the east of Ukraine in Donetsk region [665 km from Kiev]. Irina was the only teacher of physics in this school and she also taught physics at the extramural department of the Pedagogical College in Artyomovsk. Irina lived in a hostel. Other people were friendly toward her. She didn’t face any anti-Semitism. The only thing that made her sad was that she didn’t have a good place to live. Because of this Irina returned to Uzhhorod in 1983.

My younger daughter Galina also decided to go to college after finishing school with a gold medal, but I was shocked to hear that she intended to go to the Lvov University. I couldn’t imagine how Galena would manage without my help, but she insisted on it. She passed her entrance exams successfully and was admitted to the Construction Faculty of the Lvov Polytechnic University. My daughter shared her room in the hostel with three Ukrainian girls from Western Ukraine. They treated her well and helped her to cope with everyday routines. Galena had walking problems and it was difficult for her to go downstairs. Other girls held her by her hand and she always had support. She helped others with their studies. She still keeps in touch with her University friends. They correspond and visit Galina. In 1983 Galina graduated from the university with honors and got a job assignment to a construction trust in Uzhhorod. She has worked as an engineer there for 20 years. Although they often reduce staff in her office Galina continues to work there.

We received this apartment in 1960 and moved in here with my mother-in-law. She died in 1964. Although she was an atheist she asked us before she died to arrange a Jewish funeral for her. My husband and I were confused: we didn’t know anything about Jewish customs or traditions. She died on Friday morning and I recalled that Jews went to the synagogue on Friday. My husband and I went to the synagogue. Although we were there for the first time other attendants were sympathetic with us. We got any help we needed: they delivered a casket, excavated a grave and made all arrangements for the funeral. We buried my mother-in-law in the Jewish cemetery in Uzhhorod according to Jewish traditions, but my husband and I didn’t join the Jewish way of life then.

We had Jewish, Russian and Ukrainian friends. We didn’t care about nationality. Unfortunately, our daughter’s condition didn’t allow us to meet with friends or invite them home often, but we celebrated Soviet holidays: 1 May, 7 November, Victory Day and the Soviet Army Day 21 and our children’s birthdays. I cooked and we had parties with guests. We danced and talked. On our daughters’ birthdays they invited their friends. Sometimes on weekends we went for walks with the family. My younger daughter loved these outings, though walking was hard for her. We wished we could take our daughter out of the town, but we didn’t have such opportunity. We didn’t have a car and we couldn’t generally afford it. Considering Galina’s condition we spent our vacations in Uzhhorod.

Neither my husband nor I were members of the Communist party. In his youth my husband was a Komsomol member and secretary of the Komsomol unit of his military unit, but when he overgrew his Komsomol age and was offered to join the Party Isaac refused. He believed it was a great responsibility and a big honor to be a communist and he didn’t deserve it as yet. It’s hard to say whether this had an impact on his career or it was his national origin, but he never got promotions when his time came and received higher ranks with big delays. I spent all my free time with Galina. Besides, nobody offered me to join the Party.

I worked as an engineer in a construction trust 20 years. In 1974 I got an offer to go to work at the Uzhhorodpribor plant. I got a position of acting chief of the department of capital construction. After few years of work I asked them to appoint me chief of this department, but director called me to his office and said directly: ‘You cannot be chief. Firstly, because you are a woman and secondly, because you are a Jew’. It was stressful for me. This was the first time I faced anti-Semitism. I had never faced any anti-Semitism before. It became difficult for me to come to work, but I understood that I wouldn’t find another job. I worked there until I reached the age of retirement and then I continued to work as an engineer. I left work in 1992.

In the 1970s many Jews were moving to Israel. Our friends and relatives moved there at this period. My husband and I respected their decision, but couldn’t understand why people having a place to live and a job would go to another country without knowing the language or knowing for sure that they would find their place in life in this country. We didn’t even consider in our family the issue of moving to another country.

My husband demobilized due to his health condition in 1978. He went to work at the Uzhhorodpribor plant where I worked. He didn’t work there long. A severe disease made him quit. When in 1983 our both daughters returned home Isaac was very happy. It was as if he had a feeling that would die soon. Irina couldn’t find work at school and went to work as an engineer at the Uzhhorodpribor plant. Both daughters were with us and my husband and I were very happy to have them back home. My husband died in 1984. We buried him in the town cemetery. We didn’t make a Jewish funeral.

Few years later my mother sister Sarra’s older daughter Fira moved to America, and Sima moved to Germany in 1991. Around the same period of time my mother’s cousin Ghenia Cherchis, her husband and their daughter Elena moved to Israel. Their second daughter Marina stayed in Uzhhorod. Shortly afterward they sent us an invitation. My husband had died by then, and my daughters and I didn’t venture to leave. I was afraid of giving up friends, our apartment and work to go to the uncertainty. My daughters were also afraid of such radical changes. Of course, propaganda had its impact on our decision-making. We believed that Israel was another capitalist country where money decided everything and where we wouldn’t be able to find our place in life. I wish we had been more resolute then, but it is too late to feel sorry about what we didn’t do.

My older daughter Irina only wanted to marry a Jewish man. I supported her in this: I was terrified to think that my daughter could hear the word ‘zhydovka’ from a non-Jewish husband one day. She has typical Semitic looks. However, Irina couldn’t find a Jewish husband. At some point of time Irina decided to have a baby without a husband. In 1988 my grandson Igor was born. I don’t know who his father was. My daughter never spoke to me about him. I think that if we had moved to Israel Irina would have got married and her child would grow in a full family. When she went to work in Hesed she finally got a Jewish surrounding. Irina tells me ‘If only I had this when I was young…’. Anyway, Igor has become a big joy for us. He is a nice boy and we raise him together. He is a very talented boy. He studies well in a special school with advanced learning of English. Igor finished a music school in playing the flute. My grandson has played 3 years in the ensemble of old music in Hesed and we are very happy about it. He reads a lot and is fond of computer. He has Jewish friends for the most part. Igor is eager to go to Israel and we are very concerned about his future.

My father lived in Kharkov all his life. Regretfully, we rarely saw each other. Due to Galina’s condition we couldn’t travel. My father wrote us about his life and his family. My both stepbrothers finished Polytechnic College in Kharkov. Upon graduation they received job assignment to the turbogenerator plant. They married Russian girls. Edward had two daughters: Irina, born in the late 1970s, and Anna, born in the early 1980s. Irina is married and has a little son. Mark’s son Dmitri was born in 1970. After my father died in 1979, my correspondence with stepbrothers died away gradually. He was buried in the town cemetery in Kharkov. My stepbrother Mark and his family live in Kharkov.

When perestroika 22 began we noticed a change. The Jewish life became more active. There were performances staged after works by Jewish writers and concerts of Jewish music and dances. Before perestroika it wasn’t allowed to correspond with people from capitalist countries and it was impossible to imagine that they could visit or we could travel there. During perestroika this became real. Of course, life has become more difficult. We lost all our little savings. We felt it like many other middle class citizens.

In 1992, after I retired I traveled to Israel once in my life at the invitation of my cousin Elena. Elena has two sons. They work in Israel. One is a rabbi and another was in the army at the time. I don’t know where he is now. Of course, Israel made an unforgettable impression on me. It’s a beautiful country and every citizen is a patriot of his country. I went on tours to many parts of Israel, met with my cousin Inna, Mark’s daughter, and visited my friends. And of course, more than once I felt sorry that we failed to move to Israel. I was trying to find my father’s family, but I couldn’t, unfortunately.

After Ukraine became independent after the breakdown of the USSR 23, I saw that it had an effect on the Jewish life. We became closer to it. At first, I began to work at the synagogue helping to distribute meals to old people. In 1999, when Hesed opened in Uzhhorod, my daughter and I went to work there. My grandson Igor attends a Sunday school in Hesed. They study Jewish traditions, history and religion, Ivrit and Yiddish. In summer Igor goes to Jewish summer camps. He likes it there very much. My grandson identifies himself as a Jew and he speaks proudly about it. Hesed provides assistance to us: food packages and meals. We got to celebrate all Jewish holidays in Hesed and often attend lectures and concerts. Of course, our biggest pleasure is to attend the concerts of the orchestra where my grandson plays. I can socialize with friends in Hesed. Hesed has given me and my family a possibility to become Jews and return to our roots. This is very important for me now.

GLOSSARY:

Aron Rudiak
Ukraine
Ternopol
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: September 2003

Aron Rudiak is full of charm. He is a slim dressed to modern fashion man. His wife Lubov offers me a cup of coffee. I knew their age, but I was surprised to see that they don’t look it: they make a beautiful couple and have young shining eyes. They live in a big apartment in the very center of Ternopol. They have new modern furniture, music devices in their apartment and the latest design electric appliances in their kitchen. One can tell that they are wealthy. During our interview Lubov comes into the room every now and then sympathizing with her husband and his life story. Therefore, I give her an opportunity to talk about herself at the end of our interview. Meeting with this couple makes a good impression on me. I feel like seeing and talking to them again, so comfortable they make me.

My family came from Zhabokrich village, Kryzhopol district, Vinnitsa region [300 km from Kiev]. I have dim memories about Zhabokrich since I only lived there in my early childhood and when at school I visited my grandmother once or twice. I don’t have any information about the village before the revolution of 1917 [1]. I only remember it in the middle of 1930s. This was a picturesque village with a big park and a lake in the center. There was music playing and young people rowing, playing volleyball and football on the sports grounds in the park. We, kids, liked to lie in children’s playground. Zhabokrich was a village, but it was more like a Jewish town since Jews constituted 80% of the whole population. Like everywhere else within the Pale of Settlement [2] they lived in the center of the town and dealt in crafts and trade. Some had kitchen gardens and kept livestock. The rest of the population – they were Ukrainians, lived in the outskirts. They were farmers. I don’t remember a synagogue in the town, but I believe there must have been one since my paternal grandmother Chaya attended a synagogue.

My father’s parents Chaya and Aron Rudiak were born in Zhabokrich in 1860s. The family name of my ancestors sounds like a Ukrainian name and this shows how deeply intertwined were Ukrainians and Jews that had lived together for centuries. I don’t know what grandfather Aron was doing before the revolution of 1917. He had died long before I was born. All I know is that his family was poor. Grandmother Chaya lived in a small house with thatched roof. Most of Ukrainian population lived in such houses at that time. My grandmother had a kitchen garden and kept poultry and a cow. Grandmother spoke Yiddish at home and switched to Ukrainian when talking to her Ukrainian neighbors. She spoke Ukrainian with a strong Jewish accent. She was religious and didn’t work on Saturday. Her Ukrainian neighbor came to look after the cow and poultry on Saturday. I have dim memories about us, grandmother’s children visiting our grandmother on Friday and sitting on a small wooden coach. Grandmother lit candles to greet Saturday and gave us delicious fresh milk. By 1941 all children had left their home and only came to visit their old mother occasionally. When Germans came to the village our poor grandmother tried to leave the village, but it was hard for her to walk and she returned. Grandmother Chaya and other Jews in Zhabokrich were shot in late July 1941. My grandmother’s neighbors told us this story at the end of the war.

Grandmother Chaya had practically no education. Like many Jewish girls she didn’t study, but she knew her prayers and could read in Hebrew. She got married at a very young age. My grandparents had 14 children. Only five survived: the others died as infants and two or three perished during pogroms [3] during the Civil War [4]. I only know the name of my father’s favorite brother Menachem of those that perished. He was one year older than my father. My father was wounded when they were attacked by some bandits, but managed to escape. His brother Menachem died. I also knew my father’s three sisters: Chana, Rosa and Buzia and two brothers: Isaac and Yudko. All boys finished cheder and went to a primary school for few years, but girls didn’t study and were actually illiterate. When they grew up they gave up observing Jewish traditions.

The oldest of my father’s living sisters was Golda, born approximately in 1880s. She didn’t get any education. She was married. Her husband’s [family] name was Novak. Her husband died before I was born. I don’t know what caused his death. Golda and her four children lived in Zhabokrich . In early 1930s they moved to Odessa. Golda was a housewife and her children worked to support her. During the Great Patriotic War [5] Golda was in evacuation. After the war she returned to Odessa. She died in early 1960s. Her older son Lev, born in 1900s, his wife and son were in evacuation and lived in Odessa after the war. I don’t know when Lev died, but his son works as a construction engineer in Odessa. Golda also had three daughters: Chana, Rosa (her Jewish name was Reizl) and Buzia. Chana was married, but didn’t have children. She had a problem with giving birth to her first baby and could not have children afterward. However, she got pregnant again and during her second childbirth she lost her speech ability and it took her few years to resume it. In evacuation during the war Chana’s husband left her and she lived with her sister Rosa since then. Rosa’s husband David whose last name I don’t remember perished at the front in 1941. Rosa’s daughter got pregnant after the war having no husband and Rosa was so affected by this disgrace that she died from heart attack. Chana raised Rosa’s granddaughter that was illegitimate. The younger daughter Buzia didn’t have children. Chana and Buzia died in Odessa in the middle of 1970s.

My father’s sister Ghenia was born approximately two years before my father was born, approximately in 1895. Her husband Elia Gershgorn was younger than aunt Ghenia and for this reason my aunt always kept her age a secret. She didn’t have any education and was a housewife. Ghenia and her daughter Anna were in evacuation and Elia was at the front during the Great Patriotic War. He returned home, but died shortly after the war. Ghenia died in early 1950s. Their older son Aron studied in a military medical school and when the war began he went to the front with other cadets of this school. Aron worked in a field hospital during the war. After the war he finished a Medical College in Odessa and became a surgeon. He had a Moldavian wife. They had two children: a boy and a girl. Aron went to work in the north to earn money to buy an apartment. By a wicked twist of fate he died from appendicitis there in the middle of 1970s. He saved hundreds of lives, but there was nobody available when his life was at risk. I have no contact with his family. Aron’s sister Anna, born in 1928, married a Jewish man from Zhabokrich. After finishing Technological College of Flour Grinding Industry in Odessa they worked in a Baltic Republic, I don’t know where exactly. Anna died from kidney cancer when she was young.

My father’s brother Isaac, born in 1905, worked at Vapnyarka railway station near Kryzhopol in Vinnitsa region. About two weeks after the war began Isaac, his wife Malka, their children Betia, Rosa and Aron were evacuated from the town. After the war they lived in Zhuravlyovka station, in Vinnitsa region where Isaac died in a train accident in 1953. I didn’t grieve after him. The reason is that I couldn’t forgive Isaac that he didn’t pick grandmother Chaya when going in evacuation near Zhabokrich. It was an exaggerated attitude that young people often have. I have no information about Isaac’s children.

I don’t remember Yudko, my father’s youngest brother, ‘the little finger’ so much loved by grandmother. He went to the front in 1941 and disappeared.

My father Duvid Rudiak, born in 1897, finished cheder and a primary school, I guess, since he could read and write. My father worked at an agricultural cooperative that later became a kolkhoz [6] in the village.

As for my maternal grandmother Frieda, born in early 1880s, I didn’t know her. All I know is that she died at childbirth at the age of 33. I knew my grandfather Nuta Grievski very well. He was born in Zhabokrich in middle 1870s. Of my grandfather’s relatives I can dimly remember his brother Leiba who was a carpenter. Nuta worked in an agricultural cooperative like my father. I don’t know exactly how he earned his living before the revolution of 1917, but I think that he made his living as a carpenter. His family lived in a big wooden house that Nuta built himself. I don’t think they were poor.

My mother was the oldest child in her family. Her younger sisters Sonia and Ghenia only studied in a primary school for few years. They were workers at a wool factory in Odessa. Sonia, born in 1907, married Efim Balin, a Jewish man. He was production engineer at the wool fabric factory in Odessa. Efim perished in Odessa on the first days of the Great Patriotic War and Sonia refused to evacuate after he died. She and her two children: Yura, born in 1938, and a week’s old baby boy perished in the first days of evacuation in Odessa. Sonia’s younger sister Ghenia also perished because Sonia refused to evacuate. Ghenia’s husband Michael whose last name I don’t remember was at the front during the war. When he returned to Odessa he got to know that his wife and their two children Alexandr and Emma had perished. My mother’s younger brother’s (Grigori) wife also perished in Odessa. Grigori, born in 1915, perished at the front. His young wife that gave premature birth to a baby on 22 June 1941 caused by the stress also perished with her baby and her old father.

My mother Ruchlia, she was called Rachil at home – also a Jewish name sounding alike - was born in 1900. This was her actual date of birth, even though in her passport the date of birth was 1902. When my mother was to enter a grammar school in Odessa she was overage and her parents subtracted two years to make her admission possible. My mother was the only one in her family to finish a grammar school. After finishing school she returned home to Zhabokrich.

My parents knew each other since their childhood and decided to get married when they came of age. They got married around 1922. My mother’s family was rather religious and they had a traditional Jewish wedding with a chuppah arranged by my mother’s distant relatives in Odessa [7].

In 1923 my older sister Frieda named after our grandmother was born and I was born on 13 November 1925. I was named Aron after my father’s father. I need to mention here that all first sons in my father sisters and brothers’ families were named Aron. I spent the first years of my childhood in grandfather Nuta’s house in Zhabokrich. One of my first childhood memories is of the children’s room with drawn curtains where my sister Frieda is lying with measles. I stayed in the same room with her since doctors commonly believed that if somebody in the family had an infectious disease the others had better had it, too. However, I didn’t contract measles from my sister, even though we were staying in the same room. I remember swinging in the park. My grandfather’s Leib made me sleighs and I skated down a hill in winter. There was a big veranda with stairs leading to it in my grandfather’s house. I often played there with my cousin brothers and sisters. I remember getting scared of a calf that probably wished to play with me. I hid in a puddle near the house with my head under the water. Everybody burst into laughing and my father got me out of the puddle and took me into the house to wash me. I also remember a small square near our house where there was a market once or twice a week. We liked going there after it closed to pick up corns, sunflowers and other leftovers.

I cannot remember any details of the Jewish life of our family. I remember that grandfather wore a kippah at home and a big hat to go out. I also remember that my parents attended a synagogue, but I don’t remember the synagogue in the village. I remember Chanukkah when all grandchildren came to grandmother Chaya. We received treatments of sweets and few coins as a gift. I don’t remember other holidays since I was too young.

In 1929 our family moved to Odessa. Our mother’s distant relatives gave us accommodation in a small dark room with no widows. As soon as we moved in I opened the door from where light could be seen. I saw a big brightly lighted room where the family of our relatives was sitting. A dame at the table said strictly ‘Boy, you can’t come in here!’ I was used to warm and affectionate attitude of my family and this comment hurt me. However, I got used to our small room where we lived for over seven years. This apartment was near the synagogue that our relatives attended in the very center of Odessa.

My father went to work as a fat loader at a buttery. My mother went to work as an assistant accountant at a garment factory. My sister Frieda studied in a Jewish school in Zhabokrich . Our parents submitted her documents to a Ukrainian school in Odessa. Children were admitted to schools based on their national origin and special commissions made inspections to identify any Jewish children in Ukrainian or Russian schools. Our parents decided to send my sister to a Ukrainian school. My mother instructed my sister to not react to any Jewish words that she might hear at school. We understood Yiddish. Our parents often switched to Yiddish at home. Once Frieda came home from school with tears in her eyes. She said that she incidentally answered a question in Yiddish and was afraid that they might send her to a Jewish school, but nothing happened. She remained in her school.

I hardly remember my kindergarten. I didn’t care about children’s ways of spending time. I liked counting and arithmetic that my sister was teaching me. I liked being at home and was glad to stay at any occasion, even when I fell ill and didn’t have to go to kindergarten. Once my father had to go to hospital with stomach ulcer. He was prepared to a surgery. Grandmother Chaya somehow got to know about it. She came to Odessa when I was at home. We went to my mother’s work and from there we went to the hospital. My grandmother had an appointment with the chief doctor and refused to give her permission to the surgery. She took our father to her home in Zhabokrich and a month later he returned looking healthy and strong. He had tests made and there was no ulcer identified. My father gave up smoking when staying in the village and I decided for myself that smoking was bad and never ever had one single cigarette.

In Odessa our parents didn’t celebrate holidays or observe traditions. My mother fasted at Yom Kippur while my father said that since he had to work hard physically he could allow himself to not fast. This was the only tradition mother observed. My father wasn’t a Komsomol [8] or Party member, but he was a real patriot and piously believed everything the Party or Government promised. Even famine in 1932-33 [Famine in Ukraine] [9] when there was a food coupon system, but it wasn’t always possible to receive bread per bread coupons didn’t shatter his belief in socialism and communism that our propaganda proclaimed. At that time my sister or I stood in long lines to get some bread. When a shop opened in the morning a crowd broke inside the shop and children climbed on heads to get to a counter. There was not enough bread in stores. I remember homeless children stealing bread, running away with it biting off big pieces and swallowing them. Once our mother paid a lot of money for a loaf of bread at the market. When she brought it home it turned out to be a baked in brick. Our mother took her few pieces of jewelry to a Torgsin store [10]. I hadn’t been there, but I know that one could buy food products for gold or hard currency. I didn’t suffer from hunger. I was a tiny boy and didn’t have a big appetite. I remember our mother bringing home a chicken in 1933 when the period of famine was almost over, but a celebration didn’t work out. My sister decided to cook chicken and burnt it. We were very upset: we hadn’t had chicken for years and looked forward to have a piece.

I went to school in 1933. At first I went to the school located in few blocks from our house, but then a new school was built in our yard and my mother brought my documents to this school. This was a Ukrainian school. There were Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Bulgarian and Greek children in our school. Odessa is a multinational town. I never faced any national segregation or abuse at school. We didn’t care a bit about nationality. We were Soviet children. I became a pioneer at school and had some chores related mostly to helping other children to improve their studies. I had all excellent marks in the course of my studies. I was short, but I went in for track-and-field events, but I was mostly fond of mathematic. I managed to find mathematical dependences in everything: in biology and in everyday life.

My classmates and I were friends. We celebrated 1 May and October Revolution Day [11] in autumn. We went to parades and then walked in the town. At home my family had a festive dinner on these days. We sometimes visited my mother’s sisters that also celebrated Soviet holidays. As for Jewish holidays, I didn’t know any at that time. Grandfather Nuta living with his daughters taking turns to look after him celebrated Sabbath and went to synagogue on holidays. We didn’t have guests since we lived in such small room until 1937. In late 1937 my father received a one-room apartment. There was one big room and a kitchen in it. Since then guests began to visit us. In 1939 our father was injured at work: he had his both legs fractured and after he recovered he was appointed to a position of production engineer. There was not a word said about arrests of late 1930s [Great Terror] [12] in our house. Our father believed that everything happening in our country was correct and was not subject to discussion. Nobody of our relatives or acquaintances suffered.

In May 1941 I was awarded a second prize at the Odessa regional Olympiad in mathematic. I was supposed to receive my award in late June, but I never received it since the Great Patriotic War began. At that moment I was visiting my aunt Sonia. Since 14 June she had been staying in a maternity home where she gave birth to a boy on 15 June and I was staying at her home looking after my 3 or 4-year-old cousin brother Yuri. On 22 June I gave my cousin breakfast as usual and sat down to do my mathematic. In the after noon my father came. He was supposed to go on business trip on Friday and I was surprised to see him. He said ‘Aron, get ready to go home. A war began’. At that time Efim and Sonia and the baby came home from hospital and I could go home with my father without worrying about Yuri. My father and I took a tram home. Usually it took twenty minutes to get home, but this time it took us about two hours. There was air raid announced several times. People didn’t know what to do, but there were no bombs dropped yet. The enemy’s planes just flew in the sky ringing panic. At home I heard that the outskirts of Odessa were bombed and the radio announced that Kiev was bombed, too.

Efim Balin, Sonia’s husband, was an officer in a military unit near Odessa. He went to his unit, returned home a day or two later and then we went to see him off to the railway station where he was to take a train to go back to his unit. This was the last time we saw him. It turned out that he failed to get to his military unit. He must have perished during an air raid. We knew that Germans were dropping bombs on strategically important facilities: the harbor and big plants and during air raids we were trying to find shelter at some distance from those facilities.

About ten days after the war began my father’s brother Isaac arrived. He was evacuating with his family and for some reason came to Odessa. I don’t know how he failed to take grandmother Chaya with him: whether he was pressed for time, or he didn’t have a chance. Isaac told my father to pack and evacuate as soon as possible. My father had a ‘white card’ [this was a release from military service in the army issued by a medical commission that determined whether a man was fit for military service] due to his injury, but he said it was a disgrace to flee in evacuation rather than defend Odessa and the country from the enemy. He didn’t believe that the enemy would come to Odessa. Isaac tried to convince our parents to agree to send the children or at least my older sister with him, but our mother said we would be together whatever happened.

The first massive bombing occurred one moth after the war began. We children began to play war games forgetting about horrific reality. Children are children. During air raids we found shelter in a nearby trench. Our mother made us bags where she put dried bread, underwear and soap in case we lost each other. Many people carried such bags in the town. After this bombing there were bombings at night. We were getting used to them and didn’t even bother to hide. Our father didn’t even want to hear about evacuation. On 27 July 1941 he went to a military registry office. He was an invalid with his one leg shorter than another, but he volunteered and was recruited in the army. We went with him to the gathering point. When saying farewells our father kept saying that Odessa would not be occupied. Our mother didn’t even try to discourage him since she understood that he was so dedicated to defend his Motherland that there was no chance to talk him out of it.

Soon refugees from Bessarabia [13] began coming to the town. They slept in parks, gardens and even in the yards telling people about fascist atrocities on occupied territories. We felt worried and our mother also began to consider evacuation. There were battles near Odessa. Germans drowned a raid ship and the front was actually open for several days. The front was very near. It was strange to see the military going to the front by trams. Ghenia’s husband Michael was recruited on one of those days. He had a ‘white card’, but nobody cared about such things: they recruited everybody who was able to hold weapons. I remember a governmental appeal to residents of Odessa that said ‘Boiling water poured on occupants’ heads and a stone thrown on them shall help us to forge victory’. At the beginning of siege Kuban and Don Cossacks [14] came to the town riding their horses and beautiful uniforms. They carried their swords and posters ‘Kuban – Berlin’ and ‘Don – Berlin’. They were full of patriotism in their determination to defend their Motherland, but what could they do with their bare hands? Few survivors, wounded and bleeding came back to town soon. They had no horses or swords with them. A human being gets used to everything. We began to live a routinely life in siege. There were lines to buy fruit, vegetables, fish and watermelons. During air raids people hid in shelters and after it was over they returned to their lines. Our battleships were close to the shore shooting across the town and it might have made a beautiful sight for boys had it not been acute risk to life.

We spent most of the time with aunts Sonia or Ghenia – it was easier to be together. One day Michael came home. He was wounded in his jaw. He had his head bandaged and bloodstains on him. He told his wife to pack and evacuate with his hospital. There were 120 slightly wounded patients that were going to a rear hospital. Ghenia refused saying that she was staying with her sisters. Michael had to go since there was a bus waiting for him. He left. I kept telling my mother and aunts that we needed to evacuate. Boats transporting the wounded and evacuating people were sinking one after another. The ‘Lenin’ boat transporting all higher Party officials and elite – actors and scientists – drowned. There were only few survivors and the rest of them perished. Couriers from our district executive committee [Ispolkom] [15] were bringing us evacuation tickets almost every day, but our mother and her sisters were afraid of getting aboard ships. I insisted that we had to evacuate. I was convinced that we would manage all right. Finally, mother agreed and on 28th September she received two evacuation cards: one for herself and one for my sister. I didn’t need a document.

On 29 August early morning we packed our belongings and went to the harbor. I was carrying a bag with our biggest value; sewing machine ‘Singer’. There was a log line to get on board a ship. There were air raids and bombings, but nobody left the line. Grandfather Nuta and my mother’s sisters came to see us off. Sonia probably felt sorry that she refused to evacuate and her sisters, children and grandfather were staying because of her. She said they were evacuating with a next boat. People dropped their suitcases and bags in a huge net container that was loaded on the boat with a crane. The crane operator missed the boat several times dropping bags into the sea. We were among the last passengers boarding the boat and got on an upper deck. Grandfather came to the boat with us and our mother asked him to stay with us, but he said he couldn’t leave his daughters Sonia and Ghenia and Grigori’s wife with the baby behind and promised that they would leave Odessa on the next boat. We said our good byes. German planes began shooting at the boat, but our antiaircraft guns kept the enemy off. The ‘Dnepr’ boat was slowly moving away from the berth. In my thoughts I was saying ‘good-bye’ to my hometown and wondered whether I would ever see it again.

The boat was under shooting several times, but on 30 we successfully arrived at Novorossiysk 300 km to the east from Odessa. Few passengers formed a commission that released the luggage to others. We were glad that our luggage was not lost. On 4 September we boarded a freight train for cattle transportation heading to the east. It went across the Northern Caucasus, Penza, Kuibyshev, Cheliabinsk, Sverdlovsk [today Yekaterinburg] and few other towns until we arrived at Kustanai in Northern Kazakhstan, 2000 km from home. Kustanai was a regional town. I was used to living in a big and beautiful town and was surprised to see small houses made of saman – airbricks. They were cold houses and I slept in my winter coat. We arrived on 17 October. During our trip I wrote letters to my aunts telling them what they needed to take with them for the trip, but they never left Odessa. We didn’t have any information about my father. In late September 1941 we received a letter from him from Mariupol on the Azov Sea. He wrote he was sorry for having told us to stay in Odessa and that he wished we had evacuated. I guess he had had his share of grief and ordeals.

We were accommodated in a school building. Few days later chairmen of Kazakh kolkhozes came to select groups of people. They were wearing big fur hats and winter coats: it was already cold at this time of year in Northern Kazakhstan. Frieda had finished school with honors before the war. She entered the State Teachers’ College in Kustanai. I didn’t have any documents from school with me since my school had closed before we left. I only had an award of honor for finishing the eighth grade. I entered a Medical School with this honor. I attended classes and two or three days later I told my mother that I couldn’t study medicine since there was no mathematic or physics that I was fond of. The only word I learned in this school was ‘defecation’. I was admitted to the third year of Teachers’ School, but it was closed a month later and senior students including me were transferred to the college where Frieda studied. They formed a Natural Geographic Faculty of ten students: two guys and eight girls. We had wonderful lecturers that were professors from Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad colleges. My mother and sister rented an apartment and lodged a girl that studied in college. I went to live in a hostel. I passed my first exams with only excellent marks. I also worked in ‘Trudovik’ shop. We made gloves and foot wraps for the front and received food products for our work. I studied there during 1942. In late December recruitment of the young men, born in 1925, was announced. Being a disciplined young man I went to the recruitment office, although I didn’t get any summons. When they measured my height it turned out to be 149.5 cm while they only recruited men of at least 150 cm height. An officer making measurements wrote 150 cm in my certificate. When somebody mentioned to him that second-year students were subject to delay of recruitment he waved his hand and said ‘He will finish his studies after he returns from the front’. The shop where I worked gave me a winter jacket, a hat, fur boots and a vest. I gave these to my mother leaving only a vest for myself. After the medical examination we waited for another month: we stayed in the recruitment office overnight going home in the morning. On early morning 12 February we were woken by alarm, marched across the central street of the town and got on a freight train that headed to the north. We moved 700 km to the east from Tyumen where we were assigned to 2nd Aviation School of Tyumen. A doctor of the medical commission of the school didn’t approve me due to my height and complained of the doctor in Kustanai for having sent them such poorly weak fresh forces. Ten other recruits were disapproved. We were taken to a station from where we walked 25 km to Krivosyolki, [about 3000 km to the north-east from Kiev] village. I was assigned to accompany of gunmen of the 2nd reserve riflemen battalion. We were to take a 6-month training studying battles, attacks, defense from tanks, etc. I didn’t have any problems with my training. We got sufficient food. I didn’t eat much and even managed to send a parcel to my mother and sister in Kustanai. From my unit I mailed a search request about my father and received a response. It said that my father Duvid Rudiak disappeared near Mariupol in October 1941. He must have perished when fascist troops landed in Mariupol. I didn’t inform my mother or sister that father had perished, but I gave an oath to myself to take revenge for my father. Once, when we were lined up my commanding officer, a senior lieutenant, found my student’s record book. Commanding officer of our regiment called me to his office. He said that since I had education he wanted me to speak about fascist atrocities in front of the regiment. We were aware of mass shooting in occupied territories. I prepared a speech and spoke in front of my fellow comrades. I had to stand on a box to be seen from behind a stand, but I made a very good speech. In 1944 I became a member of the Communist Party. There were no special ceremonies, it became a routinely procedure, but I believed it to be my duty to be in the first rows of fighters for the victory over fascism. I received my Party membership card at a meeting few months later.

I requested to send me to the front several times. My cousin brother Aron wrote me from the front to try to be no fool, if possible, but I was a patriot and was eager to take revenge for my father. One day my commanding officer told me that I was to go back to my studies in college according to another order issued to confirm that students were to get a delay from service in the army. He asked me ‘Well, will you go back to college now or after the war?’ and I responded bravely ‘We need to beat fascists first’. After our training was over my commanding officer tried to convince me to stay at school. He said I was needed there and I agreed to stay and work in the regiment office.

My mother and sister returned to Odessa after it was liberated in 1944. They failed to get their apartment back, even though authorities were to support the needs of those whose relatives were at the front. Our neighbors – a Bulgarian family – took them to their apartment. They also told them that grandfather and my aunts with their children had perished in Odessa in late October. Fascists burnt several hundreds or a thousand Jews in a barrack.

In late 1944 I was offered to accompany a group of recruits, born in 1930, to Donetsk region. They were too young and their commandment decided to let them go home. I agreed to go with them under condition that I could visit my family in Odessa. On our way to Donetsk we changed 5 trains. From Donetsk I went to Odessa. Entrances to houses in Odessa were kept locked and when I knocked on the door and the concierge opened the door she didn’t recognize me. I grew up 20 cm in half a year. My mother didn’t recognize me either thinking that it was one of her nephews coming home. There was a lot of laughter, joy and tears when she finally acknowledged her son. It turned out that my mother and sister knew about my father, but didn’t want to let me know protecting me from grief. I stayed a week in Odessa, received my food ration and left it to my mother and sister: they became very thin during the war. I returned to my military unit. In summer 1945 I came to Odessa on leave.

I demobilized after the decree issued on 25 October 1945 for wounded veterans, specialists, teachers and 2nd-year and senior students were subject to demobilization. I arrived in early October and submitted my documents to Odessa Construction Engineering College. Rector of the College was telling me to take a year’s leave to take a rest, but I was eager to go back to studies. I was admitted and a month later I passed my half-yearly exams successfully. I had only the highest grades and could apply for Lenin’s stipend [the highest stipend in higher educational institutions in the USSR awarded to the best students for special merits. Maximum 10 students in each institution could be awarded this stipend], but it was awarded to a Ukrainian student that also had all highest marks. In late 1940s state anti-Semitism was at its height and struggle against cosmopolites began [campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] [16]. A few Jewish professors were fired from our college. I even remember that one of them – Professor Trubianski – died from heart attack and his wife refused to accept assistance from the college. I finished my college with honors and had the right to take my post-graduate studies, but I didn’t get an offer. Probably it was due to my Jewish nationality. I was a proud guy and decided to ask nobody about it. I got a job assignment [Mandatory job assignment in the USSR] [17] in Ternopol, a regional town in Western Ukraine, and in September 1950 I got off the train in this small half-ruined town in 500 km from my hometown.

In the first years I was chief engineer at a maintenance construction company. I had a low salary. I received a one-room apartment [people could not own apartments, so they were “given” apartments by the government]. In 1951 when my first year at work was over, I went to a recreation center near Odessa on vacation. On my way back I visited my family in Odessa. I visited my relatives when I met a lovely Jewish girl. She was my wife to be. Her name was Lubov Bruches. I fell in love with her at first sight and took her home on that day. We began to correspond and sent photographs to one another. I saw her again on October holidays [October Revolution Day]. I came to Odessa and we met at a party. Lubov came to the party with somebody else, but left the party with me. We met again on New Year’s day and on 30 April 1952 I came to Odessa and proposed to her. We had a civil ceremony in the registry office and a small wedding dinner at Lubov parents’ home in the evening. Shortly after we got married Lubov finished a Pedagogical College in Odessa and joined me in Ternopol.

Lubov was born in Proskurov town [Khmelnitskiy at present] in 1929 in the Jewish family. Her family moved to Odessa. Lubov’s father worked at a confectionery. Her mother Edes Bruches [nee Levit], born in 1902, got a good education. She finished grammar school, could play the piano and knew French. Lubov’s mother was a housewife before the war raising her two daughters: Lubov and her older sister Maria. Lubov’s family wasn’t religious. They evacuated from Odessa in 1941. It turned out that we left Odessa on the same ‘Dnepr’ boat and they were in evacuation in Northern Kazakhstan. During the war Lubov’s mother was director of a children’s home and after they returned to Odessa she went to work at a children’s home. Her daughters followed into their mother’s steps: they studied languages and were intelligent people. My wife’s sister Maria married a Jewish man from Odessa in 1950. In late 1970 they moved to USA. Maria’s husband died a short time afterward and she was raising her daughter. They live in New York. We didn’t have any contacts with them for a long time and in late 1980s we began to receive letters from them. They write that they are doing well and are happy.

In 1953 our elder son Gennadi was born and in 1960 our son Yuri was born. Gennadi was born when Stalin died. I didn’t cry, but I was terribly concerned about the future of the country and was very sorry that Stalin died. I was a patriot like my father. Denunciation of Stalin’s cult in 1956 was like a bolt from the blue – it was hard to believe that we had lived under the power of tyrant for so many years.

We had a good life. I held a managerial position at work, but I wanted to go back to Odessa. When I told my boss that I was going to quit he told me to obtain our minister’s permission from Kiev. I didn’t go to Kiev, but I continued looking for a job. When I found a suitable job my management approved my choice since I was staying in Ternopol working in the same branch. In 1953 I went to work at a design institute with the salary three times my previous salary. It was a lot of money at that time and our life was improving. I found my work interesting. I was responsible for development and implementation of designs for restoration and reconstruction of the town, parks and gardens, buildings and even an artificial lake in the center of Ternopol. I worked as director of a design shop for many years and then – chief of Ternopol regional department of the design institute. I wasn’t promoted for a long time afterwards, after the first promotion, because I was a Jew. Nobody told me openly, but this was evident since there were no other reasons for not promoting me. My management knew about my skills and qualification. Once secretary of the town Party committee asked me to solve a problem for his son that about twenty people before me failed to resolve. It took me an instant to give him the right answer after I read the problem. However, they were in no hurry to promote me since I worked hard anyway. They were very well aware that Jews didn’t have many choices with getting an employment. I worked 43 years and retired in 1993. I didn’t participate in any public activities. I had to attend Party meetings and pay my monthly fees, though.

My wife worked as a teacher of the Russian language and literature in a school in the center of the town. Our children finished this school. There were only two Jewish teachers in the town and Lubov faced prejudiced attitudes. She wasn’t awarded the title of honored teacher for many years and when educational authorities were awarding medals at the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s birthday in 1970 she didn’t get one. The wife of secretary of the regional Party committee was surprised to hear that my wife didn’t get a medal and when she asked her ‘Why?” my wife told her frankly ‘Because I am a Jew’. Soon she got an invitation to pick up her medal, but she insisted that they should award it at a public meeting. We live in a small town where she taught many children. For her kind heart and readiness to come to help at any moment people call her ‘Bureau of good services.’ We often had her pupils that had problems with their parents stay with us. Once Lubov’s friend left her husband and stayed with us for some time and children of our acquaintances that came to town to enter a college lived with us. We kept our door open. We had a difficult, but interesting life. We went to the cinema and Russian and Ukrainian Drama Theaters and never missed a performance of Kiev or Odessa theaters when they came on tours. We had many friends. Lubov’s friends were her colleagues and my friends – my colleagues at work. There were few Jews among them, but there were no anti-Semites for sure. We celebrated Soviet holidays together: October revolution Day and 1 May. We often had guests. Lubov is very hospitable. She likes cooking and having guests. Before our children got married we spent vacations together at recreation centers in the Crimea and Caucasus. When I bought a ‘Zhiguli’ [Lada] car we traveled by car. We often spent vacations in Odessa where my sister Frieda lived. Frieda married Lev Tsugel, who is Jewish, in 1946. He was a military officer. They lived in Odessa where Frieda worked as a teacher. Frieda and her family often visited us in Ternopol. Lev died in 1995 and in 2002 my sister passed away. They were buried at the Jewish section of the town cemetery in Odessa without any tradition observed. Her son Duvid named after our father lives in Odessa. He often calls and visits us. We cannot travel now due to poor health condition.

Lubov’s mother died in the middle of 1960s. My mother remarried very successfully in 1957. Her husband Iosif Poltorak, a Jew, was many years older than my mother. Iosif had four sons from the first marriage. One of them – Arkadi Poltorak - was senior researcher of the Institute of State and Law in Moscow. Iosif was a very intelligent and – a rare quality at the time – very religious man. He retired and held some important position in a synagogue. He had a tallit and tefillin and started every day with a prayer. When I visited my mother he told me the Jewish history and about Exodus. I celebrated Pesach and Rosh Hashanah with him several times. Unfortunately, I visited them rather rarely and cannot tell any details, but I know that he was very religious and observed Jewish traditions strictly. I respected his faith, but since I was a member of the Party I was far from religion, but my mother resumed observing Jewish traditions and followed them until the end of her life, she began to follow kashrut and on Saturday they went to the synagogue. My mother lit candles on Sabbath and prayed. She cooked traditional Jewish food on Sabbath. Iosif died in 1977. All members of the Jewish religious community of Odessa came to his funeral. They buried Iosif with prayers following all Jewish rules. My mother died 10 years later in 1987. She was buried near Iosif, but we didn’t follow any Jewish traditions at her funeral.

We have wonderful children. They both studied very well, but Yuri, the younger one, was particularly gifted. They were the only Jewish children in their class and if it hadn’t been for their mother working in this same school they would have faced open anti-Semitism. Only occasionally they felt that they were followed with wicked glances and they were called ‘zhyd’ [kike] a few times. Both sons made good careers. Gennadi finished Belgorod all-Union Tecnological College. He is a builder. Many Jews entered colleges in small Russian towns at that time. There was low competition that made it easier for a Jew to enter a college. He worked as construction engineer for many years.

Yuri finished Polytechnic College in Ternopol and post-graduate studies at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematic in Kiev State University. He defended his candidate’s dissertation and was awarded a title of candidate of physics and mathematic sciences [Soviet/ Russian doctorate degrees] [18].. He returned here and worked as a lecturer. He was also a member of the Scientific Council where applicants submitted their candidate’s dissertations. In 1993 he entered the Doctorate department in this College with competition of 14 applicants per one vacancy. He prepared a dissertation of doctor of science. He worked on many works, was invited to conferences in Poland, Lisbon in Portugal and Oxford. There are references to my son’s works in many scientific publications abroad. Both sons married Ukrainian girls. We are very happy with our daughters-in-law that came from very intelligent families.

Perestroika brought many changes. Our salaries devaluated rapidly and my sons didn’t receive salaries for months. We couldn’t afford any traveling that we were used to. We could hardly make ends meet with our earnings. In 1994 Yuri quit his job. He dealt in small businesses. He took the risk of selling his apartment to invest the money in business. He lived with his family in our apartment. Gennadi joined him in the course of time. Now they own a network of big pharmacies ‘Gedeon Richter’ in Ukraine. We can call it a family business. Gennadi’s wife Galia and Yuri’s wife Vera have medical education and are involved in this family business. Our children and their families are wealthy. They have luxurious apartments and cars and they can afford to give our grandchildren good education. We have four grandchildren: Gennadi’s children are Denis, born in 1987, and Natalia, born in 1989, and Yuri’s children are Tamara, born in 1988, and Alexandr, born in 1995. Our grandchildren are very gifted and they love us.

Of course, I feel upset that Yuri gave up his scientific work. A real scientist cannot abandon his science and Yuri finds time to write articles. He has publications abroad. I think our family has reached everything one could dream of. We’ve never considered moving to another country: Germany was out of the question. The wounds of the Great Patriotic War are still fresh in our memory. I’ve been attracted to Israel, but I’ve always been a patriot. I’ve given much to Ternopol that has become my hometown. I am a happy man. I’ve lived with the best woman ever in the surrounding of loving children and grandchildren. We are members of the Jewish community and often visit Hesed. My wife is a great cook. She is head of the national culinary club in Hesed. We haven’t become religious, but we began to celebrate Jewish holidays. What is interesting – our Ukrainian daughters-in-law Galia and Vera also enjoy celebrating Jewish holidays. Our children support us. We have a wonderful apartment and a dacha. We are fond of growing vegetables and flowers. I gave my car to my older son in 1990. Gennadi and Yuri have nice foreign made cars now. Few years ago our children bought us a trip to Cyprus. We often get together to celebrate Jewish holidays. Our children always cover all expenses. In 2002 we celebrated our ‘golden wedding’ in an expensive restaurant. Our beloved children and grandchildren were with us. ‘Of course, we are the lucky few: many people lost their savings at the beginning of perestroika. Independence of Ukraine is a complex issue. On one hand, Jews and other nations were given a start for development. On the other hand, we’ve lost a lot: a huge country where we grew up and our friends living in other countries, but we are happy regardless.

GLOSSARY:
[1] 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 WWI, 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.
[2] Jewish Pale of Settlement: Certain provinces in the Russian Empire were designated for permanent Jewish residence and the Jewish population (apart from certain privileged families) was only allowed to live in these areas.
[3] 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.
[4] Civil War (1918-1920): The Civil War between the Reds (the Bolsheviks) and the Whites (the anti-Bolsheviks), which broke out in early 1918, ravaged Russia until 1920. The Whites represented all shades of anti-communist groups – Russian army units from World War I, led by anti-Bolshevik officers, by anti-Bolshevik volunteers and some Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. Several of their leaders favored setting up a military dictatorship, but few were outspoken tsarists. Atrocities were committed throughout the Civil War by both sides. The Civil War ended with Bolshevik military victory, thanks to the lack of cooperation among the various White commanders and to the reorganization of the Red forces after Trotsky became commissar for war. It was won, however, only at the price of immense sacrifice; by 1920 Russia was ruined and devastated. In 1920 industrial production was reduced to 14% and agriculture to 50% as compared to 1913.
[5] 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.
[6] Collective farm (in Russian kolkhoz): In the Soviet Union the policy of gradual and voluntary collectivization of agriculture was adopted in 1927 to encourage food production while freeing labor and capital for industrial development. In 1929, with only 4% of farms in kolkhozes, Stalin ordered the confiscation of peasants' land, tools, and animals; the kolkhoz replaced the family farm.
[7] 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.
[8] 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.

[9] Famine in Ukraine: In 1920 a deliberate famine was introduced in the Ukraine causing the death of millions of people. It was arranged in order to suppress those protesting peasants who did not want to join the collective farms. There was another dreadful deliberate famine in 1930-1934 in the Ukraine. The authorities took away the last food products from the peasants. People were dying in the streets, whole villages became deserted. The authorities arranged this specifically to suppress the rebellious peasants who did not want to accept Soviet power and join collective farms.
[10] Torgsin stores: Special retail stores, which were established in larger Russian cities in the 1920s with the purpose of selling goods to foreigners. Torgsins sold commodities that were in short supply for hard currency or exchanged them for gold and jewelry, accepting old coins as well. The real aim of this economic experiment that lasted for two years was to swindle out all gold and valuables from the population for the industrial development of the country.
[11] October Revolution Day: October 25 (according to the old calendar), 1917 went down in history as victory day for the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia. This day is the most significant date in the history of the USSR. Today the anniversary is celebrated as ‘Day of Accord and Reconciliation’ on November 7.
[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] Bessarabia: Historical area between the Prut and Dnestr rivers, in the southern part of Odessa region. Bessarabia was part of Russia until the Revolution of 1917. In 1918 it declared itself an independent republic, and later it united with Romania. The Treaty of Paris (1920) recognized the union but the Soviet Union never accepted this. In 1940 Romania was forced to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR. The two provinces had almost 4 million inhabitants, mostly Romanians. Although Romania reoccupied part of the territory during World War II the Romanian peace treaty of 1947 confirmed their belonging to the Soviet Union. Today it is part of Moldavia.
[14] A member of a people of southern European Russia and adjacent parts of Asia, noted as cavalrymen especially during tsarist times.
[15] Ispolkom: After the tsar’s abdication (March, 1917), power passed to a Provisional Government appointed by a temporary committee of the Duma, which proposed to share power to some extent with councils of workers and soldiers known as ‘soviets’. Following a brief and chaotic period of fairly democratic procedures, a mixed body of socialist intellectuals known as the Ispolkom secured the right to ‘represent’ the soviets. The democratic credentials of the soviets were highly imperfect to begin with: peasants - the overwhelming majority of the Russian population - had virtually no say, and soldiers were grossly over-represented. The Ispolkom’s assumption of power turned this highly imperfect democracy into an intellectuals’ oligarchy.
[16] 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’.
[17] Mandatory job assignment in the USSR: Graduates of higher educational institutions had to complete a mandatory 2-year job assignment issued by the institution from which they graduated. After finishing this assignment young people were allowed to get employment at their discretion in any town or organization.
[18] Soviet/Russian doctorate degrees: Graduate school in the Soviet Union (aspirantura, or internatura for medical students), which usually took about 3 years and resulted in a dissertation. Students who passed were awarded a 'kandidat nauk' (lit. candidate of sciences) degree. If a person wanted to proceed with his or her research, the next step would be to apply for a doctorate degree (doktorantura). To be awarded a doctorate degree, the person had to be involved in the academia, publish consistently, and write an original dissertation. In the end he/she would be awarded a 'doctor nauk' (lit. doctor of sciences) degree.

Irina Herman

Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of the interview: September 2003

Irina Herman looks young and beautiful. She lives in a three-bedroom apartment in a new district in Ternopol. Irina is slender, but she looks ill: she had a severe surgery recently. However, she keeps her apartment very clean and cozy. She has plain furniture in her apartment. There are embroidered pictures on the walls and embroidered covers on the sofa and beds that the hostess made herself. Besides flowered and fold patterns there are portraits of Taras Shevchenko 1, Sholem Aleichem 2, and … a rabbi. Irina speaks fluent Ukrainian and I conducted this interview with her in Ukrainian.

My mother’s parents, my grandfather Leizer and grandmother Esfir, died long before I was born and I didn’t know them. My grandfather’s last name was Nepomniashchiy, but I don’t remember my grandmother’s maiden name. They were born approximately in the 1860s in Tomashpol, Vinnitsa province, 250 kilometers from Kiev, where they lived their life.

Tomashpol was like any other Jewish town within the Pale of Settlement 3. There was a market square in the center of the town. Sunday was a market day. Ukrainian farmers from surrounding villages came to sell their products at the market. They also did shopping in local Jewish shops buying haberdashery, fabrics and shoes. There was a sugar refinery and a milk factory where workers were local Jews and Ukrainians from surrounding villages. 

There was also a small fabric factory in the town. It belonged to my grandmother’s relatives. There were few richer Jewish houses belonging to the doctor, notary and attorney. Jews mainly dealt in crafts. They were shoemakers, glasscutters, carpenters, tailors, etc. 

There was big and beautiful synagogue in the center of the town. It operated until the middle of the 1930s when the Soviet regime began to ruthlessly destroy everything religious 4 and the synagogue was closed. Jews went to pray in a prayer house.

There was a nice lake in the village from where a little river started flowing.  Local Jews often bathed in this river and lake on Friday before Pesach. After bathing they put on clean clothes.  

My grandfather Leizer was a craftsman, but I don’t know exactly what he was doing. He finished cheder, could read the Torah and Talmud and knew prayers. My grandmother Esfir had no education. She knew prayers by heart since her childhood. Theirs was a poor family living from hand to mouth.

It was common for Jewish women to be housewives after getting married, but the family was so miserably poor that my grandmother Esfir had to go to work. She worked as a yarn winder at the fabric factory.

The family owned a small house that almost rooted itself into the ground. There were two little rooms, a kitchen and a big Russian stove 5 in it, and a fore room in the house.

My grandmother and grandfather were religious. They followed the kashrut and strictly observed all other traditions. It was easy to follow the kashrut in their family since they hardly ever had meat. They saved to buy a chicken before a big Jewish holiday to keep it in their fore room till the holiday time. They mainly ate bread, potatoes and beans.

On Friday they did a general cleanup of the house. They scrubbed utensils and washed the floors to be prepared for Sabbath. My grandmother lit candles and grandfather recited a prayer. They followed all the rules. On Saturday my grandmother and grandfather went to the synagogue. They raised their children religious. My grandmother and grandfather died in the early 1930s and all I know about them is what my mother and relatives told me. 

According to my mother there were thirteen children born in the family. Most of them died in infancy from diseases. Only five children, including my mother, survived. My mother’s two older sisters moved to America in the early 1900s and there was no further contact with them. I don’t know their names. I only knew my mother’s sister Leya and brother Moishe.

The children didn’t get any education. They had to go to work at an early age. My mother’s sister Leya, born in 1898, went to work at the factory where my grandmother worked. She became a winder. She married a wealthy Jew when she was very young. He was a tailor named Gershl Spector. My grandmother tried to take advantage at least of the fact that her children were beautiful and she thought that Leya’s marriage was a very nice arrangement. Leya had a good life with her husband. They had a big two-storied house with a number of rooms and good furniture. There were housemaids in the house.

Leya had another baby every year. She had seven children. Her older daughter Sarra, sons Fishel and Boris were in the army during the Great Patriotic War 6. Fishel and Boris perished. Sarra married her fellow comrade/soldier. He is Armenian and they live in the Northern Caucasus now. Leya’s middle son Haim lives in Moscow and the youngest Etia died in Tomashpol recently. Two other children perished in the ghetto in Tomashpol where Leya and her younger children were during the war. Leya died in Vinnitsa in 1952.

My mother’s brother Moishe, who was about two years older than my mother, married a wealthy woman for money. His wife Shura was so ugly and Moishe could never forget that he was forced into his marriage. Moishe was a laborer.

His son Lezha and daughter Ida had higher education. Lezha and his family live in Moscow. Ida married a Jewish engineer from Vinnitsa. His name was Arenson. They lived in Vinnitsa and only left it during the war.

Ida died of cancer in the middle of the 1960s. Moishe and Shura had another son named Bulia. He was deaf and mute, but he was a very handsome, smart and kind guy. Shortly after the war he got lost in a forest searching for wood. He froze to death. They found him a few days later. Moishe was at the front during the Great Patriotic War. After the war he returned to Tomashpol. He died some time in 1984.

My mother, Hova Herman, nee Nepomniashchaya, was born in 1907. She was the thirteenth child in the family. My mother had no education whatsoever. She spoke Yiddish and Ukrainian like any other resident of Tomashpol. She knew prayers by heart and prayed all her life. She went to work at the factory at the age of approximately 13.

My mother was a reserved person. Perhaps, it resulted from her lack of education. Anyway, she never told me about her young years or how she met my father. All she said was that she married for great love which was not the case with her sister Leya and brother Moishe. My other relatives told me some details of her meeting and marrying my father.

My father’s parents, Perl and Bencion Herman, were against my father’s marrying my mother. They were wealthy and didn’t want their son to marry a poor girl. Perl and Bencion were of the same age, they were born in 1886 in the village of Alexandrovka, 25 kilometers from Tomashpol. There were three or four Jewish families in this Ukrainian village.

My grandfather Bencion’s brother lived in a village across the river. I don’t remember his name. I remember his daughters’ names: Etia, Haya and Esia. They often came to see their father.

Grandfather Bencion had education. He had Jewish education, could read and write in Ukrainian and even Russian. He was a postman in his village for many years and his fellow villagers respected and loved him.

Grandmother Perl had little education. I have a towel that her mother, my great-grandmother, embroidered for her wedding. I’ve always kept this wedding towel and even the colors on it haven’t faded. There is ‘To dear bridegroom and bride, good evening, all!’ embroidered on it.

Perl was a very active person. She took care of her big household. There was an orchard around the house and a vegetable garden where they grew vegetables for the family and for sale. Perl also kept poultry and cattle: cows and pigs. The family supported its well-being working tirelessly, but during the period of famine in 1932-33 7 authorities took away almost all their bread and food stocks and Perl, the only one of the family, starved to death. So I never met this grandmother.

My father’s parents were religious Jews. Grandfather Bencion was particularly religious. There was no synagogue in Alexandrovka and Jews from Alexandrovka and a neighboring village got together in one house to pray. My grandmother Perl was so busy about the house that she hardly had any time left for religion and prayers. 

Perl and Bencion had three children including my father: two sons and a daughter. A visiting melamed taught the sons. Vol’ko, the older son, was born in 1906. Vol’ko became an apprentice of a local carpenter. After finishing his training he became a skilled cabinetmaker. After the revolution 8 he moved to Leningrad where he finished a technical school and then he taught the carpenter craft in a vocational school.

During the Great Patriotic War he, his wife Raya and their small children Naum and Boris were in evacuation in Novosibirsk. Vol’ko gave up religion living in this big town. He didn’t pray, but he celebrated Jewish holidays as tribute to traditions. After the war their family returned to Leningrad. Vol’ko died in the middle of the 1970s. Naum lives in St. Petersburg and Boris and his family and his mother Raya live in Israel.

My father’s sister Rieva was born in 1910. Rieva had good education. After finishing a seven-year school she finished a Soviet Trade School and then a Trade College. Rieva was a member of the Communist Party and worked in the regional party committee in Vinnitsa. She married Samuel Rachelgauz, a Jew, who was a military, in 1939, and followed him to wherever he had to go on his military service across the country. They lived in the Far East and Siberia and when Samuel retired they returned to Vinnitsa.

Rieva and Samuel had three sons. All of them had higher education. They were very talented and became respectable members of society and skilled experts in their fields. Roman, the oldest one, born in late 1940 finished a Ship Building College. He became a doctor of science 9 and lives in the USA now.

Boris, the middle son, finished a Polytechnic College. He lives with his family in Voronezh, Russia. The youngest named Yevgeni finished the Moscow College of Physics and Mathematics. He was director of a plant. Now he lives in Moscow.

Rieva died in Vinnitsa in 1997. Her husband lived another year.

My father, Shmuel Herman, was born in 1907. Although he only had primary education and was deeply religious, most of his friends were Ukrainians from a neighboring village. Actually, he was like a Ukrainian guy himself being tall and stately. Many girls wanted to marry him: he was handsome and hardworking and came from a wealthy family.

I don’t know how my parents met, but they fell in love with each other for the rest of their life. This happened in 1927. My mother had typhus and my father, who wasn’t even her fiancé at the time, nursed her to recovery. She was thin and her hair was shaved, but he took her to his home to introduce her to his parents.

My grandmother Perl was horrified: besides being poor she was a plain and sickly looking girl. She didn’t give her consent to their marriage. She intended to find a rich fiancée for her son and took him on her sledge to another village where matchmakers found a match for my father.

The family legend says that the horses got stubborn at some distance from the village – and this was happening in a severe winter with a lot of snow – and Perl couldn’t make them move another step however hard she tried. She had to go back to Alexandrovka with my father and give her consent to their marriage.

They had a traditional Jewish wedding in summer 1928. The bride and bridegroom stepped under the chuppah at the synagogue in Tomashpol and then rode back to Alexandrovka where they had a wedding party with all relatives and fellow villagers present.

After the wedding the newlyweds settled down with my father’s parents. My mother was smart and hardworking and began to help Perl about the house. Soon my grandmother liked her as if she had been her daughter. My father started construction of their house, but during the period of famine in 1932 this unfinished house was disassembled for wood.

My father went to his older brother in Leningrad hoping to earn a little. He brought a bag of dried bread from there. There was a surprise waiting for him at home: my mother gave birth to their first baby after three years of marriage. The baby was named Lev after her deceased father: the first letters in the name of my older brother and my mother’s father are the same. 

In 1933 Perl died of hunger and my grandfather married my mother’s cousin sister Rosa who was much younger than my grandfather. Rosa became the hostess of my grandfather’s house in Alexandrovka.

My parents didn’t get along with my father’s stepmother and moved to the house where my mother had grown up in Tomashpol. The house was empty after my mother’s parents died. In 1936 my sister Polina was born in this house. She was named after my grandmother Perl: their names sound alike. In 1937 I was born there. I was named Fira after my mother’s mother Esfir. Later they began to call me Irina. It’s a Ukrainian name and it is written in my passport.

I remember our house dimly: it was a small house rooted into the ground. There was a fore room, two small rooms and a kitchen with a Russian stove. My mother was used to living in a village. She kept a cow and poultry in the shed in the backyard of the house. We had a good life before the war. My father was a worker at the sugar refinery and my mother was a housewife. 

Every Friday my mother cleaned the house, washed the floors and prepared for Sabbath. She left our Saturday meal in the oven and we sat at the table after we came from the synagogue on Saturday. I have vague memories about this time, but I remember that waiting for Saturday was festive.

I also remember Pesach when matzah was baked for the holiday and my brother and I made holes in matzah rolls. There was no synagogue in Tomashpol and all Jewish families made matzah at home.

I have dim memories about other holidays as well. I didn’t know their names, but I remember triangle pies with poppy seeds that my mother made for Purim, potato pancakes and doughnuts at Chanukkah. I remember that my parents fasted at Yom Kippur. My mother fasted the rest of her life, but our parents didn’t make us, children, fast. This was during the Soviet regime when authorities didn’t approve of religion. Our parents probably wanted to bring no complications into our life.

In 1940 my father was recruited to the army during the Finnish War 10. He returned home soon: he had lost his arm. From then on he worked as a janitor at a plant and spent much time at home helping my mother about the house and spending time with us, his children whom he loved dearly.

Our family often rented a horse-drawn wagon to visit Grandfather Bencion in Alexandrovka. He and Rosa had a son one year older than me. His name was Moishe. We were friends. We bathed in the river and played with a ball in the yard. My grandfather told us stories. They were probably chapters from the Torah, but I don’t remember what they were about. All I remember is how we sat there listening to him.

We spent summers in Alexandrovka. We were there when the Great Patriotic War began. I don’t remember how it began. We didn’t even have time to consider evacuation – two weeks after the war began German troops came into the village. 

My first bright memory refers to this time. It is probably imprinted in my memory for the rest of my life, this horror that I felt. Two days after the Germans came to the village I was playing in my grandfather’s yard. I don’t know where my parents, my brother and sister were. A half-drunk German soldier came to the yard. He began to pester my grandfather ‘Judas, Judas, give me chicken, eggs and milk’ pulling grandfather by his beard and threatening him with a gun.

My grandfather started walking toward the cellar with this German following him, when all of a sudden my grandfather jumped to me, grabbed me and jumped into the well holding the rope. We were lucky that it was a hot summer and there wasn’t much water in the well. We could hear the German cursing and shooting.

When it became quiet our Ukrainian neighbors pulled us out of the well. My mother and sister came. Although nobody thought it was a threatening incident our Ukrainian neighbors gave us shelter on the attic in their house: my mother and sister and I were hiding there. 

We didn’t know where my father, grandfather and brother were. A few days later my father came. He said that he and grandfather found shelter with our Ukrainian neighbor Zenyunka.

Zenyunka actually saved my brother. When the Germans met him they called him ‘Judas’ and told him to put down his pants to check whether he was circumcised when my grandfather’s quiet neighbor Zenyunka ran out of her house, grabbed my brother and said that he was her son and had nothing in common with Jews. My brother’s Ukrainian friends had taught him a Christian prayer ‘Our Father…’ and he recited it in Ukrainian and the Germans left him alone.

My father and grandfather decided to leave the village. They understood that the Germans were not giving up. Tomashpol was still under Soviet rule and my father decided to go home to Tomashpol. Our family and my grandfather and Rosa and Moishe and our Jewish neighbors were there and we decided to move across the woods. We covered the distance to Tomashpol of 25 kilometers in three days since we could only move at night.

When we came to the town there was actually anarchy there. We went to my mother’s sister Leya. She was baking bread and we were so starved that we pounced on a loaf of bread. It was fresh and smelled delicious.

Our neighbors and relatives came to see us. They didn’t believe what my father and grandfather told them about their victimizing Jews. They thought that the Germans were just frolic. Old people remembered World War I when Germans had a respectful attitude toward Jews and didn’t think they could do any harm. Many of them laughed that my father dug a shelter underneath our house to hide from the Germans. He dropped rags on the floor so that nobody could suspect an underground shelter. This shelter served us well during the occupation.

German troops came to Tomashpol shortly afterward. On 4th August the first terrifying operation against Jews was conducted. On that morning my father and grandfather went to pray in the prayer house as usual. My mother, my sister, I and my aunt Rosa and her son were waiting for them at breakfast. At that moment a raid began: Germans were coming to Jewish homes chasing Jews out of their homes with whips. Some managed to hide. My mother’s sister Leya hid in her basement.

We were taken to the square where Germans read an order issued by German commandment ordering us to go to work under the fear of death. They didn’t allow us to take anything with us. We were told to line up in a column and march across the town. There were guards with dogs on the sides. Nobody thought that this was a death march.

At that time we saw another column marching along the adjunct street. There were men from the prayer house in this march and we saw my father and grandfather. My father rushed to our column, but of course, he was forced to go back. This was the last time I saw my father.

My brother hit his foot and began to cry, but my mother begged him to move on. She was afraid that they would kill us if we didn’t keep the pace. At that time a German guard noticed us. He called us to come closer and told us to go home speaking German. I still don’t know why he did this. Perhaps, he liked my mother or we reminded him of his children in Germany. He ordered a policeman to take us home. My brother ran after the column where my father was.

My mother and I went back home. My mother started cooking dinner. She was waiting for my father and grandfather to come back home. She thought they were working somewhere. Time passed, but nobody returned. In the evening we heard shooting at a distance. There were wounded people with blood on them making their way home across the gardens.

My brother came in the evening. He told us that he followed the column for a long time until my father told him to go back home. He hid in a forest and saw fascists killing Jews, but he didn’t see my father or grandfather among those who were killed.

Later Ukrainian witnesses told us that the column covered about 20 kilometers almost as far as Yampol. On the hill where an old Jewish cemetery was located Germans gave prisoners spades and ordered them to dig graves. Somebody screamed that they had to run for their life. My grandfather Bencion was among the first ones who tried to escape. A fascist ran after him and cut his body in halves with a spade. My grandfather was thrown into a ravine and then they threw there other Jews who were still alive. 

A policeman, our fellow villager from Alexandrovka, who often visited us before the war, ran after my father. My father egged him to let him go and have mercy on his children, but this policeman beat him hard and then threw him into the ravine. He was still alive. People were saying that the earth was breathing for a long time afterward: there were many buried alive, including my beloved father.

After this horrible day my mother kept us in our shelter. She only went out to get some food. She took our cow to our Ukrainian acquaintance in Alexandrovka hoping that she would help us when we were in need.

About two weeks later I fell ill with scarlet fever. There were no medications available. My mother carried me to an infectious diseases hospital in Komargorod, about 15 kilometers from Tomashpol. Doctor Drozdovski, either Polish or Ukrainian, was the director of this hospital. The doctor knew very well that I was a Jew, but he ordered me to not say a word in Yiddish and taught me to cross myself. He told everybody else that I was his distant relative. He brought me food and toys.

I stayed there over a month until my mother took me back home. As it turned out I was not the only one whom Drozdovski helped. Fascists hanged the doctor for helping Jews in the central square in early 1942.

Vinnitsa region, including Tomashpol, became a part of Transnistria 11, i.e., was under the Romanian rule. In October 1941 a ghetto was organized in Tomashpol. Our street and a few adjunct streets were fenced with barbed wire and there were guards at the entrance gate. 

I cannot tell any details about our life in the ghetto. Few episodes are imprinted in my memory. They are associated with a common feeling of fear, hunger and cold. When we managed to get some potato peels we baked them on a makeshift stove and my mother made flat cookies of them. Fascists occasionally threw sausage and sandwich leftovers to the children as if we were dogs. This was a luxury.

My mother went to see our acquaintance in the village that had our cow to ask her for a little milk, but the woman refused. I remember that policemen captured my mother once when she was bringing food to us. She was made to run the gauntlet and each policeman hit her with a whip. She was almost beaten to death.

My mother couldn’t walk for a few days. An old woman from Moldova 12 attended to her. This old woman lived in our house. We also gave shelter to a 12-year-old boy from Tulchin living in our house. The old woman prayed beside my mother murmuring Jewish prayers. I need to say that even on the hardest days she started her day with a prayer. She fasted at Yom Kippur although almost each day in the ghetto was fasting. 

My brother was a very bright boy. He managed to get out of the ghetto and somehow he brought sugar beetroots from the sugar refinery that saved us. He was captured by policemen several times. Once they beat him so hard that he was ill for a long time.

I also remember when a Romanian guard came for my brother. He had a gun and wanted to shoot my brother when he saw our dog with its puppies near the doorway. The puppies were white and furry and the guard began to play with them and probably forgot why he came there. 

There was no more shooting, but inmates of the ghetto were dying from hunger, cold and diseases. In late 1943, before liberation, Germans took over the ghetto again. The situation grew worse.

We were ill. My sister had typhus three times: spotted fever, enteric fever and relapsing fever. She had high fever and my brother and I leaned on her to get warm. And the Lord guarded us! We were sleeping leaning over Polina, but we didn’t contract her illness, but we had lice. Cold, hunger and lice: these are my major memories of my childhood spent behind the barbed wire.

In late 1943 retreating German troops came to Tomashpol. They really became brutal. They made plans for the liquidation of the ghetto and drew up lists of Jews for extermination. Fortunately, they failed to implement their plans.

In March 1944 Soviet troops liberated Tomashpol. My uncle, Aunt Rieva’s husband Samuel Rachelgauz, came to the town with them. He didn’t know us and we had never seen him before, but Aunt Rieva, who was in evacuation in the Urals, kept writing her husband that if he came to Tomashpol he should find our family. She didn’t know about us. Rieva described her relatives to her husband: my father, grandfather, my mother and Aunt Leya.

I shall never forget this day. My sister had another attack of typhus and my brother and I were lying beside her covered with all rags that we could find in the house. Aunt Leya was trying to keep my uncle in the doorway telling him that we had lice and were infectious, but Samuel came into the house, took my sister in his arms and began to cry. Then he took a loaf of bread out of his bag. My mother screamed to him that he should give us only a little bit and my uncle began to give us small pieces. 

For a few days we had meals in a military field kitchen facility. Then the army moved on and we stayed in our house. Actually, our situation didn’t change. The cold and hunger were with us. My mother went out to do people’s laundry or look after their cattle and they gave her some food for us. Life was so hard. I still cannot understand how we managed to survive.

In summer 1944 my brother moved to Odessa 13 by a freight train. There he entered a vocational school and was accommodated in a hostel. He received a stipend and unloaded railcars for additional earnings.

After the war the father of a boy from Tulchin living with us came to pick him up. He was very grateful to my mother and asked her to marry him since fascists shot his wife in Tulchin, but my mother refused. She was faithful to my father for the rest of her life.

Our life was very hard. 1946-47 was a period of horrifying hunger and only our life in the ghetto could be compared with it. We were ill again. I had rheumatism and I was bedridden for almost a year. At night I cried from pain and my mother was sitting beside me.

In 1946 I went to a local Ukrainian school. Life was improving. My mother began to receive monthly allowances for us. They were peanuts. My aunt Rieva provided the most sufficient assistance to us sending my mother some money each month. We wouldn’t have survived if it hadn’t been for Aunt Rieva’s support.

My mother worked a lot washing floors, doing laundry, whitewashing and cleaning houses for other people. However, she couldn’t earn enough for a living and so my mother began to sell things. She went to purchase goods in Vinnitsa. She bought soap and paints and sold them a little more expensive in our village. It was against the existing laws and my mother was often arrested. I already knew that if my mother didn’t come back home in the evening I had to take her some soup or boiled cereal to a militia office. Sometimes she was released a few days later and once she was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment.

During this year my sister and I lived on what Aunt Rieva sent us. We also were provided free lunches at school for being orphans. I remember us taking turns to go to school in winter having one pair of winter boots. When my mother was released Aunt Rieva took my sister to the Far East and my mother and I remained at home.

There were many Jewish children in my class and there were no negative attitudes toward us before the Doctors’ Plot 14, when in the newspapers and on the radio they spoke about doctors being poisoners. This period of anti-Semitism made the attitude toward us at school much worse.

I studied well and my teachers often asked me to help other pupils who were not doing well. I enjoyed helping them. I went to help them do their homework and their parents often offered me food. I was always hungry.

I remember when Stalin died in March 1953 I was standing on guard of honor by his portrait at school. I didn’t take an active part in public life, but I became a pioneer 15 and joined the Komsomol 16 of course, since without this it was impossible to continue your studies or have a career. Besides, if I hadn’t done it, it would have raised suspicions and questions.

My mother tried to observe Jewish traditions after the war. She didn’t work on Saturday. There was no synagogue in Tomashpol, but my mother got together with other widows like her to celebrate holidays. They even baked matzah in our stove. She often visited my grandfather’s second wife Rosa. Rosa didn’t remarry.

Her son Moishe finished college in Kiev. He became an engineer and visited his mother with his family. I saw them once in the 1960s. I don’t remember Moishe’s wife’s or his son’s names. Rosa died in Tomashpol in the early 1970s and Moishe and his family moved to the USA in the late 1980s and I lost track of them.

I finished the 10th [last] grade in 1956 and moved to my brother in Odessa. There was nowhere to study in Tomashpol. My brother worked at a plant and rented an apartment. I was living with him. In Odessa I entered the Faculty of Economics in the School of Heavy Industry.

When I was in the 9th grade at school I met Yefim Rozenberg, a Jewish guy. Yefim was born into the poor Jewish family of a tailor in 1937. We met when he came on vacation during his studies in a Navy School. Then he went back to his school and corresponded. I liked him a lot. Yefim came to visit me in Odessa and proposed to me. I wrote my sister asking her consent. She was a year older and it was a Jewish custom that older daughters had to get married first.

In late 1956 we registered our marriage in a registry office in Odessa and that evening we had a celebration with our friends. In February 1957 we came to our hometown and celebrated our wedding at home. There were many guests. They were Jews from our town. There was Jewish food at the wedding: gefilte fish, chicken broth and stewed meat. Besides traditional food there were no other rituals observed at our wedding party.

We lived a few more months in Odessa: I was with my brother and he stayed in his hostel until we received a small room at the plant. My husband sailed on his boat and I worked as a rate setter at the clock plant. We lived in Odessa for a few years.

In 1957 our daughter Svetlana was born. After my daughter was born I entered a Soviet Trade School. Life wasn’t easy: my husband was away and I had to work and study. At the age of two Svetlana went to a kindergarten and I took her home on weekends.

My husband earned well and didn’t spend much considering that he was provided a uniform and meals. It seems this was the first time of my life that I had sufficient food and could afford to buy clothes rather than wearing my sister’s clothes.

In 1962 my husband was transferred to serve in Western Ukraine, Ternopol [350 km west of Kiev], where he worked in the maintenance unit of Ternopol military garrison. In 1962 my son Mikhail was born. We lived in a small room in the basement and in early 1970 we received this apartment.

Although I married for great love our marriage failed. He was a rude man and mistreated my children and me. He only cared about himself and he couldn’t care less about us. He didn’t know what grade his children were in or whether they were ill or well or whether I had any problems.

I didn’t have a vacation once in all those 19 years that we lived together while my husband spent his vacations in the Crimea and the Caucasus and he never offered to take our children with him. They spent their vacations with me at home and he was seeing other women. I divorced him in 1976. Now he lives with his third wife in Germany.

My brother Lev finished a school of dentistry and worked as a dentist technician in Odessa. His wife Sophia is a Jew. She taught the Russian and Ukrainian languages at school. Lev has two daughters: Bella, born in 1960, and Svetlana, born in 1965. Both of them have higher education. Bella is a chemical engineer and Svetlana is a philologist. In 1991 Lev and his family moved to Israel. They live in Haifa. He writes me letters. He is very satisfied with his life.

My sister Polina lived in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, over 7000 kilometers from Kiev, in the Far East, with Aunt Rieva. She finished a geological survey school and began to work in the field of geological survey. My aunt and uncle moved to Severodonetsk and Polina stayed in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

Polina married Yuri Korotkov, a Russian, who was a geologist. He is a nice person and he treated her and my mother respectfully. Polina’s first baby died at the age of a few months. In 1966 her twins were born: daughters Svetlana and Yelena. My mother moved to my sister after her twins were born to help her raise the children and stayed to live there. 

My mother died in 1986. Five years later Polina died of cancer. They were both buried in the town cemetery. There was no Jewish cemetery in the town then. Unfortunately, I didn’t see them after they moved. It was very expensive to travel such long distances. We corresponded and sent each other photographs.

Polina’s daughters live in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Svetlana became a geologist like her mother and father and Yelena is a teacher of the Russian language and literature. I have no contacts with them.

I worked a lot. I was director of a small store where I did all kinds of duties: of accountant, shop assistant or loader. I unloaded trucks with bread and other food products. I realized I had to complete my education and entered the extramural department of Vinnitsa Trade College. After finishing it I went to work as an economist in the trade department.

I got along well with my colleagues. We celebrated Soviet holidays together. However, I didn’t have close friends. My colleagues were Russian and Ukrainian. There were no Jewish employees in the department and I always sensed some tense attitude toward me. I guess it had something to do with my nationality, though I can speak fluent Ukrainian.

I worked long hours and after work I always rushed home to my children. I sometimes went to the cinema with my children and occasionally – to the theater.

I am fond of Ukrainian embroidery. I learned embroidery from my mother. I started new embroideries at the hardest moments of my life and I found consolation in them.  

I actually raised my children alone. My daughter Svetlana finished an accounting school, but she didn’t work one day. She married Yanovski, a Ukrainian man. I tried to talk her out of it, not because he was not a Jewish man, but because he was rude and uneducated and that was why I didn’t like him, but Svetlana didn’t listen to me. He didn’t work and turned out to be a drunkard and an anti-Semite.

Svetlana has two children, born in 1985: Seryozha, born at the beginning of the year and Yulia, born in December. They live in Vinnitsa. My daughter’s husband beat his wife and children. They were always hungry and wore rags, but the worst thing is that he involved my daughter in drinking. I had a hard time trying to get her out of it. It took her a long time to recover.

Now Svetlana works as a home nurse of the social department in Vinnitsa. She has a low salary. I have to provide material and moral support to my daughter. After divorcing her husband she began to socialize with Jews. She is a member of the Jewish community now. Yulia studies in a Jewish school. In 1997 Seryozha went to study in Israel under an educational program, he lives and works there and is very proud of his new country. He rarely writes us.

Well, now, my son caused me a major problem. Mikhail was growing a nice kind boy. He studied well at school, was an active Komsomol member and was very reliable and accurate. When he was in the 10th grade he fell in love with his schoolmate Olga, a Ukrainian girl. She was an indecent girl. She married an ex-prisoner who worked in a chemical enterprise in Kherson.

My son went to the army. He studied at a school for junior sergeants in Moscow region. Later he finished a school of ensigns and went on service to the town of Yeniseysk in Krasnoyarsk region, 3000 kilometers from home. He was sent to pick military trucks in Ukraine and he came to see me in Ternopol. He happened to bump into Olga and went to see her without telling me a thing.

I don’t know what happened there, but he actually became a deserter. He failed to make his appearance in his military unit on time. I didn’t know where he was and the military office was looking for him. I went to Olga’s home several times, but it turned out they were hiding in a village where her relatives lived.

Then finally my son came home and departed to go back to his military unit. He was punished with one month in a cell and was expelled from the Komsomol. He had some other problems as well.

Sometime later Olga went to my son in Siberia and they registered their marriage, but she hadn’t divorced her ex-husband. She came here pregnant. I thought about it and decided ‘come what may.’ If he loves her so then she is his happiness. In 1987 her son Dima was born. I looked after the boy and after her.

Olga lived here with her mother for almost a year. I visited her every day bringing them food and gifts. Finally I managed to convince her to go back to Yeniseysk. Olga returned about two months later. She had a lover and they went to the Crimea. My son stopped writing her and was even upset that I continued to be in touch with her, but I was doing it for my grandson.

Later Olga got married the third time and had a daughter. However, she continued to drink and fool around. Dima was brutally punished at home. They called him ‘zhyd’ [kike]. My son brought her to court trying to get guardianship of Dima.

I became the victim of this: Olga’s brothers, ex-criminals, beat me near her home. They beat me for over an hour. They injured my liver and spleen. Her neighbors rescued me. I had to stay in hospital for over a month, but I was afraid of witnessing against them. I feared that they could just kill me the next time.

I stopped seeing Olga and my grandson. Recently I heard that Olga died of cirrhosis and Dima was homeless for two years. He lived at the railway station. Then he was in a boarding school. The Israel Embassy employees found him by his last name of Rozenberg. They support my grandson now. Dima stayed with me for some time, but we couldn’t find a common language: he is a very lonesome, embittered and absolutely uneducated boy.

A month ago the Jewish community arranged for him to go to a camp in the Crimea and on 1st September he will go to a vocational school near Ternopol. He will go to Israel then. I care about Dima.

My son Mikhail stayed to live in Yeniseysk of Krasnoyarsk region. He is a military and works in the militia. He remarried. His wife Svetlana is Russian. She is a wonderful wife. They have two daughters: Alyona and Christina. Mikhail supports us and sends money for Dima.  

I didn’t have time for holidays and celebrations, reading or politics in my life. I had to survive and help my children and grandchildren. Many historical events went past me. It is sad, but such is life. 

Hesed 17 and the Jewish community of Ternopol provide assistance to me. I’ve always wanted to move to Israel, but I couldn’t even think about it: life was hard and I had to think about raising my children and now I am old and sickly. I would dream to take a look at this country. I’ve always been interested in the situation in this country and felt spiritually attached to it.

Of course, I belong to the generation that grew up during the Soviet regime. I never observed Jewish traditions, except after the war when I lived with my mother. I speak Ukrainian, although I know Yiddish. I love Ukraine and I believe it’s good that it gained independence.

Many people have a hard life, but I receive a German pension as a former inmate of a ghetto. This enables me to support my health condition and even help my daughter and grandchildren. I find comfort for my soul in Hesed. I speak Yiddish with friends and we celebrate holidays: Pesach, Purim and Chanukkah. I try to forget about my problems, my hard childhood in the ghetto, but, regretfully, it is impossible to forget this.

Glossary

Judita Haikis
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
Date of interview: May 2004

Judita Haikis is a big woman with wise, understanding, a little said, but still smiling eyes. Judita is a wonderful and very hospitable lady. Though few weeks from now Judit is leaving for Germany to her grandchildren and is very busy in this regard, she keeps her two-bedroom apartment in a rather new building on the outskirts of Kiev clean and cozy and one can tell that its owner has made a great effort to make it comfortable through years.  She has 1960s-style furniture, carefully maintained, pictures on the walls and flowers in vases. Judita welcomes me as if I were some she knows well and tells me about herself and her family in detail, though I can tell that any of her memories are hard for her.

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

As for the beginnings of our family, I remember (from what my father told me) as far back as my paternal great grandfather Leopold Herman Edelmann. I need to emphasize here that all Edelmann folks have always tried to correspond to their surname that means a “noble man” in German.  I mean, they were honest, decent, men of principle, - noble men, in short.

My great grandfather Leopold Herman Edelmann and my great grandmother Terez Edelmann, nee Peterfreind, lived in the small Slovak settlement of Hrachovo. [Editor’s note: During most of the life of the great grandparents todays Hrachovo, Rimaraho at the time was in Northern Hungary. Today the village is in Slovakia.] They were farmers with an average income.  They had 12 children: six sons and six daughters. I knew few of them and know what my father told about the others. I don’t know the years of birth of my grandfather’s brothers and sisters.  My great grandfather’s older children were his sons Max and Moric, born one after another. The next was my grandfather’s sister Pepka. My grandfather Adolf, born in 1868, was the fourth child in the family. Then cane my grandfather’s sister Regina, and the next were his sisters Betka and Relka. Then my grandfather’s brothers Sandor, Pal and Jozsef were born. The youngest were sisters Anna and Etelka. I know nothing about my grandfather’s childhood. My father told me about him that he was the smartest and the most talented of 12 children. He learned to read and showed interest in all kinds of studies. My grandfather didn’t have a higher education, but he read a lot and always wanted to learn more. He studied Talmud and Jewish history. He didn’t do anything else, but study. My great grandfather’s family spoke German. Yiddish was not spread in this part of Slovakia. Leopold Herman and Terez wanted their sons to get a profession or education and their daughters to marry decently. I don’t know how religious my great grandfather and my great grandmother were, but judging from my grandfather, religion played an important role in their family. When they grew up, the children moved to other towns across Slovakia. [Editor’s note: Slovakia became independent as late as 1991, Czechoslovakia was created after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1918. The interviewee probably means the towns that became parts of Czechoslovakia later, after WWI and finally Slovakia in 1991.]

My great grandfather’s oldest sons Max and Moric Edelmann went to study in America in their teens at the age of 14 and 15 and stayed to live there. From what I know, my grandfather sent them to study in the USA after they finished the cheder. I don’t know for sure what Max and Moric studied in the USA, but I think they studied in secular educational institutions, rather than in a yeshiva. Max was married, but I don’t remember his wife’s name. They had no children. Moric married Anna, who had moved from Czechoslovakia, at the age of 20.  They had three sons: Harry, Richard and Alfred. In 1933 Max and Moric came to visit their relatives. This is all I know about them. Most of the children settled down in Kosice in Czechoslovakia. Kosice had more Hungarian residents, and the majority of its population spoke Hungarian. My grandfather’s older sister Pepka was married to Singer, a Jewish man. I don’t know his surname. They had four children: daughters Aranka and Regina and sons Nandor and Jeno. Pepka and her husband died at an early age, and my grandfather took their children into his family. Relka, called Relli [editors’ note: The interviewee probably confused thease names since neither Relka nor Relli are possible names in Hungarian.] in the family, was married to Bergman. During WWI Bergman perished at the front. His widow was to raise their four children: Mór, Albert and Alexander and daughter Ilona. Relly was my grandfather’s favorite sister, and her nephews and nieces admired her beauty and intelligence. My grandfather took care of his sister and her children, and after his death his sins, including my father, supported their aunt and her children. Relly lived with her daughter Ilona, who dealt in embroidery making her living on it. Pal Edelmann owned an inn in the center of Kosice, There was a restaurant on the 21st floor of this inn. Pal wife’s name was Betti, nee Deutsch. They had two children: older son Emil and younger daughter Terez, born in 1918. During WWI Pal was severely wounded at the front. He died from in 1926 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Kosice. His wife remarried. Her second husband loved his adoptive children and treated them like his own. My great grandfather’s son Jozsef also settled down in Kosice. He owned a grocery store. His wife’s name was Terez, nee Goldberger. They had five children: daughters Kato [Katalin], Magda, Judit, Eva and son Laszlo. Jozsef was also at the front during WWI and suffered from a splinter in his leg for the rest of his life. My grandfather’s daughter Etelka married Jakab Blumenfeld, a Jewish man from Kosice. They had four children: daughters Edit, Izabella and Marta and son Erno. My grandfather’s brother Sandor dealt in wholesale business and owned a wholesale store. Sandor was rather wealthy. He had two sons: son Ondrej (called Erno in Hungarian in the family) and daughter Magda, born in 1915. My grandfather’s other sisters lived with their families in Presov. Regina married Berger, a Jewish man. They had two children: son Simon and daughter Terez. Betka was married to Moric Gerstl. They had three children: daughter Ilona and sons Herman and Armin. Anna was married to Moric Hertz. They had eleven children: sons Aladar, Tibor, Marcel, Earnest, Pal and Alexander and daughters Sarolta, Ilona, Terez, Edit and Ester. This is all I know about the life of our relatives from Presov at that period.

My grandfather’s brothers and sisters were very close and kept in touch. Their children always visited their grandmother and grandfather in Hrachovo in summer. My father told me that the children always played in a big garden and three times a day their grandmother came onto the porch of the house shouting: ‘Kinder, essen!’ [German: children, to eat], and this whole bunch of them came for a meal. My grandmother cut freshly baked bread in big slices spreading butter on them and poured milk in mugs. My father liked these memories. 

My grandfather Adolf Edelmann also moved to Kosice. He married Amalia Polster from Kosice. She was born in the early 1870s. My grandfather and grandmother rented a small two-bedroom apartment, and across the street from there my grandmother’s older sister Frieda lived.  Frieda was my grandmother’s only relative, whom I knew. My grandmother was short and plump, but Frieda was a tall slender woman with regular features. Frieda’s husband was rather rich. They had a house and gave their children good education.  Two of her sons were lawyers. I remember that we were invited to Frieda and her husband’s golden wedding in the late 1930s. Regretfully, this is all I remember about my grandmother sister’s family. My grandfather was a wise, kind, very honest and decent man, and many Jews asked his advice. Kosice residents believed my grandfather to be wiser and smarter than any rabbi. He tried to help all giving money or advice. My grandmother Amalia was a breadwinner in the family. She owned a small grocery store. Grandfather spent all his time reading books. He didn’t help her in anything. My grandmother gave birth to 9 children, but only 7 of them survived.  Two children died in infancy. I only know the dates of birth of my father David Edelmann and his brother Mor. My father was born in 1905 and was the fourth child in the family. My father’s older brothers were Izidor, Elemer and Jeno.  My father’s brother Mor was born in 1906. Then my father’s only sister Etelka was born and the youngest brother was Armin. They must have had Jewish names, but I don’t know them. Besides their own children, my grandfather and grandmother also raised my grandfather sister Pepka’s children, who called my grandmother “Mama”.

Between 1867 - 1918 Czechoslovakia belonged to Austro-Hungary. [Editor’s note: Czechoslovakia was created on the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy after World War I. The new Czechoslovak state was made up of the Austrian provinces of Bohemia, Moravia and Silezia as well as of parts of Northern Hungary (Slovakia and Subcarpathia).] It was divided into two parts: the Czech lands that belonged to Austria, and Slovakia that was Hungarian. This probably explains why Kosice was populated mainly by Hungarians. In 1918 the First Czechoslovakian Republic 1 was established, with Tomas Garrigue Masaryk 2 the first President of Czechoslovakia. Kosice was a small town. [Before World War I it had 44 211 inhabitants (1913), mostly Hungarians but also Slovaks, Germans, Poles, Czechs and Ruthenians.] There were bigger houses in the center and one-storied houses on the outskirts.  There was no anti-Semitism in Kosice during the Austro-Hungarian period. Jews were encouraged to take official posts. There were many Jews in Kosice. They were mainly craftsmen: some could hardly make ends meet and others owned shops and stores. There were Jewish doctors, teachers and lawyers. There were few synagogues in Kosice: for orthodox believers, neologs 4 and Hasidim 5. There were mikves and shochets and few cheder schools in the town.

My father’s parents spoke Hungarian. My grandfather and grandmother were very religious. I never saw my grandfather and cannot describe his looks or manners. My grandfather spent almost all of his time reading religious books. My grandmother wore a wig and long dark dresses. She prayed a lot at home. She took her book of prayers and when she was praying she paid no attention to anything else. My grandmother made charity contributions to the synagogue and Jewish hospital and to help the needy. My grandparents celebrated Sabbath and all Jewish holidays. On Friday my grandmother went to mikveh. On Sabbath and Jewish holidays my grandparents went to the synagogue. My father and his brothers studied in cheder. Of course, they had bar mitzvah as Jewish traditions required. As for my father’s younger sister Etelka, I think her parents may have taught her at home. She knew Hebrew, could pray and knew Jewish history and traditions. My grandmother followed kashrut strictly and taught Etelka to know it. There was a Jewish housemaid in the house.  My grandmother was not very fond of doing work about the house and in due time Etelka took over housekeeping. My father and I think all other children studied in a Czech school and later - in a grammar school. 

My grandmother was hoping that her sons would grow up religious Jews, but her expectations were not to come true. They got fond of communist ideas. Only three of them – the oldest Izidor, Jeno  and the youngest Armin, who was single and lived with his parents, were religious. My father and his brothers became atheists.

Grandfather Adolf died of his heart failure at the age of 52. This happened in 1920. My father was 15. My grandfather was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Kosice in accordance with the Jewish rituals. When I visit Kosice, I always visit my grandfather’s grave and drop a little stone there according to Jewish rules. 

My grandmother’s older son Jeno helped my grandmother with her store. My father also began to help his mother, when his father died. My grandmother bought green coffee beans, and my father was responsible for roasting it. There was a notable difference in price of green and roast coffee. My father started roasting after he came home from school and kept reading doing his work. Reading was his lifelong passion. He also had to watch the beans to not overdo them. After my grandfather died my father had to give up school and help the family. Still, my father studied by correspondence and obtained a certificate upon finishing the grammar school. My father was very handsome: tall and slender with big dark eyes and handsome features. He was also a decent, honest and noble man of principles. He hated lies. He felt very uncomfortable having to conceal from grandmother that he didn’t always go to the synagogue or follow Jewish traditions. At the age of 18 my father went to work for a confectionery company owned by two Jews. The owners valued my father well and employed him back after his service in the army.  He got promotions and was paid well.

My father’s brothers got married and had children. Izidor, a sales agent, married Gizi Katz, a Jewish girl from Vinogradovo. His wife was a seamstress. They had three children. Their daughters Lilia and Judita were older than me and their son Adolf, named after the grandfather, born in 1930, was the same age with me. My father’s brother Elemer married Terez, a Jewish girl from Kosice. I don’t remember what Elemer was doing for a living. Elemer and Terez had two children: Tomas, an older son, and daughter Julia. After my grandfather died, my grandmother left the store to Jeno. His wife’s name was Adel, but I don’t remember her maiden name. They had three children: sons Ervin and Karl and daughters Lilia and Stella. My father and his brother Mor had much in common. They were both very handsome. Uncle Mor was very cheerful, smart and kind. He owned a small store in the center of the town selling imported fruit, sweets and delicacies. He always treated his nieces and nephews to all kinds of delicious things. Mor married aunt Gizi’s sister Eva Kaz from Vinogradovo. They had two daughters: Vera and Livia. My father’s sister Etelka didn’t get married for a long time. Finally Armin Rosner, a Jew from Uzhgorod, proposed to her. She married him and moved to Uzhgorod. After getting married she became a housewife, like her brother’s wives.  Etelka had two daughters: Livia and Edit. My father’s younger brother Armin was single.

My father was recruited to the Czech army at 19. He served near Prague and had good memories about his service in the army. It was democratic and orderly. For example, officers and soldiers had same meals. Why I mention this, because I remember my father telling me how he was surprised, when he saw that in the Soviet army officers had different meals at a different place from soldiers. 

My father met my mother before he went to the army. My father’s cousin sister Ilona, Relly’s daughter, was my mother’s best friend. She introduced them to one another. . My mother was 15. She was a pretty blonde with wavy hair, gray-greenish eyes, snow-white teeth and was lovely built. Her name was Szerena Klein. Since her childhood everybody called her ‘Szöszi’ [blondy in Hungarian] My parents fell in love once and for all.

My mother’s parents came from Kosice; they were born in the early 1870s. They were a very beautiful couple. My grandfather Herman Klein was a raven-head ma with tick moustache and my grandmother was a slim blonde with green eyes. Her name was Berta Klein, nee Liebermann. They were very much in love. They had two daughters. My mother’s older sister Izabella, born in 1907, was very much like her father, and my mother Szerena, born in 1909, took after my grandmother. She was quiet and reserved.  

My mother’s parents were neologs. They went to the synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. My mother’s father Herman Klein worked in a state-owned printing house. He went to work on Saturday and had a day off on Sunday. My grandmother was a housewife. My grandfather and grandmother wore casual clothes in fashion at the time. They didn’t follow kashrut or paid much attention to their daughters’ religious education. They were a common family, living in a small apartment. There wasn’t even a bathroom. Both daughters finished a Czech general school.  Izabella graduated from the Department of Economics of the University and became an accountant. As for my mother, her parents sent her to study dressmaking. She learned to make garments, but she was too vivid to like this job.

My father began to write before he went to the army. At first he wrote poems inspired by his love of my mother. I read these poems, when I was a child, and admired their lyrical nature and beauty. The first letters in lines composed my mother’s name or deklaration of his love of her. My father wrote my mother poems of letters from the army. Regretfully, they got lost during the war. My father became chief editor of the communist weekly ‘Mai Nap’ (‘Today’) published in Hungarian where his writer’s talent was fully realized. My father had to work a lot to support the family. Besides, the newspaper was also funded by its employees. My father continued writing after the war. My brother Adolf keeps his stories and memoirs written in Hungarian in his archives. 

My mother received the first awards at beauty contests in her town several times. She had many admirers, but my father became number one. My parents got married on 14 July 1929. He was 24 and my mother was 20 years old. They had a real Jewish wedding with a rabbi and a chuppah.  My father was working for the company. He rented a two-room apartment and furnished it.  My mother told me that her grandmother Amalia came to their apartment on the first day after the wedding and fixed a mezuzah on the front door. Before the wedding her grandmother gave my mother a lovely wig of fair wavy hair, but my mother never wore it. Her mother Berta didn’t wear any, either. Grandmother Amalia never forgave my mother.  

Growing up

I was born on 3 June 1930. In my birth certificate my Hungarian name Judit was indicated, and my Jewish name is Sima. My parents called a ‘love child’. In April 1933 my sister was born. Father wanted to name her Katalin but I insisted on Klara, even though I was only 3 years old. I liked the name and they agreed to a compromise. My sister was named Klara in the documents, but nobody called her thus. Everybody called her Katalin, Kati in short. My sister’s Jewish name was Laya. Our apartment became too small for the four of us, and we moved into half a mansion. The tenants of another half were the Rothman family, nice and wealthy Jews. They had no children. We had a three-bedroom apartment, spacious and cozy, with all comforts. There was a small garden where my sister and I liked playing. We had a happy and cloudless childhood before 1940. Even with our father having to go on business frequently. He even bought a small sporty car. My father spent Saturday and Sunday with the family. My sister and I always looked forward to weekends. On Saturday morning we jumped into our parents’ bed. My mother went to make breakfast and our father told us everything that had happened to him through the week. He often told us about beautiful life in the Soviet Union. He told us there was no exploitation of workers in the USSR, that the power belonged to people and the people ruled their own country. My father said there were no poor or suppressed people in the USSR, that all people were equal and free. Soviet newspapers and radio programs stated the same. My father and all communists believed that the USSR was a country of equal opportunities for all people, the country of equality and brotherhood for all. Now I understand that even when people in the USSR believed this, it is no surprise that those who only heard about it from the Soviet propaganda believed the USSR to be an ideal. My father was a convinced communist, and it had nothing to do with his material situation.

Every Saturday my father and his brothers living in Kosice and their families went to visit grandmother. They got together after the morning prayer at the synagogue. Each time my father reminded me and my sister of replying positively if our grandmother asked us if he had been at the synagogue.  Our father taught us to tell the truth and my sister and I were surprised at this request of his, but my father said that this was a holy lie since grandmother would be very upset if told the truth. My grandmother’s numerous children and grandchildren got together in her small apartment.  There was a Saturday meal: challah, chicken liver paste and cholnt made from beans, pearl barley, meat, fat and spices. On Friday a pot with cholnt was left in the oven to keep it hot for a Saturday meal. Adults discussed their subjects and children played and had fun. Since the family was big, everybody got just little food, and then all went to their homes for dinner. On Sunday my father took us and his nephews and nieces for a nice drive out of town. The Edelmann family was very close and we, children, always looked forward to these outing. We still keep in touch with those who survived in the war, though many of our kin are scattered across the world.

My mother’s older sister Izabella was a very pretty girl. When she was in university, she fell in love with a senior student from the Radio Engineering Faculty. His name was Andras Tamm. He was tall and slender and very handsome. He returned my aunt’s feelings. The only obstacle was that he was Hungarian. Even though Izabella’s parents were not so religious this marriage still seemed a disgrace to them. They could only get married six years later in 1933. They could not live without one another and my grandparents gave up. They just registered their marriage in the town hall and had a wedding dinner in a restaurant in the evening. Andras rented a small facility in the central street in Kosice and open a radio store with a radio shop in it. Andras worked in the shop, and my aunt ran his store. Izabella and Andras were well-to-do and rented a nice apartment. In 1936 their son Gabor, my favorite cousin brother, was born.

My father and his brother Mor joined the Czechoslovakian communist party. They were convinced communists. The Czechoslovakian communist party was legal, though police had lists of its members, but this was a mere formality. My father began to work for ‘Mai Nap’. Besides, my father worked for ‘Munkas Ujsag’ [Workers Paper] too, both of them are published in Kosice. Before 1938 these newspapers were issued legally and regularly. In 1938 when [Southern] Slovakia became Hungarian, both ‘Mai Nap” and ‘Munkas Ujsag’ became underground newspapers, because the communist party became illegal in Hungary. In 1940 the newspapers were closed and most of their employees were arrested. My father made monthly contribution to the newspaper ‘Mai Nap”  from his earnings and so did other employees. The newspaper was distributed among communists for free and its editing office had no profits. 

1938 brought changes into our life. Hungary received a major part of Czechoslovakia, a part of Romania (Transylvania) and Subcarpathia. [Editor’s note: According to the First Vienna Decision the southern part of Slovakia was attached to Hungary in 1938, including Kosice/Kassa. In 1939 Hungary annexed Subcarpathia and in 1940, according to the Second Vienna Decision, Northern Transylvania was attached to Hungary.] Hungary actually [partly] restored its borders that existed before 1918. [Trianon Peace Treaty] 6 From the middle 1930s there were visitors in our houses staying for few days.  They were emigrants from Germany: communists and Jews escaping from Hitler. They stayed openly during the Czech regime, but had to be quiet during the Hungarian rule. The communist party had to take up the status of underground. Since the police had lists of its members, they knew that arrests were inevitable. It was just the matter of time. Hungarian authorities began to gradually introduce anti-Jewish laws 7 significantly suppressing their rights in all spheres of life.

During the war

In September 1939 WW2 began. Hitler was taking efforts to involve Hungary in the war, but it had no intention to get involved. Then Hitler undertook provocation: in June 1940 bombers without any identification signs dropped few bombs onto the central part of Kosice. The central post office and few building across the street from it were destroyed. This bombing was so unexpected that an air-raid alarm only raised a howl after the bombers were gone. They announced that those were Russian bombers attacking Kosice. The Hungarian authorities had to join Hitler in the war against the USSR. Few weeks later my father and all other members of the communist party, who were on the lists, were arrested and take to prison in Kosice. The trial against them began. They were charged in actions against the state. They were tortured and interrogated. The Hungarians wanted to know the names of those who joined the communist party during the Hungarian rule and whose names were not on the list. My mother was one of them. She joined the party under my father’s influence in late 1938. My father was brutally beaten and taken to Budapest for interrogation where one policeman injured my father’s kidney. My father suffered from pyelonephritis for the rest of his life and finally died of kidney failure. Of course, my father didn’t tell them any names. The investigation lasted five and a half months and then there was a trial where my father spoke.  He acknowledged his membership in the party. The trial sentenced him to 7 months in jail, but since by the time of trial he had already served the sentence, he only had to stay in jail 40 days.  During this period my grandfather Herman Klein fell ill with cancer and died. My mother requested the police management to let my father go to the funeral, but they refused. My grandfather Herman was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Kosice. After his death my grandmother Berta began to attend the synagogue every Saturday with other Orthodox Jews and began to pray at home. She moved in with us. Her older daughter Izabella wanted her to live with them, but grandmother Berta refused point-blank to live in the house with Izabella’s non-Jewish husband.  My grandmother loved my father dearly.

Before my father’s arrest many of his comrades moved to the USSR. The Soviet government gave them this opportunity. At first they could move with their families, but when it was my father’s turn, this opportunity was closed. Communists and their families were leaving Hungary illegally, by forged documents. My father refused to go without us. Perhaps, it was for the better since many of those who went to the USSR were sent to the GULAG 8 where most of them perished.

I remember the day, when my father’s sentence was over. There was a crowd of those who sympathized with him meeting him at the gate, though this was early morning. They carried him along the street. My mother and sister also came to meet him, but we could hardly fight through the crowd to come closer. Those people followed us as far as our house. We were infinitely happy to reunite. Papa told us a lot about his imprisonment, but avoided the subject of tortures to save us from pain for him. My mother told me about it, when I grew up. She said father was continuously beat during interrogations till he fainted. They beat him on his head and vitally important parts of body where it was the most painful. They threatened him of arresting and torturing his family, if he didn’t answer their questions and this was the harder for him than not answering their questions. 

I was always a quiet and obedient child while my sister was very lively and my parents used to say she was supposed to have been born a boy.  Mama and grandma often slapped her, but my father after what he had to go through at interrogations gave a vow that he would never raise his hand to hit one person and he never did.  When my sister did something wrong, he made her sit beside him and said: ‘You deserve a good flogging, so imagine you’ve had one from me’. My sister used to sob a while after this. My father had to make his appearance in the police office three times a week for them to make sure that he had not escaped. In 1939 my father got a job in a company in Budapest. I don’t know what kind of company this was or what he was doing at work. Before his arrest he worked in Budapest on weekdays and returned home on weekends, but afterward he was to come to the police office on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. My father kept his job in Budapest, but he could not stay there a whole week and returned home on Friday. Of course, my sister and I were very happy about it.

Since 1939 grandma Amalia began to spend less time in Kosice. My father insisted that grandma lived with us, but my grandmother had solid principles. When she visited us, she never had anything to eat or even a cup of tea or coffee. Grandma knew that my mother did not follow kashrut and for this reason she did not eat anything. She spent more and more time with her daughter Etelka in Uzhgorod. Etelka and her husband were very religious and followed kashrut and Jewish traditions. My grandmother prayed few times a day. Religion was the most important part of her life. I still remember something that struck me once. When my father was released from prison, my grandmother was in Uzhgorod. 2-3 days after he returned home my father said he hadn’t seen his mother for a long time and would go to visit her. He rushed in his car to Uzhgorod.  Then my father told my mother that when he came there he rushed into the room where my grandmother was praying, but she put her finger to her lips showing him to stop distracting her. And she only came to hug her son whom she hadn’t seen for over 7 months after she finished praying. My father was so hurt that he had tears in his eyes. In 1941my grandmother went to live with her daughter in Uzhgorod. Her son Armin to avoid service in the army, or it would be more correct to say – work battalion since Jews were not taken to regular army troops, also lived with grandmother in Uzhgorod since 1943. Jews, gypsy and communists were recruited to work battalions. They did not have weapons or wear military uniforms. They wore their own clothes and had yellow armbands. Work battalions were digging trenches for the frontlines troops. They were actually easy targets at the front line. However, the Soviets somehow got to know who they were and did not fire at them. [Editor’s note: Most of the time the Soviets did not distinguished between regular Hungarian soldiers and members of the work battalion. Oftentimes they were treated as Hungarian POWs when falling captive.]

When the war with the Soviet Union began 9, my father was arrested again in July 1941 and taken to the Hungarian prison in the mountains near Garany town, in the former mansion of an Austrian lord. This area belonged to Slovakia before 1938. When Hungarians came to power, the owner of this mansion moved to Austria and his castle was converted into a prison. All prisoners were kept for political charges. My father became the leader of all prisoners. He prisoners had to cook and do all maintenance duties in the jail.  My father organized courses and hobby clubs for prisoners.  My father generated lists of attendants and also, made cleaning and cooking plans.  He learned to cook in this camp. There was also a good library in the mansion and prisoners could use it. Relatives were allowed to visit twice a month. Two relatives could visit 2-3 days. My mother went there to visit my father and took either my sister or me with her. We rented a room from local farmers. My father made arrangements with the management of the camp for prisoners to be allowed to take some time off the camp to meet with their relatives. There were strict rules about the exact time for all of them to return to the camp. My father asked my mother to bring grandmother Amalia to see him, but my grandmother never came to see him. For her it was out of the question to stay in a goy’s house and eat non-kosher food. My father was kept in the Garany prison for a year. In late 1942 it was closed and Jews were taken to work battalions while Jewish communists were sent to penal battalions to go to the frontline. They were to wear yellow armbands with a 10 cm in diameter black circle on it. The work battalion where my father was taken was following the frontline with Hungarian and German troops in the eastern direction. After defeat of Germans near Stalingrad they turned to go in the opposite direction, from east to west. My father kept thinking about how to cross the frontline and surrender to the Red Army. He organized a group of 50 people and managed to accomplish their well-considered plan near Zhytomyr. It’s scaring to think what might have happened to them since the USSR did not trust deserters believing they were spies, but my father and his comrades were lucky. There was a Jewish communist, who lived in Hungary and emigrated to the USSR in the end of 1930th in the Red Army troop where they happened to get. He knew about my father’s underground work in the communist organization in Kosice. He guaranteed for my father’s trustworthiness.  This group formed a group of prisoners-of-war following the Red Army troops liberating Ukraine.  My father proved to be good at having a brigade under his command.  The brigade consisted of Hungarians and Hungarian Jews. One of the commanders of a military division where they happened to come knew my father, and also considering that my father was a communist, this man appointed my father to command over this unit of the newcomers. This man also helped my father to improve his Russian, but at the very start this man translated my father’s commanders’ orders from Russian into Hungarian for my father to understand and follow them. My father was promoted to the rank of an officer and moved with the troops as far as the Carpathians. When they were near Uzhgorod, the military were inoculated and they must have injected some infection in my father. He fell gravely ill. He developed abscess. My father was taken to a hospital in Uzhgorod. My father’s comrades were working in the communist department in Uzhgorod and my father began to assist them even when he was in hospital. At their request my father was demobilized to establish the soviet power in Subcarpathia. He became 2nd secretary of the town party committee in 1945. We reunited with my father after the war.

One of anti-Jewish laws did not allow Jews to own stores, factories or anything that generated profit.  They were supposed to give away their property or the state confiscated it. Many Jews fictitiously sold their property to non-Jewish owners, but actually things did not change. Or they entered into agreement of common ownership and became ‘partners’. By late 1944 many Hungarians took advantage of such agreements and took over the new property. There were also honest Hungarians, who returned Jews their property after the war. My father’s brothers lost their property. My father’s brother Jeno was working for the new owner of his former store. My father’s brother Mor, when suppression of Jews began in Hungary, sold his store and moved to Presov in Slovakia where our relatives lived. One of my grandfather sister Relka’s sons Albert was a talented artist. In the late 1930s he moved to USA with his family. Relka’s other son Alexander was a communist. In 1939 he was recruited to the Hungarian army, but escaped to the USSR.  Unfortunately, he became victim like many other young people who believed the USSR to be their ideal. He was sent to the GULAG where he perished. After the war his fiancé Bozena searched for him. She found our family and my father began to look for Alexander. Of course, it was dangerous to search for a turncoat that was surely believed to have been a spy, but these considerations did not stop my father. He kept writing letters and requests, but never got a clear answer from them. Official authorities notified my father that Alexander Bergman was not on the lists of prisoners in the camps. So, we never got any information about him.

In 1936 I went to the first form of a Czech primary school. During Hungarian rule this school became a Hungarian one and I studied 2 of 4 years in the Hungarian school. I had all excellent marks at school and was allowed to go to a grammar school after the 4th form. For the rest of pupils could go to grammar school after the 5th form. I finished primary school in 1940. My father was in prison at that time. My mother sister’s husband Andras took me for an interview to the Hungarian grammar school for girls. There were restrictions already: only 2 Jewish girls were allowed for a class. My interview was successful and I was admitted to the first form. Few teachers were members of the Hungarian fascist party. They got to know that my father was a communist and was in prison. They kept finding faults with me and it caused me much distress. However, I did well at school. We had exams in summer. I remember the one in geography in early June 1941. There was an examination panel and its chairman was a teacher of mathematic, the most ardent fascist at school. As soon as I started answering she interrupted me with the question: ‘Tell me where do our and the heroic German troops fight at the front’. I knew how fast Germans were moving in the direction of Moscow and this was bitter for those who sympathized with the USSR. I pretended to be naïve and said that I didn’t know and could not be interested. The teacher shamed me for not knowing about the glorious victories of our and the German troops. My class tutor, a German teacher, who liked me came to my rescue. She asked me to goon answering my examination question. I sighed with relief, but I could never forget about this exam.  I also remember how unfair this teacher of mathematic was to me. Though I knew mathematics the best she never gave me an ‘excellent’ mark. I had the only ‘good’ mark in her subject. I remember dreaming about how I would take my revenge when the war was over. We were all sure that the USSR would win. There was one more Jewish girl in my class. We faced no anti-Semitism. My life would have been cloudless in the grammar school if it hadn’t been for me being the daughter of a communist.

After my father was arrested again, there were four of us living together: my mother, my sister, grandmother Berta and I. My mother never went to work. My father’s earnings were sufficient, though he gave away a significant portion of it for the party needs: for the newspaper, assistance to unemployed members of the party, immigrants, etc. I don’t know how we managed through four years that my father was away. I only remember that the owner of my father’s company in Budapest paid my father’s salary to uncle Izidor, who probably did my father’s job. He brought my mother this money. We had everything we needed. My mother regularly sent food parcels to my father every week.

In February-March 1943 Slovakian fascists began to persecute Jews. My father’s brother Mor decided to leave Presov for Kosice. Many Jewish families were leaving Slovakia for Hungary. Somebody reported to the police that Mor was coming back. They told Izidor, the oldest of the brothers, that if one member of the Edelmann family crossed the border, they would arrest the whole family in Kosice. Mor only got to know this after he moved to Kosice with his wife and two daughters and they settled down at my grandmother’s. Mor went to the police office the following day and told them he came on his own will and asked them to leave his family alone. They never let him go from there. On the same day they arrested his wife and children. They were taken out of town and killed.

The situation with Jews in Kosice grew worse in the middle of 1943, when Germans were losing their positions in Stalingrad. Hungarian introduced many restrictions for Jews. [Editor’s note: Mass persecutions started as late as after March 19th 1944, when Germany invaded Hungary.] Since 1944 all Jews had to wear 10-cm hexagonal yellow star on their chests. I went to school with this star, though it didn’t last long. The academic year was reduced due to the wartime. In the middle of April the school closed for vacations. Jews were not allowed to come to public places or leave their homes after dusk.

In April [19th] 1944 10 German troops occupied Hungary, though Hungarian fascists started outraging even before. I shall never forget the first evening on Pesach 1944. There was a synagogue across the street from our house where Jews got together for a prayer. All of a sudden we heard screams from the synagogue, curses and anti-Semitic shouts. This was a pogrom in the synagogue made by Hungarian fascists. During the war there were back-outs on the windows in all houses. My mother lost her temper, turned off the lights, open the window and began to shame the young people telling them to stop this disgrace. She didn’t look like a Jewish woman and they were just laughing in her face, but did her no harm. My sister, grandmother and I sat in the corner of our children’s room trembling of fear. The rascals pulled some older Jews by their payes and went away. In the morning we saw that all windows in the synagogue were broken and heard the rabbi’s wife and children crying. Then German officers and soldiers came to Kosice. They ordered wealthy Jews to come to the central square and told them to give their money and valuables to the German army voluntarily, and if they did not obey they would force them to do so and arrest them. Later Germans gathered Jews in the ghetto at the brick factory in Kosice. So the old couples, the owners of our house were arrested. There were air raids. Or house was near the railway station that was bombed most frequently. Germans also began to arrest communists and their families. We were scared. My mother was told that we had to stay elsewhere, but not at home. We separated: grandmother Berta and I stayed with my grandfather’s sister Relka, and as for my mother and sister, only Liza, my father’s cousin brother Nandor’s wife, knew. Nandor died after an unsuccessful surgery in 1942. Liza and her two sons lived on the 3rd floor in the house in the end of our street.  Liza was watching our house, when we were not at home and in case of danger was to notify us to stay away from coming home.

On 16 April 1944, on Friday, my grandmother decided to go home to clean the apartment before my mother and sister came home. We always cleaned the house on Friday. I stayed with aunt Relka. At that moment aunt Liza saw a car stop by our house. Few German officers went into the house.  Liza went to tell my mother about what was going on. My grandmother came into the house. The Germans were searching the house. They showed grandma my parents’ photograph called them ‘Kommunisten’, and asked where my mother was. My grandmother got very scared. Since she didn’t know where my mother was they let her go and she returned to aunt Relka’s home. A photographer, my father’s acquaintance, gave us shelter in his laboratory. We didn’t have any clothes. Liza found out that Germans left the house before night. My mother’s sister Izabella was in her 7th month of pregnancy. She took two big bags and went to our house. She grabbed few photographs, some clothes and left the house.

At that time my father’s cousin Ondrej Edelmann, whom everybody called Erno [Ondrej is the Czech name, this is how he was registered in his documents, Erno is the Hungarian name, the language they used in the family.], grandpa’s brother Sandor’s brother, came from Czechoslovakia. He was a last-year student of the Medical College in Prague. He had secretly crossed the border. Erno lived through a tragedy. He had a fiancé, a daughter of poor Jews, who already worked as a teacher at the age of 19.  They were going to get married after Erno finished his college, but this was not to be. In 1941 Hitler ordered to take all Jewish girls to work in Germany.  Young girls were getting married in emergency to avoid this disaster. Erno and Anna also got married, but the order for Anna to go to Germany was signed before they registered their marriage. Anna was sent to Germany. Poor Erno almost lost his mind, when this happened. He wrote Hitler asking to send back his young wife, but surely he got no reply. Later he got to know that Anna was pregnant. She died at birth and so did the baby. When Erno got to know that all Jews were to be taken to concentration camps from Hungary, he decided to spend his money to save his relatives taking them to Czechoslovakia. [Czechoslovakia was dismembered in 1938. The interviewee is here refereeing to Slovakia.] It was decided that Erno and I would be the first to go to Slovakia. We had to decide about grandmother Berta. We had to cover 20 km in the mountains to get to Slovakia and my grandma could not do this with her unhealthy legs. My grandmother firmly said she was not going to hideaway and would be with other Jews. Very soon all Jews, and my grandmother too, were taken to the ghetto at the brick factory on the outskirts of Kosice. In late April they began to be taken to concentration camps where they were sorted out. The younger and stronger ones were taken to work. They lived in barracks with inhuman conditions. Old people and children were burnt in crematoria. My grandmothers and many relatives perished there. My mother, my sister and Erno on the evening of 22 April 1944 removed yellow stars from our clothing and went to a village near Kosice where a guide was waiting for us to take us across the border. This was the night of 22 April, full of danger. The first risk was when we went across the town. At first everything was all right, but then we saw my sister’s former teacher and his wife. He was wearing the uniform of a lieutenant of the Hungarian army. Of course, he recognized us. My mother was sure he would call the police, but there are decent people in this world. He greeted my mother politely, gave my sister and me a wink and moved on. When we came to the guide, Erno gave us some Slovakian money and went back to  Kosice to take another group next night. 

We stayed till dark in the guide’s house without turning on the lights. The guide, his two brothers and sister, who spoke fluent Slovakian, came at midnight. We went a long way across the woods in the mountains. 3 hours later we stopped in a nice valley.  The guide told us to stay there till morning, when we had to get to the railway station nearby. It was cold and the men made a fire. We had sandwiches. We tried to get a nap, but it was cold and we were worried, so we stayed wide awake.  At dawn we saw a nice river in the valley, and got to the station along the rail tracks. My mother gave our companions money to buy tickets. When we were alone, a tall man in the hunter’s outfit, with a rifle over his shoulder approached us. He said he knew my mother from Kosice and advised us to get in another carriage than our companions. He said they had typical Jewish appearance and this might attract the gendarmes’ attention, but speaking good Slovakian, they would manage while for us it might be worse since Slovakian gendarmes were capturing those who crossed the border illegally. We did as he told us. It happened to be true. Gendarmes approached our companions demanding their documents and left them alone afterward. We were close to Presov, when the tall hunter told us to get off the train and walk to the town since there were many gendarmes at the station. We agreed with our companions to meet near the railway station square. They were to take us to the house where my father’s cousin Terez, daughter of Anna Hertz, and her husband lived. They were aware that we were coming and were to give us forged documents.  Everything went all right. Our relatives welcomed us and we could take a rest. On the following day our documents were ready. According to the legend, my mother was a widow of landlord Vitalishov from near Presov, and we were going to the Tatra Mountains since I had tuberculosis and had to breathe fresh air in the mountains. My sister and I had chains with crosses on our necks to prove our Christian origin. A week later, on 1 May 1944, Erno joined us. We didn’t recognize him. He colored his hair to become fair and grew a beard and moustache. Erno told us he only managed to take one more group relatives across the border before Hungarian gendarmes started looking for him. Probably someone reported on him and why he was in the town. We took a train to a resort on a mountain in the Tatras. There were posh hotels for wealthiest people on the bank of a lake. At the bottom of the hill there was a small village where railroad people lived. There were also few inexpensive and cozy recreation centers. There was a cable way from the station to the lake. It didn’t function since there were no tourists. We chose this place to be our escape. Erno rented a room on the 2nd floor in one recreation center. Downstairs the manager, his wife and their four children lived.  In the morning and evening my mother boiled some milk in their kitchen and in the afternoon we had lunch at the restaurant on the station. They served good meals. My mother and I spoke German to the owner, and my sister, who didn’t know a word in German or Slovakian, was ordered to keep silent pretending she was mute and deaf. Before 1938, when Hungarians came to power in the country, my sister didn’t go to school, stayed at home and spent time with us and our parents friends’ children. We spoke Hungarian at home and so did our friends, and my sister could only speak even a few words in Slovakian. Once a gendarme from a nearby village visited the area. He came to see us. My mother explained to him in poor Slovakian that she was German, but her husband was Slovakian, that I was ill and she took my sister and me there to improve our health.   The gendarme was satisfied with this story. There were few other Jewish families staying in the village and we met them. They were from Slovakia and this was good. In case we had to escape they knew where we might go. Erno visited us twice bringing us some money. We played with the children of the manager and picked Slovakian rather fast. Every other day we went to take milk at a farm in 2 km from the recreation center. These were lovely strolls. Days, weeks and months went by... In July a group of Hitler jugend boys, 10 Germans, came to stay in the neighboring recreation center for recreation and military training. Hitlerjugend boys were sent to Slovakia where they could have military training and rest. They marched in the morning and in the evening singing fascists songs. They also shouted patriotic slogans and trained shooting on the training ground. They were not allowed to have any contacts with the locals, but we were still of them anyway. 

In early September we got to know that Germans started occupation of Slovakia. Our acquaintances decided to leave the place. We decided to join them. There were 3 other families, but only two men, with us. Hey found a place in the mountains and took a train carriage there. It arrived at the dead end where there was a small village. There was a windmill right by the station. We were starved and my mother went to the mill to buy a little flour. Our chains with crosses helped us there. The miller’s wife felt sorry for us. She gave us food and sold some flour and bread. She thought we were Catholics and said she hated Jews and would never help one.

We stayed in a poor house whose owner was at the front. His wife had few children and was pregnant.  They had a cow and the landlady gave us some milk every day. A short time later she started labor and my mother acted as a midwife. I remember how stunned my mother was that the woman got up on the same day to milk the cow and work in the garden. It was getting colder and we didn’t have warm clothes. My mother went to the village store to buy some clothes. She bought us nice gray and black boots and some clothes. The men from other Jewish families were thinking where we could escape, if Germans came to this distant village. They discovered a path that led them to two houses where foresters with their families lived. They told the men that there was a partisan unit nearby and that partisans would mobilize men to their unit. There was one Jewish families staying in one of these houses: a husband, a wife and two adult sons. The foresters promised to give us shelter for a certain fee. They mentioned that the men would still have to hide from partisans unless they wanted to join them. The men didn’t want this to happen. Nobody knew, which was worse: to be captured by Germans or partisans.

In early October we heard that Germans were coming to the village. We went to the foresters’ houses. My sister and I liked staying there. It was still warm and there were many berries and mushrooms, particularly blackberries. We picked them and ate as much as we could. Our mother cooked mushrooms. The men were hiding in a shed in the daytime. Our mother and we had nobody to fear. One forester had a radio and we listened to news.  When we heard that a part of Slovakia was liberated, we rushed to Brezno by train. From there we went to Banska Bystrica. The town celebrated liberation and there were crowds of people in the streets. We went to our relatives. Erno, his sister Magda and many relatives, whom Erno rescued, got together in his house. We met with Adolf, uncle Izodor’s son, my cousin. We, children went to see the Soviet movie ‘6 am after the war’. It was in Russian and there was no translation, but we understood what it was about. It was a very touching movie. Next day we heard that one of the communist leaders of liberation of Czechoslovakia came to Banska Bystrica. I don’t remember his name, but my mother knew him well. He used to work with my father and often visited us at home in Kosice. He told my mother that Germans were bellicose about coming back to Slovakia and that my mother had to take a train to the town where this officer’s unit was deployed. He wrote a letter for him to give us shelter in case Germans came back. He also comforted my mother by saying that the war was to be over soon and we would survive. I remember that we waited for my mother standing in an entrance of a building while she had this meeting. My mother came back in tears: we had to get wandering again.  Erno was thinking how to help the family. He divided all relatives in groups. All of us had to go to the mountains and stay in earth huts or with partisans till the end of the war.  Erno read the letter m mother had and approved it. He also gave us the address of one of former customers of his father. He lived in a village half way from the place we were heading to. We took a train and moved on. When we were in about 5 km from the place of departure we heard that there were Germans in the place we were heading to. We went to the man Erno told us to go to. When he heard who we were he offered his help. His son had contacts with partisans. He had just got married and was hiding with his wife in the woods. My mother and other women of this family were baking bread for the road all night through. Early in the morning our group – there were about 10 people – started on our way.  My mother was carrying a heavy bag with our food stocks and clothes. She had tears of exhaustion and despair in her eyes, but to comfort us she tried to smile to us. We made short stops to rest before we continued climbing higher in the mountains. In the evening we reached two earth huts that were carefully camouflaged for outsiders not to discover them. There were 10-12 tenants in each hut located at 100 m from one another. There was a plank bed about 1 m above the floor with straw on it that made our ‘bedroom’. There was a small stove with a smoke stack with its exhaust end outside. There was a toilet – a plank over a pit in the snow – between two pine trees near the hut. We also melted snow for water. We used a helmet as a wash basin. It was late October 1944, and we could never believe that we would have to stay there as long as March 1945, i.e., five months. 

There was Mark, a Czech man, his young Jewish wife Sonia, their 6-month old son and Sonia’s mother living with us in the hut. My mother happened to know Sonia’s mother. Her husband Grunwald, a communist often visited Kosice on party business during the rule of Czechoslovakia before 1938, and knew my mother and father. Before 1939 Grunwald left his wife and daughter, crossed the border to the USSR, was kept in a camp two years, and then was sent to Moscow to take the responsibility for a radio program in Slovakian. Then he was mobilized to the Red Army, became an officer and married a Russian doctor. After the war Grunwald and his wife came to his homeland looking for his first family. My mother felt sorry for Sonia’s mother. In 1941, when Jewish girls were forced to go to Germany, she arranged for her 15-year old daughter Sonia to marry a Czech engineer, who worked in a mine. He was about 15 years older than Sonia. At first there was no love between them, but when they got to know each other better living in one apartment, they consummated their marriage. They had a lovely boy, whom we all loved. Sonia didn’t have breast milk, and Mark and other men went to buy milk and other food products in the village twice a week. They froze milk for the baby in the snow. We cooked peas, beans and sometimes baked potatoes, if we managed to get some from farmers. There was Kellerman, a 19-year old guy with us in the hut. He had a long nose and black bulging eyes. He was always hungry like my sister, and mad at the rest of the world. I remember the day, when my mother had to cut my wonderful long hair since we could not keep them clean considering our living conditions.  In another hut there were Jews and the newly married couple of farmers, who had brought us there.  There was a house nearby. It was probably a former forester’s house, but now there were partisans accommodating in it. They never left it to fight against Germans. They enjoyed themselves eating and drinking, listening to the radio and waiting for the war to come to an end. They didn’t take one effort to expedite this end.  Our men found a shelter in a rock nearby in case Germans discovered us. We used it several times, when Hungarian soldiers came close to our huts. They spoke Hungarian and we understood them and could talk to them. By the end of 1944 mainly Hungarian troops, faithful allies of Hitler, fought in Slovakia. They were even more formidable than German fascists. [editor’s note: The Hungarian army did not enter the Slovak state in World War II. The soldiers were either not Hungarian or it took place in Hungarian territory, possibly in Southern Slovakia attached to Hungary as early as 1938.] We established security guards to watch the locality and inform us of danger, if there was any, but Hungarians never came up to the mountains this far.

One day in January we got terribly scared. When we went to bed, we heard shooting above us. We froze of fear, but then it turned out those were our neighbors shooting to salute the liberation of  Kosice. They knew we came from Kosice and wanted to greet us. We invited them to the hut, they brought some wine with them, and we celebrated this wonderful event with tears in our eyes. It was more and more difficult for our men to descend from the mountains looking for food. The Hungarian troops were in rage executing partisans and the locals, who, they suspected, had contacts thereof. By end of February we ran out of food stocks and had no food whatsoever for our baby boy, who was 10 months old. His father and grandmother had to take a desperate step. Madam Grunwald spoke fluent Hungarian. She wanted to ask Hungarian troopers to give some food for her grandson or allow her to take him down to the village. Her son-in-law accompanied her. Since he didn’t speak one word in Hungarian, he hid away to watch her. He saw her talking to a Hungarian officer, saw how soldiers tied her and took her to a house.  He kept watching the house at night. In the morning the unfortunate woman was taken to the center of the village, she had a plank with “This is what will happen to all those who help partisans!’ in Slovakian and Hungarian. There were signs of beating on her skin. The Hungarians made all residents of the village watch her execution. Her son-in-law watch it. She was on the gibbet for a whole week and nobody was allowed to take her down. Poor Mark returned to our hut half-dead. He had to tell Sonia everything. We bitterly mourned the poor grandma, who sacrificed her life to rescue her grandson. 

In early March we saw that the house where the partisans used to be was deserted. They left  without warning us or leaving any food or the radio. By that time there were three polish Jewish refugees with us. They said that this part of Slovakia was liberated by the Romanian troops that were on the side of the USSR. These Polish Jews decided to move towards their liberators and save their lives by crossing the front line. They were sorry for Mark’s family and agreed to take Mark and Sonia with them. Many years later we got to know that they had survived. Sonia met with her father, divorced Mark and left with her father and son.

We had to make a decision as well. We didn’t have any food and didn’t want to starve to death at the very end of the war. There was a group of 13 of us led by the young newly wed farmer, who had a compass and some food left. In early March 1945 we moved in the eastern direction across the mountains. We were hoping to cross the front line. We walked 6 days. There were two women with us: our ‘commander’s’ mother and his young wife, the rest were men in our group. It was still cold in the mountains. There was waist-deep snow. We walked at night since we were afraid of being noticed in the daytime. We could see the road with German and Hungarian armies retreating. We managed to cross it on the third night. During the day we tried to rest a little digging pits in the snow to sleep in them. Once we bumped into a tent on four posts. There was a little straw inside.  We even dared to make a small fire and boil some water. On the first night my mother, sister and I lost the group. My sister got tired and we stopped. E were scared to be on our own, but the men noticed that we got lost and came back looking for us. The fourth day was the most difficult and scary. We crossed the road and started climbing the mountains on the opposite side of the road. We had to cross a mountainous river, wide and quick, but shallow. We had to cross it before the dawn. The men decided to carry the women and children across the river. My sister was the youngest in the group. She was 10 years old. The oldest man had to carry her across the river. I think he must have been about 45, but then he seemed an old man to me. I was the first one to be taken across the river. Then came a man with my mother on his back and beside him was this old man with my sister on his back. In the middle of the river he stumbled and my sister fell into the ice-cold water. When my mother saw it, she dropped her bag with our documents and money into the water. The bag was gone. My sister crawled out of the water onto the opposite bank. Her hands covered with ice crust instantly. Her feet in the boots were wet knee-high. She sat by a tree and said she had to sleep a while before she could move on. The rest of the group was climbing the mountain. They had to come onto another side of it before full dawn. My sister began to freeze. She closed her eyes and was falling asleep. My mother and I were shaking her by her shoulders begging her to hold on. At this time we saw two figures dressed in white climbing down the hill. My mother said this was the end, they were Germans and since we had lost our documents we would not be able to prove that we were not Jews or partisans. However, they were two men from our group. One of them poured a little alcohol and put a slice of pork fat into Kati’s mouth, and another man began to hit Kati with a stick making her walk. My sister obeyed and went on. When we climbed the top of this hill, we saw that the others from our group made a fire. They took my sister closer to the fire, pulled off her boots and stockings and began to rub her hands and feet with snow. When they got warmer, they wrapped my sister in some cloth. A woman gave my sister her valenki boots [winter boots made from sheep felt wool] and borrowed somebody else’s extra boots for herself. These valenki boots saved my sister’s life, and we shall never forget this young woman’s kindness. We fell asleep. I can hardly remember the next day. My sister’s legs were aching, and my mother or one of the men had to carry her. She also had to walk at times. The men gave her a stick to walk with us. By the evening of the sixth day we saw a wonderful house in the forest. It was empty. There was wood in the yard. We got into the house, cooked whatever beans we had and were happy to have a roof over our heads.  We went to sleep. Our leader ordered few men to investigate the situation in nearby settlements. The rest of the men took turns to guard our sleep. Early in the morning our guard saw a man and a woman nearby. They said that there was a village in about 4 km from our place. Romanian and German troops were fighting for it. There was a village in 8 km from there that was already liberated. We decided to go to this village. There was a road nearby and we saw German and Romanian troops moving along it.  My mother saw an older Russian soldier following his wagon and smoking. She suffered from lack of cigarettes and approached him. By her greedy look he knew what she wanted and offered her a self-made cigarette. My mother almost got suffocated from strong tobacco particularly that she hadn’t smoked for so long. The old soldier saw my sister limping and put her on his wagon and we took to our journey. We arrived at a village. There were mainly Romanian soldiers and officers in it. The Russian soldier took us to the military commandant, who accommodated us in a house.  The owners of the house gave us some food, then we washed ourselves and went to sleep on the floor.  In the morning my mother went to see the commandant again. She told him about us and he arranged for us to go to the Soviet military hospital in Miskolc on one of his trucks. The driver dropped us in the town. We felt more at ease there. It was a Hungarian town where we could understand the language and explain what we needed. We went to the nearest snack bar. My mother said we had no money, but we were starved and needed a place to stay. The owner said there was a Jewish community functioning in the town. We went to its office. It was overcrowded, but one man offered us a place to stay and promised to help us. His family perished in a concentration camp. His  housemaid stayed in his apartment during the war. There was a Soviet captain, a Jew, in this office. He was director of the macaroni factory. He told my mother to wait for him and brought us a big bag of macaroni. Our new landlord took us to his apartment. There were few girls, who had returned from a concentration camp, staying in his apartment. He let us his bedroom with two nice beds. We heated a big barrel of water to wash ourselves. We had veal stew with macaroni for dinner, but we were told to eat slowly and just a little. For the first time in a long time we fell asleep in a real bed. In the morning my mother carried my sister to the hospital where they amputated my sister’s toe. The doctors told my mother to bring her to the hospital to change a bandage every day.  One day my mother met our family dentist and his daughter. He told us that they survived in the basement of a house, whose owner supported them. He was eager to go to Kosice to find out about the rest of the family. He offered my mother to come with him and my mother was infinitely happy with his company. We finally got to our house. The windows were broken and it was empty inside. There was light in the neighboring apartment coming from behind the blackouts. My mother rang the bell to this apartment. We recognized the janitor from a neighboring house in the woman who opened the door. Her family lived in the basement of the house. She recognized my mother and let her in. Through the open door my mother saw few pieces of our furniture, our blankets and pillows, bed sheets with my mother’s monograms on them embroidered by a craftswoman for my mother’s wedding. The janitor was rather confused. She said she saved some of our belongings from Germans and would return them. However, this did not make us happy. The janitor said that our father had come by the night before. She told him she hadn’t seen us and he went to Izabella without even coming into the house. We went to Izabella’s house, when it got dark. My mother knocked on a window. A minute later we were hugging our dearest Izabella. Izabella was struck with how we looked. We had all possible clothes on since it was cold. My mother was wrapped in some blanket shreds. Our clothes were dirty, torn and smelly. Izabella heated some water and put my sister and me in the bathtub with hot water. Izabella burnt everything we had on in the oven. After we got washed we put on our aunts’ pajamas, big, but homey and clean. When the bathtub was being filled for mama, the doorbell rang. What happened was that my father had really returned to Kosice the night before. The town party committee organized a banquet in his honor and now he returned from it. Izabella went to open the door to prepare my father to the surprise waiting for him, but my sister and I couldn’t wait and threw ourselves on this tall lean man in a military uniform. While kissing us his eyes were searching for his beloved wife whom he hadn’t seen in three years.  When this strong and brave man, who had come through so many ordeals in recent years saw our mother, he couldn’t stand the test of joy and fainted. My sister looked at him with horror and screamed: “Papa died!’ He recovered his senses from her screaming. Izabella took us to the bedroom where her children were sleeping: my 8-year old cousin Gabor and his 8-months old  sister Marina. My aunt put us to sleep in one bed and went to sleep on another and we fell asleep. One hours later I got high fever and began to talk deliriously. My screams woke Izabella and she gave me pills and applied compresses all night through. In the morning a doctor came and said this was a nervous breakdown. He prescribed me a sedative. Our father told us how he came to Kosice from Uzhgorod. He was secretary of the regional party committee in Uzhgorod. He got a letter from his niece Judit, Izodor’s daughter, who returned to Kosice from a concentration camp and met with her fiancé. Her parents perished in the concentration camp and since she hadn’t reached the age of 18, her marriage could only be registered at her parents’ consent. Judit asked my father to give his consent to her marriage and this was how my father came to Kosice. He got a 3-week leave and had a car to take him to Kosice. My father adopted Judit, and young people got married soon.  We moved to Uzhgorod.           

There was a surprise waiting for us there. My father’s cousin Terez, grandfather brother Pal Edelmann’ daughter and her two friends, our distant relatives. They had all returned from a concentration camp. Some time later my father’s nephew Adolf joined us. His sisters Livia and Judit lived in Prague. It was hard for them to raise their younger brother and they sent him to us. Adolf was like one of us in the family.

We also got information about other members of the family. Grandfather Pal’s widow Betti, her daughter Terez, and sons Emil and Jozsef were taken to Auschwitz in April 1944. Betti perished in a gas chamber, and the children were sent to a work camp. After liberation Terez returned to Kosice, got married and was manager of a canteen at school. She is 86 now. Emil also worked in a camp. After returning home he moved to Israel. He lived his life and died there. . His family lives in Israel. Jozsef returned to Kosice after the war. He died in the 1980s. Jozsef’s family was also taken to a concentration camp. Jozsef and his wife perished in the crematorium. Their children survived.  Laszlo moved to Australia in 1946, got married and owned a men’s garments’ factory. In late 1940s he helped his sisters Kato, Magda, Judit and Eva and their families to move to Australia. Laszlo has died, but his family and his sisters’ families live in Sydney. My grandfather’s sister Regina Berger, her husband and their son Simon also moved to Australia after returning from a concentration camp. Regina and her husband lived their life in Australia, died and were buried there. Their son Simon moved to Canada where he lives with his family. My father’s cousin brothers, my grandfather sister Pepka’s children, who were raised in my grandfather’s family, were in a concentration camp. Only the middle daughter Regina (her family name was Muller) returned to  Kosice. Aranka and Jeno perished in the camp. Vilmos, the son of Nandor, who died in 1942, survived. He told me that when his mother Liza, Vilmos and 7-year old Tamas arrived at Auschwitz, the sorting began. The younger son was taken to the group of inmates that were sent to a gas chamber. A German officer approached Liza and whispered into her ear, - Vilmos heard this discussion, - ‘Gnädige Frau! – that was how he addressed Liza, - I advise you to follow your older son. Liza replied that her son could take care of himself while her younger son couldn’t. The officer was convincing her telling her that the younger son would be taken care of and she would be able to see him, but Liza was inexorable. She took her younger son by his hand and went into the gas chamber with him. 14-year old Vilmos worked at a German plant. After the war he left for Israel, studied and became a lawyer. He changed his name to Zeev Singer. Since Israel was at war, Vilmos decided his place was in the army. He was promoted to the rank of colonel of the Israel army. He served in landing units and participated in all wars with Arabs. Vilmos was severely wounded, demobilized and worked as a lawyer in Tel Aviv. Zeev Singer is a national hero of Israel. He is a pensioner. He has two children and six grandchildren in Israel. My grandfather’s sister Betka Gerstl and her husband and children were also taken to a concentration camp. Betka and her husband Moric Gerstl were exterminated immediately. Betka’s daughter Ilona Zimmermann with her children and Betka’s sons Jeno and David perished in the concentration camp. Only her son Armin Gerstl survived and moved to Israel shortly after he returned. He has passed away. Mor Bergman, son of my father’s favorite aunt Relka, married a girl from Zvolen before Hungarians came to power and moved to his wife’s town. After 1938 Zvolen belonged to Slovakia and Kosice was Hungarian. When Jews began to be sent to Germany, Mor and his wife tried to cross the border and return to Kosice, but were captured and killed right there. Relka’s daughter Ilona stayed with her mother. They both perished in a concentration camp. My father sister Anna’s family, the Hertz family, was also taken to Auschwitz. Anna and her husband Moric were exterminated immediately. Of their 10 children only two survived: son Aladar; he lives in Frankfurt in Germany, and daughter Terez – she emigrated to Israel after the war. Terez has passed away. Her children live in Israel. Anna’s younger daughter Eszter also moved to Israel. She lives and works in a kibbutz. Sons Tibor, Marcel, Erno, Pal and Sandor and daughters Sarolta, Ilona and Edit and their families perished in the concentration camp. Grandfather’s youngest sister Etelka and her husband Jakab Blumenfeld and their younger children – son Erno and daughter Marta also perished in the concentration camp. Older daughters Edit (Gerstl in marriage) and Izabella (Kovartovski in marriage) were in a work camp and survived. After the war they moved to Israel. They’ve both passed away.  

My father’s brothers and sisters also suffered. The Hungarian police arrested Izodor and his wife Gizi in 1944 and charged them with concealment of Mor and his wife who had illegally crossed the border from Slovakia to Hungary escaping from the deportation. Izodor and his wife were put to prison.  In April 1944 Izodor and his wife Gizi  were taken to Buchenwald. According to eye witnesses Izodor behaved heroically in the camp. He went on hunger strikes and called other prisoners to disobey the oppressors. Izodor was executing with an electric wire and his wife was exterminated in a gas chamber. Their three children survived. Their older daughter Livia was a serious and smart girl. She wanted to become a doctor. She finished a grammar school in 1943. This was at the time of fascist Hungary and Livia could not get a higher education.  She finished a course of medical nurses in Budapest and went to work. She managed to avoid deportation to a concentration camp. Under a different name she went to work as a housemaid in a Czech village.   After the war Livia moved to Prague where her dream came true. She finished a Medical College and became a children’s doctor. She married a Czech man and had two daughters. Livia’s husband has passed away. She is a pensioner. Her daughters are married. Izodor’s second daughter Judit and her brother Adolf lived in the Tatras during German occupation where they stayed with other members of the Edelmann’s family. They were in the 2nd group that Erno managed to take out of Kosice after us. After the war Judit returned to Kosice. After my father adopted her and gave his consent to her marriage she got married at the age of 17 and had a daughter. Shortly afterward Judit divorced her husband, left for Prague with her daughter and remarried. She became a widow recently. Her daughter Julia moved to Australia in 1968 where she lives with her family. Adolf finished a secondary school and we both went to Leningrad where he graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of Leningrad University. He returned to Uzhgorod, finished a post-graduate institute. He was senior lecturer of the Faculty of Philosophy of Uzhgorod University. He got married and had two sons, Ilia and Andrey. When they grew up, they decided to move to Hungary. Adolf and his wife followed them there. They live in Szolnok. Adolf and his wife are pensioners. I believe Adolf to be my brother. We keep in touch writing letters, calling each other and visiting each other every now and then.

Jeno and his family was taken to Buchenwald. German executioners killed Jeno, and his wife Adel, sons Erno and Karoly and twin daughters Livia and Stella were burnt in the crematorium. 

My father sister Etelka’s family, grandmother Amalia and the youngest brother Armin were taken to Mauthausen. Only aunt Etelka survived. Grandmother and her two granddaughters Livia and Edit were burnt in the crematorium. Etelka’s husband and brother perished in the camp. According to eye-witnesses they died of typhoid. Etelka worked at a factory. In May 1945 Americans liberated her and she returned to Uzhgorod. It was hard to look at her: a young woman turned into an old one. She weighed 37 kg.  She lived with us in Uzhgood. My parents took every effort to bring her to recovery.

After the war

Only two of 7 families survived in the war: our family and my father brother Elemer’s family. Erno managed to take him, his wife, son Tamas and daughter Julia out of Kosice. They also took hiding in the woods living in an earth hut. After the war Terez divorced him and moved with their children to USA where her brother lived. Terez has passed away and Tamas and Julia and their families live in the States.  Elemer moved to Israel where he died at the age of 70.

My mother’s sister Izabella and her family stayed in Kosice. Her children and their families still live there. My cousin Gabor Tamm became a metallurgical engineer there. His younger sister Marina was an economist.  They are pensioners. We visit each other and talk on the phone.
When I went to Israel in 1989, I filled the forms and submitted the lists of the members of our family who perished during the war to the Yad Vashem 11 in Jerusalem.

My father received a wonderful 3-bedroom apartment. There were 6 of us living in it: our family, my cousin Adolf and aunt Etelka. My father became a secretary of the regional party committee.  In 1945 my father’s comrade Vinkler visited us. He was a member of the party like my father and was put in prison in 1940. When communists began to cross the border to the USSR, Vinkler went with them. He was arrested at the border and sent to thee GULAG where he spent two years. Then he was taken to Moscow where he was made responsible for a radio program in Hungarian. He worked there during the war, and in 1945 he decided to return to Kosice. On his way home he visited Uzhgorod to see my father. My father and mother were on vacation in a recreation center. Vinkler asked me to send them a message to come back home. Vinkler understood that life in the USSR was hard and it wasn’t worth staying here, but he couldn’t talk about it with me. When I told my father, he said: ‘I’ve fought for the Soviet power and want to live where the Soviet power is. I’ve had enough of fighting’. My mother, though she was a communist, understood very soon what was going on and often spoke very emotionally about it. I think, in his heart, my father agreed with her, but he always told mother that this was the fault of some people, but not the regime. My father rarely criticized some officials, but if somebody in his presence expressed his concerns about the Soviet power, my father always spoke in its favor. Some people did it from fear: many people were afraid of speaking their mind in fear of arrests 12 that went on in the USSR. However, my father was a very brave man. When the Soviet power was established in Subcarpathia, they began to arrest the Hungarian officials for the charges of their service for fascists. They were innocent, but they were to go to prison anyway. In 1945 my father saved many of these people. He saved Laszlo Sandor, a free lance employee of the ‘Mai Nap’ newspaper, from the camp where he was taken just for being a Hungarian, which meant fascist for them. My father witnessed that Sandor had always sympathized with communists. There were other similar cases. Of course, later I realized that my father could not have kept his belief in communist ideas living in the USSR. He got disappointed and acknowledged it and suffered from it very much.

My father didn’t work as secretary of the regional party committee for long. I understood later that they could not allow a Jew to hold this kind of position. My father was appointed logistics manager of the regional executive committee [Ispolkom] 13. He supported construction of two bridges in Uzhgorod: pedestrian and automobile. He was a born administrator and manager. However, in the opinion of authorities, a Jew was no good even for this position. There were two big plants in Uzhgorod: woodworking plant and plywood and furniture plant. Their directors were not very competent and the plants were in decay. Town authorities united these plants and appointed my father director. He was dedicated to his job, and soon the enterprise began to prosper. After the campaign against cosmopolites 14 during the postwar years, anti-Semitism in the USSR was growing stronger, and again danger hanged over my father.

In 1946 my aunt Etelka living with us after she returned from the concentration camp, married Ignac Bergida, who had also lost his family to the war. He lived in Uzhgorod before the war. He liked Etelka even then. His first marriage was prearranged. He was a decent, kind and honest man. He was an accountant. When my father became director of the plant, he employed Bergida. In 1947 Bergida and Etelka’s daughter Vera was born. In 1945 the soviet regime began to struggle against religion 15. Most Jews in Subcarpathia were religious. All synagogue were closed in Uzhgorod. The biggest – the Hasidic – synagogue was given to the town Philharmonic. The Jewish community decided to send their representative to the Jewish Antifascist Committee 16 in Moscow for help. Bergida was not an activist in the community, but he was the only one who could speak Russian.  Ukrainian Ivan Turianitza, the first secretary of the regional party committee, my father’s close friend, issued a letter to Fefer, a member of the Committee, requesting him to support the community. Bergida went to Moscow. Shortly after he returned, the Antifascist Committee was liquidated and its members executed. The KGB 17 was aware of Bergida’s trip to Moscow. He was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in the GULAG. The charges against him were treason and support of international Zionism and capitalism. This was nonsense and was not true, but at the beginning even my father believed he was guilty, so strong the Soviet propaganda was. However, my father was Bergida’s relative.  Somebody reported that my father went to the synagogue and for this reason refused to work on Saturday. This was wrong, of course: my father was an atheist even when religion was the way of life. KGB officers followed my father looking for a ground to arrest him. Stalin’s death on 5 March 1953 saved my father from arrest. Bergida’s sentence was reduced to 10 years. He had cancer at that time, and they released him from the GULAG. He died in 1956 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Uzhgorod. My parents supported Etelka and her daughter. Etelka has passed away. My cousin Vera Brown lives in the USA.

My sister and I went to the school for girls. When Subcarpathia became Soviet, the Russian language was introduced in all spheres of life. There were Russian schools, and only my father could speak the language.  We still spoke Hungarian at home. However, children pick languages easily, and a year later my sister and I had no problems with speaking Russian. I had all excellent marks at school in all years. My sister had different marks. Our father was a patriot and raised us to love our Soviet Motherland. We became pioneers and then joined Komsomol 18. I didn’t face any anti-Semitism at school, but I cannot say it did not exist in Uzhgorod. After the process against cosmopolites began to encourage anti-Semitic moods, as I understand now, but our father protected us from this information. He didn’t want us to get disappointed in the Soviet power.

I finished school in 1949. I got to know that there was a faculty of eastern languages, and the Finnish-Hungarian department in it in Leningrad University. I wrote them and they replied they would be happy to admit me, particularly that Hungarian was my native language. Professor Bubrik, chief of this chair, wrote that I could work for him at the department. However, there were only 2 applications submitted to this Faculty while they needed at least 8, so they cancelled this admission.  So, they suggested that I entered another department, passed academic exams during my first year and enter the 3rd year of the university. My father wanted me to return home, but I decided to stay in Leningrad. I passed exams to the French department of the College of Foreign languages. I was accommodated in a hostel and started my study on 1 September. I never went to study in the university, though: professor Bubrik died and they closed the Finnish-Hungarian department. I finished the College of Foreign languages successfully. I studied French and English, and also, passed exams in German, that I knew since childhood to obtain a certificate for teaching it. 

I got to know what anti-Semitism is like in college. We had wonderful lecturers. During the process against cosmopolites wonderful lecturers and scientists were fired from the university and Academy. Rector of the College of Foreign languages employed them. Yefim Etkind, a brilliant scientist and a charming person, taught us stylistics and translation.  Etkind brought me to understanding that not everything in the USSR was so great as we were used to thinking. I didn’t face any anti-Semitism till early 1953, the disgraceful ‘doctors’ plot’ 19. There were Jews in college and in our group. My closest friend was Rosa Fradkina, a Jewish girl from Leningrad, whose family perished during the blockade 20. She was taken out of the city by the ‘Road of Life’ 21, and was sent to a children’s home. Rosa grew up there and returned to her home city. Rosa spent vacations at my home and became one of us in the family. Our friendship became a lifelong relation. We correspond and phone each other and sometimes Rosa visits me.

The ‘doctors’ plot’ brought open anti-Semitism to life. People with typical Semitic appearance were abused publicly and there was nobody to stand for them.  In polyclinics patients asked about doctors’ nationality and refused to go to Jewish doctors. [Jewish was considered a nationally among many others in the Soviet Union and it was registered in peoples’ passports.] This was hard and scary. When I heard that Stalin dead on 5 March 1953, I couldn’t hold back my tears. There was a mourning meeting and we were all crying. There was one question: how do we go on living and what will happen to the country now that Stalin is dead. I can still remember this feeling of fear. 

I met my future husband in Uzhgorod, when Rosa and I came home on vacation. There was an open-air swimming pool near the railway station. We spend much time there swimming and lying in the sun: Rosa, my sister and I. . Kati finished 8 forms and entered the Electric Engineering technical college in Vinogradovo, despite our parents’ protests. She fell in love with a senior student of this college. My sister’s friend was a sportsman. Once he injured his spine and the bruise developed into tumor. He was taken to a hospital in Uzhgorod. My sister gave up her studies and returned to Uzhgorod. She entered an evening school and spent days in the hospital. He died and it was very hard on my sister. We tried to support her and I always took my sister with us wherever we went. We met our future husbands by this swimming pool. My husband Adolf Haikis was a doctor in the Uzhgorod military hospital. He was born in Kiev in 1921. His father Solomon Haikis was an endocrinologist in the clinic for scientists in Kiev. He had finished the Medical Faculty of Berlin University before the revolution of 1917 22. He had good memories about the years of his studies and he gave his son the German name of Adolf.  Back in 1921it was not associated with Hitler. His mother Vera Haikis, nee Kozlova, came from the Jewish family of the Kozlovs, attorneys in Kiev.  Adolf wanted to become a literarian, but there was no literature college in Kiev and he decided to become a doctor to follow into his father’s steps. He entered Kiev Medical College. In 1944 Adolf finished college and went to the front. He was doctor in hospital. In 1947 he requested to demobilize from the army. He entered the residency department and specialized in neuropathology.  After finishing the residency he returned to the army and became a military doctor, neuropathologist in the Uzhgorod hospital.  Returned to Uzhgorod in 1956 after finishing my college and we got married. Of course, we didn’t have a traditional Jewish wedding. We registered our marriage in a registry office and had a wedding dinner for our relatives and friends.  We lived with my parents. I went to work as a French schoolteacher. In 1955 our only daughter Ludmila was born. My father loved her dearly. He called her ‘the last love of his life’. At that time my parents lived in Velikaya Dobron [30 km from Uzhgorod, 680 km from Kiev] village, but they often came to Uzhgorod: my mother visited us more often than my father. My sister married Leopold Lowenberg, a Jew from Mukachevo [40 km from Uzhgorod, 650 km from Kiev] She moved to Mukachevo with her husband. She finished higher accounting courses and worked as an accountant and then chief accountant in a big store. Her husband was a shop superintendent at a factory. In 1953 their only daughter Julia was born. We didn’t celebrate any Jewish holidays in our family even in my childhood. Since 1945 our family always celebrated Soviet holidays: 1 May, 7 November 23, Soviet army day 24, Victory Day 25 and the New Year, of course. We always had guests and lots of fun.

It was more and more difficult for my father to work as director of the plant. Workers liked him very much, but the pressure of party authorities was hard for him.  When in 1954 General Secretary of the CC CPSU Nikita Khrushchev 26 appealed to communists to go to villages to improve the kolkhoses 27, my father was among the first ones to respond to this appeal. He went to Velikaya Dobron village in Uzhgorod district and became chairman of the kolkhoz. My mother followed him, of course.  This was remote village, with no polyclinic or public baths. In one year my father turned this kolkhoz into a successful enterprises. Velikaya Dobron residents adored him for becoming wealthy. A school, a polyclinic, a public bath were built and villagers had new houses with all comforts.  The villagers called my father ‘our father’. However, not everything was well with his work. At that time local authorities demanded to show higher quantities in documents to pretend there were more successes than in reality and there was much pressure on my father in this regard. My father was an honest man and convinced communist and refused to do any falsifications. One day in June 1963 he was invited to another bureau of the district party committee. When he came home, he had an infarction. He survived, but he could work no longer. My parents returned to Uzhgorod. My father became a free lance correspondent for the ‘Karpati Igaz Szo’ newspaper. [Carpathian True Word, Hungarian language Soviet newspaper, issued in Uzhgorod.] My father suffered much than neither his daughters nor their husbands were members of the party. Though my husband was a military, he never joined the party and this had an impact on his career.  Through 14 years of his work in Uzhgorod hospital he was in the rank of captain, though it was time for him to be promoted to the rank of major. They wouldn’t have promoted a Jew, particularly that he was not a member of the party. My husband knew what the party policy was worth.  After the 20th Congress of CPSU 28 we heard about Stalin and his regime’s crimes from the speech of Nikita Khrushchev. My husband and I believed this to be true. The 20th Congress was followed by the so-called ‘thaw’. We were hoping for improvements, but some time later we realized that these expectations were not to become true. The CPSU and KGB guided the life in the country.

In late October 1956 my husband received an emergency call ordering him to come to his unit immediately. This was all he knew any relocation at that time was confidential. In the morning my husband called me to inform that he was leaving. The only point of contact was captain Ostapenko in his hospital. I put my 11-month old daughter into her pram and ran to the hospital. I got to know that they were sent to Hungary by train. I read about the events in Hungary [23rd October 1956] 29 in newspapers. It was scaring. I feared for my husband, was sorry for the actions of the Soviet government and sympathized with Hungary. My husband called me from Budapest: they deployed a hospital in the basement of the Parliament building. My husband met a telephone operator. Her name was Judit like mine. My husband didn’t speak Hungarian, but he spoke German. He told Judit about me and our daughter and she allowed him to call me every evening. My husband’s best friend Samuel Frek, a Jew, an endocrinologist from the Uzhgorod hospital was sent in his ambulance vehicle to Hungary. On their way they were halted by a group of Hungarian rebels, about 40 of them. They disarmed them and ordered our doctors to stand with their backs to trees, but they did not shoot them and let them go few minutes later. In these few minutes, Samuel Frek, a dark-haired handsome man of the same age as my husband, turned gray. Upon their return to Uzhgorod they began to have problems. The political department demanded that they explained why they gave away their weapons. Hey didn’t want to understand that 3 doctors could not resist 40 armed men, even though the rebels returned their guns to the military commandant of Uzhgorod.

Few months later the military in Hungary were allowed to bring their families there. My daughter and I joined my husband in Hungary. I was happy to speak Hungarian and hear my native language around me. I served as interpreter for other militaries. In 1957 my husband’s father died in Kiev. There were restrictions about traveling from Hungary and my husband was not allowed to go to his father’s funeral. We received the notification about his death on Friday, but my husband had to wait for a permit for departure till Monday. My father went to the funeral from Uzhgorod. My husband went to Kiev later to support his mother after the funeral. My father-in-law was buried in the Baykovoye town cemetery in Kiev.

From Hungary we returned to Uzhgorod with my husband’s division. In the early 1960s armed conflicts with the Chinese started on the Far Eastern border. Khrushchev began to send divisions from all over the USSR to the Far East. 1963 was a very hard year for our family. My father’s health condition was very severe after the infarction, and he had to stay in Dobron. We had to look after my father. My husband’s mother spent spring and summer with us, leaving for Kiev in early November. That year my husband was planning to take her to Kiev before 7 November. On 13 October she died suddenly of infarction. She was an atheist and we arranged a secular funeral. On 23 October my husband’s hospital was given an order to send 4 people to the Far East. There were only 3 Jewish employees in the hospital: Haikis, Flek and Wasserman, and all of them were sent to the Far East. The 4th man was a Russian doctor. They went to the gathering point in Vladimir-Volynskiy. My husband asked the general to allow him 10 days to make arrangements for his mother’s apartment in Kiev to be returned in the ownership of the state. The general gave him the leave. Then my husband in November 1963 moved on to my husband’s point of destination. He got a job in a big hospital in the Primorskiy Kray, Kraskino village, on the very border with China, a district town of the Khasan district in 50 km from the Khasan Lake. I only managed to obtain a permit in February 1964, I and our daughter came to Kraskino. We could see Chinese houses from our hut. I went to work in the only village school. My daughter also went to this school.   We spent vacations with my parents in Uzhgorod every year. In 1968 we also planned to go there, but my husband fell ill and we had to stay home. When he got better, we went to the recreation house for high-rank officers near Vladivostok. This was August 1968 , and we heard about the events in Czechoslovakia [Prague Spring] 30. I remember how shocked my husband and I were, when we heard about the invasion of Soviet armies of Czechoslovakia, the country that I believe to be my Motherland. I’ve always loved it.  In this recreation house we met a lecturer from the Academy in Leningrad, a Jewish man. When we met after we heard about the events in Czechoslovakia, I remember how this Jewish colonel and my husband cursed the Soviet power for this invasion: ‘How could we bring tanks to Prague? How could they allow it to happen?’ When I returned to Uzhgorod later, I got to know that Erno, my father’s cousin, when Soviet tanks invaded Prague in 1968, decided to leave the USSR for Israel. Erno was professor of Medicine lecturing in the Prague Medical University. He became a doctor in Israel. Erno has passed away, but his widow, son Karoly, a cardiologist, the father of four children, and his daughter Eva, an archeologist, live in Israel. She had two daughters.

The Far East promoted my husband’s military career. This was a different world with no anti-Semitism where people were valued for their human merits rather than their nationality.  My husband was appointed chief of department and promoted to the rank of major. 4 years later he became chief of the hospital and promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. During military actions my husband worked in a field hospital. The term of service in the Far East was 5 years and we lived there 7 years. Upon completion of this term my husband was sent to the Сarpathian military regiment.  We moved to Uzhgorod, and settled down with m parents. My daughter went to the 8th form a school. My husband went to the regiment commander, a general, to report of his arrival. The general stared at him: lieutenant colonel, a Jew and chief of the medical department of hospital – how could this be true? It just could not happen in Ukraine. Commander of the regiment advised my husband to visit with the family in Uzhgorod since he was not ready yet to talk with him and hopefully, when Adolf came back, he would have a job to offer him. 10 days later my husband came back to Lvov. The general offered him the position of chief of the medical department of the hospital in Korosten, a small town in Zhytomyr region [85 km from Zhytomyr, 165 km from Kiev]. Before the revolution of 1917 Korosten was within the Jewish Pale of Settlement 31. There were many Jewish residents in the town. 80% of medical employees of the hospital were Jews. We were welcomed nicely. My daughter went to school and I went to work as a French teacher at school. After finishing school my daughter went to my parents in Uzhgorod and entered the English department of the Faculty of foreign languages of Uzhgorod University. My husband wanted to demobilize from the army and move to Kiev, his hometown. We did it in 1974. We received a 2-bedroom apartment in a new house near a lake in the Sviatoshino district in Kiev. My husband had a confirmation of his transfer of the parents’ apartment to the state and this helped a lot. My husband worked a neuropathologist in the polyclinic for scientists of the Academy of Scientists. I worked as a German and French teacher at school till I retired. I got along with my colleagues and my pupils liked me. My former pupils visit and call me. I am very glad that they do not forget me.

In the 1970s Jews began to move to Israel. My husband did not appreciate this process. He did not understand how they could leave their Motherland and their kin’s graves. My father had the same attitude to emigration. Our close friend Tsypkin, a traumatologist from Uzhgorod, and his family left the country. My husband was trying to convince them against doing it.  I met with the Tsypkins in Berlin last year. They are doing very well. Their children are well. They have a decent living in their old age, which cannot be said about Ukrainian the Commonwealth of Independent States pensioners. Now I receive my husband’s pension as his dependent, as I hadn’t worked in my life. My own teacher’s pension wouldn’t even be enough to pay my monthly fees. 

In 1975 my father died few months before he was to turn 70. We buried him in the town cemetery in Uzhgorod. He was an atheists and we arranged for a secular funeral. My daughter still lived with my mother, and my mother didn’t feel complete loneliness. Upon graduation from the University Ludmila married Miloslav Goshovskiy and moved in with her husband. Their apartment faced the central synagogue that housed the Philharmonic during the Soviet power. Miloslav is a physicist. He graduated from the Lvov Polytechnic University and worked in the Uzhgorod affiliate of the institute of nuclear research. Since the head institute was in Kiev we were hoping that they would move to Kiev. Ludmila worked as an English teacher in the children’s center at the gymnasium. My granddaughter Yekaterina was born in 1978. Two years later my grandson Mikhail was born. Ludmila and her husband decided to stay in Uzhgorod. My mother often visited us in Kiev staying with us for a long time. After our grandchildren were born, she began to spend more time in Uzhgorod helping Ludmila to take care of the children. My mother died in 1985 at the age of 76. She was buried beside my father.

My sister and her family lived in Mukachevo. Her daughter Julia finished school with a golden medal and entered the University. She got an offer to go to study at the Faculty of Hungarian Language and Literature of the Budapest University under a students’ exchange program. Julia went to Budapest, and my sister and her husband wanted to live close to their daughter. They decided to move to Hungary, but they could not obtain the visa. After they had 3 refusals Klara and her husband decided to move to Israel for Julia to join them later. Of course, had my father been alive, he would have never allowed my sister to emigrate. They obtained a permit and left. They settled down in Netanya. My sister went to work as a cashier in a supermarket, and Leopold worked as a goods expert in a store. After finishing her study Julia worked in Budapest as an editor of Hebrew-Hungarian dictionaries in a dictionary publishing office. Julia had no chance to join her parents: Hungary did not allow emigration to Israel in 1970s. Julia undertook few efforts and then decided to trick the authorities: in 1978 she bought a tour to France and from there she left for Israel illegally. In Israel Julia married Boris Penson, an artist. He had come to Israel from the USSR. Julia and Boris have two wonderful sons. Max, the older one, born in 1981, served in the army and works for an army organization. Roy, the younger son, born in 1989, studied in high school and later at a higher education institution in Natanya. Now she owns a publishing house. They have a house in Netaniya. Klara and Leo are pensioners now.

In 1982 my husband died. On 30 April he was at work receiving patients and on 1 May he had an infarction. He died on 4 May 1982. We buried Adolf near his father in the Baykovoye cemetery in Kiev. Since then I’ve lived alone. I often visit my daughter’s family in Uzhgorod and my grandchildren visit me. In 2002 a terrible tragedy happened in our family. My daughter fell severely ill. She had a malicious tumor in her brain. She had a surgery, but to no avail. Nobody told me my daughter’s diagnosis, and when I heard about it, she was already dying. Despite a surgery and our efforts she died in 2002, so young that she was. There will be always pain of this loss with me.

After finishing school Yekaterina entered the Historical Faculty of Uzhgorod University. Mikhail studied at the Medical Faculty in the university. My granddaughter also taught history in the Jewish Sunday school and my grandson worked as a medical brother during studies. When she was a senior student in the university, my granddaughter. After finishing the 4th year of the university my granddaughter took an academic leave and went to work in Germany for a year, to Stuttgart. She met her future husband Michael Hertzog, a German man, there. They got married. A year later Yekaterina returned to Uzhgorod, finished her studies in the university and moved in with her husband in Germany. Now she studies at the Faculty of Economics in Osnabruck. My grandson Mikhail also moved to Germany after finishing his studies.    

In the late 1980s General Secretary of the CPSY Mikhail Gorbachev 32 initiated perestroika 33 in the USSR. I was enthusiastic about it. Finally freedom came to the USSR that I believed to be y second Motherland. There were articles on various subjects that had been forbidden formerly, published. There were books by for example, those of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn 34 published that would have been judged as anti-Soviet propaganda in the past. The ‘iron curtain’ 35 that separated us from the rest of the world for many years, collapsed. Citizens of the USSR were allowed to communicate with people living abroad without fearing the KGB, correspond with relatives 36 and invite them home. There was no longer ban on religion that had been in place since the start of the soviet power. People were allowed to go to temples and celebrate religious holidays. Religious and everyday anti-Semitism was reducing. We, citizens of the USSR, were happy and full of hopes for a different life. I could finally travel to Israel to visit my sister and see my friends. I was happy about it. It’s hard to say how much Israel impressed me. It’s an amazingly beautiful country where the antiquity and modern life are in complete conformity. Unfortunately, this little country living in the encirclement of hostile neighbors, knows no peace. I wish Israel peace, quiet life and prosperity from the bottom of my heart.   

When after the breakup of the USSR [1991] Ukraine gained independence, we were building up hopes  for a better life, but many of us still live in the humiliating poverty. Ukraine is rich in natural resources, fruitful soils and hardworking people. I believe, we have such poor life due to our leaders who guided the country in the Soviet times. However, there has been some improvement. The Jewish life is reviving. There are many Jewish organizations and associations, and the most popular with old people is the Hesed 37, of course. The Hesed in Kiev provides food packages to us, delivers meals to elderly people and bring medications. This is significant assistance. We are in a better position than non-Jewish residents. Hesed is just great! It conducts a great job to recover Jewry in Ukraine, from nursery schools to old people helping them to study the Jewish history, history of religion, and learn more about Jewish traditions. There are various studios and clubs. I like our Sunday daytime center where we talk with other people – this is very important. Sometimes talking to others is more important than food. I have new friends in the daytime center and we enjoy spending time together. I read Hesed-delivered Jewish newspapers and magazines regularly. Soon I am moving to my grandchildren in Germany, my family. It’s hard to live alone in my age. Of course, it’s hard to leave everything here, it’s been a big part of my life, hard to leave the graves of my dear ones and get adjusted to a different way of life, but I hope to able to visit Uzhgorod and Kiev, my two hometowns.

GLOSSARY:

1 First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938): The First Czechoslovak Republic was created after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy following World War I. The union of the Czech lands and Slovakia was officially proclaimed in Prague in 1918, and formally recognized by the Treaty of St. Germain in 1919. Ruthenia was added by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. Czechoslovakia inherited the greater part of the industries of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the new government carried out an extensive land reform, as a result of which the living conditions of the peasantry increasingly improved. However, the constitution of 1920 set up a highly centralized state and failed to take into account the issue of national minorities, and thus internal political life was dominated by the struggle of national minorities (especially the Hungarians and the Germans) against Czech rule. In foreign policy Czechoslovakia kept close contacts with France and initiated the foundation of the Little Entente in 1921.