In 1934 grandmother Zali Roth, my father’s mother, died. She was buried near grandfather in the Jewish cemetery in Uzhgorod. There was a Jewish funeral. My father recited the Kaddish over grandmother’s grave. Nobody sat the mourning [Shivah] after grandmother. It wasn’t customary with neologs.
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Ladislav Roth Biography
At 13 I had bar mitzvah. My father and I went to the synagogue on Saturday. I was called to the Torah and read an article from the Torah. For the first time in my life I had a tallit on. It was quite a ceremony. In the evening we had guests at home and my mother made a festive dinner. They greeted my parents and me. I don’t remember any details, but I remember that it was very festive.
My father had liberal views and sympathized with communists. He didn’t join the Communist Party, but he was fond of communist ideas. My mother was against communism. She believed that if communists were negative about religion there could be nothing good about communism.
I finished school in 1936. My parents wanted me to continue my studies, but I wanted to be independent. I asked my father to help me become an apprentice waiter in Bercsenyi restaurant. I wanted to work and study in the trade school in Uzhgorod. I studied three years at school. Besides major subjects future waiters had to study confectionery, butcher and cooks’ trades.
Bercsenyi restaurant employed me. My father was senior waiter there. Another leading waiter was a Hungarian man whose surname was Lantosi. They worked in shifts: my father worked from morning till afternoon and then Lantosi came to work and next week my father came to work in the afternoon. Waiters also worked in shifts. Since I was just an apprentice I only came to work in the morning and stayed at work until afternoon. Only experienced waiters worked in the evening. There were 20 employees in the restaurant and 6-7 of them were Jews.
Bercsenyi restaurant employed me. My father was senior waiter there. Another leading waiter was a Hungarian man whose surname was Lantosi. They worked in shifts: my father worked from morning till afternoon and then Lantosi came to work and next week my father came to work in the afternoon. Waiters also worked in shifts. Since I was just an apprentice I only came to work in the morning and stayed at work until afternoon. Only experienced waiters worked in the evening. There were 20 employees in the restaurant and 6-7 of them were Jews.
I spent my vacations traveling. In 1938 my friend, my classmate in the trade school, and I spent two weeks in Switzerland. We traveled across Switzerland and spent few days skiing in a resort. This was inexpensive and apprentice waiter could well afford it.
At work I met Maria Leschinsky, a Slovakian girl from Goronda village [37 km from Uzhgorod, 670 km from Kiev] Uzhgorod district. Maria was one year older. She was born in 1921. We came to work at the same time. Maria was an apprentice of a cook. One year later she began to work as a cook. We began to meet and fell in love with one another. We worked the same shift and saw each other at work and after work. Maria was a Catholic. My parents or Maria’s parents had nothing against our marriage when we learned to earn our living. Maria’s parents had four sons and three daughters. Maria was the oldest of all children. Her father was a worker in a quarry and her mother was a housewife. They kept a cow and had a plot of land. They were poor and Maria’s parents were very happy that Maria was going into a nice family. They believed that Jewish men made the best husbands.
In 1938 Subcarpathia became Hungarian again. [According to the First Vienna Decision the predominantly ethnic Hungarian parts of Czechoslovakia – Southern Slovakia, including Uzhorod (Ungvar, Uzhgorod) and the rest of Southern Subcarpathia- were annexed to Hungary in 1938. The rest of Subcarpathia was occupied by Hungary in 1939, after the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.] Many of the older residents of Subcarpathia had good memories about life during Austro-Hungary and looked forward to this change. They met the Hungarians like they would welcome dear guests. Nobody had an idea what fascism was like. Bercsenyi restaurant also prepared a welcome party. Only officers of the Hungarian army were allowed to go to restaurants and soldiers went to bars or taverns. The restaurant employees made dishes of Hungarian cuisine and prepared tables for officers.
The owner of the restaurant decided to engage more waiters so that guests didn’t have to wait. I was also told to stay in case they needed my assistance. In the evening about 15 Hungarian officers came to the restaurant. They were waited for: there were tables prepared for them, flowers and an orchestra was playing Hungarian tunes. The best waiter of the restaurant, a short Jewish man, waited on one of the tables. Officers drank a lot and at about 2 o’clock in the morning one of them, a handsome middle-aged man, called the waiter: Come here, you dirty little Jew!’ We all came to standstill. This was the first time we faced anything like this. We, waiters, were taught to avoid scandal by all means. This man went pale, but he looked calm on the outside. He came too the table and said: ‘I apologize, Mr. Officer, I will go home and get washed and won’t be dirty tomorrow’. Other officers began to calm down their comrade telling him that he was drunk and that there was nothing to make a fuss about. The incident hushed up, but there was a hard feeling about it. Later officers and gendarmes often came to our restaurant. Nothing of the kind happened again in the first year after Hungarians came to power, but every time Hungarian officers came to the restaurant this caused tension. There was no persecution of Jews in the first year.
The owner of the restaurant decided to engage more waiters so that guests didn’t have to wait. I was also told to stay in case they needed my assistance. In the evening about 15 Hungarian officers came to the restaurant. They were waited for: there were tables prepared for them, flowers and an orchestra was playing Hungarian tunes. The best waiter of the restaurant, a short Jewish man, waited on one of the tables. Officers drank a lot and at about 2 o’clock in the morning one of them, a handsome middle-aged man, called the waiter: Come here, you dirty little Jew!’ We all came to standstill. This was the first time we faced anything like this. We, waiters, were taught to avoid scandal by all means. This man went pale, but he looked calm on the outside. He came too the table and said: ‘I apologize, Mr. Officer, I will go home and get washed and won’t be dirty tomorrow’. Other officers began to calm down their comrade telling him that he was drunk and that there was nothing to make a fuss about. The incident hushed up, but there was a hard feeling about it. Later officers and gendarmes often came to our restaurant. Nothing of the kind happened again in the first year after Hungarians came to power, but every time Hungarian officers came to the restaurant this caused tension. There was no persecution of Jews in the first year.
A year later anti-Jewish laws 5 came in force. Jewish were forbidden to own stores, factories, shops or restaurants. They had to transfer their property to non-Jews without any compensation. Or the state expropriated their property without compensation. The older Szilagyi, owner of the Bercsenyi restaurant, died in the early 1930s and his two sons and daughter inherited the restaurant. In 1939, when the law depriving Jews of the right to own anything bringing income came in force, Szilagyi was obliged to transfer his restaurant to somebody called Kucsek who came from Hungary. It was simple: representatives of financial department came and ordered Szilagyi to give away keys from his storerooms and restaurant. The restaurant had huge stocks. There were big wine cellars. So, it was just a matter of giving keys to all his property: no compensation or agreements. Next day we came to work and Kucsek met us and said that we would receive everything from him. That simple. Then Kucsek announced that he only needed one Jew waiter. The others decided that I should stay since I was just a beginner and would not find work easily. However, I said that the waiter having 3 children should stay. I went to work in the Korona restaurant [Hungarian, meaning Crown], present-day ‘Verkhovina’.
For a few generations my father’s family lived in Subcarpathia 1, in Uzhgorod [700 km from Kiev]. My grandfather Bernat Roth was born in Uzhgorod in 1847. Grandmother Zali Riesenboch, was born in Uzhgorod in 1852. I don’t know what my grandfather did for a living. My father told me that they were very poor and my grandmother had to work as a dressmaker. She was very good at it. She worked at home and received her clients at home. She didn’t have any assistants and worked alone.
As far as I can imagine from what my father told me, Uzhgorod of his childhood and youth was very much like the Uzhgorod that I know. This was a multinational town and Jews constituted a large part of its population. Jews owned trade business and were craftsmen and wagon drivers were also Jews for the most part. There were few synagogues and a yeshivah in Uzhgorod. There were cheders, Jewish primary schools and a grammar school in the town. I can’t say that everyone was wealthy, but one wouldn’t have met a Jew beggars in the streets. There were no beggars in the town. There were poor families, but not poor to the extent when they had to beg for alms. The rich helped the poor. Every store owner had few less fortunate Jewish families to support.
Every Friday before lunch they came to a store owner and he gave them food and money for Sabbath. Charity was a matter of honor. Even families living from hand to mouth believed it was their duty to support the poor. Poor students of yeshivahs who came from other places had lunch with local families. Such students were called bukhers. Usually 7 families patronized one bukher and this student had lunch with another family every day. There was a Jewish soup kitchen for the poor in Uzhgorod. They even provided meals to the non-Jewish poor. There was a free Jewish hospital for the poor. There were Jewish doctors and Jewish patients in it. The diner and hospital were funded by the Jewish community of Uzhgorod. Few wealthiest Jews, factory and plant owners made their contributions to support them.
Every Friday before lunch they came to a store owner and he gave them food and money for Sabbath. Charity was a matter of honor. Even families living from hand to mouth believed it was their duty to support the poor. Poor students of yeshivahs who came from other places had lunch with local families. Such students were called bukhers. Usually 7 families patronized one bukher and this student had lunch with another family every day. There was a Jewish soup kitchen for the poor in Uzhgorod. They even provided meals to the non-Jewish poor. There was a free Jewish hospital for the poor. There were Jewish doctors and Jewish patients in it. The diner and hospital were funded by the Jewish community of Uzhgorod. Few wealthiest Jews, factory and plant owners made their contributions to support them.
My father and his bothers and sisters received Jewish education. The sons went to cheder and the girls had classes with a teacher at home. All of them finished 8-year Hungarian school. Both girls and boys attended the state school.
My father’s family were religious, but they were not fanatics. They were Neolog 2. They observed some Jewish traditions, but not all of them. They wore common clothes, men didn’t have beards or payes and women didn’t wear wigs. They did not go to the synagogue on Sabbath and didn’t follow kashrut. The only mandatory Jewish holiday for them was Yom Kippur and many often celebrated Pesach. [Editor’s note: In theory the Neolog stream was also supposed to observe all Jewish holidays and Kashrut just as the Orthodox one. In practice they were much less strict on such matters.] Some families didn’t celebrate other holidays.
After finishing school my father went to work as an apprentice waiter in Bercsenyi restaurant that belonged to the Jewish family called Szilagyi. It was a wealthy family.
The restaurant opened in the morning when visitors could have breakfast before going to work and closed at midnight. One year later my father began to work as a waiter. He earned well and received good tips too. My father went to study in Uzhgorod Trade School. He worked during day and attended classes in the evening.
All sisters married Jewish men and had traditional Jewish weddings. Of course, neolog weddings were a little different from more traditional Jewish weddings. [Orthodox] Neolog young people hardly ever sought help of shadkhanim, matchmakers. When they met they started seeing each other and when they decided it was time for them to live as a family they went to ask their parents’ blessing. Brides didn’t have their hair cut before chuppah as Jewish customs required. Married neolog women did not cover their heads or even more so wear wigs. The rest of a chuppah ritual was followed: bride and bridegroom’s mothers escorted a bride to under a chuppah and the bride and bridegroom’s fathers escorted a bridegroom.
A rabbi conducted the wedding ceremony and the newly weds were given a glass of wine that they had to sip taking turns. Then they were to throw the glass on the floor to break it. The glass was wrapped in a napkin before it was thrown. Wedding parties were also slightly different from traditional Jewish weddings. [Orthodox] There are separate tables for men and women at a traditional wedding. Even a wife is not supposed to sit beside her husband. Neologs were sitting together. When a bride danced with other men, except her husband, they were not supposed to hold her by her hand. A bride had a handkerchief in her hand that her partner held by its edge. Neolog pairs danced holding each other by the hand. Guests, men and women, danced together. Of course, paying tribute of respect to traditions there was traditional kosher food cooked for wedding parties. This was followed even if they didn’t follow kashrut at home.
A rabbi conducted the wedding ceremony and the newly weds were given a glass of wine that they had to sip taking turns. Then they were to throw the glass on the floor to break it. The glass was wrapped in a napkin before it was thrown. Wedding parties were also slightly different from traditional Jewish weddings. [Orthodox] There are separate tables for men and women at a traditional wedding. Even a wife is not supposed to sit beside her husband. Neologs were sitting together. When a bride danced with other men, except her husband, they were not supposed to hold her by her hand. A bride had a handkerchief in her hand that her partner held by its edge. Neolog pairs danced holding each other by the hand. Guests, men and women, danced together. Of course, paying tribute of respect to traditions there was traditional kosher food cooked for wedding parties. This was followed even if they didn’t follow kashrut at home.
There was no anti-Semitism in Subcarpathia during the period of Austria-Hungary or later, when Subcarpathia was annexed to Czechoslovakia in 1918. [First Czechoslovak Republic] 3. Many nationalities lived side by side through many generations and they respected the nationality and religion of their neighbors. During the period of Austro-Hungary the population commonly spoke Hungarian. [That was true for the western part of Subcarpathia only, including Uzhorod (Uzhgorod), where the majority of the local population was Hungarian. Towards the north and the east the most used language was Ruthenian.]
When Czechs came to power many older people failed to learn Czech and continued speaking Hungarian. The situation for Jews improved during the Czech rule. Czech authorities appreciated and supported Jews in every possible way. Jews were allowed to hold governmental positions. [Editor’s note: Jews were able to hold governmental positions previously, in the liberal Austro-Hungarian Monarchy too, that recognized the equality of all nationalities as well as of every religion. After the 1867 ‘Ausgleich’ Jews increasingly entered state bureaucracy and often made careers there, sometimes great ones (i.e. Vilmos Vazsonyi, Hungarian Minister of Justice). It is also true, however, that the governmental positions remained rather atypical for Jews all along until World War I. They were still more often to be found in key positions in the Hungarian economy as well as in the free professions.
When Czechs came to power many older people failed to learn Czech and continued speaking Hungarian. The situation for Jews improved during the Czech rule. Czech authorities appreciated and supported Jews in every possible way. Jews were allowed to hold governmental positions. [Editor’s note: Jews were able to hold governmental positions previously, in the liberal Austro-Hungarian Monarchy too, that recognized the equality of all nationalities as well as of every religion. After the 1867 ‘Ausgleich’ Jews increasingly entered state bureaucracy and often made careers there, sometimes great ones (i.e. Vilmos Vazsonyi, Hungarian Minister of Justice). It is also true, however, that the governmental positions remained rather atypical for Jews all along until World War I. They were still more often to be found in key positions in the Hungarian economy as well as in the free professions.
My mother’s parents were religious. [It is very likely that they were Hasidim. The later to be Satu Mare, Szatmarnemeti - or commonly Szatmar - at the time was the center of the famous Satmar Hasidim, today to be found in New York and Israel.] My mother and her sister received Jewish education. They had classes with a visiting teacher. They could read and write in Yiddish and knew prayers.
My mother’s family should have followed kashrut since she followed it strictly after she got married. My mother and her sister finished 8 grades in a school for girls.
Here my mother met my future father, but I don’t know any details. All I know is that in 1920 they had a traditional Jewish wedding with a rabbi and a chuppah.
Ilia Rozenfeld Biography
I had a nanny, a Ukrainian woman from a Ukrainian village near Poltava. Unfortunately, I don’t remember her name. I loved her dearly: she spent all her time with me telling me fairy tales and fables. She was a full member of our family living with us. She was very old. After living with us for ten years she left our house in 1933, during the period of famine 10 thinking that my parents were not able to support the whole family. For some reason, my parents didn’t insist on her staying and she walked back to her village and this is all I know about her. It was dramatic for me at the time since my nanny was the closest person I had.
In 1930 I went to the first form of a Ukrainian school. There was a Jewish school in Poltava, but my parents didn’t send me there. We were an assimilated family and since there was no Russian school in the town they chose a Ukrainian school for me. By the way, the Jewish school was closed in 1937 and the pupils came to our school. I had no problems with my studies and enjoyed going to school.
However, during my first yeas at school there was faming in Ukraine. Our family was in a very hard situation, but my mother always thought of something to help the family. I remember that my grandmother sent us one dollar amounts – they were also poor. My mother went to buy buckwheat, herring and something else for this dollar at the Torgsin 13 store. Somebody gave my father pork fat and my mother cooked on it. I smelt his fat approaching our house coming back from school and felt sick: I couldn’t eat it. My father told me off for that and said it was sinful to refuse from food when other children were starving. Once a young woman from a village came into our yard, when I was playing with a ball with other boys. She was barefooted and her legs, white and swollen, struck me. She was holding a boy by his hand and carrying another boy, thin and starved. She asked for food and we ran to our homes to get what we could.
We had nothing, but beetroots at home. My mother gave me a beetroots which I took to this woman. She wiped it with her hand and gave her boy to bite on it. Once there was a man lying on the stairs. There were lice on him and he was dying painfully and there was nothing that could be done to rescue him. We were scared Once we were trying to get our ball from the bushes and there was a half-decayed corpse there. –Every night a thin horse-ridden cart rode along our street loaded with corpses with their legs sticking out. Those corpses were taken to a pit in a dump site.
We had nothing, but beetroots at home. My mother gave me a beetroots which I took to this woman. She wiped it with her hand and gave her boy to bite on it. Once there was a man lying on the stairs. There were lice on him and he was dying painfully and there was nothing that could be done to rescue him. We were scared Once we were trying to get our ball from the bushes and there was a half-decayed corpse there. –Every night a thin horse-ridden cart rode along our street loaded with corpses with their legs sticking out. Those corpses were taken to a pit in a dump site.
Once, when we were playing football, Sonia called us ‘zhydovskiye mordy’ [kike] leaning out of the window. I already knew that it was a bad word, but I didn’t quite understand its meaning. Then one of the older boys took an initiative and we went to complain to our school director Semyon Skliar, a Ukrainian man. He called a meeting. Even before the meeting our schoolmates decided to boycott Sonia and she knew that she did a wrong thing. She was sitting at the meeting with her eyes downcast. The director made a condemning speech. Sonia cried and promised she would never use this word and abuse Jews. This happened in 1934.
My uncle Yakov’s fate was tragic. Yakov, born in 1900, worked in a printing house. He joined the revolution and became a communist. However, in the 1920s he supported Lev Trotskiy 15 , and was heard to be a member of the Zinoviev-Kamenev block 16 . Later he ‘acknowledged his mistakes’ in public that was customary at the time, and later held rather high-level official posts.
He lived in Moscow and was director of the Exhibition of Achievements of Public Economy and was deputy People’s Commissar of sovkhoses. At one time he was even military attaché in Berlin. In 1937 during the period of mass arrests 17 he was arrested and executed. His family was notified that he “had been sentenced without the right of correspondence” that was similar to the death sentence. Aunt Bertha was sent in exile to Djambul town in Kazakhstan where she lived for many years. Their daughter Marina stayed with aunt Rachil in Poltava. She was a widow and didn’t have any children of her own.
He lived in Moscow and was director of the Exhibition of Achievements of Public Economy and was deputy People’s Commissar of sovkhoses. At one time he was even military attaché in Berlin. In 1937 during the period of mass arrests 17 he was arrested and executed. His family was notified that he “had been sentenced without the right of correspondence” that was similar to the death sentence. Aunt Bertha was sent in exile to Djambul town in Kazakhstan where she lived for many years. Their daughter Marina stayed with aunt Rachil in Poltava. She was a widow and didn’t have any children of her own.
My uncle’s arrest had an impact on my life as well. In 1938 they didn’t admit me to Komsomol 18 due to my uncle who was an ‘enemy of the people’ 19. Many people were disappearing at this period. Our school teachers whom we loved were gone. Our favorite Russian teacher Polina Uschenko who taught us love for the Russian literature, disappeared. We got together at her home where she recited poems of Anna Akhmatova 20, who was a forbidden author. Somebody must have reported on her. At least, once she didn’t show up at school and nobody ever saw her again. My father’s close Ukrainian friend Pisarevskiy, a Ukrainian literature teacher, an invalid of the Civil War, was arrested as a Japanese spy and disappeared. Our school teacher of mathematic Israel Garkave, an old provincial Jew with a funny Jewish accent, whom we adored, also disappeared. He was arrested, and his family with many children was gone, too.
Then his replacement Valentin Golovnia, a young teacher of mathematic, was arrested and the third teacher followed his predecessors. Our teacher of history Sarah ( I don’t remember her surname) also disappeared. We were 15-16 years old, we were raised on the examples of Bolshevik heroes and believed the Soviet reality to be the best in the world, but then there was some dual attitude in our romantic minds. On one side there were holidays, marches and parades that we liked so much, and on the other side there were ‘enemies of the people’ who were heroes just shortly before. I asked questions at home and my father answered me truly saying that he believed these were mistakes that great Stalin didn’t know about. He spoke to me eye-to-eye and told me to never discuss this subject with anybody, but we, boys, discussed those terrible arrest and people who were disappearing. The time proved that those boys were true friends: nobody reported on his friends.
Every family in those horrible 1930s was prepared for anything. My father was afraid of arrest and was particularly concerned about my mother who still corresponded with her parents living in Poland. My mother packed a basket with underwear and dried bread and kept it ready in case of arrest. Once my mother’s colleagues planned a celebration at a restaurant. My mother dressed up and was ready to go, but my father didn’t let her go, however much she cried and begged him. My father must have intuitively known about something: on the following day all participants of this celebration were arrested.
Then his replacement Valentin Golovnia, a young teacher of mathematic, was arrested and the third teacher followed his predecessors. Our teacher of history Sarah ( I don’t remember her surname) also disappeared. We were 15-16 years old, we were raised on the examples of Bolshevik heroes and believed the Soviet reality to be the best in the world, but then there was some dual attitude in our romantic minds. On one side there were holidays, marches and parades that we liked so much, and on the other side there were ‘enemies of the people’ who were heroes just shortly before. I asked questions at home and my father answered me truly saying that he believed these were mistakes that great Stalin didn’t know about. He spoke to me eye-to-eye and told me to never discuss this subject with anybody, but we, boys, discussed those terrible arrest and people who were disappearing. The time proved that those boys were true friends: nobody reported on his friends.
Every family in those horrible 1930s was prepared for anything. My father was afraid of arrest and was particularly concerned about my mother who still corresponded with her parents living in Poland. My mother packed a basket with underwear and dried bread and kept it ready in case of arrest. Once my mother’s colleagues planned a celebration at a restaurant. My mother dressed up and was ready to go, but my father didn’t let her go, however much she cried and begged him. My father must have intuitively known about something: on the following day all participants of this celebration were arrested.
In the middle 1930s one of the subjects we were discussing was fascists coming to power in Germany. Since the book ‘Mein campf’ was published we were aware of the ideology of Hitler and his attitude toward Jews, but we didn’t think the same about common Germans since we were raised to be internationalists.
In August 1939 the Ribbentrop-Molotov 21 Pact was signed surprisingly for us. This was weird at least: this surprisingly emerging friendship with fascist Germany. This so-called friendship did not deceive anybody. Many people understood that we were on the edge of war. My close friend Mitia Zayats, musician, was about two years older than me. We were both fond of music. He was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. I met with him after the war. He was an ill broken man. His fingers were frost-bitten in the camp and he could never play again. What happened was that after the execution of this Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in 1939Mitia said at one meeting: ‘Well, we will have problems because of this’. The following night he was arrested as an ‘enemy of the people’.
On 1 September 1939 fascists invaded Poland. Refugees who were Polish Jews for the most part began to escape to Ukraine. There were Polish children coming to our school. Though we were the same age, we were still different. Those Polish children were more mature and knew more about human relations. Many of the guys had visited brothels in Poland and it was strange for us, Soviet guys, who were raised in a more proper Soviet manner. Besides, they knew about jazz while we only heard Soviet marches. They told us about modern music and movies and we were a little jealous about it. But what we never envied was that had already faced disaster: air raids, ruined houses and towns that they knew about fascist atrocities and were forced out of their homes. They told us about it and the great Patriotic War was no surprise for us.
The family decided that I was to become an engineer, though I was more disposed to humanitarian sciences. In 1940 I entered the founding Faculty of the Kharkov Machine Building College. After studying there for less than half year I realized this was not for me. Besides, I was used to living at home with my family and didn’t feel comfortable living in another town. In early 1941 I got a transfer to the Construction College in Poltava where my mother was working.
On the morning of 22 June I was preparing for my exam in geodesy. I was turning a knob on my radio. I liked radios and assembled radios listening to different radio stations. There were different channels on the radio and I grasped something in German about some ‘losses’ of the soviet troops and their retreat. I called my mother who had fluent German and she was also surprised to hear those strange messages. At 12 o’clock we listened to Molotov’s speech 22 who said that the war began. At first it was rather quiet in the town. My family and aunts decided to evacuate and were waiting for the official evacuation of our college. There was no panic in the town, but the streets were deserted as if all residents had left for resorts all of a sudden.