My parental grandfather, Haim Shapochnik, was born in Moldova, in the small town Leovo [about 70km from Kishinev, on the Romanian border] in 1875. He wasn’t a very educated man. He only finished cheder.
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Zoya Shapochnik
Grandfather Haim was involved in wine making. He bought grapes from the peasants, made wine and sold it. He had a small vineyard which he cultivated himself.
I knew my grandmother’s siblings: Jacob, Sapsai and Enna. Enna, who was much younger than Grandmother Dvoira, lived in the small town Cahul, not far from Leovo, with her husband and children. Her husband was rather well-off. They had a churn and mill. In 1940 when the Soviets came to power [see Annexation of Bessarabia to the Soviet Union] [3], their property was nationalized and Enna, her husband and children were exiled to Siberia, Akmolilnsk oblast.
My grandparents got married in 1895. They had a traditional Jewish wedding. It couldn’t have been any different. Then, after the wedding they settled in Leovo. Haim and Dvoira had a small house with a thatched roof. They were neither rich nor poor. They had five children in the family, who had to be fed, clad, and educated. I’ve never been to Leovo. My father told me about them. I saw Grandmother Dvoira only once, when she came over in 1937. She was a large, debonair woman. Her head was covered with a beautiful knit kerchief. My grandmother never went out with her head uncovered. Both she and Grandfather Haim were very religious. My grandfather also wore a hat. In the mornings he put on a kippah, tallit and tefillin when he was praying. Grandmother Dvoira died in 1938. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Leovo. My grandfather died in 1941 on our way to evacuation.
All the children of Haim and Dvoira weren’t very religious, except my father. The boys finished cheder, and Charna, my father’s only sister got elementary Jewish education at home.
When World War II was unleashed a large kin of Manya talked Boris into staying in the city. Many people disbelieved at that time that the Germans could do harm to the Jews. Besides, Soviet propaganda induced people to believe in the soonest victory of the Red Army. Manya, Boris and Haya stayed in Kishinev thinking that they could hole up the occupation in the basement. They perished in the Kishinev ghetto [6]. No one survived out of Manya’s large family.
The youngest in the family, David, born in 1907 lived in Iasi. He was also a supplier and his wife Dora an accountant. When Bessarabia became part of the Soviet Union, David’s family moved to Kishinev. Like many Jewish families they fled from the fascists. They went to the USSR having left what they had. At the outbreak of war, David and Dora left for evacuation in Chimkent [today Uzbekistan].
Kiev was one of the anti-Semitic cities of the USSR and Jacob, being fluent in English flunked the English exam and wasn’t admitted to the institute.
My father, Joseph Shapochnik, was born in 1902. He was the only one of the brothers who had thirst for knowledge and striving to get educated. Upon finishing cheder my father entered the nearest Realschule [8] in Leovo. Gagauz [9], Moldovans and Russians mostly studied there. Several Jewish boys made friends and decided to go on with their education. By that time Bessarabia had been annexed to Romania [see Annexation of Bessarabia to Romania] [10] and my father dreamt of studying in one of the European universities. Grandfather Haim scraped up some money for him to get to university with a lot of difficulty. That was the only thing he could help his son with. My father and three or four of his friends, I don’t remember their names, went to Prague [today Czech Republic], and entered the Prague Polytechnic Institute, electric and mechanic department.
My father worked as a stevedore, tutor, and sang in the choir of the Prague Opera. A lot of students from Russia studied at the university [in Prague]. There was a whole course, where the lectures were held in Russian. After graduation, the graduates found good jobs at the Prague power station. They were there on night duty. It was the time of revolutionary changes. The Bolsheviks [11] had come to power in Russia, intending to spread communist ideas all over the world. Outstanding Bolshevik activists took the floor at the university, where my father was studying. They held lectures there and my father attended all of them. My father also joined some communist groups. He adhered to those views all his life though he never became a member of the Party. Usually students went home on summer vacations. Joint [12] helped pay for the round trip ticket to the parents. My father went home every year.
My grandfather, Gersh Treiger, was born in Ukraine in the 1870s. He worked in the municipal administration. He was responsible for cartage, which was one of the main vehicles back in that time. My grandfather was very tall and handsome. He didn’t wear a kippah at work. He put it on when he was praying. He wasn’t a religious Jew, but holidays were observed in his house. My mother said that on Pesach all traditional Jewish dishes were on the table and her father reclining at the table led the seder. On holidays he went to the synagogue. Sometimes he went there on Sabbath. On the whole, he was a secular man. He liked theater, literature and poetry.
My maternal grandmother’s name was also Dvoira [nee Hadji]. There were a lot of Jewish names of mixed origin in Bessarabia. They had the imprint of Turkish and Romanian languages. [Hadji in the Muslim tradition refers to a pilgrim.] My grandmother mostly took care of the children. There was a maid who came over to do the household chores. Dvoira was mostly keen on theater. She nurtured the love for theater in her daughter, my mother, who passed it on to me. There was a Russian theater in Kishinev. Plays by Gogol [13] and Chekhov [14] were staged there, but it existed only before Bessarabia was annexed to Romania. My grandmother was a frequent theater-goer. It was a real treat when famous actors came from Moscow and Petersburg [today Russia]. Dvoira would take the whole day to get ready. She put on her best bib and tucker, and wore modest jewelry so that the children felt that something great was going to happen. The Treiger family lived very modestly. They never owned a house, just rented small apartments. Education and upbringing were prioritized.
When the Soviets came to power, Lazar voluntarily gave up his apothecary. In spite of that the whole family was exiled, and even worse it was severe. Lazar happened to be in Ural [today Russia], where he died soon during timbering.
My mother Pesya was born on 25th December 1902. They said that my mother was a rare beauty in her childhood. The neighbors used to say, ‘Go look, what a beauty has been born from Gersh.’ The maid, a Moldovan, who worked for my grandmother, crossed herself and prayed saying, ‘What a miracle, such a beautiful girl is born on Christmas!’ My mother, the only daughter in the family, was the favorite. In her early childhood tutors came over to teach her so that she would be prepared for lyceum. It was a state lyceum. There were wonderful teachers in it. My mother remembered her Russian literature teacher Orlov, who plied her with love for Russian classics. My mother recited poems written by Pushkin [17], and Lermontov [18] till the end of her days. She was very knowledgeable about Russian playwrights. She was interested in theater in her adolescence, following in my grandmother’s footsteps. My mother worked in the apothecary of Uncle Lazar. First she weighed and poured the medicine in the bottles. Then she learnt how to make medicine. She was so good at it that she became a professional pharmacist.
My parents fell in love at once. In 1929 they got married. They had a wedding in Kishinev. The newly-weds were rather modern and unreligious, but in spite of that they went under a chuppah, in the central synagogue. There was a posh wedding with music and many guests from Leovo and other cities.
In 1931 my father graduated from the institute and obtained a diploma of electric engineering. They returned to Bessarabia. They moved in with my mother’s parents in Kishinev. It was hard for my father to find a job, as Bessarabia wasn’t an area where industry was developed. He was jobless for a few months and then was employed by a power station in Bucharest [today Romania]. My parents moved there.
One of my father’s friends Dulitskiy, a famous engineer introduced him to a Romanian, Romascu, who commenced the construction of a spa for tuberculosis of the bone in Bugaz [small spa area, 50km from Odessa, Ukraine]. The town Bugaz, on the firth of the Black Sea was part of Bessarabia. [The Black Sea region was taken away from Moldova and attached to Ukraine after World War II.] Romascu offered my father the management of the construction. So, my father left for Bugaz. Soon we moved there, too. I was two and a half or three years old. For some time we lived in a poky apartment in some sort of a building, reminding me of a shanty. I was bothered by the gnats and my mother covered my bed with a gauze. She was in despair. My aunts Paula and Zhenya came over from Ploesti to support my mother.
Grandmother Dvoira also came. It was the first and last time I saw her. My grandmother stayed with us for some weeks helping my mother about the house. She wore a dark kerchief, prayed in the mornings and evenings and spoke only Yiddish with my father.
My father was given a separate small house consisting of two rooms and a kitchen. There were no Jews in the whereabouts. We were mostly surrounded by Moldovans. There were a lot of Ukrainians. Since childhood I came to like sad old Ukrainian songs, which were even more euphonious because they were sung by the sea. My mother was on very good terms with the neighbors and soon learnt those beautiful melodies. Those ladies also taught my mother how to bake fancy bread on Orthodox Easter. So, there was no matzah in Bugaz as there was no place where we could get it. We ate Easter cakes on Orthodox Easter.
When the sanatorium was opened, my father was offered a job as an administrator and supervisor. He got quite a high salary and our life got better.
My father still believed in high ideals of communism. Bugaz was close to the border with the USSR. There were times when people crossed the firth to get there. At that time we didn’t know what was in store for them. As a rule they were caught by the NKVD [19] and then sent to Stalin’s camps. My father’s dream was to live in the USSR. If it hadn’t been for my mother, my father most likely would have crossed the border. At least he could listen to the radio. My father rose when the International [Anthem of the International Worker’s Movement and of the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1943. Originally French it has been translated into most languages and has been widely used and is still used by various Socialist and Communist movements worldwide.] was played. I also stood by him being solemn and strict. My mother laughed at us.
In spring we went back to Bugaz. Here, in June 1940, the Soviet regime came to power. At once the management left. The director, chief physician, and surgeon Janos quit. Work practically stopped. We moved to Inkerman, where I saw Soviet soldiers for the first time. Bessarabians welcomed them with flowers. We left Inkerman for Kishinev. We had no place to live. Grandfather Gersh lived in a separate poky room. Uncle Lazar and his family were evicted and exiled. We moved to my mother’s friend Fanya Berekhman. After a few months there was a strong earthquake in Kishinev. Part of the house, where we lived, collapsed. Fortunately, my father managed to take me and my mother from the house. Then we rented a small room. My father found a job at a railroad design institute: Dorproject. My mother was a housewife.
On 22nd June 1941 the war was unleashed. Kishinev was bombed on the first day. A dairymaid came over and said that the railroad had been bombed. That was the way we found out about the war. We hid in the basement during the bombing.
In early July 1941 my father hired a cart, loaded all our precious things and we went to the train station. It was crowded and was next to impossible to get on a train. In the evening the representatives of the authorities came to the platform and father asked for help saying that his wife was pregnant. I, considering my father to be my idol, was shocked thinking that he had lied; I didn’t know that my mother was expecting.
We were helped to get on the locomotive. It was a long and hard journey. The train was often bombed and we had to get out and hide in the bushes. We came to Rostov oblast [about 900km from Kishinev] [today Russia] and were sent to a kolkhoz [20]. We settled in the house of a lady from the kolkhoz. She gave us a warm shoulder. My parents worked in the field and I stayed at home with Grandfather Haim. The kolkhoz gave some rations.
We were helped to get on the locomotive. It was a long and hard journey. The train was often bombed and we had to get out and hide in the bushes. We came to Rostov oblast [about 900km from Kishinev] [today Russia] and were sent to a kolkhoz [20]. We settled in the house of a lady from the kolkhoz. She gave us a warm shoulder. My parents worked in the field and I stayed at home with Grandfather Haim. The kolkhoz gave some rations.
,
1941
See text in interview
Fascists [Nazis] were approaching Rostov oblast. We had to move and my father didn’t know what to do. On one hand he couldn’t leave Grandfather Haim and on the other he had to come get us. My grandfather insisted on my father’s going. He left my grandfather in the kolkhoz, made arrangements with some man to get my grandfather to Novoshakhtinsk or Krasny Sulin [today Russia], where we were supposed to meet. My father was so upset about my grandfather that he left our things, photos and my mother’s jewelry. He came to the hospital with a small suitcase. He felt so dreadful for leaving his father that he swooned in the hospital. We were discharged from the hospital and went to Krasny Sulin in summer clothes, without our belongings. We waited for my grandfather for a few days, but he didn’t show up. The Germans were approaching and we had to move.
We got off in Saratov [today Russia]. We went to the evacuation point located at the polytechnic institute. We settled in a room which was partitioned. There were cadavers behind the partition. My mother got food cards [see Card system] [21] and bread. She feared death in the coming parturition, and most of all she was afraid that I would remain by myself. She was given a document for me to be settled in an orphanage in case she died.
My mother and I headed to the village. First we went to a kolkhoz and then finally settled in a kolkhoz named after Kalinin [22], in Novoguzskiy region, Saratov oblast. Since my mother was literate she found a job as an aide of the secretary of the village council. Besides, she was involved in propaganda. She read newspapers to the field workers. She was also involved in harvesting of potatoes. The farm ladies said, ‘Pelageya, take home a bucket of potatoes,’ but my mother was embarrassed without understanding how she could have taken anything without permission. We, who didn’t live in socialist conditions, weren’t used to that, but it was normal for the Soviet people to take things belonging to the state. In the end my mother also started taking potatoes home, about half a bucket. We weren’t that hungry because of that scrumptious ‘sugary’ potato. My mother was ready to assume any job. She, without knowing how to saw, became a seamstress because of her natural talent. She made brassieres, skirts. Once she even made a sheepskin, though her fingers were hurt. A peasant lady brought some potatoes and a keg of sauerkraut for that.
I went to school there in the kolkhoz. My mother made me some boots to have something to wear. Four grades studied in one premise. I was interested in things we were taught as well as in the things taught to the older ones. Here I learnt a lot of things from the third and fourth grades.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
I went to school there in the kolkhoz. My mother made me some boots to have something to wear. Four grades studied in one premise. I was interested in things we were taught as well as in the things taught to the older ones. Here I learnt a lot of things from the third and fourth grades.
My mother was constantly writing letters to the information center in Buguruslan, desperate to find my father. Finally, in spring 1943 she got a response saying that my father was working for a mining enterprise in the Uzbek town Chirchiq [3500km from Kishinev]. My mother wrote him a letter and he replied. My father wrote about his hardship. He had spent a night at the train station, wherefrom he managed to get his traveling fellow on the train. He failed to leave. He fell asleep on the bench and at night his watch and remaining money were stolen. My father was in despair. It seemed to him that he had lost everybody: first his father, then his wife, and me. There he was caught by the raid aiming to pick the men eligible for military service. He was drafted into the labor front [24] and sent to work in the mines, first to Angren [today Uzbekistan], then to Chirchiq.