Travel

My parents came from smaller Jewish towns in Vinnitsa province: my mother was from Layzhin, my father was from Bershad’. My maternal grandmother Beila, died when my mother was 2 years old. I was named after her. I remember my grandfather David Gutelmacher very well. My grandmother and grandfather were born in Layzhin in 1870s. My grandfather was a high skilled fur dresser. He dressed fur and made fur coats and hats. He provided well for the family. My grandparents had two children: my mother and her brother Naum. My mother told me that they had a big stone house in the center of the town. My grandfather’s shop was on the first floor. Some time after my grandmother died my grandfather remarried. I don’t remember his second wife’s name. After he remarried my mother’s maternal grandmother took my mother to live with her. She was afraid that the stepmother would not be kind to my mother. My mother’s brother Naum, who was two years older than my mother, stayed with his father and stepmother. My grandfather and his second wife had another daughter: Esther and my mother’s brother was closer to her than my mother.

Naum, born in 1898, finished cheder, a Jewish school, but he grew up to be far from professing religion. Naum got some business education during the Soviet regime and became chief accountant of the State Bank in due time. He lived and worked in Kharkov and later he moved to Kiev. He often visited us before the Great Patriotic War 1. Naum was a bachelor and he was always eager to see his nieces and nephews. He always brought us toys and sweets. During the Great Patriotic War Naum was in evacuation with the bank. After the war he returned to Kiev. At his venerable age he married a woman with a child whom I never saw. Naum died in Kiev in 1968.

My mother had no relationships with her stepsister Esther. Perhaps, this had to do with some feeling of jealousy. Esther was about 5 years younger than my mother. Esther worked in a pharmacy. She married chief accountant of pharmaceutical agency. He was a widower and had three children. His last name was Lerner. He was a well-mannered man. He treated us nicely. They didn’t have common children. During the Great Patriotic War she was in evacuation. After the war she returned to Layzhin. Esther’s husband died shortly after the war. Esther died in the 1970s. She hardly ever contacted my mother, but she and I corresponded. She visited me in 1967.

My mother Lisa (her Jewish name was Leya) Gutelmacher, born in 1900, was raised in her grandmother’s home. Her grandmother was a widow by then. She adored my mother and feeling sorry for the orphan indulged in all her whims and fancies. My mother’s grandmother must have been quite wealthy since she managed to give my mother a good education. She finished Russian and Jewish grammar schools in Layzhin. She had fluent Russian and knew mathematics. She was a well-educated woman for her time. My great grandmother’s family was religious and my mother observed Jewish traditions her whole life. She knew Hebrew and could read the Torah and Talmud that was rare with women of her time. I don’t know whether my mother had aunts or uncles. I only know one: my grandmother Beila’s sister Tuba whom my mother loved dearly. Tuba was a striking beauty. She wore beautiful long gowns, furs and expensive jewelry. Shortly before the revolution of 1917 2 a Jewish millionaire from America came on a visit to his hometown of Bershad’. He fell in love with Tuba, married her and they left for USA. Tuba left her beautiful gowns and jewelry to my mother.

My father Chaim Fainshtein was the same age with my mother. He came from a wealthy Jewish family in Bershad’. His parents, Berko and Riva Fainshtein, were born in Bershad’ in the 1870s. My grandfather Berko owned a meat factory that manufactured sausage and tinned meat. After nationalization 3 this was the only big enterprise in the town. My grandmother Rivka was a smart and business-oriented woman. She owned a restaurant. Unfortunately, I don’t remember its name. I can still remember my grandmother Rivka: a beautiful stately woman wearing a lace hairpin in her fluffed up black hair, wearing a wide gypsy style skirt with big pockets where she kept a key ring with keys and a purse. Grandmother was the head of the family: she was busy from morning till night giving orders to housemaids, clerk and cooks at the restaurant. She kept records and audited bills in the restaurant by herself. Based on the above mentioned I think that my grandmother must have had a good education. I will also tell you later about my grandmother pedagogical talents. Grandfather Berko was not so intelligent as my grandmother, but he was also as smart and business-oriented as she. He was very religious and started every day with a prayer putting on his tallit and tefillin. He always wore a kippah and had a small beard. Grandmother Rivka told me that she had 15 children. Eight of them died. The children were raised religious. The boys finished cheder and got secular education if they wished. My grandmother and grandfather thought it their duty to give their children a good education. However, all of them sooner or later became atheists. It was a demand of their time… The children lived in Bershad’ or in the vicinity. When they were getting married their parents bought houses for them in nearby towns.

The oldest brother Menachem was born in 1897. He was affectionately called Menasha. He was a worker and turner. He had a wife and four children and resided with his family in Chechel’nik near Bershad’. They were wealthy and in 1929 our family and their family were sent away to Kherson steppes as kulaks 4, – I shall talk about it later. After we returned my father and Menachem were demobilized to the construction of Dneprovskaya hydropower plant where he fell ill with tuberculosis and it took him many years to get cured. I fail to guess why Menachem, a sickly aging man, was recruited to the army when the Great Patriotic War began. However, he went to the war and perished at the front. His wife Hana and children were in the ghetto in Chechel’nik. Fortunately, they survived, but we never met after the war and I don’t have any information about them. The only thing I remember is that their daughters’ names were Perl and Golda, but I don’t remember their sons’ names.

The next child in the family was Enta, born in 1905. She fell in love with her cousin brother Aizek who lived in grandmother’s house. His parents, my grandmother’s sister and her husband, were killed during a Petlura 5 pogrom 6 in Kryzhopol town where they lived. My grandmother took the boy to her home. Aizek severely injured his genitals at the buttery where he was working and couldn’t have children. Enta insisted on marrying him, nevertheless. She said she wanted him and as for children, well, they could adopt them. They loved each other dearly. However, they asked my mother to let them raise me, but would a mother give away her child even to someone of her own family. Enta finished a vocational school and became a designer. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War Aizek was recruited to the army and Enta, my grandmother and Enta’s sisters evacuated to Tashkent. Aizek perished at the front. After the war Enta married a widower with eight children. Enta loved them very much and became a mother to them. Her husband died in the late 1950s and Enta raised his children. The children supported her when she became old. Enta died in the middle of the 1970s.

Uncle Isaac, Itzyk, born in 1910 worked at the buttery in Bershad’. We didn’t get along with his wife who was a taleteller. My mother hated it and so did I when I grew up. Itzyk’s daughter Surah was exactly like her mother. Itzyk was at the front. He was the only man in our family who returned home after the war. When we met after the war we hugged each other and kept crying for a while. Itzyk came home a sickly, nervous and exhausted man and died about three years later. I have no contacts with his family. I know that Surah lived in Odessa and his older son Aron worked as a driver in Bershad’.

My father’s brother Avrum, born in 1912, finished the Polytechnic College in Vinnitsa. He got a job assignment at the distillery in Bershad’. I remember one event where Arum was involved that can serve as an example of educating a grown up son whom my grandmother Rivka handled perfectly. When Avrum received his first salary he bought vodka for his foreman and crew which was a tradition at that time. Avrum was not used to drinking. He returned home tipsy. Grandmother didn‘t say a word. In two or three days was Avrum’s birthday. Grandmother gave him a nice big money box. Everybody was surprised: why would a big guy need a moneybox? Avrum was hurt, but he didn’t show it. Before going to bed he came to give grandmother his usual kiss and couldn’t help asking her why she made such strange present to him. I stayed at my grandmother’s that night. I was reading a book in bed and I stayed quiet as a mouse waiting for my grandmother’s reply. She said ‘Now, Avrum, when you buy vodka you shall drop exactly the same amount of money into this moneybox. One day you will open it and see how much you’ve stolen from yourself’. He rose, kissed my grandmother and thanked her for teaching him. He didn’t drink from then on. He became a very good engineer. He worked in Layzhin and Nemirov. Before the Great Patriotic War he became chief engineer of the distillery in Bershad’. When the war began he was demobilized to the army regardless of his poor sight. He didn’t return from this war. His wife Lisa, a Jew, a beautiful and intelligent woman with higher education, married a tinsmith after the war since she needed support. She gave good education to her only daughter Manechka. Manechka married a director of a bank. They moved to USA in the 1970s.

My grandmother’s younger son Israel, born in 1913, died when he was young. When the family was deported to Kherson steppes in 1929 he got sunstroke in the field and died. I have dim memories, but he seemed a nice handsome boy to me.

Freida, a nice pretty girl, was the youngest in the family. She was 8 years older than I and we often played with dolls together. I loved Freida. She was like a sister to me. Freida finished a technological school and was director of a diner at a distillery. She fell in love with Noeh Bershad’ski, a Jewish man much older than she. They had a daughter: Genia. Noeh was recruited to the army at the beginning of the war and he perished at the front. Freida, Enta and grandmother were in evacuation together. After the war she remarried and moved to the Ural. We corresponded before the 1990s, but then our correspondence terminated. This is all information I have about Freida.

My father Chaim Fainshtein was born in 1900. After finishing cheder he studied at the Jewish primary school and then he began to help his father at the meat factory. I don’t have any information about my father’s family during the revolution 1917 or Civil War 7, but they managed through this hard period all right. My parents got to know each other through a matchmaker that was a customary thing with Jewish families. They got married in 1924. It goes without saying that they had a Jewish wedding with a chuppah. There were many guests at their wedding in Bershad’. The family was big. My grandmother said that the family constituted one hundred to one hundred and sixty members when they got together for a celebration at her home. Therefore, there were even more guests at the wedding. On the next day my parents had a civil ceremony in a registry office. They lived in grandmother Riva’s house few months until their parents bought them a house.

Growing up

I was born on 23 December 1925. By the way, my mother and paternal grandmother had their first argument ever about giving me a name. My grandmother wanted to name me after her relative while my mother insisted that I was named after her mother. I was named Beila. I spent my childhood and youth in Bershad’.

Bershad’ always seemed beautiful, quiet and calm to me. Its streets buried in verdure ran down to the Dochna River turning around the town on three sides. Jews resided in the central part of the town. They were craftsmen for the most part: tailors, shoemakers, coopers and glasscutters. Ukrainians had farmlands in the outskirts of the town supplying vegetables, potatoes and dairies. There was also a Russian neighborhood in the town. The street had the name of ‘katsapskaya’ (slang nickname for Russian – ‘katsap’). Russians made pickled vegetables – pickles, apples and watermelons, selling them at the market. Jews attended a beautiful synagogue in the center of the town and Russians and Ukrainians went to a church by the river. Every time crossing the river I glimpsed at this beautiful and attractive church. I wanted to go inside, but Jewish children were not allowed to go to church and I only admired the building and liked the sound of the bells ringing. Grandmother and our family lived in Piski Bershad’, a Ukrainian area in the outskirts of the town. Grandmother owned a meat factory located there and the family had a house nearby. We observed traditions and the holidays, but I don’t remember any details.

My first memories are associated with the period of dispossession of kulaks 3, or to put it simply – elimination of wealthier population by Soviet authorities. In spring 1929, after Pesach, we were woken up in the middle of a night and I probably remember this night due to the fear I felt. I was under the age of 4. My mother gave birth to my brother Boris some time before. My father, my mother, the baby and I were taken to a black car that people later called ‘Black Maria’. My mother only managed to grab some valuables from her box and few diapers for the baby. We left silver tableware, carpets, furniture and clothing at home. We got no explanation. We were taken to the railway station where we were ordered to board a freight train. We were holding hands. It was dark and we didn’t see who else was there. When father said something to mother, we heard grandmother Riva calling him: she recognized her son by his voice. Grandmother and grandfather had been taken to the train before us. Other members of our family were there, too: uncle Isaac, Izia, Freida and later uncle Menachem and his family came. I don’t remember any details about the trip. I only remember that it was cold in the train and my mother dried diapers on her chest. We were taken to Kherson steppes where we were accommodated in wooden barracks with cracks in the walls. However, authorities promised to build houses for us before winter. There were big bowls outside where my grandmother and other women cooked food. Of course, kashrut was out of the question, but we got more or less sufficient food. There was even some meat in the soup we got. My parents worked in the field and took my brother and me with them: it was unsafe to leave children in barracks. There were jackals in the steppe and there were rumors that they attacked younger children. There were ancient Skythian sculptures of women in the steppe whom I was afraid of. I was also afraid of numerous gophers that were like rats. They ate grain and for this they were hunted for. Men poured water into their holes. When gophers came onto the surface men killed them with sticks and took them to fur supply shop. Their fur was in demand. My father also did this. On the way back he told me to sit on a cart. There was a heap of dead animals and began crying. My father was a kind and nice man, but that time he lost his temper and began to whip me. I was screaming and my grandmother heard me. She came and took the whip from my father and told him off. In the evening my father cried feeling sorry for what he did. Now I understand that my father just lost his temper. This was the only time he lifted his hand against me. We stayed in the steppe until late autumn. It got very cold and nobody followed the promise to build houses. My father decided it was better to go back home than starve to death or die from cold. He thought that even if we had to go to prison we would go back. The rest of our family were of the same opinion. One day our father hired a wagon. Grandmother and grandfather and the children sat on it and we didn’t have any luggage with us. We got to the railway station where we got on a train to Bershad. There were all of us on our way back: our family, grandmother and grandfather, uncle Isaac, Izia, Freida, uncle Menachem and his family. We returned to Bershad.

When we arrived my grandmother and grandfather returned to their house. Our house became a meat supply office. Our Ukrainian neighbors offered us accommodation in their house. In about two days Soviet officials came to this house. They asked my parents why we returned without permission. My father told them about living conditions and cold there. On the next day my father and uncle Menachem were mobilized to the construction of Dnepro GES power plant in Zaporozhe. A Jewish family offered my mother two rooms in their house. We lived there for free. In spring 1930 my father and uncle Menachem returned from the construction site. The working conditions there were very hard, they worked standing in knee-deep water and uncle Menachem fell ill with tuberculosis. My father had swollen veins on his legs from hard work, but he must have worked hard there and earned appreciation of the management since he got employment at the meat factory that belonged to our family in the past. In summer 1930 he joined the Party. From then on my father was afraid of observing Jewish traditions. We didn’t observe Sabbath or other Jewish holidays. Soviet authorities began an active struggle against religion 8. My father worked on Saturdays. He was sent to work in Torostyanets and then in Golovanevsk where he was director of meat supply agency. My mother and I followed my father. In Golovanevsk my second brother was born. My mother named him Tonia after her favorite aunt Tuba (first letters in their names were the same). My grandmother Rivka stopped speaking with my mother again since she wanted a different name for the boy. In early 1932 we returned to Bershad’ where my father became director of meat supply agency and his office was in our former house. We received a room in this same house. There was a carpet on the doorway to my father’s office and we could hear what was going on in my father’s office and my mother knew the exact time when she had to warm up my father’s dinner. My mother also went to work. She became an accountant at the mill.

I spent much time with my grandmother Riva whom I loved dearly. She observed Sabbath. On every Friday evening it was a beautiful ceremony. We, children, watched our grandmother lighting candles and grandfather saying prayers over them and blessing the wine and challah and dipping a piece of challah in salt… My grandmother baked delicious challah bread topped with some spicy seeds! I’ve never eaten challah so delicious again in my life. My grandmother also cooked the most delicious Gefilte fish. And the most important thing – grandmother baked each grandchild his or her favorite pastry. After dinner grandmother sat into a snug armchair near the stove and we sat on small stools beside her. We told her what happened during a week, how we behaved and what marks we got at school. We showed her our school record sheet and if there was a ‘3’ or, God forbid a ‘2’ there grandmother didn’t give one his delicious gift. Grandmother also let her most obedient grandchildren stay with her overnight, and there was nothing better for me than stay in her wide bed, hug and kiss her good night.

My father’s office purchased meat that was canned and shipped to Kharkov and Moscow and sometimes the office arranged for shipment of cattle. During shipment cattle lost some weight and then there were discrepancies in documents. Once a claim was sent from Leningrad and my father went there to clarify the situation. While he was away his chief accountant and engineer ran away. They had done some damage. My mother didn’t know anything about it. When my father returned from Leningrad he went directly to his office. My mother was cooking his lunch listening to what was going on in my father’s office. My father didn’t come in the evening or late at night. My mother went out to ask the guard what happened and he told her that my father was arrested by two people wearing civilian outfits. My mother ran to NKVD 9 office where they told her that her husband was arrested for suspicion in sabotage. My father was in prison in Vinnitsa. My mother notified his brother Naum about this and he came immediately. My uncle arranged a meeting with my father and also got photographs of the saboteurs who ran away to submit them for an overall search. I can remember well our meeting with my father. My grandmother, Enta, my mother and I went to see him. There were few families waiting in a big room. My father and other prisoners were taken there. My father had lost weight and looked devastated. He lifted me to a wide windowsill and kissed. My mother gave him a bowl of cold meat in jelly that she had bought at the market. It was my father’s favorite. My father took a spoon and… fainted. We didn’t understand what happened and again gave him the bowl when he regained consciousness. He looked at it and fainted again. Then, when he came to his senses he waved his hand to put the bowl away. My grandmother took a closer look at the bowl and saw a little child’s finger in it. This happened in 1932, when famine 10 began in Ukraine. We didn’t quite feel it, but there were cases of cannibalism. After that my father fainted every time hearing the word ‘cholodets’ – cold meat jelly.

In few months the saboteurs were found at the border with Japan where they wanted to escape. They were taken to Vinnitsa and admitted that they had committed theft. My father was released. He resumed his membership in the Party and was given compensation for the period he stayed in prison. However, there was moral damage that was irreparable. My mother took almost all her jewelry to Torgsin 11 during the period that my father was in prison. We also suffered from hunger. Uncle Naum supported us. He brought us food packages. He didn’t trust postal services: he knew they would never reach the addressee. In 1933, at the age of seven and a half years I went to school. I attended the second shift at school and one evening four adult men pursued me. I screamed and a pedestrian rescued me and took me home. From then on I didn’t go to school. There was cannibalism: children were killed to make sausage. I was a plump and appetizing girl and those cannibals couldn’t resist the temptation. My parents decided to keep me home for my sake. Therefore, I went again to the first form a year after.

There were Jewish schools, but my parents decided that, considering further perspective it was rather advantageous to go to a Ukrainian school in Piski Bershad’ where we lived. I studied well and became a pioneer at school. In 1938 my parents bought a small house with thatched roof in the center of the town. They were planning to remove the old stuff and build a new house on the spot. I went to another Ukrainian school near the center of the town. There were more Jewish children in this school. I had Jewish and non-Jewish friends. We didn’t care about nationality. Many Ukrainians spoke Yiddish and Jews spoke Ukrainian in Bershad’.

My father was recruited to the army in 1939 and participated in the campaign of annexation of some Polish regions to Ukraine 12 and in the Finnish War 13. I became my mother’s support and help. My mother left for work early to arrive there on time: at that time one could be sent to court even for being 5 minutes late. My mother left me a list of chores. Our family was already bigger; my sister Genia was born in 1935 and in 1938 – my brother named David after my father’s father who had passed away. I had to take him to nursery school and her to kindergarten, cook dinner, buy bread and go to school. In 1940 my mother arranged for me to become a lab assistant’s apprentice. She wanted me to go to work after finishing the seventh form and continue my studies at an extramural department. I liked working at he mill. I liked grain sampling and testing. Besides, I could take this little grain home that was of help. However, my dream was to study medicine and become a doctor. After finishing school in 1941 my friend and I took our documents to a Medical School in Gaisin, a neighboring town. In the middle of July we received a letter of admission from the School. My mother opened the letter and there was much ado at home: my mother wanted me stay home. She didn’t think she could manage without me. My father was in Western Ukraine. On 21 June 1941 we received his telegram where he told us that he was demobilized and was on his way home. He sent this cable from a railroad station. On Sunday 22 June 1941 I was in bed longer. I was at the prom the night before and my mother and I returned home late. My mother woke me up saying ‘Daughter, the war began’. My father never reached home. He returned to his military unit.

There were big black plates of radios in the streets in Bershad’ where there were crowds of people listening to latest news. On 3 July Stalin spoke on the radio. By that time almost all men in our family were already at the front. On 24 June uncle Avrum, Noeh – my aunt’s husband, and other men left. My friends and I studied first medical aid at school: we learned to apply bandages and carry stretchers. We were patriots and went to the registry office to volunteer to the front. They sent us home saying that we were still too young for the front. Soviet troops were retreating and they moved through Bershad’ town. Soldiers looked exhausted. Many had their arms or heads bandaged. Slightly wounded were on horse-driven carts. My friends and I were on the bridge across the river. When we saw someone with red armbands we asked them to take us with them. Somebody told our parents that we were there. My mother told me off and locked me in the house. I did regret more than once that I didn’t get to the front when we were in evacuation. There was more certainty at the front: one knew that one would either die or survive. There is nothing worse than staying in a ghetto, exposed to humiliation and beating.

On one hot afternoon we were having lunch in the house. The window was open and I saw all of a sudden a man in a uniform lifting my little brother Dima. I got frightened at first and then recognized my father. My mother dropped a heavy frying pan in the kitchen hearing me screaming. We ran outside and hang on our father. We were telling him to come inside, but he was in a hurry. There was a truck with other officers waiting for my father. He only dropped home to tell us that we had to evacuate. He saw refugees from occupied territories that told him about brutality of fascists and mass extermination of Jews in Poland. Our neighbors and grandmother came to our yard. They listened to what my father was telling us. I shall never forget how our father unclasped our hands and even sort of got angry and ran back to the truck. He turned back once shouting to our mother ‘Leave, you must not stay!’ This was the last time I saw our father. In 1944 we received an official notification that he was missing. I don’t even know where he was buried or if he was buried at all.

In few days my grandmother and aunts evacuated. Grandfather Berko refused to go with them. He stayed in Enta’s house. My mother also refused to evacuate. She said we didn’t have money and that it was too hard for her to leave with five children. My mother remembered Germans from WWI when they were polite and she decided they could not change dramatically. Later she regretted much that she didn’t follow our father’s direction.

During air raids we went to the basement. Our mother made some kind of shelter in the basement: the old door was nailed up covered with wood and rags. Mother also somehow pulled heavy boulder stones to camouflage the door. There was only a narrow opening in the basement through which we could squeeze into the shelter. This shelter saved us many times during occupation.

Germans came to Bershad’ in late July. There was a strong bombing and water in the river was almost boiling from bombs. Residents stayed in their houses and my mother forbade me to go outside. Somebody told me later that few Ukrainians came to meet German troops with bread and salt on embroidered towels. The first to come into the town were Hungarians on motorcycles. They moved on and on the next day German front troops came also on motorcycles. They also ignored the locals, but on the next day an SS Sonderverband and policemen from Western Ukraine came with them. There were posters ordering Jews to come for registration everywhere. Germans and policemen came to houses to rob, rape and kill. A German and a policeman came to our house. They tore off a mezuzah and the German rushed it with his boot. The policeman pinched me on my breast hard. Then they searched the house looking for gold and money, something we hadn’t had for a long time. They took away new notebooks, pencils and pens that our mother bought children to go school. When they went to another room I picked the mezuzah: I always wanted to know what was inside, but my mother ordered me to leave it where it was. The searchers turned the house upside down. Before leaving the policeman noticed my little golden earrings. My grandmother had little earrings made from her ring when I was born and pierced them into my ears. He unlocked one earring, but another one didn’t unlock and he pulled it down injuring my earlobe. I couldn’t say a work. My brother embraced me by my knees. He got frightened seeing my ear bleeding.

On the next day we were taken to the ghetto: few streets were fenced with barbed wire. We stayed in someone’s house just few days until the area of the ghetto spread to our street. We returned to our house. Life behind bars was terrible. The ghetto in Bershad’ was divided into two parts: an upper part on a hill and a lower part where we were. We were not allowed to leave the ghetto: there were policemen guarding the gate. My mother always applied some smelly herbs to keep Germans and policemen away. They raped young girls. They broke into a neighboring house and raped my friend Chaika. They knocked her mother out hitting her with a rifle butt. My other friend Raya’s sister was raped. Their mother was screaming and they shot her. Raya, her sister and their little brother lost their mother. Another beautiful woman was raped in the presence of her husband. When he tried to protect her they shot him.

In few weeks Romanian troops took command in the ghetto: our ghetto became a part of Transnistria 14 Romanians were greedy and could be bought off. A Jewish community and Judenrat were established in the ghetto. Judenrat was responsible for order and cleanness in the ghetto. They had to arrange for timely removal of dead corpses and forming groups of inmates to go to work. My mother was concerned about me. She told me to stay in the shelter and asked the community to not send me to work. I feel ashamed to say that it often happened that some Jews in the community didn’t protect us from occupants. If they didn’t include me in the list of a work crew they charged my mother to pay two marks per day. They wanted to benefit from their own kinship. We didn’t have any money. We were starving. Every now and then Ukrainians brought some food to the ghetto. One of my mother’s acquaintances bribed Romanians to take my brothers Boris and Tonia to her home. They helped her about the house and she gave them some food. There were two Rud’ brothers in the ghetto. They worked as guards in my father’s office. They were policemen in the ghetto and informed our mother about when she needed to hide us in the shelter to avoid doing some particularly hard work.

The commandant of the ghetto inspired fear and horror in all inmates of the ghetto. I’ve forgotten his last name, but he was Fuhrer’s favorite. He was a young sleek man. He had his boots shining with polish and walked in the ghetto with a whip and his little spitz dog. He could have all male inmates lined up and shoot each one that he didn’t like. He called our street the ‘Street of pretty girls’ and often came here to select another girl for amusement. After he satiated with a girl they killed her. Their corpses couldn’t be removed for three days until he gave a direction to do so. I remember a fearful accident. The commandant ordered all to gather in the square. There was a pregnant woman in the front row. She was deported from Moldavia. There were inmates from Moldavia, Romania, the Baltic Republics, Yugoslavia and France in the ghetto. They arrived in autumn 1941. The commandant didn’t like the woman for some reason. He ordered her to come nearer, took out a knife and cut her belly open. A living baby fell onto the ground and he crushed it with his boot. I screamed and my mother pushed me to keep silent. I still have this horrifying scene before my eyes. The woman died of loss of blood.

Fascists made injections to younger children and made them swallow some powder. Seeing a fascist or a policeman they rolled up their sleeves. Soon an epidemic of typhoid began. I think they infected children purposely. My sister Genia and then grandfather Berko fell ill and died. I don’t remember their funerals since I was ill with typhoid. I think those who died were taken to the cemetery in Bershad’ and buried in a common grave. I was ill for a long time. When I recovered my mother tried to keep me in the shelter. When she couldn’t do it, I went to work like other young people. Romanians made stables in the synagogue and the cultural center. Once in December girls were taken to the synagogue and ordered to wash the floors: they were going to make a casino for officers in there. The water was ice cold. We were given buckets and spades. I recognized one policeman. He used to be a Komsomol leader 15 in our school. I believed he stayed in the ghetto on purpose to help us. We believed that every Komsomol official was an example of honor, decency and devotion to his country and people. I thought he belonged to an underground group, but he told us that if we didn’t finish this task in three hours he would report that we were Komsomol members and they would shoot us. I wasn’t a Komsomol then. We took to scrubbing the floors. The mud was mixed with our blood flowing from under the nails. I came home with my ice cold bleeding hands and my mother and I cried desperately!

One night we heard noise, yelling in Romanian and crying. Another group of Jews arrived at the ghetto. In the morning my mother saw light in my grandfather’s window as if somebody was trying to light a candle. She went to the house and saw Jews sleeping side by side on the floor. It was cold and they could well freeze to death in the house. My mother woke me up, boiled a big bucket of water and sent me to the house to give those people at least a cup of boiling water to warm up. I came into the house when I heard someone saying ‘Look, she is so much like our Bella!’ Then I met the Aizner family. Their daughter Bella died on the way to the ghetto. They were not even allowed to bury her. My mother invited them to stay with us and we became friends. Their son Yakov liked me a lot. His mother’s name was Lisa, like my mother. She also liked me much. They told us that their family was rich, that they owned factories and plants in Romania and that they had relatives in America. They believed their relatives were going to rescue them through Red Cross. Aunt Lisa began to convince my mother and me to take me with them under a name of their daughter Bella and when we were free – marry Yakov. My mother told me to agree. In a month Red Cross couriers began to visit the ghetto. They had lists of Jews. They came to our house, wrote my name down as Yakov’s sister and left. Yakov was handsome, but I wasn’t particularly fond of him. Perhaps, I was too young and was afraid of the forthcoming marriage. Yakov began to work in the Jewish police. The policemen made lists of people to go to work every day, and also decided who was to be sterilized and provided this ‘material’ to fascists. He could manage to not include me on any lists: tried to save me from work and helped me to avoid sterilization. Young girls and women got injections of formalin into uterus. It caused inflammation and high fever. Someone died, some survived, but could never have children. German doctors made these injections. There was one Romanian Jew Landau among them. He was deported from Romania with his wife and two-year-old daughter. His wife died and he was ordered to make those injections. His hands were shaking and he said he could not live with it. He hanged himself shortly afterward. There was also a Ukrainian gynecologist in the camp. He enjoyed mutilating Jewish women. He was taken to court after the war.

On one hand, I was grateful to Yakov, but I didn’t want to marry him. In about 3 months Yakov told me to be ready. A courier was coming to pick us up. I felt awfully sorry for my mother and my brothers. I thought I would never forgive myself if I survived and they didn’t. When Yakov came I said that I loved my family and couldn’t possibly leave them and that if he loved me why didn’t he stay in the ghetto himself. He came back with his bag and said he would stay. His mother came. She begged me to either go with them or at least tell her son to come with his parents. I promised her I would do it. I told Yakov that I would never marry him. He left me and I went hysterical. My mother was very upset. She hoped that I might escape from that Hell where we were. In two days the Aizners knocked on our window at 6 in the morning – they were leaving the ghetto. My mother went outside to say ‘good bye’ to them, but I didn’t dare.

In some time Eva who lived in our house came home with an acquaintance of hers, a young man from Yedintsy town [today Moldova] where the girl also came from. His name was Motia Gabis. He told us his story. He was born in Yedintsy in 1921. His father owned a buttery and his mother was a teacher of the Russian language. His father Ouri and Motia also finished a grammar school. In 1940 the Soviet regime 16 was established and Motia had to go to a secondary school to obtain a certificate to be able to enter a college. When the Great Patriotic War began the Gabis family failed to evacuate. When fascists came to Yedintsy Dmitri Bogutsak, Moldavian neighbor of the Gabis family, came to shoot Motia’s family. Eva hiding in her house saw this happening. Motia’s father and mother fell and then fell Motia, wounded, and then Ouri fell. Eva decided they were all dead. She was astounded to meet Motia in the ghetto in Gershad. Motia and my brother were lucky since their wounds were not lethal. Bullets only tore their clothes and made some scratches on them. They stayed quiet until night when they came to their friends’ house where they got first aid. After they recovered they had to stay in hiding. Motia and his brother got to Ukraine concealing their identity. Fascists captured them and sent to the ‘Dead Loop’ death camp 17. Motia and Ouri escaped from there, too. They kept hiding in Ukrainian villages. From what Motia told us I understood that our relatives Menachem’s wife and their children gave shelter to them. They stayed with my aunt until they got stronger. Later I joked that my uncle’s wife heated up a husband for me! Motia and his brother Ouri were taken to the construction of abridge in Nikolaev. Their work conditions were very hard. They slept in pits they excavated themselves. Almost all of them died at this construction.

I didn’t like Motia at first sight. He was wearing torn trousers and a ragged jacket. My mother and I were undoing old carpets for yarn and knitting woolen socks for sale. Motia started helping me. My mother liked Motia at once. She wanted to take Motia to live with us, but was afraid of rumors: he was a young man and I was a young woman… Then Eva said ‘Why doesn’t Beila marry Motia?’ I didn’t quite accept this idea. Motia visited us every evening. Once he said that if I married him I would never regret it, that he would care about me and we would have a good life. I agreed: not because I loved him, but because I felt sorry for him. He was very happy and kept telling everybody about the forthcoming wedding. There was a rabbi in the group of Moldavian Jews. He conducted the ceremony of engagement in accordance with Jewish traditions. He even issued a paper that I lost, regretfully, but I’ve kept ketubbah, a wedding contract, written on a page from a school notebook. We also had a chuppah made from old blankets. Our best friends held sticks with a chuppah spread on them. There was not one tallit in the ghetto: fascists took all tallits and tefillins away from older Jews. However, the rabbi wedded us and my mother gave her blessing. Shortly before the wedding Motia’s former Ukrainian schoolmate Kolia Kolkey recognized Motia. He was recruited to the Romanian army and was a guard in the ghetto. He hugged Motia. He helped us a lot. He tried not to send us to work when he was on duty. Our wedding was when he was on duty, too. He brought some food and two live chickens to the wedding. Of course, it was a different wedding. We didn’t have any guests since we were not allowed to gather in groups or walk in the streets after curfew. This happened in late 1942.

We received information about the situation at the front. Partisans spread flyers with information about victories of the Soviet army. There was a partisan unit near Bershad’. The majority of partisans were Jews in it. Commanding officer Yasha Thales was a former secretary of the town Komsomol committee. Some of the partisans were sons of inmates of the ghetto. Every now and then another men disappeared from the ghetto joining partisans. Partisans had contact inmates in the ghetto. In the middle of 1943 the inmates collected money for partisans. Every inmate contributed as much as they could afford. We didn’t have any money. They made a list of contributors indicating the amount of contributions for some reason and gave this list to one family that buried it in their basement. This family consisted of parents and two children: a teenage boy and a daughter. There was a traitor in the ghetto. Fascists got to know about the money. One night they came to this family demanding the list. They began to torture the girl before the boy’s eyes. He couldn’t bear it and took them to the basement and got a bottle with the list inside. Fascists killed the boy and then all other members of the family. Then they shot everybody on this list. This lasted several days. We were hiding in our basement and could hear gunshots.

In 1943 fascists were retreating. We were happy about the victorious advance of the Soviet army, but our situation in the ghetto was getting worse with each coming day. Fascists replaced Romanians in the ghetto and started preparation to liquidation of the ghetto. They started from the upper ghetto. They took inmates on trucks to a quarry where they were shooting them. There were also mobile gas chambers where they smothered people with exhaust gas. Only about 320 inmates survived in the upper ghetto. They were in the last truck that Germans left on the road. As for the lower ghetto, fascists decided to flood us. They were going to blast bridges and then the wave would flood our town. Partisans informed us on German plans and we were awaiting death.

On 11 March 1944 fascists broke into our house and took my husband and me away. My mother thought it was their next shooting action, but we joined a group of about 20 younger people and were taken to a quarry with dead corpses. A day before beautiful white snow covered the ground and the sight of dead bodies was horrifying. We were ordered to pull these bodies with boat hooks and place in piles: wood and bodies. I was 5 months pregnant and it was hard for me to pull the corpses, not to mention the horror I felt, but it was impossible to leave the place. They were policemen with dogs guarding us. They prepared canisters with gasoline. When we completed the piles fascists set them on fire that produced horrifying black smoke. The snow became black. I was scared to death. Germans were in a hurry since they could hear the roar of the frontline approaching. When we returned home I kept crying and couldn’t tell my mother where we had been. At night of 13 to 14 March we were at home. The ghetto was wide-awake. People were saying ‘good bye’ to one another awaiting death. At 5 am we heard shooting and then we heard ‘Folks, come out. You are safe!’ It was a whirlpool. People were jumping out of the windows. Those were partisans and Yasha Thales was the first one who came in. I saw a woman die of infarction from joy when she ran to hug a partisan. Soviet troops came in about an hour. We were happy and couldn’t believe we survived.

In few days after we were released mobilization to the front began. My husband decided to go to the front hoping to find that bandit who killed his parents. He told me to wait for his brother Ouri to come back from Nikolaev and then come to Yedintsy, his hometown. When my husband came to Romania he got to know that Mitia Bogutsak who had killed his parents ran away to Romania. Motia decided to volunteer to the front. He knew Romanian and French languages and was recruited as interpreter in headquarters of 24th frontier regiment. Ouri returned in April and we went to Moldavia on foot. In Mohilev-Podolsk we boarded a platform in a military train heading to the front. It took us to Yedintsy. I went to headquarters of the division where Motia was on service and general Kapustin, commanding officer of the division, promised to find Motia and grant him a short leave. He kept his word and Motia came on 3-day leave a day after. We stayed together and then my husband had to go back. I went to the executive committee and they were glad to see me. They needed somebody who knew Russian. They sent me to the registry office where I copied lists of recruits.

My family backgound
Growing up
During the war
After the war
Glossary:

In a couple of months I went to work at the public education office. I studied a course of pedagogic and also taught young Moldavians elementary grammar: they couldn’t even sign their name. In June 1944 I gave birth to a girl in a military hospital. Was nobody to look after the baby and I quit the Pedagogical School. I went to work, but ran home every few hours, and sometimes my landlady looked after the baby. If I hadn’t worked we would have had nothing to live on. An inspector at my work began to pick on me: I still don’t know whether he was an anti-Semite or he wanted intimacy with me. I had to quit the district public education office. I got employment at the military construction agency that constructed facilities at the border. I indicated in my resume that I was in the ghetto and the lieutenant who was reviewing it told me to skip this part of my biography so that nobody knew that I was in the occupied area. There was a lot of suspicion toward those who stayed in occupied areas. They were treated almost like traitors of their Motherland. I revised my resume indicating that I was in evacuation and got a job of cash messenger. I got a higher salary plus compensation for confidentiality.

My baby conceived in terrible conditions of the ghetto. She died at the age of a year and a half. I was afraid of notifying my husband in the army. He came on leave during October holidays in 1945. Motia was very sad when he heard that his daughter, whom he had never seen, died. He wanted to demobilize, but only students and teachers were the first to demobilize. I obtained a request for demobilization for my husband. He studied two years at the Pedagogical College for two years and could be determined as a student. In two days I returned home late: I took salary to workers on the border. I saw a uniform hanging on the back of a chair. Motia was back. I was so happy. He and I went to see my mother in Bershad’.

There was terrible news waiting for us. Grandmother Riva didn’t return from evacuation. In July 1941 she was on the way in evacuation with my father’s sisters. Their train was bombed and grandmother Riva lost her leg. She was put on a sanitary train that left without my aunts. Enta and Freida lost track of her. They worked in a kolkhoz in about 50 km from Tashkent [Uzbekistan]. In summer 1942 they were selling vegetables from kolkhoz at a market in Tashkent. They met an acquaintance from Bershad’. They were talking about families and Freida mentioned that they had lost grandmother Riva. The woman they met told them that grandmother Riva was a beggar at the railway station in Tashkent. She was in hospital where someone stole her money and valuables and she had nothing to do, but beg. Freida and Enta rushed to find their mother. At the railway station they were horrified to find out that she had died on a platform few days before. We cried desperately! I still cannot stand the thought that my beloved grandmother died like a lost beggar. The only consolation that occurred to me was the probably God took her away, so that she never got to know that all of her sons and sons-in-law perished at the front. Itzyk was the only survivor, but he also passed away shortly after the war

My mother and brothers lived in our half-ruined house. They were very poor. It took her a long time to obtain approval for allowing her a pension for the children to be paid for their father who had perished at the front. It was a miserable pension. There was no work, the mill was ruined. My mother wrote letters and requests for other people and they paid her for this work. Motia and I decided to take my younger brother David with us. He turned 7 in 1945. He went to school in Yedintsy. I raised my younger brother.

Motia became director of military trade supply agency and was a teacher in an evening school. He studied at the extramural department in a College in Vinnitsa. After finishing it he got a job assignment 18 in Ternopol. We moved to Ternopol. In 1948 my son Semyon was born there and in 1951 – a girl. I named her Rimma after my grandmother. Motia kept his word that he gave me in the ghetto. He took good care of the children and me. He worked hard and created wonderful living conditions for us. Motia also insisted that I didn’t go to work. So, I stayed at home with the children.

I supported my mother sending her money and parcels. We visited her once a year and stayed few weeks. In 1973, when we received a big apartment, I took my mother to live with us. She died in 1974. She was buried at the town cemetery. We didn’t observe Jewish traditions, but I raised the children as Jews. They knew about the great suffering their nation had to go through.

We’ve never been interested in politics. No members of our family ever joined the Party. We lived our life and didn’t care about any political occurrences in the country. We spent our summer vacations in the Crimea. Most of our friends were Jews, but we didn’t segregate people by nationality. It just happened to be so. We didn’t observe any Jewish holidays or celebrate Soviet holidays. We only celebrated calendar New Year, birthdays and Victory Day, 9 May 19 when our friends visited us. We had a small party and sang songs of the wartime. My husband, my brothers and I drank a shot of vodka on the memorable day of 14 March, the day of liberation from the ghetto.

My older brother Boris finished a lower secondary school and studied at FZU vocational school. He studied in Donetsk and lived in a hostel. After his service in the army he returned to Donetsk. His childhood friend Nina Kooperman became his wife. She also was in the ghetto in Bershad’ with her mother. After the war they moved to Donetsk. Boris had two children: Alla, a librarian, lives in Nazareth in Israel with her family, and Grigori who also lives in Israel. Boris died on infarction in 1997. Tonia, my brother, lives in Rudnitsa town, Vinnitsa region. He divorced his first wife Betia. They had two children who live in Israel now. Tonia remarried. He is very ill and very poor.

The youngest David has always been with us. He also lives in Ternopol. David finished Polytechnic College and became an engineer. He is a pensioner, but he still works. He is chairman of the Jewish community in Ternopol. David’s Russian wife Tamara Volinyak helps him with his work and makes her own contribution into the life of community. David has twin daughters, born in 1965: Inna and Lilia. They finished Technological College, but they don’t work meanwhile. Inna has a daughter, called Lilia who is married.

My son Semyon finished a Polytechnic College. He worked as a car engineer for many years. Now he works at a private company. Semyon divorced his first wife. His second wife Galena, is a Jewish woman, has two children from her first marriage. Still, Semyon was kind to them. They live not far from us in Ternopol and we often see each other.

My daughter Rimma met her future husband Alexandr Rozenberg in college. They got married in 1973 when they were students. There were many guests at their wedding, but it wasn’t a Jewish wedding. Rimma and her husband worked at the Lvov TV factory Electron. They moved to Israel in 1990. Alexandr works in Sokhnut 20 and Rimma is a housewife. They like their new life very much. My husband and I had the same opinion about emigration. We were happy about the establishment of an independent Jewish state. Like all other Jews we followed the events and struggle, particularly, during the Six-Day-War 21, the war of Judgment Day 22. We wished happiness to all those moving to Israel or America, but we ourselves did not want to go to Israel. We remembered but too well how Jewish leaders and Judenrat behaved in the ghetto trying to benefit from us. Neither Motia nor I ever wanted to live our life among only Jews. Besides, our home and family graves are here.

I think I am a very happy woman regardless of all ordeals that we had to go through. My husband and I were always together and we were close. He died in 1994. It was a huge loss for me. I buried him beside my mother’s grave at the town cemetery. I am very happy for our children and glad that their life is different from ours. Rimma’s daughter lives in Israel. She married a Jewish man from Israel. There was a big traditional Jewish wedding with a chuppah. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to attend the party, but I’ve seen a video cassette and it was beautiful. I often look at photographs in the family album. In one of them a rabbi hands beautiful dressed up Lena, my beloved granddaughter a ketubbah and I recall my bitter wedding in the ghetto and my ketubbah. Only because I kept this document I could prove that I was an inmate of a ghetto during the war. Now I receive a solid German pension. I wouldn’t manage with the pension our state pays.

There are some economic difficulties, but I am glad that independent Ukraine gives good opportunities for every nation, including Jews, to develop. I’ve never been religious. I help my brother with his work in the community. He asks my advice and I am ready to help. I observe Sabbath as tribute to tradition and homage to my family. I light candles and make something delicious. I invite my son and his family or my neighbors. They gave me a book of prayers and I pray for the health and wealth of my loved ones. I don’t attend Hesed: there is a lot of bureaucracy there, those officials: I don’t like the atmosphere like this. I am old, but I am very optimistic about the future. I would dream to travel to Israel and I love my Motherland Ukraine more than anything in the world. I used to have a dacha. Once a neighbor – a drunkard and rascal – called me zhydovka [kike]. He told me to get out to Israel. I replied to him that I am proud to be a Jew and that if I wanted I would go to Israel and if not – I would stay in my Motherland Ukraine. I told him that he is a disgrace to Ukraine and drinks away its riches and people in Israel have built a prosperous country on stones and the rest of the world admires this country. I hope to see my children, my granddaughter and grandson in Israel. I would dream to see Israel with my own eyes and bow to this great land created by human blood and sweat, to the country and its people. I hope that this dream will come true. My children promised me to buy and send me a plane ticket.

GLOSSARY:

1 Great Patriotic War

2 Nationalization

confiscation of private businesses or property after the revolution of 1917 in Russia.

3 Kulaks

The majority of wealthy peasants that refused to join collective farms and give their grain and property to Soviet power were called kulaks, declared enemies of the people and exterminated in the 1930s.

4 Petliura, Simon (1879-1926)

Ukrainian politician, member of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Working Party, one of the leaders of Centralnaya Rada (Central Council), the national government of Ukraine (1917-1918). Military units under his command killed Jews during the Civil War in Ukraine. In the Soviet-Polish war he was on the side of Poland; in 1920 he emigrated. He was killed in Paris by the Jewish nationalist Schwarzbard in revenge for the pogroms against Jews in Ukraine.

5 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.

6 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.

7 Civil War (1918-1920)

8 Struggle against religion

9 NKVD

People’s Committee of Internal Affairs; it took over from the GPU, the state security agency, in 1934.

10 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.

11 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.

12 In 1940, the Baltic republics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) came under the rule of the neighboring Soviet Union (USSR)

November 1 1939: The USSR Supreme Soviet passed the law on Western Ukraine's membership in the USSR and inclusion in the Ukrainian SSR.

13 Soviet-Finnish War (1939-40)

14 Transnistria

Area between the rivers Dnestr and Bug, and the Black Sea. It was ruled by the Romanians and during World War II it was used as a huge ghetto to which Jews from Bukovina and Moldavia were deported.

15 Komsomol

16 In 1812 Russia managed to annex the eastern half of the Romanian Principality of Moldavia

From then until the First World War, the territory known as Bessarabia (Basarabia in Romanian) changed hands between Romania and Russia several times. After the First World War, Bessarabia joined Romania, but Moscow never accepted this union. In June 1940, Moscow delivered to Bucharest an ultimatum to evacuate, in four days, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (Bucovina). Romania had no choice but to yield. The two ceded provinces had an area of 51,000 square kilometers, or some 20,000 square miles and 3.9 million inhabitants mostly Romanians. It was then Romania's turn to reject the settlement and in June 1941 joined Germany and attacked the Soviet Union. In 1944, however, the USSR reannexed the area, occupied the entire country of Romania and, shortly thereafter, imposed a communist government in Bucharest.

17 Dead Loop concentration camp

There were no mass shootings in the Romanian occupation zone of Transnistria in 1941-1944. Unlike Germans Romanians were trying to resolve the ‘Jewish issue’ by bloodless methods: isolation of Jews in ghettos and camps where they were to be gradually brought to extinction from hunger and diseases.
On 11 November the civil governor of Transnistria Alexianu issued Order #22 for deportation of Jews in colonies. A concentration camp for Jewish residents of Tulchin (3005 in total) was established in Pechera village Schpikovskiy district Vinnitsa region in December 1941. On 1 January 1942 a group of Jews from Brazlaw and in few days Jews from Ladyzhyn and Vapniaki, from Rogozin in August and in late July, October and November – 3500 Jews from Mogilyov-Podolskiy were herded to Pechera. This concentration camp is known as the ‘Dead Loop’. In total about 9000 people from various towns in Vinnitsa region were kept in the camp. They were accommodated in the former 2-storied recreation center building. There were up to 50 tenants in one room. No provisions were made for the most basic necessities of the inmates. Inmates hardly got any food and the building had no heating. About 2 500 Jews were taken away by Germans for forced labor. None of them returned. In March 1944 Soviet troops liberated the camp. There were 1550 survivors left in the camp.

18 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.

19 On May, 9 - The Great Patriotic War ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945

This day of a victory was a grandiose and most liked holiday in the USSR.

20 The World Israeli Jewish Agency called Sokhnut was established in 1929

It is an international voluntary Jewish organization that functions in 58 countries all over the world. Its center is in Jerusalem. Before the state of Israel was created the world Jewish community and the World Zionist organization used Sokhnut as a tool for renaissance of the Jewish national hearth in the former Palestine that was under British mandate at the time. When Israel was declared an independent state in 1947 the Sokhnut directed its activities into the World Jewish communities focusing its efforts at strengthening peace, friendship and harmony between nations, rebirth and development of the cultural and spiritual heritage of the Jewish people, preservation of its national originality and creation of necessary conditions for further development of the ties of Diaspora with its historical Motherland.

21 Six-Day-War

The first strikes of the Six-Day-War happened on June 5th, 1967 by the Israeli Air Force. The entire war only lasted 132 hours and 30 minutes. The fighting on the Egyptian side only lasted four days, while fighting on the Jordanian side lasted three. Despite the short length of the war, this was one of the most dramatic and devastating wars ever fought between Israel and all of the Arab nations. This war resulted in a depression that lasted for many years after it ended. The Six-Day-War increased tension between the Arab nations and the Western World because of the change in mentalities and political orientations of the Arab nations.

22 Yom Kippur War

The Arab-Israeli War of 1973, also known as the Yom Kippur War or the Ramadan War, was a war between Israel on one side and Egypt and Syria on the other side. It was the fourth major military confrontation between Israel and the Arab states. The war lasted for three weeks: it started on 6th October, 1973 and ended on 22nd October on the Syrian front and on 26th October on the Egyptian front.

Moris Florentin

Moris Florentin
Athens
Greece
Interviewer: Lily Mordechai
Date of the interview: February 2007

Mr. Florentin is 84 years old. He is a nice man of few words who always smiles and is always willing to help in a kind and calm manner. He and his wife live in a spacious, modern apartment in a nice suburb of Athens, very close to their son and two grandchildren. In their living room they have many different books about Thessaloniki, books with pictures, history books and novels. Mr. Florentin is slim and quite tall; he has expressive eyes and a calm, straightforward nature. He limps when he walks because of a war injury on his right leg. Even so, he is a very active man, he walks a lot, he swims in the summer and he also drives. He retired from his job at the pharmaceutical company La Roche thirteen years ago.

My family backgound

My ancestors left Spain, went to Italy and then settled in Thessaloniki. In Italy they stayed in Florence and that is possibly where my last name, Florentin, comes from or at least that’s what they used to say in Thessaloniki. They used to tell me that different relatives of my family must have settled in Thessaloniki at least three or four generations before I was born, but I don’t know if all this is true or not. In fact, we used to go to the Italian Synagogue, it was in Faliro close to the sea opposite the cinema ‘Paté’ and it was called ‘Kal d’ Italia.’

I don’t know much about my great-grandparents, I never met any of them; I only met my grandparents on my mother’s side. My grandfather’s name was Saltiel Zadok and my grandmother’s name was Masaltov Zadok [nee Matalon]. They were both born in Thessaloniki. My grandfather was a carpenter, he specialized in furniture making and he owned the best and biggest furniture shop in Thessaloniki, named ‘Galérie Moderne’ and it was on Tsimiski Street [main road of the interwar period in Thessaloniki].

He also owned a furniture-making factory; as long back as I can remember it was behind Tsimiski Street close to the Turkish Baths, there my grandfather had his workshop and part of the factory. Later in time, the factory specialized in making metal beds and was moved close to the train station. Even so, the shop always sold furniture.

My grandparents didn’t have friends because my grandfather worked a lot, even on Saturdays. In his free time he loved fishing and listening to music. He was an amateur fisherman so he would take the boat and go fishing whenever he could. He would also go to a café that played music and sometimes he took me with him. He sat there and drank his coffee silently; he didn’t talk much, my grandfather, but he was a real music lover. That café was by the seafront close to ‘Mediteranée’ [one of the best known and most luxurious hotels in Thessaloniki], I remember it very well.

Concerning his character he was the silent type, he was a bit reserved and he didn’t make many jokes. He wasn’t religious at all, he never went to the synagogue and he didn’t keep the Sabbath. I never met any of his relatives; I don’t think he had any.

My grandmother, Masaltov didn’t work; she stayed home and didn’t go out much. She took care of the house and the cooking, even though they also had a cleaning lady who stayed overnight. My grandmother had a brother, but I don’t remember his name. He had a wife and two children, a boy and a girl but they were much older than me. He used to go to my grandparents’ house every Saturday to keep my grandmother company. He would go on Saturday morning and leave by noon; I think he lived in the same area.

In general, my grandmother stayed home and took care of her grandchildren. I wouldn’t say she was an introvert but she didn’t have much of a social circle besides her family. My grandmother wanted to be more religious but since my grandfather was not, she was not given the chance to do so. They didn’t keep any of the traditions, the Sabbath or eating kosher food, but I remember that we used to have seder in my grandparents’ house with my uncle’s family as well, Viktor Zadok.

They used to live in an area of Thessaloniki called Exohes [area on the outer part of the eastern Byzantine walls, area of residency of the middle and upper class mainly]. Exohes was the whole area from Analipseos Street until the Depot, the bus stop was by the French Lycée, it was called ‘St. George - Agios Georgios [King George] or Vasileos Georgiou.’ It was a two-story house and my mother’s brother, Viktor Zadok, and his family lived on the top floor.

I remember my grandparents’ house; it had two bedrooms, a living room and a dining room. As you went in from the entrance you could see the living and dining room and then were the bedrooms and the kitchen. They had running water and electricity and the house was heated with what we called a ‘salamander’ [big stove for heating the whole house]. You put anthracite [type of charcoal] and it was very effective. They had a garden, which they shared with my uncle; they grew some vegetables and had some flowers too.

Jewish people mainly inhabited the area they lived in, even though there were some Christians as well. I think that the majority of people my grandparents associated with were Jewish, also their neighbors with whom they got along. Their house was not far away from ours so I used to see them almost every day, at the least I would drop in and say ‘Good morning.’

My grandfather died around 1939, before the Holocaust, my grandmother was taken from Thessaloniki to Auschwitz along with my parents, and they probably died in 1943.

On my father’s side I didn’t meet my grandparents. They were both born in Thessaloniki but they died before I was born. My grandmother’s name was Oro Florentin, I don’t remember my grandfather’s name but I have seen a picture of him. My father didn’t talk about them much.

Thessaloniki had a vibrant Jewish community. There were many synagogues; I think there was a synagogue in every neighborhood. I only remember the central one that still exists today, the Italian one and another one close to my house on Gravias Street. The main Jewish area I would say was Exohes, where we lived, even though there were Jewish people everywhere.

There was also an area where Jews from lower social classes lived; it was called 156 or ‘shesh’ as everyone called it. [Editor’s note: The area Mr. Florentin is referring to was actually called ‘151,’ and ‘6’ is a different neighborhood; there were at least 10 Jewish working class neighborhoods in Salonica]. This area was strictly lower class, poor Jews. I didn’t know anyone nor had any friends from there.

Middle class Jewish people were mainly merchants, they had shops with fabrics or other things but I don’t remember any famous Jewish people being manual workers. The main market was by the White Tower; where we lived there were only a few shops. I think both my mother and my father did the shopping but I don’t remember if they had any favorite merchants. There weren’t many incidents of Anti-Semitism but I’m sure it existed because when you heard of one happening it would stay with you.

My parents’ names were Iosif, or Pepo as everybody called him, and Ida Florentin [nee Zadok]. They were both born in Thessaloniki. Their wedding took place sometime in 1919 in Thessaloniki; I think it was an arranged marriage. My father was a money-changer; it was a common profession among Jewish people. I am not sure exactly what he did but I think he bought, changed or sent money abroad, that kind of thing. It had to do with Greek and foreign currency, for example when somebody wanted to buy golden Sovereigns Liras. But I don’t remember that very well because later on he worked in my grandfather and uncle’s business, in the furniture shop ‘Galérie Moderne.’

My mother didn’t work; she cooked and took care of my brother and me. We had a cleaning lady to help her with the housework but she didn’t stay overnight, she left in the evenings. She did most of the housework but my mother was the one who cooked. I don’t remember the cleaning lady very well, in fact I think we changed a few but what I do remember is that they all came from this village in Chalkidiki called AiVat [poor village in the mountains surrounding Thessaloniki, presently called Diavata.], all the cleaning ladies in Thessaloniki came from that village. They were middle aged, Christian women.

My parents were relatively educated people, they had both gone to school but I don’t know which schools. Their mother tongue was Ladino 1 and they spoke it between them. To my brother and me they spoke French; I think they wanted us to learn. They also knew some Greek but they spoke it with a distinct, foreign accent.

My parents usually read in French. I remember them reading the newspaper everyday; they read ‘L’Indépendant’ 2 and ‘Le Progrès’ 3. They would buy it from the kiosk and I remember specifically that my mother would read them as well. They didn’t read Greek newspapers, I am sure of that, and I don’t remember if there were Spanish ones in circulation, if there were I’m sure my parents read them.

We also had a few books in our house that were mainly novels. They weren’t religious; I mean my father wasn’t religious at all and consequently my mother didn’t practice it much, even though I think that she would have liked to. My father only went to the synagogue on Yom Kippur, Pesach and another one or two of the high holidays. Sometimes he took my brother and me along but my mother never came with us. I think the only reason my father went to the synagogue was because his brother was a ‘gisbar’ [cashier of the Jewish community] in the ‘Kal d’Italia’ and he felt obliged. We didn’t keep the Sabbath or eat kosher food.

My parents like my grandparents, were modern people for their time; they didn’t dress traditionally but I’d say in a more European way. I remember my parents having a social life; they went with their friends and had people over in the house sometimes. Their friends were mainly Jewish; I don’t think they met socially with colleagues or other Christians.

When I was really young we used to go on holiday to Portaria in Pilio, without my grandparents. We would go in August and stay for three weeks. After Ektor [Mr. Florentine’s brother] and I got older we stopped going and we spent our summers in Thessaloniki, but anyway we lived really close to the sea so we went swimming every day.

My father had sixteen siblings but I only met four, three sisters and a brother. The family was kind of torn apart because of their differences, and they were out of touch with each other, that’s why I didn’t meet his other siblings. His brother’s name was Samouil Florentin and he was a ‘gisbar’ in the ‘Kal d’Italia.’ Contrary to my father he was very religious. I think that ‘gisbar’ meant he was a cashier for the synagogue. He was married and had two children Anri [Erikos] and Nina Florentin. They used to live in Agia Triada, a quite ‘Jewish’ area of Thessaloniki, as well.

During the war Nina was saved by a Christian man whose last name was Christou; he literally pulled her out of the line when she was about to board the train for Auschwitz. After the war she married him and moved to Canada. The next time I saw her, after the war, she was Christian and so ‘croyante,’ so religious. I found it very strange! Unfortunately, she died in an air crash flying from Thessaloniki to some Greek island. She had two children, one was called Aristoteli and I don’t remember the other’s name, they live in Canada and they are both married.

I don’t know what Anri, Nina’s brother, did during the war but at some point he left for Israel and became a police officer, then he went to Canada to live with his sister and that’s where he died. When we were young we didn’t play together so much, even though our age was compatible. I think Anri was older than my brother and Nina was a couple of years younger than me.

I also met three of my father’s sisters; I don’t remember them very well because we didn’t see them often. His one sister was called Tsoutsa, she must have been a widow, because I never met her husband, but she had a daughter. Her daughter was a bit mentally weak but I don’t know in what way.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember the other sisters’ names they were widows as well, because I never met their husbands. Anyway, I don’t think my father gave them any money so I guess they had their own. We saw my father’s brother and sisters about three times a year, mainly because he felt it was his duty.

My mother had two brothers, Ludovic and Viktor Zadok. Ludovic lived and worked in Paris but died at the age of twenty-three. I don’t know what he died of, but I think it happened when I was very young because I never met him; my mother said he was a very nice person.

Viktor Zadok lived on the top floor of my grandparents’ house with his family, his wife Adina and his three daughters. Adina was like a second mother to me; she was very nice and took good care of us. Their daughters’ names were Ines, but we always called her Nika, Yvet or Veta, and Keti.

Nika lives in Israel, she was married twice, her first husband was an Israeli Jew, Nisim Levi, and they had a daughter, Donna. Unfortunately, her husband died. Nika got remarried to Moris Nissim or Boubis as we called him. He was a friend of my brother’s, Jewish, from Thessaloniki. After the war he moved to Switzerland to work in the Jewish ‘Discount Bank,’ he got a good position and almost became a manager. When Boubis retired, him and Nika left Switzerland and moved to Jerusalem where he had a house. Unfortunately, he got sick and died. At least, now Nika is in Israel and lives with her daughter and her grandchildren.

Veta married Markos Tabah and they had two daughters: Polina, who lives in Israel, and Adina, who got my aunt’s name. Around 1967 Veta died in a car accident. Her husband and she had gone on an excursion with Freddy Abravanel and on the way back they had an accident. They all came out looking fine but Veta had some internal bleeding and died the next day. After Veta’s death, Keti, her sister, married her husband, Markos Tabah. They had one daughter who they named Veta in memory of the deceased Veta. Keti’s daughter Veta married a Christian and became Christian herself.

I would say that my family had closer relations with the relatives on my mother’s side, my grandparents Masaltov and Saltiel Zadok and my uncle Viktor Zadok and his family. My parents saw Viktor often and we, the children, would see each other probably every day, we were very close especially with Nika.

My brother Ektor Iesoua Salvator Florentin, who we call Ektor, was born in 1921 and I was born in 1923; we were both born in Thessaloniki. I don’t remember going to kindergarten or having a nanny at home, so I guess my mother took care of us when we were young. We did have a French teacher though who came to our house to give us lessons. I spoke French to my mother and father but I spoke Greek to my brother. When we were young I used to play with my brother a lot, but when we grew up we weren’t so close anymore, probably because we had different friends.

Growing up

In the period before the war we moved houses about four times, I remember all of them but I don’t know when or for how long we stayed in each of them. I was born or at least my first memories are from a house on Gravias Street. This was the house of Cohen the dentist, who was quite well known in Thessaloniki at the time. He had four children, three sons and a daughter; two of the sons were about my age: Tsitsos and Morikos Cohen. At the end of this street there was a small synagogue which was very nice but I don’t remember what it was called.

Then we moved to a house on Moussouri Street close to 25th Martiou Street. This was a big house too; we lived on the second floor and below us lived Sam Modiano. This house had a garden but it was overgrown and neglected. The last two were on Koromila Street, the third one had two big bedrooms, a kitchen, a living and dining room and two big verandas; it had no garden and was on the third floor of the building. Our neighbors were a married couple, he was Jewish and she was Russian and they didn’t have any children, my mother was friends with the Russian lady and would go and visit her once in a while. The last place we lived in before we were forced to move to the ghetto was much smaller; it didn’t have a garden and it was on the second floor.

I don’t know why we moved so often but all these houses were rented. We would always take with us our furniture for the living room, the dining room and the bedroom. In all these houses we had running water and electricity and they were all heated with ‘salamanders.’ These houses were all very close to each other and also very close to my grandparent’s house. I remember most of our neighbors being Jewish.

I would say the atmosphere in my family was very good and generally, we were closer to our mother than we were to our father. My father worked a lot. He opened the shop around nine in the morning or a bit earlier, then he would come home at noon, go to work again in the evening and come home around eight or nine in the evening. At noon we all had lunch together. My father’s work was in the center of Thessaloniki, quite far from our house, it was ten stops by tram.

Financially, by the standards of Thessaloniki at the time, we were probably a middle class family, we didn’t own any property but we covered our needs sufficiently. My family didn’t own a car and I don’t remember when the first time I went into one was, but I got my driver’s license after the war, not with the intention of buying a car but just learning how to drive.

Some Sundays we went out to eat by the seaside on 25th Martiou Street, not far from where we lived. There were some ‘tavernas’ by the seafront and we went there, not often but we did. At home I would say that my mother cooked traditional Sephardim dishes, not so much Greek cuisine.

The first school I went to was the ‘Kostantinidis School,’ which was private. When I first went there, they put me in the second grade of elementary school, based on my date of birth. A little in the year they realized I was too advanced, so they promoted me to the third grade, that’s why I finished school a year earlier than other people my age. So apparently I covered the whole first and second grade at home with a teacher. I stayed in that school for two years and for fifth and sixth grade I went to another private school, the ‘Zahariadis School,’ which was very close to our house on Moussouri Street.

I don’t remember my friends from these schools but they both had a majority of Christian students. I know there were a few Jewish people like John Beza in ‘Zahariadis’ but I have no vivid memories.

For gymnasium I went to a public experimental school like the ‘Varvakios School’ in Athens, it was a very good public school. I remember some of my teachers, the Chemistry teacher Menagias and the principle who taught us Physics. He loved me very much probably because Physics was my favorite subject. Every time we had to do homework he would present mine to the class saying it was the best. But I had a secret: I used to study Physics from my brother’s book who went to the French Lycée. You might wonder what the difference was but French books phrased physics differently to Greek ones. In Greek books they start by saying, ‘If you take this, you will observe this will happen’ instead of explaining the main principle first. I preferred the French way, it was more serious and that probably explains the story with the principle.

I got along with both my teachers and my classmates. I remember some of my classmates were Giannis Tzimanis, Thanasakis Flokas, the son of the famous confectioner in Thessaloniki, Stelios Halvatzis and others. There must have been Jewish students in my school but my friends were mainly my classmates who were Christian. On weekends I went out with them, we would go to parties or to the cinema; it was really rare to go to bars at that time especially at such a young age, not like nowadays.

I never experienced Anti-Semitic behavior in school or at least anything that traumatized me. Sometimes someone would say the typical nonsense like ‘Dirty Jew’ but I think people say that sometimes when they are angry, even if they don’t really mean it.

When I was going to school, I didn’t have much free time because the classes were quite difficult or anyway quite intense. I would go in the morning and I was back by two in the afternoon. In the evening I did my homework for the next day. I didn’t have any private lessons, only a few Mathematics classes before my entrance exams for the university. I only had English classes in a British Institute in Thessaloniki. I never did any Hebrew or Jewish history lessons.

I didn’t have hobbies other than sailing in the Sailing Club but even though I was a member, my friends weren’t. With my friends I usually played basketball but we never played any football.

At that time the educational system was different, we finished gymnasium [Greek equivalent of high school. It used to be 6 grades, but nowadays it is 3 years, followed by three Lyceum years.] and got a gymnasium diploma and then whoever wanted to continue with their studies took introductory exams in the polytechnic school or university or any other school they may have wanted. In fact you could take the introductory test for more than one university, like I did. I wanted to study in the Polytechnic University of Thessaloniki to become an engineer but unfortunately I failed the entrance exams. As I still had time I also took the exams for university and I passed in the Agricultural University of Thessaloniki. The university was in an old building on Stratou Avenue, it is not there anymore.

I remember we had some really good professors like the Physics Professor, Mr. Kavasiadis, the Chemistry Professor and this other one, Rousopoulos, who was our Geology Professor. Even though it wasn’t my first choice I was relatively interested in what I was studying and the university was quite demanding. It required attending the classes, being concentrated and studying, not like now where they pass the lessons without going to classes, at least that’s what I see. I don’t think anyone was checking attendance but the system was such that it was necessary to attend classes and everybody did so.

I did three years of university and then, in 1943, during the German Occupation 4, I stopped and left for the mountain. Throughout these years I continued living with my parents and my brother, it was always the four of us.

My brother Ektor went to the French Lycée. When he was finishing elementary school in the French Lycée a law was passed that the Greek nationality was only given to people with a Greek elementary school diploma. So he came to the ‘Zahariadis School’ with me for sixth grade and then went back to the Lycée. That’s why he finished school a year later than he should have. I had a completely different group of friends to my brother probably because we went to different schools. He finished school in the French Lycée, he got the two Baccalaureates and then he started working for Sam Modiano who had an agency office [legal representative of foreign companies].

Ektor didn’t want to go to university so he got this job with Modiano, who was our neighbor in the house on Moussouri Street. This was his only job until he left Thessaloniki around 1943, a little after we moved to the ghetto. He left for Israel with his girlfriend at the time, Nina Hassid, to whom he got married after they got there. I think they left via Evia and then through Turkey. When they got there they stayed in Netanya first and then in Tel Aviv. My brother worked in a diamond-cutting factory and then gradually created his own factory.

They have two daughters, Ada Schindler and Zinet Benderski. Zinet was the name of my brother’s wife’s sister, who she lost: after the liberation she was taken to a Spanish concentration camp because her father was Spanish. Zinet has two children, Sharon and Daniel, who are both married, and Ada also has two children, but they are much younger.

I didn’t know of my brother’s whereabouts until one year after the war when my uncle Viktor told me he was alive. Now we have a very good relationship with him and his family. We don’t go so often but every time they come we see them and also sometimes we arrange to meet abroad. I see my brother every four, five years on average but we talk on the phone every week.

The war was declared on 28th October 1940 5, that’s when I finished school; I was seventeen at the time. I was in Thessaloniki during the bombings in 1941 a bit before the occupation started. The bombs were mainly dropped towards the customs area, which was far away from where we lived, so we didn’t really feel them. Of course we could hear the noise of the bombs but you have to understand that it’s not like today; the airplanes didn’t drop lots of bombs then, so the damage was more limited, or at least that’s what I think. For my family it was scary but not as much as for other people who lived closer, we didn’t really feel much during the bombings.

After I finished school, I went straight to university. We already felt the effects of the war then, there were curfews and it was really hard to find food, we got some food from the villages, just about enough to survive. For me the war started in 1941 with the occupation, when the Germans entered Thessaloniki. They marched in with their typical characteristic discipline, German manner; they had so many trucks and tanks. I remember my parents and me being very scared.

During the war

Officially, the war started in 1940 when Metaxas 6 said ‘No’ to the Italians but the occupation started later and we kind of expected it because we would see, read and hear that the Germans were coming down the north side, they had been to Bulgaria and Serbia and then came Greece’s turn. When the Germans invaded, the Italians headed to the south of Greece; here in Macedonia we were under German Occupation unfortunately. A lot of people headed south then, to Athens or just anywhere in the Italian ruled south.

The first measure the Germans took targeted specifically against Jewish people was when all Jewish men of Thessaloniki had to gather in Eleutherias Square 7. I went with my brother because we were within the age range, around twenty years old. I am not sure about my father; I think he didn’t come because he was considered too old. They made us do humiliating gymnastic exercises under the sun and then they assigned us to different places to do forced labor outside Thessaloniki.

They wanted to build rail tracks for trains; the work was really hard especially with the Germans over your head not letting you rest for even a minute. I managed to avoid the forced labor because I had a Christian friend who took me with him where he was, close to the Agricultural School, I became a member of the forced labor team over there. I did absolutely nothing there, I just sat there from morning to night, but I still had to go every day.

I am not sure how they informed us that this gathering in Eleutherias Square was happening but I think it was through the Jewish Community. During the war I didn’t think that the Jewish Community in Thessaloniki acted in the right way. The chief rabbi then was Koretsch, who was German but that wasn’t important. The problem was that he didn’t give good information to the Community members. He was telling them that it was going to be fine, they would just go to Poland to move there. He didn’t say anything about concentration camps or what might happen when they got there.

I don’t know why he did that but I thought that it was very mean of him because if he had leaked the right information that something bad was going to happen to them then maybe more Jewish people would have tried to save themselves. Some people said he knew the truth all along but I don’t know if that’s true, it might be.

At some point, the Germans emptied all the businesses and shops owned by Jewish people, especially merchants and all their merchandise was being confiscated. Around 1942 a Greek man who was co-operating with the Germans turned my grandfather’s shop ‘Galerie Moderne’ into a restaurant. From then on we were living off our savings and things became even more difficult.

The most important anti-Jewish law was to put all the Jewish people in one area of the city what they called the ghetto 8. The ghetto was between Faliro and Agia Triada and between Mizrahi and Efzonon, in that area. We were forced to move there around the beginning of 1943, between January and February. I don’t know how we were informed we had to move or how we knew where to go in the ghetto, I just remember that one day we left our house on Koromila Street and moved to the apartment in the ghetto.

We were all a bit crammed in that apartment but I guess it was still a roof over our heads. It was a very small place with two rooms and a dining room, I don’t remember if we had heating. All we really took with us was clothes; we left a lot of our furniture in our last house on Koromila Street because the owner moved in when we left. That’s why when the war finished we retrieved some of our furniture.

My father and Viktor Zadok were both looking for a way to move to Athens, Viktor found a solution first and brought my grandmother Masaltov to stay with us in the ghetto; until that point my grandmother was staying with him. Because of my grandmother, my mother and father couldn’t escape from the ghetto and so they had to stay there with her. This is something that really makes me sad because I think it was really selfish on my uncle’s side to leave my grandmother with us like this, my mother was just too nice! So Viktor and his family managed to go to Athens a bit after we moved to the ghetto.

In the ghetto we had real difficulty finding food; my father was in charge of this and most of the times he bought things from the black market or products that came from villages. After three weeks or a month, I left for the mountain 9. At the time I would say that politically I was quite ‘left’ but I wasn’t a member of any political party or group. In my university, EAM 10 was very strong among the students so I heard about their activities in the mountains and I wanted to follow them. They said, ‘Since you are wanted by the Germans anyway why don’t you go to the mountain.’ I thought about it a little while and decided to go.

EAM was an organization that was 90 percent communist; its military branch was called ELAS 11 and there as well most of the members were communists. This organization was created during the occupation. I was sure I wanted to go to the mountain and since my parents didn’t oppose my decision I went, and I left the four of them – my mother, my father, my brother and my grandmother – in the ghetto.

Later on I found out my brother left the ghetto as well and went to Israel. I think my brother didn’t come with me because he had different plans with his girlfriend. As for my parents and my grandmother I am assuming they were deported 12 from the ghetto to Auschwitz were they must have been exterminated, I would think that people their age were sent directly to the gas chambers. The day I left for the mountain was the last time I ever saw them.

It was the 20th or 21st of March 1943 and I left with a friend of mine called John Bezas. He lived really close to our apartment in the ghetto, at some point I told him about what I was going to do and he decided he wanted to come with me. So that day, we wore working clothes and caps, we took the star off and passed the ghetto guards with ease like nothing was going on.

We found our contact and he took us outside Thessaloniki to a place where we could start ascending the mountain. He said, ‘Sleep here tonight and I will bring another fifteen people tomorrow.’ The next day he came back alone and said, ‘Stay here another night, I will come tomorrow with twenty-five people.’ We thought, ‘Of course we will wait, if so many more Jewish people will come as well.’ But then on the third day he showed up alone again. I never understood why no more young people came to the mountain, but I think that they had a hard time leaving their families.

After our two days waiting for the people that never showed up we started walking towards Giannitsa, sometimes we would come across a carriage and they would take us a few kilometers further. I remember on Axios Bridge we found a café and we decided to take a coffee break – John Bezas, our contact and me. As I opened the door to enter the café this guy tells me, ‘You’d better not go in there it’s full of Germans.’ I don’t understand how he realized we were fugitives or that I was Jewish, but he did. ‘You’d better not go inside,’ he said and probably saved our lives with his words.

So we didn’t go in and left in a rush, we got to Giannitsa and from there gradually we climbed up Paiko Mountain, this was our first mountain. Then we went to Kaimaktsalan another mountain close to the borders with Skopje [today Republic of Macedonia], and from there we walked across the whole of Macedonia from the borders with Albania up until the sea. We went from village to village trying to avoid the Germans; we were not ready for confrontations yet.

The ELAS people taught me how to use weapons because I hadn’t been to the army yet. After a while we were full of lice; we went there clean and naturally all the lice came on us, on our hair but also all over our body and clothes. I watched the others trying to de-lice themselves and their clothes; they would sit for hours. I never did that because I figured that I would kill ten and then twenty would come on me; there was no point in trying but it was really, really itchy. I guess that after all a person can get used to anything. I mean the situation on the mountain wasn’t the best but compared to what was in store for us in Germany it was paradise.

The contact left us with an already organized group of people from all over Greece, Kavala, Drama, Serres and Thessaloniki. There were very few Jewish people in my group I only remember one, a tobacco worker from Kavala nevertheless during our moving we crossed paths with maybe another ten Jewish people from different ELAS groups. The groups were all over the place but they all had a leader who was called Capitan Something, for example, Capitan Black etc.

We all had nicknames, I was Nikos and John Bezas was Takis; that was enough, the people on the mountain were not interested in finding out anything more. What I mean is that if you wanted to tell them they would listen but there was no obligation to discuss where you came from or who you were. There was zero Anti-Semitism and I don’t even think I ever heard the word Jewish.

These teams communicated with each other by sending messengers, people that took the information from one group to another. I was a simple soldier, only for a period of two months I was in charge of a sheepfold. As I was supposedly an agriculturalist I was in charge of the project. We found an abandoned village and we gathered all the sheep with one or two locals that knew how to make cheese. They would take the sheep to pasture and make the cheese after.

When I went back to the group my friend John Beza wasn’t there, the English had come looking for people who spoke English so they took him with them. I was a bit upset because if I hadn’t been in the sheepfold I would have been able to go with them, as I spoke good English. On the mountain there were certain groups of the English army that were sent to observe our tactics against the Germans, give us advice on how to act and information about where to go etc. I think it would have been better to be with the English because next time I crossed paths with John he was well dressed, clean with a uniform.

We were almost constantly on the move because of the Germans, sometimes if the village was ‘free’ we stayed in schools and houses, if the village wasn’t free we stayed in the forest without anything, no tents, all we had on us was our clothes and our weapon. In West Macedonia there were certain villages that were ‘free,’ this was the ‘Free Greece’ as it was called but of course there was always the fear the Germans would come so we never stayed long.

In order to find out if a village was free or not, there were certain people that observed and informed us. Sometimes we were welcome and sometimes not, but even then the villagers didn’t have a choice but to give us food. So we ate in the villages but we didn’t take much with us because we couldn’t carry much and we usually found something to eat.

In fact, I don’t think I even lost much weight. Only one time we went eight days without any food or water, it was a really rough time, the Germans had surrounded us and we couldn’t escape from any direction. We stayed in places we could hide without any food of course; we ended up eating the leaves from trees. I don’t remember what happened in the end but we found a way out and then went to a monastery where we ate a lot. We didn’t have connections with the church but in the monasteries they had to accept us.

There was always the fear that we would get involved in a battle, especially after some point that the English started blowing up rail tracks in the Tembi area. They wanted to cut the train connection between Thessaloniki and Athens because the Germans were using the trains for their purposes. So whilst the English were working on blowing up the rail tracks, we would guard the surrounding area. We were their protection; thankfully I never came face to face with them.

The Germans were furious about these damages and they were trying to think up a way to neutralize the English teams or us, the Resistance, to save them the trouble of fixing the rail tracks every time. It was then that we found ourselves in a village called Karia on the north side of Mount Olympus, above Rapsani.

We always set up watching points with binoculars to see what was happening. At some point we saw a German squad from far away, we saw they had trucks and they were about four hundred, we were only eighty men. Even so we were fortunate because the road the Germans were on crossed a little river that had hills on the left and right side, these hills had many trees on them and that’s where we were hiding.

On their way the Germans saw the little river and decided to take off their clothes and start bathing. They knew we were in the village and they were coming for us but they didn’t know we had left the village and that we had positioned ourselves ahead of them, so as to ‘welcome’ them one or two kilometers further down. When we saw their condition we started going down the hills shooting and exterminating them. Many Germans were killed on that day, the rest were so lost that they left leaving their clothes and weapons behind.

As we were coming down the hill I was almost at river level ready to jump in a ditch, at that moment I got shot, the bullet entered my thigh from the front and exited at the back of my leg. Of course I fell down and started bleeding a lot, another soldier came and tried to put me on a mule; in the meantime most of the mules were loaded with guns, weapons and other things the Germans left behind. It was impossible for me to sit on the mule because my leg was completely dislocated. I said, ‘I have a broken bone you can’t put me on a mule, it’s too high.’ He said, ‘don’t worry,’ he put me on the ground, he tied my leg up the best way he could and put a sort of blanket over me, and said, ‘They will come and take you with a stretcher.’

I thought to myself they will never come. It started getting darker and darker and then this German airplane started flying over the area, shooting randomly in case anybody was still there that they could kill. I started putting soil and grass on my blanket to camouflage myself, that was all I could think of doing. Anyway, I don’t know how long I stayed there, I must have fallen unconscious but suddenly people started shouting my name, it was eight villagers and a soldier with a stretcher, they put me on it and took me to the village, which was about three quarters of an hour away on foot. There was an English doctor there who put a dressing on my leg and then we left straightaway because we couldn’t stay in that village any longer.

We moved to another village that had a hospital in the school building. I don’t know if anyone died but four or five of us got injured, the other ones were lightly injured. The most seriously hurt were a man with a similar leg injury to mine and another man who had been shot in the head.

Anyway, that day a doctor, a surgeon, had come to the mountain by the name of Theodoros Labrakis, his brother was the Labrakis that was murdered in Thessaloniki after the war. He had a clinic in Piraeus called ‘White Cross’ and he was an excellent surgeon. He used anything he could find, paring knives, Swiss army knives and saws and operated on the guy with the head injury. Thank God he took the bullet out because until then that man was very violent, swearing, throwing chairs around even assaulting us. Anyway he survived.

In my case the bullet had come out and the bone was in pieces. Another doctor who was there said, ‘We should cut off his leg because we don’t have anti-gangrene treatment and if he gets gangrene he will die.’ Labrakis said, ‘No I will not cut it off.’ Later on, he told me that he had been boiling an axe for three days in a row just in case he had had to cut my leg off. Fortunately I didn’t get gangrene, but I was in so much pain he had to give me morphine. After a few days I started asking for more and he said, ‘Enough with the morphine, I don’t want it to become an addiction.’

So I owe my leg to Dr. Labrakis who unfortunately died one or two years after we came down the mountain. He only treated a few people in that hospital and then he left, he was also moving from place to place.

I got shot on 6th May 1944 and from then on I was being moved from hospital to hospital, we were constantly changing villages because of the Germans. One day, shortly after I managed to keep my leg, we were in a hospital somewhere and we found out that the Germans were coming to that village. Everyone wanted to leave but they didn’t know what to do with us.

They took the three of us, the man with the head injury, me and the other man with the leg injury to a tap of running water outside the village. Of course this was very dangerous but they didn’t know what else to do with us. I think we stayed there for four days, us with the leg injury couldn’t move so the poor man with the head injury would take what we called ‘boukla,’ a wooden bucket for water, and he would bring both of us water to drink. One day the Germans came to the tap, we were totally silent and thank God they didn’t discover us because they would have definitely slaughtered us.

In the meantime my injury had been infested with flies and worms and it was itchy. Four days later I saw the doctor and I told him, ‘Doctor look what’s happened to my leg.’ And he said, ‘Very well, at least they ate up all the puss.’ He cleaned it of course but I couldn’t believe what he had said: ‘They ate away all the puss.’

So I was hurt in May 1944 and until September they were carrying me on the stretcher from place to place. The man with the head injury was fine after some time so I was left with the other man with the leg injury. He was from a village called Aiginio in Macedonia, he was the father of this man who caused trouble in a nightclub and killed someone; I don’t remember his name but I know he is out of prison now. I don’t know if his father is still alive but I doubt it because he was much older than me then.

The time I spent on the mountain we probably walked the whole mountain range of Pindos from the borders of Ipiros to the borders of Serbia and from Albania until the sea, village to village. When I left the ghetto I took nothing with me, I was wearing a pair of black boots but after a while they were completely destroyed. The situation with our shoes was a drama, in fact a lot of the time we were barefoot. I am not sure what we were wearing, I guess things they gave us in the villages and then at some point the English gave us some uniforms.

Looking back I would say that going to the mountain was a good idea. I can’t say that I have kept friends from then because the situation was different up there but still we were all very close to each other, really. Most of the people there were communists, members of the K.K.E. [Communist Party of Greece]; I wasn’t a communist but I didn’t mind them because I do believe there are some good things in this ideology.

I think my most profound experience was that I realized the stamina of the human organism and by saying stamina I mean the way man and nature complete each other and the way the human organism can cure itself. For example there was this guy named Dick Benveniste – he is dead now – who got diphtheria on the mountain – no hospital, no doctor, no medicine, nothing. At that time the Italians had made some kind of agreement and a lot of them came to the mountain. There was this Italian man that took care of him, he would take him out of his tent to do his needs and fed him, any way he could because Dick couldn’t even open his mouth. In the end he recovered, he went back to Thessaloniki, he married and had children. He died not so long after the end of the war but still this showed me how much the human body can endure.

I remember I never even got a headache or a fever, if we wanted to wash we would go to the river which was freezing cold but it didn’t bother us. I stayed with the same group almost from the beginning to the end. There weren’t any women in my group but occasionally, when we were on the move, I saw a few, not many though.

When the liberation finally arrived everybody came down from the mountain but it didn’t happen all at once, it happened in segments from the south to the north, I think Thessaloniki was liberated in October 1944. But places like Kozani and Lamia had been liberated before so a lot of Resistance soldiers came down the mountain from there.

I guess what the Liberation meant for us was that the enemies had left, someone took over from there and there were elections but I was out of it because I was in the hospital. We found out about the liberation from the villagers and after certain areas were free, I was taken to the hospital of some big village. I think it was in October 1944 they took me to Thessaloniki, to this hospital in Votsi after the Depot, it was a makeshift hospital in the palace of a pasha. The first thing they did was to de-lice me, the English had some machines and I don’t know what they put on me but all the lice were gone from my body and my clothes.

As my injury didn’t heal I had to stay in that hospital until February 1945, almost ten months. Of course, back then there were no surgeries to put screws and metal in the leg so what they did was that they put concrete to open the leg so that it stuck back by itself. The human organism is a very strong thing and even though my leg stuck back, it got stuck differently to what it should have and it became six centimeters shorter than the other one.

I didn’t have to pay anything to the hospital, everything was free: my stay, the food. At some point I got anchylosis on my leg and there was a nurse there, her name was Eleni Rimaki – I remember her clearly – and she said, ‘We need to break it, you can’t stay like this.’ It sounded easy in theory but the pain was unbearable. The other guy with the same injury as me stopped trying after a week he couldn’t bear it. I did it for a month and a half. It was not like physiotherapy or massage, it was practically breaking the knee but I’m happy I did it because now I can even ride a bike.

One time I was in Italy visiting an old friend and he said, ‘I will take you to this surgeon to examine your leg.’ The surgeon said, ‘I can lengthen your leg if that’s what you want but I see you’re walking very well with your orthopedic shoe.’ So I didn’t do anything. It never hurt me, and now sixty-four years later, it just started hurting. Now I went to this doctor who said, ‘You have osteoarthritis and we need to do joint plastic surgery. We’ll cut the bone and we’ll put a plastic one to lengthen it, we’ll see what happens.’

After the hospital I stayed in Thessaloniki with Miko Alvo, his brother Danny and an elderly aunt of his. When we found each other after the war we arranged a meeting and he said, ‘You will come and stay with me.’ I agreed and I was very grateful because I didn’t have anywhere to go.

For two years, between 1945 and 1947, I was working for the Greek English Intelligence Center in Thessaloniki and living with Miko. I was doing translations because I knew English. My supervisor there was a man called Stahtopoulos, later on he was charged of something – I am not sure what – and he ended up in prison.

After I came out of the hospital I had an intense feeling of happiness because I got myself out of this situation and I could walk. We created a group of friends and we went out and drank our ouzo in such a happy way, like we were saying, ‘Finally the occupation is over and we can enjoy certain things.’ In that group of friends there were both Jewish and Christian people: Mimis Kazakis, a lawyer, Takis Ksitzoglou, a journalist, Klitos Kirou and Panos Fasitis, both poets, Nikos Saltiel and the girls, Anna Leon and Dolly Boton.

At some point soon after the end of the war I went to get a passport so I could visit my brother in Israel and the officer said, ‘You can’t have a passport.’ I asked him, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘You can have a passport only if you denounce communism etc.’ I asked him again, ‘Why? I am not a communist, I don’t have anything to denounce’ ‘You are.’ ‘I am not.’ And then he said, ‘No passport’ and I said, ‘I don’t want one.’

Six months later an officer came to my office and said, ‘If you file an application for a passport we will give it to you.’ Nothing else. And he left. I was a bit shocked that an officer had come all the way to my office to tell me that, but I filed the application and got my passport. Around 1949 or 1950 that was, and I went to Israel to see my brother after all of this, it was a very strong experience.

After the war

After World War II, there was the civil war 13, basically all the resistance communists from the mountains had hid their guns, which was exactly what their opponents, the government party feared. After the civil war came the great exodus of the communists and they went to places like Yugoslavia, Georgia, Taskendi, which is in Georgia, Kazakhstan etc. A lot of them stayed for good but some of them returned later on.

As for me, politically I had no involvement but my beliefs were left then and are left now. We felt the civil war in our daily lives because there was turmoil in Athens, nothing was functioning properly, to the extent that there were battles in Sidagma [very central area in Athens]. Emigrating never crossed my mind but I know a lot of people who did and went to Israel but also Canada, Italy, the USA.

When I was working for the Greek English Intelligence Organization I met a couple of English Jewish officers including a man named Shapiro. At the time I was walking with a stick because the wound hadn’t healed properly, I still had a band over it that I changed every day and occasionally little bones would come out of it. The doctor had said not to worry because the wound would heal after all the bones came out. After ten or fifteen little bones had come out the wound truly healed.

However, Shapiro said he would put me in an English hospital because at the time penicillin had just been discovered. So I went and got a shot of it. There was this Scottish nurse there who would go around saying, ‘I can’t believe we are giving this expensive drug to Greeks.’ Everyday the same thing, she annoyed me very much, to the extent that I regretted going. In fact, I thought English people were weird because they had a little bucket where they did everything; they washed their hands and their face, as well.

Anyway I got the penicillin shot but it didn’t do anything to me, as I didn’t have any bacteria for it to kill. In the meantime I got in touch with my uncle Viktor Zadok, who was in Israel, and he said, ‘What will we do with the shop?’ I am not sure how my uncle tracked me down but I should assume it wasn’t very difficult.

The shop was there but the merchandise was gone and it wasn’t in a very good condition. My uncle went to Israel like my brother and then, after the liberation, he went back to Athens. Then he came to Thessaloniki to see the state of the family business, and finally he settled in Athens. Viktor tried to make ‘Galerie Moderne’ work but he couldn’t and shortly after, he gave up and left for Athens.

In 1948 my uncle said, ‘Come to Athens and work for me.’ I had nothing left in Thessaloniki so I did. I didn’t have any property but my uncle Viktor had the house my grandparents and he used to live in before the war, and it was in a good condition when he found it. After the war the family members I kept in contact with were my uncle Viktor Zadok, my brother and my uncle Viktor’s daughters, especially Veta. I used to see her a lot socially, probably about every two weeks until her tragic death in 1962.

I moved to Athens and I was working for my uncle from 1948 until 1953 when I opened my own business. I had an agency office that imported floor polish, wax and plastic domestic utensils. I lost a lot of money because the plastic utensils I imported were expensive compared to the Greek ones in the market. I ran my own business for four years and then my wife continued it for quite a few years after I left.

My next job was in Hoffman – La Roche, Pavlos Aseo had the company’s representation in Greece at the time. I didn’t know much about pharmaceuticals but I learned the job quite quickly. Later on the company La Roche made its proper branch – La Roche Hellas – in Greece and I continued working for them. I became commercial manager for the vitamin section of the company until my retirement in 1993.

I never faced any problems with the fact that I was Jewish in any of my jobs. When my wife was in charge of the business the manager of the company we were importing from wanted to visit from England, he did, we met him and it all went well. The next year the owner of the company wanted to come so I took him out for lunch to Kineta. We ate in the only ‘taverna’ that was open, which was not a luxurious one. Anyway we sat down and there was a picture on the wall of the greatest Resistance Capitan.

As we were eating he said the word ‘andartis.’ [Editor’s note: Greek expression for one who revolts or, one who resists, but after WWII it was codified to mean resistance fighter.] I asked him, ‘Where do you know that word from?’ He said that during the war he had been sent by the English, by parachute, to Mount Olympus. He said his real job was a doctor but his father insisted on him working for their company.

We started talking about when, where, how he was there and we found out that on 6th May 1945 the English doctor who treated me first was him. His name is William Felton and I will never forget it. He came to Athens again later on and tried to convince me to import another product of his but I didn’t buy it in the end. He had five children and later on he became General Director of ‘Hallmark,’ the company that makes greeting cards.

My wife’s name is Ester Florentin [nee Altcheh] but everybody calls her Nina. She was born in 1932 so we have nine years of age difference between us. She speaks Greek, Hebrew, French, English and Ladino. She lived in Thessaloniki with her family until 1943, then they moved to Athens and hid in Iraklio [suburb of Athens], in the house of a Christian family. That family wanted to keep Nina as their own child and so betrayed the rest of my wife’s family – her mother, her father and her brother. They all went to Auschwitz.

Nina stayed with the Christian family during the war but after the liberation she left for Israel, she must have been about thirteen at the time. She went to Israel with one of these boats that took Jewish people there, she had no money and stayed in a kibbutz for a year. Then she went to school in Jerusalem for five years and now she speaks perfect Hebrew. In Greece she had to stop going to school after the sixth grade of elementary school.

Her father and brother died in the concentration camps. Thankfully, her mother Kleri Atcheh returned after the war; she weighed just thirty-six kilos then. Her mother went to Israel to find Nina, imagine that they saw each other after such a long time. After a short time in Israel her mother returned to Greece, Nina stayed there a little longer in one of her aunts’ house.

When Nina came back to Greece in 1950 she was seventeen years old. That’s when we found ourselves in the same group of friends; they were Viktor Messinas, Sam Nehama, Markos Tabah, Veta Tabah, my cousin, Nina and another friend of hers that is in Israel now. So, I met her in 1950, we became friends, we loved each other and then we got married in 1951. When we married she was nineteen years old and we have been married for fifty-two years.

I didn’t know Nina before the war but I knew her mother very well. She really wanted us to get married and since things were going in that direction anyway, she was very happy for us. I wasn’t looking for a Jewish girl to marry; I would have married her even if she had been Christian but since it happened naturally I didn’t mind. Now I am happy she is Jewish because from what I have seen from my son, who is married to a Christian girl, things are easier for a couple if they have the same religion, even if that is agnostic. I am not religious at all but my wife is more than me; I think it’s because her family, when she was growing up, was very religious.

We got married in the synagogue here in Athens, we had a rather small marriage because we didn’t have much money at the time. Of course, we invited all our friends and family but we didn’t have a reception or anything. We celebrated alone in a hotel in Paleo Faliro. Until then I was living alone in an apartment on Aiolou Street in the center of Athens. When we married we moved to Kipseli on Eptanisou Street. I was making some money working for my uncle, I don’t know if Nina was taking any money from her mother but we were just about getting by the first years.

After two years we had our first child, our daughter Ida, she was probably a bit rushed but it doesn’t matter now. I don’t remember my wife’s father’s real name, I never met him because he died in Auschwitz. After the war, my mother-in-law married Alfredo Beza. He was a very nice man and we were very close to them. For about forty years, every Saturday, we had lunch in their house, in the beginning just my wife and me, then with my children and even more recently with my grandchildren. Unfortunately, Kleri died five years ago.

I would say that my wife cooks traditional Sephardic dishes I like the pies very much and my favorite sweet dish is ‘sotlach’ which is a kind of sweet pie with milk and syrup. My favorite food though is Greek and it’s ‘fasolada’ [typical Greek bean soup].

We have two children a girl, Ida Nadia Florentin, named after my mother Ida, and a son, Iosif Tony Florentin, Iosif like my father. They were both born in Athens, my daughter in 1952 – she will be 54 at the end of the year – and my son in 1956 – now he is 51 years old. When Ida was born we were living at my mother-in-law’s house on Kalimnou Street in Kipseli. When Tony was born we had moved into our own house, which was very close to my mother-in-law’s.

Their mother tongue is Greek but they had extra-school English classes in a ‘frodistirio’ [foreign language school] and private French lessons. They also heard a lot of Ladino because of their grandparents and then at some point my son decided to also learn Spanish and went to the Cervantes Institute for two or three years. My wife and I always spoke Greek in front of them and also between us. They didn’t go to the Jewish school because I don’t think it existed back then but even if it had we wouldn’t have sent them there.

Growing up, the children had a very close relationship with their grandparents, my wife’s mother and her stepfather Alfredo. Alfredo was a real grandfather to the children and he loved them like his own. We never had disagreements on their upbringing and we would see each other almost every day. The children loved their grandmother and grandfather very much. Nina did the cooking in our house but every Saturday we would have lunch at my mother-in-law’s house.

The children grew up in a not very religious environment. Of course, they knew they were Jewish straightaway but as I am not very religious, I didn’t explain much to them. Their mother and grandmother taught them a few things about Judaism; my father-in-law wasn’t very religious. The Jewish holidays like the seder night [Pesach] we used to spend with the children’s grandparents. We didn’t really celebrate other holidays, for example Rosh Hashanah we exchanged some presents and that was it.

My children didn’t have many Jewish friends because they both went to Greek schools. I would say their upbringing was quite liberal, they brought their friends home and went out with them. We had no problem with that. We used to go on holiday for fifteen days in August to Tsagarada in Pilio, to a hotel; now we have a summerhouse in Porto Rafti [place on the outskirts of Athens] but we bought that twelve years ago when our children were already much older.

They also used to go to a summer camp for a while in the summers so we got sometime for ourselves. I don’t remember sending them to the Jewish camp but they went to various other ones like the Moraitis Summer Camp in Ekali [northern suburb of Athens].

I was always interested whether they had problems in school because of their religion so I asked them a few times and they both said they hadn’t faced any problems. We talked to them about the war and what had happened when they were much older; I think their grandmother talked to them more than us because she was more ready to talk about her experiences. My wife couldn’t because she was reminded of her brother who died, and I never really talked to them about my injury and my time on the mountain. Now they know everything, at some point I wrote my story down and they read it, but I didn’t talk about it much.

When the children were young I was very busy so I didn’t really have time to read the newspapers. I only used to read Greek newspapers, ‘Eleftherotipia,’ when it came out and before that ‘Vima.’ Also, the first few years we avoided going out with our friends a lot, but by the time we moved to the Androu Street house in Kipseli [densely populated area in Athens] the children were old enough to be left alone. We went out with our friends to the cinema, to ‘tavernas’ to eat, to the theater. They were mainly other Jewish couples. Of course we had some Christian friends but we didn’t see them as often.

With our Jewish friends, especially in the beginning we always talked about the war, later on we still talked about it, but not so much. With our Christian friends we didn’t really initiate discussions on Jewish topics but if they wanted to ask something we were very open to answer to them. That’s not to say that there were topics I felt embarrassed to discuss with them, I just didn’t choose to a lot of the time.

We also traveled a lot; we have been to England, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Cyprus, Turkey and Israel. We used to go as part of organized tours for pleasure, usually it was only my wife and I. I think with the children we only went to France together once, for a marriage or something because we have some family there. For business I only went to Switzerland and I used to go alone on these trips.

My daughter Ida was born at a point when our financial situation was terrible and we had to struggle for a while but, thankfully, by the time my son was born things were better. I have a very vivid memory of Ida’s childhood because when she was born and for a few months after she was very sick, to the extent that our pediatrician said, ‘If she is meant to die she will die.’ That was not a good thing for a doctor to say to a mother and a father.

Anyway a while after, she started getting better and then she relapsed again. We took her to a doctor, a professor named Horemis, and he said it was tuberculosis so he started treating her for that. Thank God there was another doctor, a very good one, Saroglou, who said, ‘I disagree with the professor.’ He took all his books down and he was telling me, ‘All I am doing is spending time on your daughter.’ He discovered that it was a disease called ‘Purpura’ where you get this red rash in certain places so he said stop all the tuberculosis medicine and give her this.’ A little while later she recovered and now she is perfectly healthy

That was a really rough period for my wife and me. Ida and Tony went to kindergarten and elementary school in a private school named ‘Ziridis School.’ Then for gymnasium Ida went to ‘Pierce College,’ the American College of Greece. She studied in the Pharmacy University of Athens for four years and came out with a pharmacist degree. Then she went to Paris to do her master’s in molecular biology for another three years.

When she returned she got a job in a drug warehouse and then in the National Research Institute. She quit her job a year ago and she did a degree in London on the Montessori technique for kindergartens. This year she didn’t manage to find a job but she is still looking. She is not married and she doesn’t have any children.

Tony had his bar mitzvah. He studied with the rabbi of Athens at the time whose name was Bartzilai, he said his words very well even though he was a bit stressed. It took place in the synagogue of Athens in the morning, we had invited a lot of people and then at night we had a party in our house where he invited his friends and we invited ours.

From Tony’s childhood there is one incident I remember very vividly. He was a boy scout from the age of six and then one day, when he was sixteen, they went walking from Athens to Parnitha [a mountain close to Athens]. That day it snowed a lot and we lost their tracks for a while. Anyway they made it back but we were really scared for a while.

For gymnasium, Tony went to the ‘Varvakios School,’ which is a good public, experimental school. He passed in the Polytechnic University of Athens and became a mechanical engineer, then he went to Paris for a postgraduate diploma in the mechanics of production and renewable sources of energy for six years. He got a distinction for his dissertation and was also awarded by the French academy.

In the six years he was there we visited him once. They both stayed with us during their studies in Athens but they both lived alone when they came back from their studies in Paris. For me my children’s’ education was very important I wanted them to do something that would educate them but that they could also find a job with. When they left for Paris we were sad in a happy way because they had left to do something good for themselves.

Now, Tony my son is manager in D.E.P.A., the Public Gas Supply Corporation of Greece. When he was in Paris he got married to a woman from the Czech Republic but he got a divorce from her and then married again, in 1985, Ioanna, who is Christian Orthodox, so they had a civil marriage. They met in Athens; they lived together for three years and then got married. She did all her studies in Germany and now she is a German teacher at university. They have two children: Philip, who is eleven years old, and Faedon Florentin, who is nine years old.

Right now the children don’t have a religion but they know both about Christianity and Judaism. They talk about Purim and get Rosh Hashanah presents but they have a Christmas tree during Christmas etc. My wife has taken them to the synagogue and their mother is absolutely fine with that.

They live in the building opposite us; my wife and I never put pressure on them to live close to us but when we moved here from Maroussi [middle class area in the north of Athens] they decided they wanted to buy a house close to us. We have very good relationship with our grandchildren and also with my son and his wife. We see our grandsons very often. Of course there might be periods of ten days or so that we haven’t seen them but in general they come and say ‘hi’ and stay with us a few hours.

I talk to my son and my daughter almost every day, sometimes we get together and eat but not something standard like it was when their grandmother was alive. We usually gather with my son, his family and my daughter for certain Jewish holidays like the seder night or other occasions. We gather in our house and my wife does the cooking.

Nowadays in the summer, we go to our summerhouse in Porto Rafti from the 1st of July until mid-August. It is a two-story house so my grandsons usually come with us and stay on the same floor as my wife and me. My son and his wife stay on the second floor. My grandsons love Porto Rafti. We swim in the sea, they play around, I think they really love that place. Then around the end of August we go to Abano in Italy for fifteen days. Abano is a spa town, my wife has mud baths and I swim in the swimming pool half an hour a day. I love that place and every year I can’t wait to go there.

As for my grandchildren there are certain things I would do different if they were my children. The oldest one is very smart but he doesn’t study or read books and I think his education is lacking important things like orthography, proper Greek language or just more depth in what he studies. I think he should read a book outside school, a children’s book, but I don’t want to intervene because their parents spend enough time on them.

I have a good relationship with my grandchildren but my wife has an even closer one, I try but they just have more contact with her. Sometimes I want to say certain things but I don’t want to intervene and insist on anything. Until now I haven’t spoken to them about the war and my stories.

More recently, my wife and I had a very nice group of friends but unfortunately two of them died and the other one can’t see very well so he doesn’t drive. Now we see a lot of Matoula Benroubi and her husband Andreas, we see them almost once a week. We go to ‘tavernas’ and eat, we don’t go to the cinema, I haven’t been to the cinema in five years. I don’t really know why. Anyway we also talk about the past about how things used to be and at least I enjoy these conversations very much.

I am not involved in the Jewish community or the different committees and I never was. I have a computer and e-mail but right now I haven’t set it up because when we moved I put one computer on the side and then my son brought me a laptop and on that one sometimes I push the wrong buttons and I ruin everything. But anyway, at some point I took some computer lessons, thankfully, but my wife didn’t. I think she should have done. My grandsons know everything about computers, while to me it’s the strangest thing and so they help me sometimes.

Glossary:

1 Ladino

Also known as Judeo-Spanish, it is the spoken and written Hispanic language of Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origin. Ladino did not become a specifically Jewish language until after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 (and Portugal in 1495) - it was merely the language of their province. It is also known as Judezmo, Dzhudezmo, or Spaniolit. When the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal they were cut off from the further development of the language, but they continued to speak it in the communities and countries to which they emigrated. Ladino therefore reflects the grammar and vocabulary of 15th-century Spanish. In Amsterdam, England and Italy, those Jews who continued to speak 'Ladino' were in constant contact with Spain and therefore they basically continued to speak the Castilian Spanish of the time. Ladino was nowhere near as diverse as the various forms of Yiddish, but there were still two different dialects, which corresponded to the different origins of the speakers: 'Oriental' Ladino was spoken in Turkey and Rhodes and reflected Castilian Spanish, whereas 'Western' Ladino was spoken in Greece, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Romania, and preserved the characteristics of northern Spanish and Portuguese. The vocabulary of Ladino includes hundreds of archaic Spanish words, and also includes many words from different languages: mainly from Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, French, and to a lesser extent from Italian. In the Ladino spoken in Israel, several words have been borrowed from Yiddish. For most of its lifetime, Ladino was written in the Hebrew alphabet, in Rashi script, or in Solitreo. It was only in the late 19th century that Ladino was ever written using the Latin alphabet. At various times Ladino has been spoken in North Africa, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, France, Israel, and, to a lesser extent, in the United States and Latin America.

2 L’ Indépendant

Jewish daily evening newspaper, published in French, one of the most important and long lived newspapers published between 1909-1941, when it was closed down by the Germans in April 1941. It did not endorse any political views and defended vehemently the rights of the Jews. (Source: Repf. Frezis: O evraikos typos stin Ellada, in Greek Volos, 1999 pp. 107-108)

3 Le Progrés

One of the 7 French-Jewish newspapers published in Salonica up until 1941.

4 German Occupation

In the spring of 1941, Germans defeated the Greek army and occupied Greece until October 1944. The country was divided in three zones of occupation. Thrace and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia were occupied by Bulgaria, Germany occupied Macedonia including Thessaloniki, Piraeus and western Crete and Italy occupied the remaining mainland and the islands. Now depending of where the Jews lived, defined both their future and the possibilities of escape. Greek resistance groups, communists or not, fought against the occupation in an effort to save Greece but also the Jews living in Greece. Approximately 8,000 to 10,000 Greek Jews survived the Holocaust, due to the refusal, to a great extent, of the Greeks, as well as the leadership of the Greek Orthodox Church, to cooperate with the Germans for the application of their plan to deport all of them. Furthermore, the Italian authorities up to their surrender in 1943 refused to facilitate or to permit the deportation of the Jews from the Italian zone of occupation. (Source: www.ushmm.org/greece/nonflash/gr/intro.htm).

5 Greek-Albanian War/Greek-Italian War (1940-1941)

Greece was drawn into WWII when Italian troops crossed the borders of Albania and violated Greek territory on 28th October 1940. The Italian attack of Greece seemed obvious, despite the stated disagreement of Hitler and the efforts of Ioannis Metaxas, who was trying to trying to keep the country in a neutral stance. Following a series of warning signs, culminating in the sinking of Battleship 'Elli' on 15th August 1940, by Italian torpedoes, and all of these failing to provoke the Greek government to react, the Italian Ultimatum was delivered on 28th October 1940, and it demanded the free passage of the Italian army through Greek soil, as well as sole control of a series of strategic points of the country. The rejection of the ultimatum by Metaxas was in line with the public opinion in Greece and led to the immediate declaration of war by Italy against Greece. This war took place mostly in the mountains of Hepeirous. In the Greek-Albanian War approximately 12.500 Greek Jews took part and 513 Greek Jews died fighting. The Greek counter-offensive pushed the Italians deep into Albania and the Greek army maintained the initiative throughout the winter capturing the southern Albanian towns of Corce, Aghioi Saranda, and Girocaster. [Source: Thanos Veremis, Mark Dragoumis, 'Historical Dictionary of Greece' (London 1995)]

6 Metaxas, Ioannis (1871-1941)

Greek General and Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death. A staunch monarchist, he supported Constantine I and opposed Greek entry into WWI. Metaxas left Greece with the king, neither returning until 1920. When the monarchy was displaced in 1922, Metaxas moved into politics and founded the Party of Free Opinion in 1923. After a disputed plebiscite George II, son of Constantine I, returned to take the throne in 1935. The elections of 1936 produced a deadlock between Panagis Tsaldaris and Themistoklis Sophoulis. The political situation was further polarized by the gains made by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). Disliking the Communists and fearing a coup, George II appointed Metaxas, then minister of war, to be interim prime minister. Widespread industrial unrest in May allowed Metaxas to declare a state of emergency. He suspended the parliament indefinitely and annulled various articles of the constitution. By 4th August 1936, Metaxas was effectively dictator. Patterning his regime on other authoritarian European governments (most notably Mussolini’s fascist regime), Metaxas banned political parties, arrested his opponents, criminalized strikes and introduced widespread censorship of the media. But he did not have great popular support or a strong ideology. The Metaxas government sought to pacify the working classes by raising wages, regulating hours and trying to improve working conditions. For rural areas agricultural prices were raised and farm debts were taken on by the government. Despite these efforts the Greek people generally moved towards the political left, but without actively opposing Metaxas.

7 Eleutherias Square

On 11th July 1942, following the order of the German Authority published by the local press, 6000-10.000 (depending on different estimations) male Jews aged from 18-45 were gathered in Eleutherias Square, in the commercial center of Thessaloniki. The aim was to enlist/mobilize them to forced labor works. Under the hot sun the armed soldiers forced them to remain standing for hours and imposed on them humiliating gymnastic exercises. The Wehrmacht army staff was taking photographs of the scene, while the Greek citizens were watching from their balconies. [Source: Marc Mazower, 'Inside Hitler's Greece' (Yale 1993)]

8 Ghetto

Until the German occupation there was never a ghetto in Thessaloniki. During the occupation the Germans created three main ghettos: 1. Eastern Thessaloniki: Fleming Street Ghetto, 2. Western Thessalonica: Sygrou Street Ghetto, 3. Baron Hirsch Ghetto in the Baron de Hirsch neighborhood. These were formerly neighborhoods with a dense, yet not exclusively Jewish population. (Source: Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941-44, New Haven and London)

9 Andartiko or Mountain

Abbreviation for Greek Resistance during World War II, composed of civilians and members of the communist party. They formed an army stationed in various mountainous locations of the Greek countryside where they formed groups of resistance; andartis: in Greek: one who revolts or, one who resists.

10 EAM (National Liberation Front - Ethniko Apeleutherotiko Metwpo)

Founded at the end of 1942. It was the combating section of the left-wing Resistance. (Source: J. Hondros, Occupation and Resistance: the Greek Agony, New York, 1983).

11 ELAS

Ethnikos Laikos Apeleutherotikos Stratos - National Popular Liberation Army, the central organization of the left-wing Resistance, joined also by other pro-democratic individuals. (Source: J. Hondros, Occupation and Resistance: the Greek Agony, New York, 1983.)

12 Deportations of Greek Jews

The Jewish population of Thessaloniki started being deported to Baron Hirsch camp as of 25th February 1943. The first train that took away Salonican Jews left the city on 15th March 1943 and arrived in Auschwitz on 20th March 1943. One deportation followed another and by 18th August 1943, a total of 19 convoys with 48.533 people had left the city. [Source: Rena Molho, 'Salonica and Istanbul: Social, Political and Cultural Aspects of Jewish Life' (The Isis Press, Istanbul, 2005), p. 66]

13 Greek Civil War (1946-1949)

Also known as Kinima or Movement, fought from 1946 to 1949 by the Governmental forces, receiving logistical support by the United Kingdom at first and later by the United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece, the military branch of the Greek Communist Party (KKE), was the result of a highly polarized struggle between leftists and rightists which started from 1943 and targeted the power vacuum that the German occupation during World War II had created. One of the first conflicts of the Cold War, according to some analysts it represents the first example of a post-war Western interference in the internal politics of a foreign country, and it marked the first serious test of the Churchill-Stalin percentages agreement. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Civil_War)

Vera Dreezo

Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Oksana Kuntsevskaya
Date of interview: August 2003

Vera Dreezo is a very nice and friendly small woman. She looks good for her age of 74 years. She lives in a house built in 1980s at quite a distance from the center of Kiev. She lives in a two-room apartment that was recently renovated. Hers is a nice apartment. She has photographs on the walls. Many of them are of her theatrical work. Vera does shopping and cleans her apartment herself. She has a caring son and daughter-in-law and a grown up granddaughter that often come to see her. They live nearby. Vera tries to take care of her everyday chores, but when she has problems her son is there to resolve them. Besides, Vera has many acquaintances and friends. She leads an active life.

My family background

My family backgrownd

My maternal great grandfather’s name was Ghenad Bairach. I don’t know his year of birth or death. He was a cantonist 1. My great grandfather served 25 years in the tsarist army and was given permission to settle down in Kiev regardless the existing restrictions about the Pale of Settlement 2. This permission spread on his heirs as well. My great grandfather lived in Mokraya Street Solomenka [at present this is one of central districts, but at his time it was in the outskirts of Kiev]. He had a house, but I don’t know whether he bought it or built it for himself. My mother told me that my great grandfather was an extremely strong man. My mother told me that when Denikin troops 3 came to Kiev in 1917 his son-in-law Iosif Mikhailovski took his three daughters to the house of Ghenad Bairach. Someone reported to Denikin troops where the girls were hiding and Denikin soldiers tried to break through the gate. My great grandfather took a horse cart shaft and moved on them. When they saw him they ran away. He was a man of great strength. I don’t have information about my great grandmother or how many children they had.

My maternal grandmother’s name was Dvoira Mikhailovskaya, nee Bairach. I was given the name of Vera after her. Our names sound alike. I don’t know when my grandmother was born, when she married Iosif Mikhailovski or whether she had any education. I don’t know where she came from or who were her parents came from. My mother told me that before the Revolution 4 her father Iosif Mikhailovski was selling hay and had horses for transportation purposes. He was a wealthy man, but of course, after the Revolution and Civil War 5 Soviet authorities expropriated his horses.

After my grandmother and grandfather got married they lived in my grandfather’s house in Solomenka near where my great grandfather lived. The first floor was made of stone and the second floor was wooden, but plastered. I’ve been in this house. I remember us climbing squeaking stairs with handrails leading to the second floor. There were such small rooms in the house. My grandfather rented out the first floor at the time when I remember before the Great Patriotic War 6, and his family lodged on the 2nd floor. Grandmother Dvoira had eight children. Two children died in infancy and one boy died in his teens. I don’t know their names. Five children survived: Michael, my mother Ghita, Meyer, Ethel and Lyolia. They are all gone. My grandfather gave education to his children. The boys studied at a realschule in Kiev and the girls studied in a grammar school. By the way, my grandfather paid for his three daughters and for three Christian girls whose parents were poor.

Their family wasn’t religious. They spoke Russian and didn’t celebrate even the biggest holidays, although I wouldn’t be that sure about it. I guess my grandfather’s 25-year service played its role. He may have forgotten all rules when he was in the army. My grandmother had a housemaid to help her around the house. Besides, the children had a nanny. My mother told me little about her childhood and her brothers and sisters.

My mother’s older brother Michael Mikhailovski, born approximately in 1900 – 1901, finished a realschule 7 in Kiev before the revolution and worked as a trade shipments forwarder. Michael didn’t have a smooth marital life. He was married three times. His three wives were Jewish. Michael divorced his first and second wives. In his second marriage he had two sons: Boris, born in 1927, and Arkadi, born in 1936. When the Great Patriotic War began Michael was recruited to the army. I don’t know where exactly he served. He was awarded two orders of Red Star. Shortly after he returned from the front he got married for a third time. He worked in a supply company in Kiev. Then he resigned. His third wife Fania – all I know about her is her name - and he did housework and counted how many berries they would put in each varenik [dumpling with filling]. Michael took after my grandfather: same appearance and same bad character. He and his wife visited us every now and then. He didn’t observe any Jewish traditions and spoke Russian. I didn’t keep in touch with his children and cannot say whether they observed any traditions. Michael died of cancer in 1970s. His older son Boris buried his father in their family grave at Berkovtsy [town cemetery in Kiev] and then moved to America with his family. I don’t have any information about him. I don’t have any information about Michael’s younger son.

My mother’s middle brother Meyer Mikhailovski, born in 1903, also finished a realschule in Kiev. He was a bachelor. He worked at the 4th shoe factory in Kiev. He went to work there as a worker and was promoted to foreman. Meyer lived in the room where our family lived. When my mother got married she took him from the factory hostel to live with us. On the first days of the Great Patriotic War he was drafted to the army and was awarded two orders of Red Banner. After the Great Patriotic War Meyer returned home and worked at the 4th shoe factory. He helped us to get our room in the communal apartment 8 back after the war. He lived there until he died. Meyer was a devoted and convinced communist. He rejected anything associated with religion. He died some time in 1960s and was buried in Berkovtsy.

My mother’s younger sister Ethel Mikhailovskaya, born in 1906, I guess, she studied in a grammar school like her sisters. I have no information about her. Once my mother mentioned that Ethel got married in 1920s and moved somewhere far away. I don’t know any details since I never saw her.

My mother’s younger sister Lyolia Berezina, nee Mikhailovskaya, born in 1909, finished elementary course of grammar school before 1917 and then studied in a Russian secondary school in Kiev. Her husband Pyotr Berezin was Russian. I don’t know what he did for a living. Their son Victor was born in 1931. However, Lyolia’s husband turned out to be a drunkard and they divorced. She was ill with spandelite. She often stayed in hospital and there was a common idea in the family that Lyolia was ill and always needed help. She worked at a factory in Kiev. I don’t know what she did there. When the Great Patriotic War began Lyolia evacuated with my mother, my sister Zoya and me. My father was responsible for the evacuation of families of employees of refrigeration factory. Besides my mother, Zoya and me he was allowed to arrange for evacuation of one additional person. I can remember well that mother was begging of my father to have Lyolia and her son going with us. This was 21 July 1941. Father was a very honest man. He replied ‘If I allow for two more people to evacuate other people will talk that I am making arrangements for my relatives pointing their fingers at me. I just cannot allow it to happen. Lyolia and Vitia will go by next train in two weeks’. What Lyolia did – she left Vitia with his Russian grandmother and joined us. I couldn’t forgive her that she had left her own child. Vitia was 10 years old. It took him a long time to adjust to the thought that his mother had left him behind. It was a big shock for him. His grandmother lived with her second son and his family in Solomenka. First somebody reported that there was a ‘zhydyonok’ [offensive term for a Jewish child] hiding and Gestapo soldiers came for him. He was beaten and taken away and stayed a whole night in a cellar with rats. Next morning this grandmother and her Russian or Ukrainian neighbor ran to the police office where they both screamed him out of his captivity. About ten days later Vitia overheard his uncle’s wife saying ‘I will report on this zhydyonok anyway!’ At that time there were posters ordering Jews to come to the Babi Yar 9 all over the town. He left home and through all years of the war he was wandering all over Ukraine, from one house to another. Lyolia recalled him in evacuation. As soon as Kiev was liberated she wrote her mother-in-law asking ‘Where is Vitia?’ She replied ‘I don’t know whether he is alive.’ Vitia returned to his grandmother after Kiev was liberated in November 1944. We were in Orenburg [today Russia, over 2000 km to the east from Kiev], when we received a letter saying that he was alive. We demanded that he came to Orenburg and then we all returned to Kiev. Victor worked as a tram driver and was married three times. Now he is a pensioner. I went to the Hesed where I got to know that he wasn’t on the list of prisoners since he was on the occupied territory. I went to the archives with him and we obtained all necessary documents to confirm that he has a status of a former prisoner. He receives a German pension.

After we returned to Kiev Lyolia went back to work at the factory. She didn’t remarry and lived with her son’s family. Victor treated his mother coolly. He probably didn’t forgive her betrayal of him, but mother is mother. Lyolia spoke Russian and didn’t observe any Jewish traditions. She died in 1970s and was buried at Berkovtsy cemetery.

My mother Ghita Mikhailovskaya was born on 18 November 1904. She studied in a grammar school like her sisters. My mother told me that before the revolution they studied Hebrew and, so it seems, Yiddish that she has forgotten in the course of time. I only can’t remember whether they had a teacher at home or studied the languages in grammar school.

Grandmother died of typhoid in 1916 when my mother was 12. After she died grandfather married a Russian housemaid. She was a plain woman and had no education. Wealthier Jews used to have non-Jewish housemaids (goy they were called). The name of this housemaid was Tosia. She and grandfather had three children of their own. I have no information about those children.

Tosia worked as a cleaning woman or attendant in a hospital in Kiev after the revolution. I don’t know what grandfather was doing after the revolution. He was tall and thin and had a thin face. He was kind and talked to me nicely, but he didn’t support us.

I don’t know whether my grandfather went to synagogue, but I know that they celebrated Pesach and also Easter with his second wife. I don’t know any details, but they celebrated these holidays more likely as a tribute to tradition since they were not religious. My mother and I visited them somewhere in the middle of holidays. I remember that we ate matzah.

After he remarried grandfather stopped supporting his older children. He probably thought they already could take care of themselves. Grandfather was and indomitable man and was interested in political subjects. In 1930s he was charged of Trotskism 10 and imprisoned. Later he was released, but I don’t know of any details. My mother didn’t keep in touch with grandfather and his second family. It seems grandfather died in late 1930s.

My mother and her sisters were having a hard time, especially during the Civil war. My mother couldn’t complete her education having to support her younger sisters. She worked at fairs and exhibitions as a cashier or did any work she could get. My mother and her sisters were renting a room. Basically, my mother told me very little about this period of her life. I cannot imagine how they survived these hardships. In 1925 or so my mother began to work as a cashier in a grocery store in the center of Kiev where she met my father.

My father Ilia Minevich (Elia in the Jewish manner) [Common name] 11 was born in Mozyr somewhere in Vinnitsa region in 1904. I cannot tell about this town since I’ve never been there. I know very little about my paternal grandfather – just what my mother told me. My mother said he was a steward in somebody’s mansion in Mozyr. This is all I know about my grandfather. I have no information about my paternal grandmother either. My mother also told me that my father had a brother and an older sister. All I know about them is that my father sister’s name was Elza and she danced and sang in the gypsy theater in Kiev before the Great Patriotic War. My father brother’s name was Iosif. He perished at the front.

My mother told me a short story about my father’s childhood. There was a solar eclipse when my father turned nine. He looked at the sun without a special glass and – he got blind. The owner of the mansion where his father was a steward wished to give him money for medical treatment and my grandfather took my father to many doctors until one doctor said that as suddenly as he got blind he would see. This happened to be true: my father began to see a year later.

I don’t know what kind of education my father had. In 1920s he went into trade after a Komsomol appeal 12. I don’t know any details, but in late 1920s he moved to Kiev where he was appointed as director of a food store. This was when he met my mother and fell in love with her. However, by that time my father had been married. His wife was a Jewish girl, a seamstress. They didn’t have any children and as the time passed they became different. She remained a provincial girl with hardly any interests while my father was fond of reading, was interested in politics and self education.

My mother didn’t want to meet with him since he was married. My mother told me that my father’s mother came to Kiev and came to my mother’s work to see her. She said: ‘Please marry him, he loves you. He will divorce his wife and leave her a sewing machine’. A sewing machine was of incredible value! My father divorced shortly afterward and married my mother in 1928. My mother said they didn’t have a wedding, just a civil ceremony in a registry office. Shortly afterward my father became director of a trade center (four stores on a crossing in the center of Kiev). This was an area where all artistic elite resided.

I remember my father very well – he was taller than average and a very handsome man, but what was most important about him was his extraordinary voice. My mother told me a family legend. My father was very kind to his subordinates. Most of them were women and he never hesitated to help them lift something heavy or help with anything. One late night – and stores were open until midnight at that time my father was signing helping shop assistants. There was only one customer in the store at that late hour: he was short, fatty, bold and had a stick… he hit the counter with his stick ordering ‘Come out who is singing there!’ This was Grigoriy Veryovka 13. He was trying to talk my father into going to school to learn to sing ‘You’ll be singing in the Bolshoi Theater 14 two years from today!’ My father had a rare baritone bass. He had a very strong voice. He liked signing Ukrainian folk songs, Jewish songs, Russian songs and arias. However, my mother got jealous about his perspectives and my father refused undertaking a career of a singer. Then, when father perished my mother was terribly sorry that she had not allowed him to study singing. He might have survived if he had been an actor.

In 1929 my father received a room in a communal apartment with five other tenants in the center of Kiev. This apartment probably belonged to a rich man before. There was a big kitchen and a bathroom with a big closet shelves inside. The bathroom was used as wood storage – there was stove heating in the apartment before the Great Patriotic War. There were primus stoves 15 and later – kerosene stoves and then when gas supply was installed there were two or three gas stoves brought into the kitchen to replace the old stoves. Two families shared one stove. There were arguments about who cleaned the stove and who didn’t. Each family had a bulb in the hallway and an electric doorbell. It was bad when one rang a wrong bell or lit a wrong bulb! Tenants also took turns to wash the floor in the hallway. I remember washing the floors in this big hallway when I was in the tenth form after the Great Patriotic War.

Growing up

I was born in this room on 18 November 1929. I didn’t go to a nursery school or kindergarten. My mother became a housewife when I was born. One of our neighbors taught my mother to cook since my mother had lost her parents at an early age and didn’t know how to do it. She learned to cook gefilte fish, pudding, pancakes and stew. I don’t know whether our neighbors were Jewish, probably because I didn’t care. All housewives shared their recipes gladly and cooked dishes of various cuisines in our kitchen: Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish. I learned from her when I grew up. My father hired me a nanny to help mother with the housework. Her name was Varia and she came from a Ukrainian village. At the beginning she slept in the mezzanine closet in the bathroom. There was a ladder to climb there and I used to climb this ladder visiting her there. I liked it there. She had an icon and some other little things there. My nanny got ill before the Great Patriotic War. There were polyp or something identified in her throat. My father gave Varia money to pay for a surgery. Varia loved me and my sister dearly. She never got married. My father helped her to receive a small room near the kitchen in an apartment on the 4th floor of the building where we lived. She died after the Great Patriotic War and we buried her.

In 1937 my younger sister Zoya was born. By that time my father received a bigger room in the same apartment where we lived. There was a big double bed in the room, some low table by an opposite wall and my sister’s bed. There was a coach with a high back upholstered with black artificial leather where I slept. There was an oval table beside it. There was a partial to separate a corner for my mother’s brother Meyer. There was a small stove. The window of our room faced a backyard where there was a shed and garbage containers.

The most terrible thing about our apartment were huge red rats. They were there before and after the war. We had to stamp our feet to scare away all rats before coming into the hallway. When we returned to this room after the war there were even more rats there. There was an anti-aircraft defense headquarters before and in the first years after the war in the basement of our house. The windows to this basement that were right underneath our window were closed with sheet steel and there was a fire emergency staircase near those windows. The rats ran up and down the staircase, got over this sheet steel to our window tapping on it. This was a terrible life!

In 1938 refrigeration factory #2 was built in Demeyevka [a distant district in Kiev]. It is still there and I buy ice-cream produced there. My father became a commercial director of this factory that same year. I've already told you how the family of the commercial director lived. My mother had two dresses: one made of crepe de chine and one of wool. My father had a suit, a coat and a cap. However, our situation improved a little. My father went to a recreation center a couple of times. His management also promised to give him an apartment since there were five of us living in one room: my father, my mother, two children and my mother’s brother Meyer.

My parents were friends with two neighboring Jewish families: the Abramsons and Grabovs. They often got together to play cards, have a drink and chat. Since I was sleeping on the coach in the same room I often overheard their discussions before falling asleep. They talked about arrests [Great Terror (1934-1938)]16, but I didn’t understand it. I cannot remember by what miracle this period didn’t have an impact on our family. They also discussed their family life. Somehow they came to the decision to have another baby almost simultaneously and their younger children were of the same age.

My parents liked going to the cinema, theaters and football matches. They were theater goers and went to theaters with their friends. They went to the Franko Theater [Ukrainian Drama], and discussed how actors were playing, they also went to the Opera Theater and discussed Patorzhynskiy [Ivan Sergeyevich Patorzhynskiy (1896 – 1960) – a famous Soviet bass singer], famous Litvinenko-Volgemut [Maria Litvinenko-Volgemut (1892-1966): a famous Soviet opera singer, lyrical dramatic soprano], of course! I often went to the theater for young spectators. We had many books in Russian by classical and modern writers. My parents were very fond of reading. We were an ordinary Soviet family. A family of a Soviet employee. My parents were convinced atheists and we didn’t celebrate any religious holidays.

I went to Russian lower secondary school #48 in 1936. I finished the 4th grade before the Great Patriotic War.

I remember very well that in late 1930s my father went on trips to other Soviet republic on training. Once he brought a recipe for kefir [fermented dairy drink] from the Caucasus and had it introduced in production. This was how production of kefir started in Kiev and nobody can tell me otherwise. It was delicious kefir, so rich! In 1939 my father initiated opening of two ice-cream shops in Kiev. The refrigeration factory began to produce various ice-creams, frozen fruit, juiced berries and ice-cream cakes. This was new experience since before this there were ice-cream stands where a vendor just put ice-cream in waffle scoops. This was my father’s idea to make ice-cream shops. There were nice table and stools in these shops where my mother took me. Director of the shop where we went came to say hallo to us.

I remember the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. I woke up on the dawn of 22 June 1941 hearing my mother and father talking. My father was saying ‘No, this is just another training. Don’t worry!’ and mother replied ‘This cannot be training’. I remember what she said and in the afternoon we heard Molotov 17 speaking on the radio.

We left Kiev on 21 July: my mother, Zoya, I and aunt Lilia. My father took us to the station. He said ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be back soon!’ It was a common belief that the war would be over within 2-3 months.

My father perished near Kiev on 21 September 1941 when Soviet troops were retreating. This village was called Borshchi. Actually, my father had a ‘white card’ of release from the army service [this was a release from service in the tsarist army before the revolution of 1917 issued by a medical commission that determined that a young man was unfit for military service], but he volunteered to a Territorial Army unit [Fighting battalion]18, where he was deputy commanding officer. Director of the refrigeration factory was commanding officer of the unit. They were moving in a field when another bombing began. My father was moving ahead of the column in a white refrigeration truck. A bomb hit it killing my father. His employees that witnessed how he died told us about it. However, my mother always hoped that he was alive, but then we understood that he was gone since he would have let us know where he was. We received pension for him.

Our trip by train lasted over a month. We were moving to the refrigeration factory named after Engels [over 1500 km to the east from Kiev]. The refrigeration center was located in the middle of the steppe. There were barracks for employees of the center. Povolzhye Germans [German colonist] 19 also resided there. I still remember how delicious bread they baked! When you pushed at it and then let go it stretched back. There was brown and white bread.

We were accommodated in a four-storey hostel of the refrigeration center. It was still under construction. A few families were sleeping in one room on the floor. Many women kept hoping that their husbands would return when the war was over. My mother was smart and realistic and went to work as a cashier in a local store. Shortly after we returned German families began to be deported to the north. Actually, the situation was difficult. I saw things like ‘Heil Hitler’ or ‘Beat yids!’ written on the walls of houses. Besides, there were talks that Povolzhye Germans launched signal flares… Perhaps, some of them supported Germans. One cannot blame a whole nation. I remember how Germans were deported. I guess they were given three days to get ready. They were not allowed to take any furniture or utensils with them. They were cursing and crying. If a husband was Russian and his wife German they had an opportunity to get permission to stay home, but when a husband was German his wife had to follow him. When they moved out we were accommodated in their barracks.

We were given lodging in a very narrow room of about 9 square meters. My mother and Zoya shared one bed and Lyolia slept on another. I had a folding bed unfolded in the evening. There was a primus or a kerosene stove in the corridor. Aunt Lyolia did the housekeeping. Germans left their food stocks and we had food at the beginning.

In 1942 my mother’s brother Meyer came to see us on his leave. He was awarded an Order of Red Star and a leave. He told us later how he received an award: ‘everybody else started running, but I stayed in my trench throwing grenades at those German tanks…’ When Meyer saw our living conditions he said he was taking us with him. Their military unit was sent to be remanned in Orenburg [about 2000 km to the east].

Meyer’s Military unit was deployed in Kagarlyk near Orenburg. It was a Tatar village of one long street with no windows facing the street. Tatars and Uzbeks build their houses facing a street. They grew sheep. There was a herd of sheep walking along the street in the morning stirring up clouds of dust. In the evening they were coming back and the dust crunched in our teeth.

We were accommodated in a clay house with no stove. My uncle sent us a soldier to make a stove. He was wearing a fading shirt and looked like a frog with his mouth and those hands… He built a stove, but it collapsed. He said in accented Russian: ‘It’s all right, don’t worry, I will make you another stove…’ He made another stove that collapsed, too. Only the third one was more or less there. It generated so much smoke, it was a nightmare. Families of the military did shopping in a store across the street. There was brown bread, vinegar, oil, garlic and green tomatoes that never got ripe in this area. Lyolia made doughnuts of this brown bread and garlic, salads of green tomatoes, spring onions and garlic. The locals didn’t have a friendly attitude. Their ordinary answer to any question was ‘Ne belmes’ (‘I don’t understand’ in Tatar). I don’t know whether they didn’t understand or just didn’t want to talk.

There was no school in Kagarlyk and before September uncle Meyer’s military unit was to leave Kagarlyk. We didn’t want to stay among strangers. Then my mother ventured to travel to Orenburg hoping to find some lodging and a job. There was a truck routing to Orenburg from the military unit every other day. My uncle made all necessary arrangements for her return trip. Mother took a slice of bread and a bottle of water, few green tomatoes and some garlic and went to Orenburg. She walked across the town for half a day, but couldn’t find any work or lodging. She got tired and sat down on a porch of a house – there were four-storied buildings in the center of the town, but the rest of them were one-storied houses. She was sitting there chewing when all of a sudden she heard somebody addressing her ‘Ghita Iosifovna’ [the customary polite address in Russian is by first and second name. The latter (patronimic) consists of one’s father’s name and a suffix: –ovna for women and –ovich for men, i.e. if Ghita’s father’s name was Iosif, her patronimic is ‘Iosifovna’], what are you doing here?’ She raises her eyes and sees Aaron Brodski, our neighbor in Kiev. In Orenburg Aaron was chief engineer of aviation repair plant. She threw herself on his chest and began to cry telling him her story. He took her to his place where she had a bath and a meal and then they helped her to rent an apartment. Mother came back home happy and told us that we could go to Orenburg. This was actually a room leading to two other rooms where owners of the apartment lived.

My mother soon met a man from Kiev who knew my father well and he helped her with employment at the meat packing factory where she was a shipment forwarder. Actually she delivered meat on horse-driven carts. However, she could bring home some bare ribs or beef legs and my aunt made us studen’ [studen’, or holodets: a cold meat dish, usually made of boiled bones with little meat on them, the meat is mixed with the bouillon and cooled, after which it becomes jelly-like because of high percentage of gelatin in it] of them. It helped us to survive. Half a year later mother found another apartment in the basement of a house. There were window shutters closing from the side of a street. I remember how local bandits tried to break into our lodging through the windows. They removed those shutters, but we were screaming there and they ran away. The locals only spoke in curses they didn’t know any other language. There were many bugs in the houses. It was an ordinary thing for them.

My sister and I fell very ill in Orenburg: I had paratyphoid and Zoya had pneumonia. Fortunately, we found a doctor: professor Ierusalimski from Moscow. Zoya had high fever and professor told mother to get some sulfidine, a new medication. Mother managed to get some and Zoya began to recover. Mother was exhausted: she went to work during a day and at night she sat beside Zoya’s bed watching her. I don’t know how she managed to live through it, but she never gave up and stood the circumstances.

I went to a Russian school for girls in Orenburg. I actively participated in pioneer and Komsomol activities 20. Other children elected me chairman of our school pioneer unit council. I liked it. I was responsible for organizing meetings, political classes, visits to local hospitals to attend to patients and perform concerts. Once our school Party organizer Nadezhda Ivanovna said to me ‘Vera, you will make a speech about your pioneer organization and your work at the regional Komsomol conference. I will help you to write your speech.’ When we sat to prepare the speech she began to dictate it to me. She was dictating about something I hadn’t done. I was an honest girl and I really did a lot of work that I was planning to talk about. I said ‘Nadezhda Ivanovna, but this is not what we’ve done!’ ‘It’s all right, you put it down and then you will read this part of your speech.’ Actually, after this I gave up my Komsomol activities. On our way back to Kiev I purposely ‘lost’ my Komsomol membership card due to my disappointment in such activities. Then in Kiev I resumed my membership in Komsomol. I needed it to continue my studies in a higher educational institution. But when I entered a college I ‘lost’ it again. However, since students had to be Komsomol members I joined Komsomol again. I couldn’t afford to be a ‘black sheep’.

I was responsible for fetching water to the house. My aunt was weak and sickly and mother was at work. In 1942 - 1943 winter was very severe. We fetched water from pumps. There was so much ice on the ground that the pump was in the middle of an ice hill. I climbed that hill, and waited until water squirted in my bucket. I left my shoulder yoke down the hill. There was also a line of people to get water. You can imagine, I once slipped and fell and the water poured out of my buckets. I got wet, but other people didn’t allow me to refill my buckets. I had to stand in line waiting for my turn.

We were so happy to hear the word ‘Victory!’ in May 1945! We began to get prepared to go home. My mother, I, Zoya, aunt Lyolia and Vitia went back by freight train. We returned to our apartment. There was no furniture left. Varia, our nanny, watched where our furniture was gone and our mother demanded it back. Later my mother’s brothers and sisters also received lodgings. Meyer stayed with us. I lived there until I got married.

My family background
Growing up
During the War
After the War
Glossary

In Kiev I went to the 9th grade of school #53 in 1945. There were Ukrainian classes beginning from the 5th form in all Russian schools in Kiev. I hadn’t studied Ukrainian in evacuation and was dismissed from these classes. I had many friends and we went to the cinema, theater or just for a walk in the park missing many classes at school. I already decided to enter Theatrical College after school and focused on literature and history.

My mother took over any job to support the family. She was selling things and got involved in illegal apartment exchange business. We were surviving. We were often hungry. Our mother received a pension for our father, but it was a miserable amount.

In September 1945 my sister Zoya went to new Russian school #135. She was the best student at school and was to receive a medal after school [the highest award to best students of secondary schools in the USSR]. However, after finishing school in 1955 she received only a silver medal. Zoya had a classmate whose father was a Party official. There was limited number of gold and silver medal awards and that girl received a gold medal. This injustice was the first big shock in her life. She entered the Faculty of Sanitary Hygiene in Kiev Medical College. She was to take one entrance exams. She passed it successfully and finished her college successfully. She married Zheldakov, a Russian man. They have one son, Ilya. She went to work at the Institute of food hygiene where she defended thesis and became candidate of sciences [Soviet/Russian doctorate degrees] 21. She got a job offer in the Academic Institute named after Sysin in Moscow and they decided to move to Moscow. My mother moved to Moscow with Zoya in 1965 and lived there until she died in 1980. She was buried at the town cemetery in Moscow. Zoya became director of a laboratory. She was scientific secretary of the All-Union department of Water Environment Safety. She defended her doctor’s dissertation. She is still at the head of her laboratory and is one of 7 leading water ecologists in the world.

After finishing school I entered the Theatrical College. I have dim memories of the years of my studies, 1946 – 1951. we studied and had rehearsals, went for walks and to discos. We often went to the cinema. After finishing college I went to work at the theater for young spectators where I met my husband Vilia [full name Vilen] Dreezo.

My husband Vilia Dreezo, a Jew, was born in Kiev, I guess, in 1928. His father Ovsey Driez was a Jewish poet [Ovsey Driez (1908 – 1971) a Soviet Jewish writer] Ovsey was born in the Jewish town of Krasnoye in Vinnitsa region. Ovsey Driez wrote in Yiddish. He received a traditional Jewish education and studied in a Ukrainian secondary school and Kiev Art School. In 1934 he volunteered to the Red Army where he served in front troops until 1947. In 1939 – 1941 he was in Western Ukraine. He was helping Jewish refugees that escaped from the Nazis. During the war he met Lidia Ionova, a Russian woman from Moscow. He moved to Moscow with her and lived in Moscow until the end of his life. My husband’s mother Ida Biz divorced Ovsey in the late 1930s and she was married a second time when I met her. I know little about her life. I know that she was a Yiddish teacher in a Jewish school in Kiev before the war. When this school was closed Ida became a teacher of the Russian literature and language in a Ukrainian school. Many other Jewish teachers changed their specializations and made best teachers in schools.
Vilia didn’t tell me about his childhood. I know that he finished a secondary school in Kiev in 1946 and in 1947 he went to serve in the army. By the way, he changed his father’s last name. An Honored journalist of Ukraine Vladlen Novozhylov described this episode in his book ‘Soldiers from Evbaz’. He was Vilia’s fellow comrade and they knew each other since they were at school. Vilia and Vladlen went in for shooting training. Vilia was training to shoot from a small caliber rifle and became a champion of Ukraine and Vladlen learned to shoot from a gun. They served in the same military unit. Other fellow comrades teased Vilia finding the surname of Driez extremely funny. Vladlen got a clerk in their office drunk and made him add ‘o’ at the end. This was how my husband had his surname changed to Dreezo.

Vilia demobilized in 1952 and went to work at our theater as electrician. He was promoted to electric engineering manager. We met and Vilia courted me for a while. We got married in 1954. We had a civil ceremony in a registry office. There was no wedding party.

We lived with Vilia’s mother Ida. They had two rooms in a communal apartment in the house for writers. Formerly chairman of the union of writers of Ukraine Kirilenko arrested in 1937 lived in this apartment. He must have been executed. His family received a certificate that it happened when he was trying to escape. There were four rooms in the apartment. Two of them the Driez family received. Vilia and I were accommodated in the go-through room in this apartment.

My son Alyosha [full name Aleksei] was born in 1956. We had a common balcony with the family of Sosyura [Vladimir Sosyura (1898-1965): a famous Soviet Ukrainian poet]. About two weeks after Alyosha was born Maria Gavrilovna Sosyura brought us a baby-carriage. So my Alyosha grew up in the baby-carriage that formerly belonged to the Sosyura family. We had good relationships with them.

My mother-in-law spoke fluent Yiddish. She exchanged words in Yiddish with her second husband. However, they spoke Russian in the family. We kept our good relationships even after I divorced Vilia. She helped me to look after Alyosha. She was a smart woman.

My husband’s family didn’t celebrate any Jewish holidays. They were a Soviet family. Ida Aronovna was a convinced ‘Orthodox’ communist. We celebrated New Year, 1 May, day of October Revolution 22 and Victory Day 23. We had parties and sang Soviet songs. My husband and I had many friends. We went to theaters and concerts. There were jazz bands from other countries coming on tours.

I’ve never faced any national discrimination; at school, college or at work – never. Perhaps I was lucky to be working with intelligent people. On 5 March 1953 there was a mourning meeting at the theater. I made a speech and said ‘Stalin is like air for us. We can’t live without breathing air’ – what nonsense I was saying, but at that time this was what we believed and thought.

I'd rather not talk about my private life. I didn’t have it. My son and I lived in a one-room apartment since early 1960s. I left my theater to looked after my son and if I had stayed at the theater I would have returned home late at night. I was a housewife for few years. I didn’t get a chance to go back to work at the theater: there were no vacancies. In 1960 I went to work as a consultant at Kiev Institute of advanced training of teachers. I was responsible for making arrangements for conferences, discussions of new school curricula, innovations and school academic plans. I retired from this position in 1984.

My son Aleksei Dreezo went to the first grade of a Russian school in Kiev in 1963. He was always aware of his parents’ and his own Jewish identity and had no problems with it. We didn’t observe any Jewish traditions. I even didn’t know any. We would have been even afraid of coming close to a synagogue [Struggle against religion] 24. Of course, I cannot turn to religion at the end of my life or observe any traditions or celebrate holidays. We celebrated Soviet and family events and holidays and invited my colleagues and later – my son’s friends. Aleksei studied well at school and had many friends. After finishing school he entered the Production faculty of the Kiev College of Culture. He finished it in 1977 and was producer of concerts for a long time. Aleksei married his co-student, a Ukrainian girl. I liked my daughter-in-law and was happy that my son found his second ‘half’. Aleksei has a grown up daughter, my granddaughter. She studies in the conservatory in Kiev. They speak Russian and Ukrainian in their family. They do not observe any Jewish traditions. They celebrated Soviet holidays in the past.

In 1991 perestroika 25 began [Editor’s note: perestroika was actually launched before 1991, right after Gorbachev came to power in 1985]. My son and his wife lost their jobs. My granddaughter entered the music school named after Lysenko and they needed money to pay for her studies. Their situation was very hard. Somebody recommended me to go to Hesed, this charity organization. I liked the friendly atmosphere there and nice people. They provided food assistance and medications to people. I also wanted to do something good. I suggested that I could read lectures. In 1992 was 90th birthday anniversary of Ovsey Driez and we made a very nice soiree dedicated to him. I spoke about him. To prepare for my lectures I went to libraries and archives and read magazines and newspapers. I got acquainted with the Jewish culture going too deep into Judaism. The lectures that I read can be united under the title ‘Jews and the world culture’.

Neither my son nor I have considered emigration. Aleksei and his wife work for private business that has nothing to do with their education. They deal in commerce. I can’t speak for my children, but speaking for myself I can say that I’ve found my niche. Of course, it’s not easy to lecture to people and travel a lot, but it’s interesting. I meet with many nice people traveling to Ukrainian towns. I lecture to them and they tell me about themselves. This gives me a feeling of the fullness of life.

GLOSSARY:

1 Cantonist

The cantonists were Jewish children who were conscripted to military institutions in tsarist Russia with the intention that the conditions in which they were placed would force them to adopt Christianity. Enlistment for the cantonist institutions was most rigorously enforced in the first half of the 19th century. It was abolished in 1856 under Alexander II. Compulsory military service for Jews was introduced in 1827. Jews between the age of 12 and 25 could be drafted and those under 18 were placed in the cantonist units. The Jewish communal authorities were obliged to furnish a certain quota of army recruits. The high quota that was demanded, the severe service conditions, and the knowledge that the conscript would not observe Jewish religious laws and would be cut off from his family, made those liable for conscription try to evade it.. Thus, the communal leaders filled the quota from children of the poorest homes.

2 Jewish Pale of Settlement

3 Denikin, Anton Ivanovich (1872-1947)

White Army general. During the Civil War he fought against the Red Army in the South of Ukraine.

4 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.

5 Civil War (1918-1920)

6 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.
7 Realschule: Secondary school for boys in Russia before the revolution of 1917. Students studied mathematics, physics, natural history, foreign languages and drawing. After finishing this school they could enter higher industrial and agricultural educational institutions.
8 Communal apartment: The Soviet power wanted to improve housing conditions by requisitioning ‘excess’ living space of wealthy families after the Revolution of 1917. Apartments were shared by several families with each family occupying one room and sharing the kitchen, toilet and bathroom with other tenants. Because of the chronic shortage of dwelling space in towns shared apartments continued to exist for decades. Despite state programs for the construction of more houses and the liquidation of shared apartments, which began in the 1960s, shared apartments still exist today.

9 Babi Yar

Babi Yar is the site of the first mass shooting of Jews that was carried out openly by fascists. On 29th and 30th September 1941 33,771 Jews were shot there by a special SS unit and Ukrainian militia men. During the Nazi occupation of Kiev between 1941 and 1943 over a 100,000 people were killed in Babi Yar, most of whom were Jewish. The Germans tried in vain to efface the traces of the mass grave in August 1943 and the Soviet public learnt about mass murder after World War II.

10 Trotsky, Lev Davidovich (born Bronshtein) (1879-1940)

Russian revolutionary, politician and statesman. Trotsky participated in the social-democratic movement from 1894 and supported the idea of the unification of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks from 1906. In 1905 he developed the idea of the ‘permanent revolution’. He was one of the leaders of the October Revolution and a founder of the Red Army. He widely applied repressive measures to support the discipline and ‘bring everything into revolutionary order’ at the front and the home front. The intense struggle with Stalin for the leadership ended with Trotsky's defeat. In 1924 his views were declared petty-bourgeois deviation. In 1927 he was expelled from the Communist Party, and exiled to Kazakhstan, and in 1929 abroad. He lived in Turkey, Norway and then Mexico. He excoriated Stalin's regime as a bureaucratic degeneration of the proletarian power. He was murdered in Mexico by Stalin’s order.

11 Common name

12 Komsomol

13 VERYOVKA – Grigoriy Gurievich Veryovka (1895 – 1964)

a famous Ukrainian Soviet composer, conductor.

14 Bolshoi Theater

World famous national theater in Moscow, built in 1776. The first Russian and foreign opera and ballet performances were staged in this building.

15 Primus stove

a small portable stove with a container for about 1 liter of kerosene that was pumped into burners.

16 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.

17 Molotov, V

P. (1890-1986): Statesman and member of the Communist Party leadership. From 1939, Minister of Foreign Affairs. On June 22, 1941 he announced the German attack on the USSR on the radio. He and Eden also worked out the percentages agreement after the war, about Soviet and western spheres of influence in the new Europe.

18 Fighting battalion

People’s volunteer corps during World War II; its soldiers patrolled towns, dug trenches and kept an eye on buildings during night bombing raids. Students often volunteered for these fighting battalions.

19 German colonists

Ancestors of German peasants, who were invited by Empress Catherine II in the 18th century to settle in Russia.

20 Komsomol

21 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 (doktarontura). 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.

22 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.

23 Victory Day

On May, 9 1945 - The Great Patriotic War ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945. This day of a victory was a grandiose and most liked holiday in the USSR.

24 Struggle against religion

25 Perestroika

Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s. Perestroika [restructuring] was the term attached to the attempts (1985–91) by Mikhail Gorbachev to transform the stagnant, inefficient command economy of the Soviet Union into a decentralized market-oriented economy. Industrial managers and local government and party officials were granted greater autonomy, and open elections were introduced in an attempt to democratise the Communist party organization. By 1991, perestroika was on the wane, and after the failed August Coup of 1991 was eclipsed by the dramatic changes in the constitution of the union.

Mikhail Katsenelson

St. Petersburg
Russia
Interviewer: Olga Egudina
Date of interview: December 2006

I met Mikhail Efimovich Katsenelson in his spacious, comfortable
and beautiful apartment in the city center.

Mikhail Efimovich Katsenelson is a handsome tall man.
His age did not bend his back and did not suppress his voice.

Events of his life could have adorned several biographies:

during the war he was a pilot of battle experience;
then an instructor of pilots and cosmonauts;
later a writer (an author of more than 10 books).

Mikhail Efimovich lives an active life, he still works on his books.
It is a pleasure to talk to him: he is not only a talented narrator,
but he is also possessed of rare quality: he is an attentive listener.

My family background
During the war
After the war
Glossary

My family background

I can tell you nothing not only about my great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers, but even about my grandmothers and grandfathers. Evidently my grandmothers and grandfathers had died before I was born. I do not remember any stories or memoirs of my parents about their childhood or about their ancestors. Unfortunately I also remember not so much about my parents, but I’ll tell you about it later.

I was born in 1921 in Rostov-on-Don. I do not remember the city, but I know that it is an ancient one (founded in the middle of the XVIII century). By the beginning of the XX century it was a large industrial center, an important river port and a university center.

My father worked as a drugstore manager (the drugstore was situated in one of the main streets of Rostov-on-Don). My mother worked at the same drugstore as a pharmacist though she had no special education. I do not know why, but my father was considered to be a very good expert in his sphere. Therefore when the authorities decided to reinforce rural drugstores with skilled personnel, my father was sent there for work.

He was sent to a great sovkhoz 1, which was called accordingly Gigant (Giant). He had to work there as a drugstore manager, too. It happened approximately in 1925. We lived there not long. I can’t recall our rural life very well. We lived in a house which seemed to me to be very huge. We kept rabbits. Now I think that we also had a vegetable garden. I also have a hazy recollection of the fire which happened in the village where we lived. Soon my father was appointed a drugstore manager in Millerovo.

Millerovo was a regional center, not far from it there was Veshenskaya Cossack village, well-known because of Mikhail Sholokhov who lived there. [Mikhail Sholokhov (1905-1984) was a Russian Soviet writer, a Nobel Prize winner, an author of different novels: Tikhiy Don, Podnyataya Tselina, etc.] Millerovo was a center of Don Cossacks 2. At that time Cossacks stood high esteem of the authorities: they were supported in every aspect of their life, including cultural. Very often Cossack choruses visited Moscow. In Moscow they arranged their concerts on the best stages (even at the Bolshoi Theatre 3).

At that time I was a very active pioneer [a member of the pioneer organization 4] and attended drama studio.

By the way I played the leading role in some poetical play; unfortunately I do not remember its name. So I was among representatives of progressive youth who were entrusted with preparation of Cossacks for their trip to Moscow. But in fact we simply distributed badges among them. Their concert tour to Moscow was a success, and they celebrated it by a great booze-up in the local Dvorets kultury in Millerovo after their return. [Dvorets kultury in the USSR was a large club establishment, where people arranged different exhibitions, dancing parties, etc.] The booze-up turned to be so shameful that authorities decided to disperse the chorus. But Sholokhov, who was in favor at that time, took their side. So the chorus remained safe. In connection with Sholokhov I remember a funny episode: together with other boys we were playing volleyball in the yard, when a car dropped in and Sholokhov appeared with huge suitcases. We rushed to help him, because the suitcases looked very heavy.

Sholokhov told us that he had just arrived from Paris and brought 2 suitcases full of… nails. You see, at that time nails (as well as many other goods) were in short supply in our country.
When I was a pupil of the 9th form (it was in 1936), my father was sent to Bronnitsy near Moscow. There he worked as a drugstore manager (as usual). We lived there (as well as in Millerovo) at a service apartment. Mum kept the house alone: we had no assistants. We had not many books: possibly due to our frequent moves from one place to another. I liked to read, but had not enough time for it, because in addition to school studies I was engaged in music: I learned to play violin. I did it with pleasure, and gave it up with pleasure, too. But my delicate ear for music turned to be very useful to me in the army. You know, the war was a great tragedy for all people, it was an arduous trial, and people seemed to think about nothing except the war. But it lasted 4 long years, and for the most part its participants were young people. Therefore it was desirable to while sorrow sometimes: they arranged contests of amateur art activities. [Amateur art activities included dancing, singing, etc. in collectives or individually] I participated in one of such contests. Together with other participants we were brought to Moscow by planes. I was the leading singer. We sang the popular song Ty Odessit, Mishka! (You Are From Odessa, Mike!).

There in Bronnitsy I finished my school. My school was very good. I was always very interested in studying. Our teachers were very good, too. I had got good friends: we were friends all life long. At present nobody of them is alive. I was always interested in exact science, though the humanities were always deep in my soul. I guess that’s why late in my life I became a fiction writer.

I already mentioned my parents several times, and now I’ll tell you about them in more detail. I wish to do it right now because I am going to pass to the next part of my narration when my parents were not with me. I feel sad to note that I remember not much about them. You see, all my prewar life has faded from my mind. I guess astonishing events I had to participate in later were at the bottom of it.

My parents’ names were Sara Pavlovna (nee Manevich) and Efim Natanovich Katsenelson (Belarusian by birth). I do not remember where exactly they were born. They were born in 1890s. All their life long my parents worked at different drugstores. One might say that I was born in a drugstore: my parents occupied a service apartment near to the drugstore. I know neither how they met nor how they got married. I already mentioned that I do not know my father’s education level. I think he graduated from a University or a Medical College, because he was considered to be a pharmacist of the highest qualification. My father was a gentle and easy-tempered person. But my Mum was hot-blooded. I already mentioned that she got no special education (she only finished a school), but living together with my father she acquired knowledge and skill and always worked as a pharmacist in the drugstores my father was the head of. Our parents were not authoritarian, but rather respectful to me and my brother. Our family observed no traditions; the family was absolutely not religious. To tell the truth, our family was absolutely not Jewish.

I do not remember my parents talking about politics. I guess that they were the so called real Soviet people. I remember almost nothing about brothers and sisters of my parents: I only remember that my father’s brother and sister lived in the center of Moscow. I visited them when I studied in Moscow. I used to come to them on holidays to watch military parades on the Red Square. I have a faint idea of my Mum’s brother: he was a well-known intelligence officer Manevich. [Manevich Lev Efimovich (1898-1945), an intelligence officer, a Hero of the Soviet Union (1965, posthumously). Most probably the interviewee is mistaken, because patronymics of Manevich and the interviewee’s mother do not coincide.] During the war my father was again sent to a new place of work: to Dedovsk near Moscow. Parents lived there for some time and died in the beginning of 1950s.

In our boyhood days we were good friends with my brother Naum. He held me in respect as his elder brother. He became a professional soldier, too. He served in Ukraine, but he was no conjurer and rose only to the rank of captain. When we grew up we became completely alienated and I blame his wife for it. Naum died in 1980s. He had got a daughter and a grandson, but they turned their back on me.

In 1938 I entered the Moscow Power Economy College named after Molotov 5. By the way, Polina Zhemchuzhina, his wife was the director of the College. I left the parents’ house because it was too far to go to Moscow for everyday studies. So I settled in a hostel. [Hostel is a specially constructed apartment house for residing of students, workers or other citizens during their work or study.] When a first year student, I got seriously ill with chronic malaria. Therefore I had to repeat my first year course.

During the war

In 1939 I started my studies again as a first-year student, when a sudden government decree ordered to take all first-year students away in the army. People were told that students were taken for a year term. All of us moved to Ukraine by freight cars. We came to Zhitomir and started studying military science. I got to the school for gunners and radio operators. They taught us how to handle a machine gun and a radio set. In spite of the fact that radio studies were much more difficult, it was rather easy for me. You see, people with tuneful ear were able to learn Morse code easily, and I was one of them. I studied very well; therefore I finished the School before the appointed time. Together with several soldiers we were sent to a military unit.

There I was given the rank of first sergeant and started my service at the aircraft garrison near Zhitomir. Taking into account my successful studies at School, they appointed me the lead aircraft radio operator. But suddenly a great trouble came upon me: I suffered from air sickness! So I was sent to health examination. There I was examined thoroughly and the results were not encouraging: I was certified as unfit for flights. I became a radio operator at the airdrome. As our military unit was in the process of regimentation, we lacked airplanes and specialists. Therefore sometimes it was necessary to replace my comrades. Sometimes I served as a rigger. During that period of time I took advantage of the situation and made my first parachute jump. It happened to be not very successful, and received a scolding.

Early in the morning of June 22, 1941 we were alarmed 6. While running out of barracks I asked my comrade Lenya Minz ‘Lenya, what happened?’ And he answered ‘Mikhail, war burst out.’ A little bit later we were standing near a loud-speaker and listening to Molotov’s speech. He finished his speech with the following words: ‘Our enemy will be defeated. We will celebrate victory.’ During the first hours of war we came across manifestations of panic. People informed us that German troops had landed in the forest near our airdrome. We immediately sent soldiers to search in the forest, but they found nobody. On the second day of the war our regiment first saw fire: we assisted our armies defending Ukraine. We began digging entrenchments and preparing our planes for fighting missions.

Right after the beginning of war I was chosen the Komsomol leader of the regiment 7. It is necessary to say that in every military unit there were political officers 8. Besides there was a secretary of the local Communist Party Organization and a Komsomol leader. So having no war experience, I became one of those leaders. According to the regiment hierarchy I became the sixth person in it, while my rank was only a first sergeant.

Before the war we fulfilled flights only in the daytime. But during the war we had to do it at nights. Once it was necessary for me to check some radio equipment in the air. It couldn't be helped, and I started. And (what a miracle!) it appeared that at night I could fly without any unpleasant feelings. Since that time I started flying. You remember that I was a gunner. A lot of gunners were killed by that time, therefore I was ashamed for not participating in fighting missions. Besides I kept in mind that I was a Jew. I did not want somebody to say ‘Of course, a Jew will never risk his life.’ To tell the truth, I have to tell you that nobody reminded me about my nationality, but for some reason I felt greater responsibility. I always realized that war time demanded people of different specialties: some of them probably never held weapon, they had to support the huge mechanism of war. I am far from considering their contribution to victory to be insignificant, but for me it was important to fight in the right way holding weapon in hands.

At the end of October 1941 our regiment shifted its base to Lipetsk near Moscow. It was hard time. Germans were spoiling for a fight. It was terrible to think about it, but sometimes it seemed that they would manage to capture Moscow. German army moved along the road from Orel to Tula and we had to attack them from air. We succeeded in it: that road became a burial place of thousands of fascist soldiers, who tried to get to Moscow from the south. At the same time a lot of our military units had to fall back.

In December 1941 there came a long-awaited turning point at the front. Enemies were stopped and their running fight started from Moscow. Contribution of our regiment in it was great. Our activities could be compared with emergency department work. Day and night we appeared where it was the most necessary for us to be at that moment. We waited for the order to start being already on boards our planes combat-ready.

I’ll never forget my first fighting mission. I was a member of Stepan Kharchenko's crew. The flight was low-level. On the earth we saw a column of motor vehicles and a column of soldiers on the move. The commander ordered ‘Fire!’ The plane shook when I started firing. We saw our bullets tearing German lorries into pieces. My heart beat with joy: from that day on I was able not only to fly, but also to fight! Since that day they started calling me the Fighting Komsomol Leader of the Regiment. I was proud of it. I am somewhat previous telling you that during the war time I participated in 37 fighting starts. To tell the truth, it was not very easy: I used to be above the target, Germans fired at me from the earth, I used to lie face downwards behind a machine gun and fired back. Our machine guns were worse than that of Germans. Later our plane was equipped with a gun, but it was not me who operated it (it was a radio operator who did it). As for me, I had to hit planes (so to say, to wound them), and he used to bring them down using the new gun.

Right at the beginning of the war state of Soviet army affairs was extremely distressing. Our regiment attacked objectives in rear of Germans. We participated in the raid to Konigsberg [now Kaliningrad]. We also bombed Lithuania and Belarus occupied by Germans. We dreamed of bombing Berlin, but it was impossible: our airplane could take maximal amount of fuel, but it was not enough for such a flight. We urgently constructed additional tanks 350 litres each. Pilots had to be at the controls for more than 10 hours. The most part of the flight path was above the sea. I participated in one of such flights. Our bombardment of Berlin came for Germans as a surprise. It was a success, but we were very nervous, because we were very far from home! After Berlin we bombed Budapest (Hungary was an ally of Germany).

In February 1942 we received new planes from Khabarovsk. It came in very handy: in our regiment there remained only 10 planes. Those planes were constructed with financial support of Komsomol members at the Far East.

In March 1942 there appeared a new air-unit: long-range aircraft. Our regiment became its part. Our air-unit had an opportunity to implement fast moves from one front to another.

Here I’d like to say that in spite of the fact that I participated in military actions, I went on working as a regiment Komsomol leader. I don’t like high-sounding words, but I really inspired soldiers, convinced them, and explained the situation. People trusted me and asked my advice. I guess that if I did not fly (and the majority of Komsomol leaders did not fly) I would not be able to act that way. It was impossible to meet soldiers’ eyes if you knew that in some minutes they would risk their lives and you were a featherbed soldier!

Before each fighting start we used to hold a meeting not to explain the mission, but to inspire fighters. At every meeting we approved a letter to Stalin with our oaths to do soldier's duty. Usually it was me who wrote and read out those letters.

Since September 1942 our regiment participated in Stalingrad Battle 9. We fulfilled military missions day and night, rain or shine. Often we made low-level flights. We bombed the city streets. Frequently our armies were on the one side of the street, and our enemies were on the other one. I took part in fighting starts till February 1943, until German army was encircled and smashed. Our regiment fulfilled thousands of fighting starts. Fights were uneasy: we had to oppose German planes of the latest design. Those modern pursuit planes used to hunt for our planes during landing, when we became apparent to the naked eye in the light of landing searchlights. A lot of times I had to defend our plane by shooting in such situation.

After Stalingrad our regiment shifted its base toward the West. Germans were going to gain revenge for the defeat in Stalingrad. They wanted to do it near Kursk in summer of 1943 10. They were going to encircle and smash a plenty of our armies. So our targets were Kursk, Belgorod, and Orel. Till now I remember the battle scenes I watched from the cabin of our plane: star shells slowly going down on parachutes, lighting up the earth; hundreds of soldiers moving here and there; and explosions surrounding our plane (Germans fired at us).

In summer of 1943 we were moved to an airdrome near Kalinin [now Tver]. We had to take part in defense of Leningrad which was besieged almost from the very beginning of the war 11. We had to bomb enemy positions in Leningrad region. There we used a thousand-kilogram bomb for the first time. Once we were attacked by an enemy pursuit plane, our radio operator was wounded, shell fragments damaged the fuselage of our plane. Nevertheless we were lucky: the plane did not catch fire and we managed to land safely.

During the battle of Leningrad air force of Germans was very active, especially at nights. During one of the fighting starts I felt it on my own back. For me it was very difficult to distinguish the lights of a pursuit plane from headlights of lorries moving along the road. In that case I had to remember that lights of the plane could be turned on only for a short time. If I noticed it, I fired a shot. It was difficult to aim at night time. My machine gun was situated in the tail-end of the plane, therefore my field of view was not large. However I managed to hit the light of the German plane. After that our second gunner smashed it using the gun (the gun was always very helpful!).

During the intervals I used to watch the blacked out Leningrad. There dominated the dark block of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. [St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg was built in the beginning of the XIX century by the architect August Montferrand.] I’ll never forget barrage balloons which protected the city from bombs (air-raid precautions). Many times I was fighting in the air over large cities and capitals of different countries, but I never saw that kind of protection system.

Fights over Leningrad lasted the whole month. During that period of time we fulfilled more than 500 fighting starts.

At the end of 1943 we were ordered to bomb military objectives near Helsinki, because Finland was an ally of fascist Germany.

In the beginning of 1944 we got new targets in the Gulf of Finland. After that all summer long we fought liberating Sevastopol, Crimea, Western Ukraine, Moldova, Romania and Hungary.

In winter and spring of 1945 our regiment took part in the liberation of Poland.

At that time we bombed Konigsberg for the 2nd time during the war 12. The task was more complicated for us, because German emplacements had been fortified with a great number of antiaircraft guns which fired at our planes. We suffered heavy losses, but in the beginning of April Konigsberg was taken.

It was clear that that period of war was all-important. Our regiment shifted its base: we moved to Poland. We were 600 kilometers far from Berlin: for us it was a stone's throw. On April 10 we bombed enemy ships in the Baltic Sea ports. Our mission was not to permit German armies to land, because those armies were going to assist the Berlin garrison. On April 17 we bombed the fortified zone on the left bank of Oder River. About 100 searchlights were turned on simultaneously and highlighted the zone. German disposition became clearly visible. And on April 20 we fulfilled one of the fiercest bombing attacks at Berlin. At the end of April we again bombed German armies in the encircled Berlin. I participated in those last fighting starts. The last bomb was dropped on Berlin on April 28, 1945.

At last the long-awaited victory came. I’ll never forget the scene of people cheering the news that victory had come. Our regiment was at the front line all the war long. We destroyed 243 planes on enemy airdromes and 48 ones in air fights. In our regiment 29 persons were decorated with the Gold Star medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union; and one person received the award twice.

Here I’ll tell you about my awards, do not consider me a boaster. For my service in battle I was awarded 2 Orders of the Red Star, medals For the Defense of Moscow, For the Defense of Leningrad, and For the Defense of Stalingrad 13.

During my army service since 1939 and till the victory day I did not come across any manifestations of anti-Semitism (there were even no hints at it). Not being afraid to seem stilted, I should say that we were members of the friendly multinational family. By the way, it is necessary to note that the regiment secretary of the local Party organization was Anatoly Yukelson, and the political leader of the 2nd regiment of our division was Ilya Gherson. As you already know, I was the regiment Komsomol leader (Katsenelson!). Therefore soldiers used to say as a joke that political work in our division was based on 3 "sons". So anti-Semitism was out of the question!

After the war

So the war was won, and the process of demobilization was started. I started thinking about my future life. One the one hand, I had an opportunity to return to the College where I was called up from. On the other hand, my friends told me that there was an opportunity to stay in the army, become an officer and enter a military academy. The chief of our political department persuaded me to go for studies to the Military Political Academy. He also suggested me to remain at him, to become his assistant in Komsomol work. Of course that was the way to rise very rapidly, but it was a political way. In that case I would immediately become a major and get large salary. But I did not want to make such a career. You see, during my service I did my best to avoid advances in rank: I was afraid that it would delay my demobilization. Since my childhood I was interested in technology. Therefore I turned down the proposal of the political department leader and persuaded my chiefs to let me off for studies at the Military Academy named after Zhukovsky at the radio engineering faculty. [Air Force Academy named after Zhukovsky is the largest center of aviation science and preparation of engineering, scientific, and pedagogical staff.] As military academies admitted only officers, I was quickly advanced in rank and became lieutenant. But in spite of the fact that the regiment command gave me official permission, they were very dissatisfied with my forthcoming departure, therefore I was afraid that they could change their mind. My documents had been already sent to the Academy, it was necessary to hasten. So on the day of departure I even did not go to say goodbye to the regiment political leader (by the way, my overcoat remained in his study and I never got it back!).

It is necessary to say that during the war I got an occasion to be in Moscow on business trip. There I went to the Academy to learn about entrance rules and to form my own opinion about the situation. Wandering about, I saw through the huge glass door that a person in rank of senior lieutenant was washing the floor in the hall. I thought ‘And what shall I (a first sergeant!) be obliged to do here?’ And I left the Academy thinking that I would never be back.

But after the end of the war I was given a courteous reception. Few of entrants had military awards. I passed through the entrance examinations for access course at the radio engineering faculty. But on the bulletin board I saw my name in the list of not accepted with a postscript to come to the Academy direction for an interview. I polished my boots (for some reason it seemed to me very important) and went to the Academy chief. He was very kind to me and said that he considered me to be quite ready to become a first-year student. I said that I came directly from an earth-house at the airdrome. He answered ‘Get back to your military unit and come next year to study at the first course’. I told him about various tricks I had to resort to, about my overcoat in the study of our political leader, etc. He said ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll put a call-letter for the next year in your documents.’

He did it. I knew that every document went through the Staff of Long-Range Aviation before we received it. The staff was situated next door and I went there. They listened to me attentively and suggested to take my documents and enter the Leningrad Air Force Academy named after Mozhaysky. [The Leningrad Air Force Academy named after Mozhaysky was founded on March 27, 1941.] That suited me fine. Besides my brother Naum lived in Leningrad (he was a student of the Leningrad Military Engineering School). Our last meeting took place before the war and I was looking forward to seeing him.

In the Leningrad Academy they already started studying. I passed in my documents. They asked me to wait, and a teacher of mathematics came up to me. He came to examine me. Till now I remember his question: ‘What is logarithm?’ I gave a correct answer and became a student of the access course (they lodged me in the hostel).

There were 63 students at our course. Almost all teachers were Jews. I was chosen to be the Komsomol leader of the course, and later - a secretary of the local Party organization. Sorry, I forgot to tell you that I became a Communist Party member in 1942 at the front line.

There we studied one year (most time was devoted to reviewing of the school program). Besides that we had a lot of work introducing order in the city: we cleared away blockages, cleaned streets (in fact by that time Leningrad still did not get rid of the blockade traces). In 1946 I became a first-year student of the radio engineering faculty of the Academy. Our teachers were remarkable persons. Almost all of them were outstanding scientists and experienced teachers. Later, when I became a teacher myself, I tried to copy teaching manners of my favorite teachers.

I really appreciate knowledge that I received in the Academy. Nevertheless I ought to tell you about shameful events which took place in it during the so-called Doctors’ Plot 14. Babin, a local political leader was the initiator of Jew-baiting. Certainly he only implemented government decrees, but he did it with undisguised pleasure. So he started searching something to begin with. At last he found it: filling in the entrance form, one of the students Mikhail Stanovsky wrote down that he was a Ukrainian, while at a single glance at him it became clear that he was a real Jew. The main claim was why he had kept his nationality from people.

But Mikhail did not plan to keep it from anybody. He grew up at a children's home in Ukraine, where they wrote down in his documents that he was a Ukrainian.

Besides that one day Mikhail missed a local Communist Party meeting, because he left for a regularly scheduled checkers tournament (he was a USSR champion in checkers). He was blamed for changing the Communist Party for game of checkers and was administered a rebuke. But that sort of crime demanded not a simple reprimand, but a severe one. And it was me (the secretary of the local Communist Party organization) who was guilty for that. As a result they dismissed me from the secretary position and I got ticked off (they even tried to check if I had kept my real name [Moissey] from people). By the way, few of us knew that during the war Stanovsky was an attack plane pilot and fulfilled 30 fighting starts. He was the only one at the Academy who was decorated with the highest military award: Order of the Combat Red Banner 15. But at the meeting of the Academy communist members Stanovsky was eliminated from the CPSU. [CPSU (the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) was the only political party in the USSR from the middle of 1920s till 1991.]

He was expelled from the Academy and kicked out from the army. Then he left for Odessa, his native city 16. Here I’d like to tell you that many years later I met Mikhail Stanovsky in Israel, where he came to see his son. He told me that after his return to Odessa, he found job at a scientific research institute and soon sent a complaint to Moscow about his illegal expulsion from the Communist Party. Only after Stalin's death he received a notice that his complaint would be considered. Soon they sent a special plane to bring him to Moscow. There he was reinstated in his former position in the Communist Party and was suggested to return to army. But he preferred to refuse.

At the end of 1940s one of my fellow-students invited me to his friend. There I saw a large young crew and noticed a girl whom I saw home that night. Her name was Ludmila Berezovskaya. Soon she became my wife. Ludmila graduated from the Leningrad Technological College, she is an electrical engineer.

Ludmila was born in Leningrad. During the war her father was at the front line, and she together with the mother Fira Lazarevna had to stay in the besieged Leningrad. Fira Lazarevna worked at a factory (she spent 2 hours and a half to get to her factory). Ludmila with other girls and women watched city roofs to put out German fire-bombs. She used to draw water from the Neva River through an ice-hole. She saw people falling down dead from starvation in the streets.

In 1952 I graduated from the Academy and went to serve to Lipetsk. I was already married and had a one-year-old child. That place was familiar to me, because during the war our regiment was located there some time. But at that time we spent all our time at the airdrome and did not manage to see the sights of the city: in the daytime we prepared our planes for fighting starts and at nights we fulfilled those starts. That winter was very snowy: if it was necessary to reach the city, we used sledge.

Now I was going to live in that city with my family. I liked the city. There is a beautiful river Voronezh in it. The city is ancient: it was founded on the place where people mined iron ore in the XVIII century. I was going to deliver lectures at the Higher Educational Tactical Air Courses. My subject was called Martial Art of Use of Radio-Electronic Equipment. I’ll never forget my first lecture. I entered the lecture hall and listened to the report of officer in charge. He was in the rank of colonel, and I was only a senior lieutenant. I was very nervous. I came up to the table and opened the class-book. I looked at the students and could scarcely believe my eyes: I saw 33 colonels sitting in front of me! But I was carefully prepared for the lecture (I read that lecture at home for imaginary audience!). So everything was fine.

It was always very interesting for me to teach. I understood very well what kind of people I trained. Almost all of them were fighting pilots of high class, most of them overcame all stresses of war. Besides I knew that knowledge gained from my lectures they would use during flights on the planes of the latest design (if it would be necessary, they would use it during fighting starts). Soon together with my colleague Kostakov we wrote a textbook Navigation and Sighting Devices. The textbook appeared to be very useful, and it proved to be true absolutely unexpectedly.

Soon after the textbook was published, a group of cadets arrived at our Academy for flying practice. I was introduced to them as the author of their textbook. One of them said ‘Do you know where we keep your book?’ - ‘So where?’ - ‘We use to sit on it.’ And I understood that it was a compliment: if they left the textbook on a table, someone was able to grab and take it for his own.

In the middle of 1960s pilots from the cosmonauts group often came to our Academy. They studied to fly using aircraft technique of the latest design. Flights on modern airplanes trained cosmonauts to be extremely attentive and to take decisions very quickly. You see, a pilot on board an airplane experiences much greater overload than on board a spaceship. One day Gherman Titov (a USSR cosmonaut #2) visited us. [Gherman Titov was a pilot and a cosmonaut of the USSR, Hero of the Soviet Union and lieutenant-general. He was born in 1935. His first space flight happened in 1961.] We liked Gherman Titov very much: he was modest, competent, and charming. We took a photograph of our group to keep as a souvenir.

Once at the end of 1960s we had to carry out a very serious mission: to show new aviation technics to the top management of the countries of the Warsaw Pact. [The Warsaw Pact or Warsaw Treaty Organization, officially named the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance was an organization of Central and Eastern European communist states. It was established in 1955 in Warsaw, Poland to counter the alleged threat from the NATO alliance.] I had to give them a report on our planes which they were going to buy (to show them to advantage!). So I gave an hour's talk on new opportunities of the radio-electronic equipment in modern airplanes. I managed. They asked a lot of questions, and after the end of my report there was a public dinner.

My service was very interesting. Time slid by. I served in Lipetsk more than 20 years: I arrived there in the rank of senior lieutenant and was demobilized as a colonel. In Moscow they took into consideration my age and sent us an order about my pensioning off. For a long time (about 2 years) my chiefs concealed me from the supervising services. They needed me working and it was a great pleasure for me. At last in 1975 there came another order about pensioning off, and my name was listed. So I had to say goodbye to my friends and students and leave Lipetsk.

From Lipetsk we moved to Leningrad, where my wife was born. At first we lived in a communal apartment near Fontanka River 17. One day I was walking along the Fontanka River and saw the name of the organization: Research Institute of Steel. You see, in Lipetsk there was a branch of the Moscow Institute of Steel and they invited me there to deliver lectures. They even suggested me to accept a post at them, but my wife wanted to move to Leningrad. So I went to the institute and said that I wanted to work for them. They were happy to take me and immediately decided to send me on business trip to Yerevan. In Yerevan they arranged output of computers, and our aim was to examine them and make a decision about purchase. I was appointed to be in charge. At that moment I recollected that I had forgotten to pay party dues and asked if it was possible to do it at my new place of work. They agreed and the secretary of the local communist party organization asked my surname and took the money. Meanwhile the Institute director ordered to buy tickets to Yerevan urgently.

I went home quickly to let my wife know about the situation. I had scarcely entered the room when the telephone rang. My new chief (a Jew, by the way!) called me to say ‘I am sorry, but we cannot give you job.’ It was the first manifestation of anti-Semitism I came across, besides the episode in the Academy connected with Doctors’ Plot. So I lost my work having no opportunity to start. Then I went to a regional military registration and enlistment office. [Military registration and enlistment offices in the USSR and in Russia are special institutions that implement call-up plans.] They sent me to work as a chief of the civil defence staff at a building organization. [Civil defense is an effort to prepare civilians for military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery.]

A little bit later I became the chief of the civil defence staff at Glavleningradstroy, the leading building organization of the city. It was a great organization: there were about 200,000 employees. They kept under control all construction projects in the city. I worked honestly (as I always did!), but I was not into it. Very often they required only formal actions and neutral reports. And I was accustomed to implement more serious tasks, I wanted my job to captivate me entirely. I started searching for something else and became an active lecturer of the Znanie society. [Znanie (Knowledge), the All-Union society for propagation of political and scientific knowledge was created in July 1947.]

Lecturers of that society delivered lectures at different places: factories, building sites, research institutes. The main topic of my lectures was world situation. I even became a well-known lecturer in the city. People said that I used to give interesting and bright information. When they asked for a lecture, they often asked to send me. Sometimes they said ‘Send us please a lecturer who is very much like Levitan.’ [Yury Levitan (1914-1983) was the most famous soviet radio announcer. During the Great Patriotic War he read reports from fronts. It was he who declared: ‘Great Patriotic War against fascist aggressors was victoriously finished!’ Levitan's voice was an integral part of the war atmosphere.] Indeed, my voice sounded very well, nobody could fall asleep during my lectures.

So I worked at Glavleningradstroy 7 or 8 years. I was able to go on working, my coworkers put high value on my work, I liked my work.

But at that time my daughter, her husband and their little child left for Israel. They both were doctors, and in Israel they had to pass through examination to confirm their professional status. They were having a hard time, therefore we together with my wife decided to go there and help them at home. As it was clear that we were leaving for a long time, I had to leave my service.

We went to Israel on December 27, 1990. We were afraid to be caught by the war in Persian Gulf. [The Persian Gulf War was a conflict between Iraq and a coalition of 34 countries led by the United States. It followed Iraqi capture of Kuwait in August 1990.] And it happened. The first thing we saw in our daughter’s apartment (in the hall) in Jerusalem was a gas mask. In the room there was a special cabin of anti-gas protection for our grandson. State of emergency was declared. We heard air-raid warnings many times a day. An official from the Soviet Consulate called us and suggested to come back home by special flight. Of course we refused and stayed with our children.
Rocket bombardments of Israel became frequent.

We helped our children as we could: my wife cooked, I went for a walk with our grandson and put out the rubbish. We were short of money. We did not starve, but could not afford buying local newspapers. One day in the garbage can I saw accumulation of papers in Russian. I took them home and read with great interest. The most interesting for me was to read about Israeli civil defence actions during that war. I participated in those actions: used my gas mask, placed my grandson into the cabin of anti-gas protection, etc. I realized that my personal experience in that war and everything I read about it in newspapers would be interesting to people in Russia. Having come back home, I wrote about it. Later I decided to write about Israel as a country.

So my next book was called First-Hand Report on Israel. It was published, they printed 10,000 copies. The book was quickly sold out. Later I wrote more books about Israel and one about Spain. I’d like to tell you that my first trip to Israel changed my life. Due to my new hobby (writing books) my life became rich and interesting. Total number of copies of my books is about 25,000. They all were sold out. I’d prefer to say the same another way: they all were bought, and I hope they all were read by people.
Regarding my first book: in 1993 I went to Israel for the 2nd time and took some copies with me. One of them I sent to the ambassador of Russia in Israel Alexander Bovin. [Alexander Bovin (1930-2004), a famous journalist, diplomat and politician was an ambassador of Russia in Israel (1991-1997).]

He was well-known in Russia as a journalist and political correspondent. During hard times Bovin managed to tell people some sort of the truth, and many people in Russia are grateful to him for that. Bovin thanked me for the book and said that he had read it with interest. He put spirit into me.

Here I’d like to tell you about my children in more detail. My wife and I are proud of them.

My son Boris was born in 1951 in Leningrad, and my daughter Alla was born in 1956 in Lipetsk. My wife always worked (in contrast to many other wives of professional soldiers), therefore my children attended kindergarten.

Later in Lipetsk they studied at a mathematical school. They both were excellent pupils and finished school with gold medals. Being schoolchildren, they were twice awarded with permits to pioneer camp Artek and Orlenok. [Artek was the All-Union and international Young Pioneer camp in the Soviet Union. It was established in 1925 near the Black Sea in Crimea. Destination Artek was considered to be an honorable award for Soviet children as well as internationally.]

Having finished her school, Alla entered the 1st Leningrad Medical College. She successfully graduated from it and became a doctor. In 1990 together with her family she left for Israel.

Boris decided to follow in my footsteps and entered the same military academy which I had graduated from many years ago. But he chose a profession which we knew nothing about in our time: a cyberneticist. After graduation he became an officer, a cyberneticist in the army (military-space troops). He served near Ussuriisk. Six years later he was sent to a military unit near Leningrad. In 1990s he was demobilized. At present he is a businessman.

When Stalin died, our family was in deep mourning. My wife sobbed violently, and I also was close to despair: I thought that our life was over.

I interpreted Hungarian and Czechoslovakian events [18, 19] like all other Soviet people, i.e. like we were ordered to interpret it. I supported Perestroika 20, because it was initiated by Gorbachev, the CPSU Secretary General 21. I can tell you that I always supported authorities, I never was their opponent. Till now I consider some events of that time to be positive. I’ll never reconcile myself to paid education and paid medicine (I guess we are going to have both). Besides I am oppressed with increasing influence of religion in our state which is secular according to Constitution. And I do not like the so called freedom of debauch. In the streets I hate advertising of the American film Sex in the City. Sometimes I see terrible magazines and I am afraid that they can fall into children's hands. I hold our President in high respect. [Vladimir Putin is the President of Russia.] But it seems to me that he should pay more attention to the army. You see, a boy (a son of my acquaintances) graduated from my Academy, arrived at his destination (in Urals) and got a poor salary of 8,000 rubles (about $320).

I visit Hesed Avraham Welfare Center 22 only when my wife receives food packages there (I am a porter). As for me, I refused to receive food packages there: I guess there are a lot of needy. But I often visit the Veterans Organization [Petersburg Organization of Jews - war veterans, disabled soldiers, former ghetto prisoners, partisans and citizens of the besieged Leningrad]. Sometimes I celebrate Sabbath there.

Glossary:

1 Sovkhoz

state-run agricultural enterprise. The first sovkhoz yards were created in the USSR in 1918. According to the law the sovkhoz property was owned by the state, but it was assigned to the sovkhoz which handled it based on the right of business maintenance.

2 Cossacks

an ethnic group that constituted something of a free estate in the 15th-17th centuries in the Polish Republic and in the 16th-18th centuries in the Muscovite state (and then Russia). The Cossacks in the Polish Republic consisted of peasants, townspeople and nobles settled along the banks of the Lower Dnieper, where they organized armed detachments initially to defend themselves against the Tatar invasions and later themselves making forays against the Tatars and the Turks. As part of the armed forces, the Cossacks played an important role in Russia’s imperial wars in the 17th-20th centuries. From the 19th century onwards, Cossack troops were also used to suppress uprisings and independence movements. During the February and October Revolutions in 1917 and the Russian Civil War, some of the Cossacks (under Kaledin, Dutov and Semyonov) supported the Provisional Government, and as the core of the Volunteer Army bore the brunt of the fighting with the Red Army, while others went over to the Bolshevik side (Budenny). In 1920 the Soviet authorities disbanded all Cossack formations, and from 1925 onwards set about liquidating the Cossack identity. In 1936 Cossacks were permitted to join the Red Army, and some Cossack divisions fought under its banner in World War II. Some Cossacks served in formations collaborating with the Germans and in 1945 were handed over to the authorities of the USSR by the Western Allies.

3 Bolshoi Theater

World famous national theater in Moscow, built in 1776. The first Russian and foreign opera and ballet performances were staged in this building.

4 All-Union pioneer organization

5 Molotov, V

6 Great Patriotic War

7 Komsomol

8 Political officer

These "commissars," as they were first called, exercised specific official and unofficial control functions over their military command counterparts. The political officers also served to further Party interests with the masses of drafted soldiery of the USSR by indoctrination in Marxist-Leninism. The ‘zampolit’, or political officers, appeared at the regimental level in the army, as well as in the navy and air force, and at higher and lower levels, they had similar duties and functions. The chast (regiment) of the Soviet Army numbered 2000-3000 personnel, and was the lowest level of military command that doctrinally combined all arms (infantry, armor, artillery, and supporting services) and was capable of independent military missions. The regiment was commanded by a colonel, or lieutenant colonel, with a lieutenant or major as his zampolit, officially titled "deputy commander for political affairs."

9 Stalingrad Battle

17th July 1942 – 2nd February 1943. The South-Western and Don Fronts stopped the advance of German armies in the vicinity of Stalingrad. On 19th and 20th November 1942 the Soviet troops undertook an offensive and encircled 22 German divisions (330,000 people) and eliminated them. On 31st January 1943 the remains of the 6th German army headed by General Field Marshal Paulus surrendered (91,000 people). The victory in the Stalingrad battle was of huge political, strategic and international significance.

10 Kursk battle

The greatest tank battle in the history of World War II, which began on 5th July 1943 and ended eight days later. The biggest tank fight, involving almost 1,200 tanks and mobile cannon units on both sides, took place in Prokhorovka on 12th July and ended with the defeat of the German tank unit.

11 Blockade of Leningrad

12 Konigsberg offensive

It started on 6th April 1945 and involved the 2nd and the 3rd Belarusian and some forces of the 1st Baltic front. It was conducted as part of the decisive Eastern Prussian operation, the purpose of which was the crushing defeat of the largest grouping of German forces in Eastern Prussia and the northern part of Poland. The battles were crucial and desperate. On 9th April 1945 the forces of the 3rd Belarusian front stormed and seized the town and the fortress of Konigsberg. The battle for Eastern Prussia was the most blood-shedding campaign in 1945. The losses of the Soviet Army exceeded 580,000 people (127,000 of them were casualties). The Germans lost about 500,000 people (about 300,000 of them were casualties). After WWII, based on the decision of the Potsdam Conference (1945) the northern part of Eastern Prussia including Konigsberg was annexed to the USSR and the city was renamed as Kaliningrad.

13 Medal for the Defense of Stalingrad

established by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR as of 22nd December 1942. 750,000 people were conferred with that medal.

14 Doctors’ Plot

15 Order of the Combat Red Banner

Established in 1924, it was awarded for bravery and courage in the defense of the Homeland.

16 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 heders in 19 prayer houses.

17 Communal apartment

18 1956

It designates the Revolution, which started on 23rd October 1956 against Soviet rule and the communists in Hungary. It was started by student and worker demonstrations in Budapest started in which Stalin’s gigantic statue was destroyed. Moderate communist leader Imre Nagy was appointed as prime minister and he promised reform and democratization. The Soviet Union withdrew its troops which had been stationing in Hungary since the end of World War II, but they returned after Nagy’s announcement that Hungary would pull out of the Warsaw Pact to pursue a policy of neutrality. The Soviet army put an end to the rising on 4th November and mass repression and arrests started. About 200,000 Hungarians fled from the country. Nagy, and a number of his supporters were executed. Until 1989, the fall of the communist regime, the Revolution of 1956 was officially considered a counter-revolution.

19 Provisional Government

Russian government formed after the February Revolution of 1917. The majority of its members were originally liberal deputies of the State Duma. The Provisional Government also had some socialist members, and after a series of political crises the number of socialist ministers increased. The goal of the Provisional Government was to turn Russia into a parliamentary democracy, with broad political liberties, general and equal elections, a multi-party system and equal rights for all citizens. The Provisional Government, however, was unable to solve the country’s key problems, namely the withdrawal from World War I, agricultural and food problems and national issues. It was overthrown by the Bolsheviks in November 1917.

20 Perestroika (Russian for restructuring)

21 Gorbachev, Mikhail (1931- )

22 Hesed

Meaning care and mercy in Hebrew, Hesed stands for the charity organization founded by Amos Avgar in the early 20th century. Supported by Claims Conference and Joint Hesed helps for Jews in need to have a decent life despite hard economic conditions and encourages development of their self-identity. Hesed provides a number of services aimed at supporting the needs of all, and particularly elderly members of the society. The major social services include: work in the center facilities (information, advertisement of the center activities, foreign ties and free lease of medical equipment); services at homes (care and help at home, food products delivery, delivery of hot meals, minor repairs); work in the community (clubs, meals together, day-time polyclinic, medical and legal consultations); service for volunteers (training programs). The Hesed centers have inspired a real revolution in the Jewish life in the FSU countries. People have seen and sensed the rebirth of the Jewish traditions of humanism. Currently over eighty Hesed centers exist in the FSU countries. Their activities cover the Jewish population of over eight hundred settlements.

Icchok Grynberg

Icchok Grynberg
Warsaw
Poland
Interviewer: Agata Gajewska
Date of interview: September-December 2004

A certain anecdote is passed around in Mr Icchok Grynberg’s family. Apparently, his wife Krystyna has long stopped writing down addresses and telephone numbers in an addressbook. Whenever she cannot remember her friend’s phone number, she asks her husband. ‘It’s faster and more effective this way’ – she explains. Indeed, Mr. Grynberg has an incredible memory. When talking about his childhood, he can replicate a detailed map of his hometown, place individual buildings, and then list first and last names of their owners. His story consists really of various digressions, which makes it colorful, however, at times seemingly incoherent. Questions bring up new associations, which he would like to share. In result, after each interview I stay for over an hour to listen about various trips he undertook, watch videotapes of his Canadian cousins’ weddings, or learn the news from a meeting of his building’s committee.

I don’t know my great-grandparents. Unfortunately, I also didn’t know my grandparents very well. The only person of their generation who was still alive during my times was my grandmother – my father’s mother. She had two names – Shejna Gitl. She was always coughing. This I remember. My paternal grandfather was born and lived in Goworowo, that’s between Rozan and Ostroleka. Ha was a baker. He was very religious and considered a wise man. His name was Gerer Chusyd [he was a follower of the tzaddik dynasty from Gora Kalwaria, the Alters, called ‘Gerer rebe’ in Yiddish 1.

I was born after he died, and because there is a tradition among Jews to name a child after a grandfather or father when he dies, I was given my grandfather’s name: Icchok Ajzik. His last name was Grynberg. My father, Gedala Grynberg, was born in 1889. He had two brothers and a sister. Their names were: Chajim, Calel and Rywka, whom we used to call Riwke.

Grandfather Szmilke and Grandmother Matla from my mother’s side lived in Mlawa. Their last name was Kuperman. I didn’t know them at all since they died long before the war. Reportedly, Grandfather was a melamed in Mlawa. My mother came from a very poor, religious family. They used to say that her parents would die from starvation, but if something wasn’t kosher, they would never eat it. Mother’s name was Hana. She had 3 siblings, 2 sisters and 1 brother: Aron, Jidke and Rachel. She was 2 years older than Father, she was born in 1887.

Father and Mother never saw each other before the wedding. It was an arranged marriage. Mother’s parents hired an official shadkhan, that is a matchmaker. He used to go from town to town and say ‘Listen, your daughter is 18 years old? If you want to, I’ll start looking for a bachelor for her.’ And he sent word to another religious man, and that’s how it was arranged. They settled the conditions, how long they’d support the marriage, give them money for food, provide a dowry, and so on. So, Dad and Mom saw each other just to tie the knot, under the chuppah. Mom moved in with Dad, to Goworowo. Mother was very small – one of those teeny, tiny people. She was very religious and behaved religiously. She used to wear a sheitl, which is a wig. She also had a very long nose – Dad, whenever he gave her something to drink, always said ‘Don’t put your nose in the glass!’. I remember as if it was today. But there was a huge love between my parents. They loved each other very much. Religious people, they always respected each other and spoke to each other elegantly.

My father used to bake. He came from a family of bakers. He inherited a wooden bakery from Grandfather. It was on the main street in Goworowo, Ostrolecka Street. My dad also inherited the recipe for the dough. I remember when I was 4-5 years old, my dad built a new, brick, modern bakery. Although he had an apprentice, Father was always getting up at 4am and baking buns in the ovens. Father was calm, I remember as if it was today. He couldn’t overwork himself, because he had a hernia. He was a very busy man. He didn’t have time to study the writings. He prayed rigorously three times a day. He was going to synagogue, traditionally, Friday and Saturday evenings. On Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah he prayed all day long.

In our family Mother gave birth twelve times. Because, among religious Jews, [there is a saying] ‘every year comes a prophet’, which means that each child which comes into this world is never a problem, but brings happiness. That’s the way it is with religious Jews. Four infants died right after birth. They came down sick with some ordinary illness, but quickly died. Eight of us were left. Later, one brother and one sister died in an epidemic, so there were six of us left until the war. And so: Abram Lejb was the oldest one. He was born in 1910. Then my sister, whose original Jewish name was Rywka, Rywka Rutl. She was born in 1913. Then one more sister – Sara. After Sara, in 1921, I was born. Then, a year later, my younger brother came into this world. His name was Srul Motl. Then there was a break and one more sister came – Malka, born in 1927. All names I’m giving are Jewish, original, as they were used every day.

Growing up

At the front of our house there was a store, a bakery at the back, above the bakery a small apartment, near the bakery a kitchen in which Mom used to cook. Upstairs there was a bedroom. One for everyone. For the parents and for the children. The parents had their bed in there, and the kids slept on the floor. There were straw mattresses, replaced every half year, and that’s how we slept. There was a partition in that room, but without a window, without anything. Girls slept behind the partition, boys slept in the part with windows. Only Grandma Gitl didn’t sleep with us. When the store was closed, she put her bed in there and slept there. Bathroom? We had to go about a 100 meters behind the house, because there was no bathroom. There was no running water, we had to bring water. Sometimes the town administrator Zaluski came to inspect the house. Then the baits [houses] had to be scrubbed in order to pass the commune inspection.

My mom was very busy with such a big family. She was taking care of the children, she had to raise them. Mom worked very hard. We hired a Polish woman to do laundry. All dirty clothes were gathered and she took them to a river to wash them. They were left to dry in the attic. Sisters were helping Mom a little. That was it. Mother was also selling in the store. The biggest rush was in the morning. They were coming to get bread, buns. Later, Mom would spend most of her time in the kitchen, cooking. She had to be very careful to have everything kosher. If not, we didn’t eat. It was out of the question.

On weekdays we ate very little. There was something for breakfast – I usually had rye bread with some butter and drank ground chicory, instead of coffee which we didn’t have. If I got a bun, that was good. I usually took rye bread with butter to cheder with me and ate it there. If I was very hungry, I used to make scrambled eggs – it was called feinkochen in Jewish [Yiddish: delicacy]. I would take two eggs, put them in the oven where bread was baked, and when they were ready, I ate them. And in the evening there was ‘vyecherya’ [Byelorussian: supper], that’s how we called that meal. Mom cooked for everyone then. Often there was joich – broth, meat cooked with bones, with potatoes, and that was everything. I liked gefilte fish and challah, which we baked ourselves, best. But, I liked everything! There was nothing I didn’t like. If there wasn’t enough food for me at home, I used to go to my friend’s house – his name was Josel. His family were butchers, they cut and sold meat. They had a larger supper than us. They prepared Jewish meals. Various guests used to go there, and if they came, then there was traditional food. If I wanted to eat better, I used to go – although Mom never allowed me – and I stood by their door. When they ate, Josel’s mom would give me something, too.

I also remember what it was like on Saturday. We were six children – four little ones, including me. We would sit at the table, which stood in the store and was used to sell bread from. Girls separately and boys separately. Dad took a baked challah, hot water from the stove – no cooking during Sabbath – and poured that hot water over the challah, and then sprinkled some sugar on it. Saturday morning, for breakfast, he fed all children with this challah. The four of us were sitting and he was giving us a spoonful of that challah with water. That was the kids’ breakfast. If I didn’t want to eat it, he would make me. Children were arguing if their challah wasn’t mixed well with water and sugar. I remember my sister yelling: ‘He got more sugar, I got more bread!’. When Mom was dividing it, everyone was making sure nobody got a bigger portion. This I remember as if it was today.

I also remember on Saturdays, in the synagogue after the prayers, Father would brag about what a smart kid I was (I had an excellent memory and whatever I learned in the cheder, I remembered). He would put me up on a table, and I talked about various Jewish religious matters I learned at school. My father had a friend who also had a bakery. His name was Srul Kusze. And they used to visit each other. If there was time on Saturday night, they used to talk. And I used to overhear their conversations: how business is going, how this is going, and that.

I was the worst child of all. I was a rather unsettled child, very lively, very energetic – a little rascal. The oldest brother often used to beat me up, with his fists, whenever I got into trouble. I was very bored. I was going to cheder since I was 4. It was an unpleasant time. All day long I was sitting at school, and had no time to play. Through the window we saw children who were walking around, playing with their toys. Whenever we wanted to play ball or something, we would sneak out of the cheder. We would leave when the melamed was busy with other children. When the river was frozen, we liked to slide. A kid always wants to move a little – we went out on ice, there was no one around, sometimes the ice gave in. I remember after one Pesach we all started attending a different cheder. I didn’t like going there. I was a bit older then. I remember how they chased me on a street because I didn’t want to go to the cheder. A teacher and Father came and were yelling: ‘You go to the cheder!’. I really didn’t want to go, because it was unpleasant. But in the end I got used to it and I studied.

My melamed, I mean teacher, was called Aaron Weinstein and was one of the three melamedim at the cheder. All day long he was at school teaching children religion. I was also going to a private teacher to learn how to write and read in Jewish – Yiddish. That Jewish alphabet I ‘hob gelernt’ [Yiddish: learned] and until this day I can write beautifully. I had to learn it because in the cheder they didn’t teach Yiddish. They taught loshn-koidesh [Yiddish: holy language], that is Hebrew... and to pray.

I attended cheder until I was 9. Then I went to yeshivah in Lomza. Dad and Mom sent me there. It wasn’t even a big expense for the family. I lived at my cousin’s, who let me stay there. My parents sent me an allowance. The yeshivah was called ‘Lomzer Jesziwe’ [Yeshivah in Lomza]. It’s a well known school. It was the only yeshivah in Lomza. Not a big building, quite a small house really, right next to the synagogue (there was a pretty synagogue in Lomza). I think there were ten or fifteen students at school. We studied all day long. We had a younger teacher (in cheder only older people could teach, but in a yeshivah teachers were mostly young rabbis ). His name was Aaron, I don’t remember his last name. He lived with his wife in the same building. I remember his wife well, because she used to bake latkes, a kind of potato pancakes. Once when we were hungry we ran away at night and stole those latkes and ate them. She was yelling at us ‘Kids, what are you doing!’ but she didn’t do anything to us. I had a few good friends there. One, whose name was Nachmen Szafran, was very skinny and had such big ears. The second one was Mates Rozencwajg. These friends were also wealthier, because they had a sawmill. I wasn’t allowed to stay at school for long. I was 10 at the time and stayed at this school for over two years. Then I started to work.

Goworowo didn’t have city rights, it was just a village. Eight kilometers by a forest road to Rozan and 18 km by road to Ostroleka. Three hundred and something Jewish families lived there. The city had mostly wooden buildings, but there were a few brick ones or ones with a brick foundation. There was no sewer system or running water. Near the synagogue there was a ‘plimp’ – a pump. I think Polish engineers from Ostroleka or Warsaw built it in 1927. Before that water was carried from the river. Entire Goworowo was like one long street. It was called Ostrolecka Street. It was maybe 100 or 200 meters long, no more than that. There was another street connecting to it from the right – it was called Bankowa Street [Polish: Bank Street], because they built a city bank there, a sort of credit bank. The other street, to the right of Ostrolecka Street, was going to Szczawin. There was a huge historic church, which is still there until this day. Further there was nothing, only fields. At the very end of Ostrolecka Street there was a market. On both sides of the market there were sidewalks, and behind the sidewalk there was the River Usz (it was called Usz in Polish, Irsh in Yiddish). There was a small island on the river, where we used to play in the summertime. On the market, more or less opposite the island, there was a mikveh (a Jewish town cannot be without a mikveh. Everyone always went there Friday morning. Women went there in the morning, men at around 1pm, 3pm… because later Sabbath began.

During Sabbath everything was as if dead. God forbid someone would dare to ride a bicycle. No, it was a traditional, religious, Jewish town. When, for example, some kids organized a soccer match on the market during Sabbath (they were kids of butchers and deliverers, who weren’t deeply religious; kids that didn’t go to a Jewish school), then religious kids came and there was a fight. They chased them away yelling ‘You mustn’t!’. It was a small, closely knit community. We all knew each other. Everyone knew what the others were having for dinner.

When there was a wedding, the entire town would celebrate. A wedding would take place in the synagogue, of course. On a square in front of the synagogue there were four chuppahs under which there was food, and everyone could have some. There were also special musicians who came from Wyszkow. They were Jews who played violins. As far as I remember, they were always the same musicians, until the end of the war. That was a tradition. When the newlyweds came out of the synagogue, there was an orchestra out on the entire street. They played various Jewish songs, and people were walking around and celebrating. And there was a special butcher, his name was Ajzik Rozen. He had a hall built, a nice one, which he was renting out for weddings. It never happened that you couldn’t borrow something from someone. When someone came and said ‘Lend me this’ – you always lent it to him. And there, in Ajzik Rozen’s hall, there were traditional Jewish dances, but also Strausses, various foxtrots – traditional dances from before the war. That’s the way it was.

There were two synagogues. [There were two synagogues in Goworowo, a wooden and a brick one. The wooden one was built before WW I, the brick one was built in the 1930s. They both burnt down during WWII.] There was a wooden synagogue on the square, then a new brick one was built. The old one stayed there, and this is where ‘achnusat orchim’, a reception for guests, was given. There was a tradition among Jews that poor people from other towns and villages would come [to town] on Sabbath. They would come on Friday, walk around the town, and look inside every store. In our bakery there was some money prepared, and each beggar would get a pre-war grosz [a very small unit of currency, equivalent to a penny] or two. After the prayer those hungry Jews stayed around, and everyone would take one home for the Sabbath supper. And since they couldn’t travel back home on Saturdays, they slept in that room in the synagogue. A special shelter for poor people. They could sleep there.

The new synagogue was quite nice. Everyone went there, because it was the only one operating , and there were 300 families in the town. Inside the synagogue there was an ument and everyone would stand and pray there. Women were upstairs, men downstairs. I can’t recall how the synagogue was painted. I know that there were two tiled stoves, heated with coal or wood.

I remember the rabbi. His last name was Rabinowicz. We met him once in a Jewish bath, in the mikveh. He was short, since Jews weren’t tall. (If a Jew was 1.7m tall, he was considered extremely tall. Usually Jews were 1.58m. If someone was 1.56m, then he was short.) That rabbi, Rabinowicz, had one son, Fajwel, and three daughters. Among Jews, if for example milk was spilled on meat pots – there were pots for meat dishes and pots for milk dishes – then you had to go to the rabbi ask a shayle. ‘Fregn a shayle’ [Yiddish: ask a question], that’s what it was called. That meant you had to go ask the rabbi what to do with that pot. Whether to throw it out, or how to fix it, things like that. I remember that rabbi came to have dinner with us once.

My dad, when he had a drink, would get a red spot on his forehead. Mom would know that he’d been to the synagogue and would say ‘Gedal, you had a drink, didn’t you?’. In the synagogue, after the prayers, there was often this type of ‘lechajim’ [Yiddish: L’Chaim, literally ‘Cheers!’, ‘To Life!”, here used to signify drinking and being merry]. There was kosher vodka and something to eat – and everyone had a bit of vodka. (This is how my bar mitzvah was celebrated, because there was no money to celebrate it differently. I remember I got a tefillin and a tallit.) However, I never drank vodka at all. I used to drink wine, which was made from raisins; on Havdalah, Kabalat Sabbath I drank, but little. But I never drank vodka, under no circumstances.

Goworowo was a town of shoemakers, tailors, carpenters and ‘balagule’, that is horse drivers … Most people in the town made a living from what they produced: assorted pants, suits, shoes (unlike in Warsaw or Lodz, where you could work in various places). Things were produced and then taken to a market in Jedwabne, Lachow, Rozan, Dlugosiodlo, Wyszkow. Everyone had horses, so they would go there and open a stall. In our town, for example, market day was on Thursdays. Everyone would bring their goods – whatever they had, usually clothes or shoes made by poor shoemakers. There were butchers selling parts of meat. Because Jews eat only the front part of a cow, the rear end isn’t kosher. Certain veins had to be taken out for it to be kosher. And in the rear end parts of a cow or a calf these veins couldn’t be found, so those parts were not eaten. Poles from villages would come to our town and buy that meat. Or Polish butchers, who made kielbasa [Polish sausage], they also bought that meat. They mixed pork, a bit of beef and that’s how they made kielbasa. And that non-kosher part was sold to Poles.

Everyone was very poor. If someone had a bicycle, that was a big luxury. Whenever anyone needed a loan, they would go to the credit bank ran by people who had better earnings. They were altogether six families, six respectable families in town. Father belonged to the committee, and also Aaron Szmelc and Juske Potasz (his name was Nusn, that was his real Jewish name). We were the bakers, so we were a bit better off, but some families were poor and lived only thanks to the loans. We used to sell to some families, that didn’t have money, on credit. Women had their husbands in America, so before they got money from America, they would take things on credit. There was a book, and it would be written down: Golda or Salcia or Dwora – [owes] this and this much. We had to wait for a long time, because they had to change dollars to zloty (and zloty was very strong back then), then they would come to clear accounts with Father. Father was in the bakery – they cleared accounts, paid, and had more credit.

Only ten Polish families lived in Goworowo. Zaluski was the administrator of the village. Jagielinski was the baker. Wojtacki had a store with cold cuts. Duda had a bakery, on the way out of town. There was doctor Glinka. There was also a police station, on the way out of town. The chief of police was Kurculak. (There was also ‘koza’ [Polish: colloquial term for detention house] – a small wooden house, in which, when someone deserved it [committed a crime], had to pay a ticket, then he had to stay in there.) There was Zaleski , a shoemaker – I used to play the violin with his children. Wyrzykowski had a textile store. There was Lewicki who cleaned the town. Nikodemski – he was a coachman. Niegowski worked at our bakery. Same as Golebiowski, who lived with us. On Sunday, when Poles went to church, Poles from other towns – Rembisze Dzialy, Rembisze, Zabin, Pokrzepnica, Gogorowek, Szawin, Danielowo - would ride through Goworowo. The church was at the end of the town. Whenever a priest would ride a horse-drawn cart and ring the bells, Poles would kneel down. Anyone, who came to that church on Sundays or other holidays, used to ride horse-drawn carts.

We were good neighbors with the Poles. We had no problems. Only in the years 1937-1938 other Poles would come from other towns – Ostroleka, usually – carrying signs ‘Nie kupuj u Zyda’ [‘Don’t buy from a Jew’]. It was when Hitler came to power [1933] 2 and they started sending Hitler’s agents to Poland. They instigated Poles against Jews. But I can’t complain. I had a lot of Polish friends. Edzio Golebiewski, Jan Lewicki, Wieslaw Nikodemski… I liked them very much. There was also Jarek’s family – they used to come to clean the town after market day. (Everyone usually came with horses. There were no cars, just horse-drawn carts. Those horses soiled, and Jarek’s family would pick it up and take it out to the fields, as fertilizer.) I liked them so much that when they came to clean up, I stole a bun from the bakery, put it in the pocket and took it to those Poles. Wladek Golebiewski and Jan Niegowski worked in our bakery. Wood was needed for the ovens, and they used to cut that wood for us in the forest, and stack it away from the bakery. It was very good for us with them, very good. . We used to stick together. Among Jews it was forbidden to do anything on Saturdays, turn off lights or carry money. Jews used to do shtar mechirah [Yiddish: literally ‘bill of sale’ – customary, in a sense symbolic, sale of estate for the period of Jewish holidays, so that it could be run by non-Jews] – sold it to the Poles for Saturdays. We would go to a rabbi, and the rabbi would sign a document saying that the bakery is sold to Jan Niegowski, but for Saturdays only. And he would do whatever needed to be done on Saturdays, opened, turned everything on. In the bakery also, after a fair, they’d prepare a table and the Poles would come to bargain. I don’t remember any incidents. I just recall one fact. There was an alcoholic. When he got drunk and there were porters (whenever something heavy was brought, like flour from a mill, then it had to be carried), he beat up one Jewish porter. This incident I remember, but other than that there were no problems with the Poles.

Our town was very rooted in Jewish traditions. Everybody belonged to some organization. There were organizations: Poalei Zion 3 , an orthodox religious organization Agudat Israel 4 and Bund 5 – a modern Jewish organization saying ‘We were born in Poland and have to make a life for ourselves in Poland’. Youth organizations were also very active: there was Beitar 6, there was Hahalutz 7, which prepared kibbutzim in Poland. They exercised, went to farmers to learn farming, and they all got together and went to Israel (if they got a certificate, permit from the English 8). First wave of youth left in 1929 – 1930. My cousin Ester, Necha Szachter, Natan ‘Nuske’ Szron, Lejbcze Gewura, Idel Rudka were among them… I remember till today when they went to Israel. The arrived in Palestine long before the war. And I remember, if some of them were earning money, they used to send some home. My siblings had rather Zionist views. Parents were traditional people. They only had to fight with us so that we’d be religious. Only that, there were no world view discussions.

My eldest brother, Abram Lejbl, was a baker. In 1939 he served in the Polish Army in the 72nd Infantry Regiment in Grodno. He wasn’t as religious as parents. Even before the army he belonged to Poalei Zion. When he came back from the army, he immediately went to Brazil. Mother had a brother there, Aaron Kuperman. (He came from Rozan and in the mid 1920s went to Brazil with his family. He had two girls and one boy.) They invited my brother. It was an obvious thing that when he arrived there, he couldn’t work as a baker. In Brazil, whenever someone was hired, that was a big deal. Jews who came as immigrants usually ended up being salesmen – ambulants [from Spanish ‘wandering’, that is a door-to-door salesmen]. They went to villages and towns to sell various goods: clothes, dress fabric… They used to sell on credit. (They had a piece of paper called ‘klaper’ [Yiddish: something worn on the lapel of a suit] where they would write their clients’ debts. Brazilians were very honest and reliable, so it was safe to sell to them on credit.) All immigrants started like that, because there was no other work. And later, once they made enough money doing this, they opened stores and usually became merchants. In 1946 my brother opened a furniture store. He didn’t live long. He died in 1952. He didn’t get married.

Among young Jews it was rare for someone to get an education. There was only one thought that occupied Jews: to emigrate. To leave and be able to make money. Whoever had arms and legs and could emigrate – left. First a man went, leaving wife and children. Later, when he was able to, he invited his entire family to come over. And from our town, Goworowo, many people emigrated. They usually went to America, Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico or Cuba. I really wanted to get an education. I wanted to study to become a doctor. When I couldn’t go to high school but saw other children go there with books, I would hide under a tree and cry. It was a small town. To get an education you had to go to Warsaw or some other big city. But there you had to have a place to sleep, make a living, have money. For me it was impossible.

Among Jews, when a boy was 14, he had to have a profession. My father said to me then: ‘Zinele – my son – it’s time for you to get a profession’. First Father sent me to a tailor. It was in Goworowo, although the tailor was from Radzilow and everyone used to call that tailor ‘der Radzillowiczer’ or ‘Radzillower’. I was very energetic, so I worked with enthusiasm: I sewed, darned… But it wasn’t for me. I felt too strong, too muscular for a job like that. I was looking for a more physical kind of work. So Father decided I should learn to be a tinsmith and sent me to Warsaw. I was 15 or 16 at the time [1937]. Father had a friend who lived on Solna Street, near Twarda Street. His name was Sucher. He was a tinsmith – repaired pots, finished beds, filled holes, fixed windows. And Father decided with that friend that I would be there as a ‘learningl’ [apprentice]. His store wasn’t big, maybe 12 square meters. It was a shop at the same time. Everything was made by hand there, everything! At the back there was one room and a kitchen. Sucher lived there with his wife and two daughters. For me – out of some wooden boards that they hung over the shop - they made a mezzanine, a kind of attic separated with a curtain. I slept there. Sucher gave me food and something to drink. I worked as much as I could. From the very morning till evening. I didn’t know the words ‘work hours.’ I didn’t like this job too much. On top of that, I wasn’t a good boy. I kept on scaring those girls, Sucher’s daughters. I didn’t want to stay there.

One Pole, his name was Sobotka, used to come to the shop. He had a truck that he used to bring goods to Warsaw. At some point – after 2,3 months of working for Sucher – when I found out that Sobotka was going to Goworowo, I said nothing, but got on the truck, sat at the back with the goods, and went back home. I arrived at Goworowo at 6am. I went to the bakery where Father was working with an apprentice, and said: ‘I’m here.’ Father was surprised ‘How come, you’re here?’ I surprised Dad. But because a young man has to do something, Father said to me: ‘I see no other solution – you will be a baker!’ I wanted to be a baker, because I was strong and wanted to do physical work... I was 16 or 17 and worked as a baker for two years. Father sent the apprentice away and I took his place. I remember as if it was today, there were no machines to knead the dough. It had to be done with hands, in flour. And I did all that. We worked nights only. So, as a child, I worked till 4am. I made whole wheat bread, the original one, then rye bread, and in the end buns, and kaisers… And, I remember, if we were getting together for games and dances in the evening, I often slept in and the buns got burnt or overgrown! But I worked well.

When I was 17 I wanted to start earning money. I was an apprentice, which means I was a qualified baker. We usually worked since Pesach, which is Easter, till Rosh Hashanah. For that half a year I was hired as an apprentice. During that time, the apprentice who used to work for us, found himself a job in Nasielsk, near Nowy Dwor. So I asked him to help me get a job there. He found me a job at one baker’s whose name was Rajczyk. So I left for Nasielsk on Easter 1939. Rajczyk had his own store. The bakery was in the basement, and he lived on the first floor with his wife. They only took care of the sales. I did the work – I took care of everything myself. They gave me board and clothing. I didn’t work on Sabbath.

The worst moment for me was Saturday night when I had to go back to work at night. As a young man I wanted to go have some fun somewhere with the other young people, girls and boys. But instead of getting some sleep and rest – I had to go to work. That was the hardest night of the week, but I managed. I was making big money then, that is 18 zloty a week. That was a big amount. I was sending all the money to Father, thinking that when I go back, he’d return it to me. Besides, my sisters had to be married off [and that cost money as well].

During that time, I remember as if it was today, one girl used to come to the bakery. Her name was Lejba. She was 3 years my senior. Her parents sold vegetables on the market. She simply fell in love with me. She would come and sit in the store while I was working. But I wasn’t thinking about things like marriage at that time. Despite the fact that she was pretty, with black hair, a simple hairstyle, religious. I wasn’t mature enough back then.

The only sister who got married before the war was Rywke Rutl. She got married in 1934 when she was 21. Her husband came from Szczegowo, near Mlawa. He had a timber warehouse. He would buy wood at a sawmill, cut it into boards, and later sell for construction. Sister had three boys. She stayed in Szczegowo during the war, and then they took her with her entire family to the Warsaw ghetto… She was lost without a trace and we never heard from her again. (Whenever I go by car to Mazury and pass Mlawa and Szczegowo, my heart always cries.)

The second sister, Sara, was studying and working, like me. Like all children in our family she was bahvutsinikh [Yiddish: enlightened] – well read, she had various interests. Sara was born in 1918 and completed 7 Polish grades [in a Polish public school]. Later she went to a religious school Beit Yaakov – Bais Yaakov 9, if I were to speak in pure Jewish [Yiddish]. When she graduated from that school, she was 16. Then she went to Pultusk, to my father’s cousin who had a photographic shop. His name was Lis. She studied photography there for two years. She worked when she was 17-18. (She took all the pictures I have from before the war).

Some time later she came to Goworowo with a camera and started fending for herself. With time she opened her own shop and was taking pictures. She took pictures of us, of others. She had her own equipment, although very modest. The shop was in the backyard. She hung a blanket there, as background. She had a chair and her own retouching equipment. I remember when the photographs were lying in water, when they were taken to the darkroom in the vestibule of the house. When the war broke out she was 19.

I had a third sister, Malka. She was about 10 in 1939. She managed to go to school. (It was a Polish public coeducational school). I can’t say much about her. I was much older than she was, and we never spent much time before or during the war. I know that Malka was always very weak and sickly. Later, during the war, when she was in Russia with Mother, she started having serious heart problems. They couldn’t save her. She died in Poland, in 1951. She was 24.

During the War

On September 1st, 1939, I was working. Poles who came to our bakery to buy bread for their stores told us about the war 10. They were buying at Rajczyk’s [the baker who employed Mr. Grynberg] and told us that Germans assaulted Poland, that the war had begun. Then I sent all the money I made to Father. I went to the postal office and sent a money order. I dressed nicely, gathered my belongings and said ‘I’m going home. I don’t want to be here any more’. Then the wife and husband I worked for started to cry. I was their only apprentice who was baking bread, so they were left without any help. What happened to them next, I don’t know. I said I was going to Goworowo. I took some dry bread, picked up my belongings, and left. I went on foot. The distance was about 70 kilometers, from Nasielsk to Goworowo. First I went to Pultusk, then on foot to Wyszkow and then on foot to Dlugosiodlo… Before Dlugosiodlo I came upon a unit of the Polish army. They stopped me ‘What are you doing here?’ they asked. And I answered ‘I’m going home, to Goworowo’. They were suspicious. I had to open my parcels. ‘What’s in there?’ ‘What do you mean, what? – I said – things that I use for work as an apprentice.’ They inspected everything and then sent me onto a sideroad, because the main road was taken by the army. I finally got to Goworowo on foot, but it took about two days [about 60km]. When I arrived in Goworowo, the town was full of refugees. They were running away, because there were supposed to be fights with Germans near the River Narwia. There were people from Rozan, Przasnysz, Makow Mazowiecki, even Mlawa. Some people stayed at our house. Some of them slept downstairs, in the bakery.

A week later Germans came to the town. It was, I think… on 7th September 1939. I remember it was Friday morning. I was working for Father again, and I was wearing a baker’s uniform – I was wearing a white hat and a white apron. They took all men out into the marketplace. Only those very old ones they didn’t take. They didn’t take women and girls either. We, the men, were standing on the marketplace, waiting. The Germans were guarding us. And when we were rushed and began to march, the women started to scream and cry. I remember as if it was today. And so, without any belongings, we kept walking. They drove us about 4-5 kilometers into some cowshed or barn of some squire who lived near Goworowo. There were no animals there. We slept in that barn, on the floor, but only for one night. Some sick ones started to cry, scream. I didn’t. In the morning, when the Germans came and saw that I was wearing a baker’s uniform, they picked me out from the crowd and said ‘You go home.’ They sent me and four other people home. We went there on foot and once we got to Goworowo we saw huge flames, like one fire (and we were only 4 kilometers from the town). One older Jew, a tailor who they sent home because he had syphilis, said ‘Goworowo is on fire!’. We didn’t believe it.

We couldn’t go into the town. The German army was standing on the road to the town. It was the eastern road, the Germans were using it to go to Warsaw. What to do? We went around Goworowo. When the Germans spotted us, they put us in some barn, so that we were not on the army’s way. We slept through the night there, and in the morning that older man started yelling: ‘Warta, warta!’ [Guard, guard!] to let us know we could go. We were afraid to go out, since the barn was right by the road used by the Germans. Finally, we opened the door – there was nobody outside. The German army had left. When we got outside, we went straight to Goworowo. I could see people there lying down outside on the ground, on the other side of the river Usz. They had been driven out of Goworowo. They were all there. Dad, my mom, my sisters… everyone who stayed in that hell… I joined my family of course. I remember German Messerschmitts [fighter planes] flying above us. Everyone started to cry and scream. We thought they wanted to bomb us. We were just sitting there. There was nowhere to go. Everything was burnt down.

The story of the burning down of Goworowo was such: in the town there was one German, his name was Jung. When the war was about to break out, Goworowo gave money [to the Polish authorities] to buy arms. When the Germans came in, that Jung said that the Jews were traitors. So the Germans spilled gasoline all over the town. A lot of people were shot then. The Germans were going from one house to another. In our house they shot everyone who slept downstairs [That means the refugees from other towns that Grynberg’s family took in. The owners who slept upstairs were not shot]. Those who slept upstairs were saved. When they were burning the town down, they moved all living Jews to the synagogue. They wanted to burn the synagogue down with everyone inside it. People were screaming. But one German officer arrived, came into the synagogue and said ‘Zuviel Blutvergiessung!’. That means: ‘too much bloodshed.’ And he ordered everyone who was supposed to be burnt, to leave. Later the Germans left Goworowo, because they were heading to Warsaw. The German army came also from Mlawa, Eastern Prussia, and they marched through the town.

At the same time there were rumors that the Russians made it to the [River] Bug 11. We decided to cross onto the Russian side. We had no other choice – we had no house, no work, nothing. We were sentenced to starve, and we didn’t want to go to the Germans. When the armies stopped marching, we left Goworowo. We walked on foot for a long time. We slept in Brok and Malkinia. We slept out on streets, under the sky. Finally Father paid for a horse-drawn cart, and we rode it from then on. And then we crossed the [River] Bug and went to Sniadowo near Lomza…. That took about three days. We stayed there for a longer period of time. We slept in public schools, or wherever we could.

We arrived in Sniadowo, and there was an invasion of refugees. Many Jews came from nearby towns: Ostroleka, Ostrow Mazowiecka, Rozan, Makow Mazowiecki, Ciechanow, Przasnysz, Mlawa… everyone was heading east [to the territories occupied by the Soviet Union]. Russians were already in Sniadowo [Sniadowo is on the northern side of the River Bug. Those territories became occupied by the Soviet Union on 17th September 1939]. The Russian army didn’t bother us. Everyone had to take care of themselves. The only thing they did – I remember as if it was today – they put up a huge screen on the marketplace in Sniadowo and they played a movie about the October Revolution. But they didn’t try to convince us to join the army, nothing. I had no political views at the time. My only thought was to be safe and to survive. So I was saving myself.

Father wanted to get hired as a baker in Sniadowo. He managed to get a job at a baker’s, but after about a week his intestines dropped from overexertion and he had to be taken to a hospital. Religious Jews, like my dad, didn’t want to go to the army. They were afraid to eat non-kosher things from an army pot. In order to be relieved from army duty, they would cause a hernia to appear. Father got himself a hernia some time ago already, when they wanted to draft him into the tsarist army. Every day he wore a special belt that held the hernia. It was called ‘bendl’ in Jewish [Yiddish]. But during the war he forgot that belt and was walking around without it. He would hold his belly with his hands and could somehow bend. But at work he strained himself and got a hernia. He spent about four days in the hospital in Lomza. I wasn’t with the family at the time, because I had a chance to go to Bialystok. Alone, without brothers, without anyone. I liked to roam, wander. So I went to see what was going on there. There was gossip that trains were leaving from Bialystok to Russia. When I came back, Father was in the hospital. ‘Dad, we’ll go to Russia. They’re saying they’ll take us to Russia’. And he said ‘Son, I won’t go with you. You all go without me’. Then Dad had surgery and he died. He was buried on the Jewish cemetery in Lomza. Some Jews came there to hold a small service for him.

After Father was buried, we went to Bialystok [Mr. Grynberg’s mother, Mr. Grynberg and his siblings: Sara, Motl, Malka]. We got on a truck that was going in that direction. In Bialystok we stayed in a synagogue. There were people from all over Poland in that synagogue, who were running away from the Germans, even from Warsaw. We met people from our town and other towns there. We met, for example, the Rozen family with eight children. We all slept wherever we could. I remember as if it was today, we slept on benches. There were old women lying beside us. Every night someone died. People were dying from sickness and hunger. Every morning there were dead bodies around. There was nowhere to bury them. That is the truth. I remember it, as if it was today. There was one kitchen that was giving out hot soup, so children ate it. Mother only had bread and water. She didn’t eat other things, because she didn’t know if it was kosher. That’s the way it was till 3rd January 1940. During those four months since September 1st, we went through a real ordeal.

Then they announced that people could sign up to go to Russia. The Russians provided trains with baggage cars. That was before the war [German-Soviet War 1941] 12. In front of these cars there was an office of the ‘politruk’ [political officer]. People were lined up there to sing up for the departure to Russia. Hardly anyone had documents, so the Russians were asking for our data. They wrote down whatever we told them: date of birth, profession. They gave everyone a piece of paper. They said we had to go with it to this and this car. And we went to Russia. Along the way, whenever the train stopped, everyone had to go out and get bread that they prepared for us. I got frostbite on my hands then. I cried terribly, curled up from pain, my hands hurt so much. Sometimes the train stopped somewhere so that we could go out to relieve ourselves, and then it kept on going. There were about twenty people in one car. There were bunk beds. Obviously, it was no luxury. We didn’t know where we were going. That trip took about ten days. Finally we arrived in Magnitogorsk on the Ural River.

When we got to Magnitogorsk, some people, Russians, came up to us, and started asking again ‘What’s your profession? How old are you? What can you do?’. Some people were sent to Magnitogorsky Metallurgiechesky Zavod [Russian: Magnitogorsk Metal Factory]. The main director of the factory was a Russian Jew from Moscow. His name was Rymshitz . (We knew he was a Jew. He behaved like a Russian though. They didn’t draft him into the army, because they weren’t taking such qualified men, Russians, who were managers in factories). I was sent to the stroika [Russian: construction]. They were building 2- and 3-story brick buildings. On man was working as a bricklayer, another carried cement, everyone was doing whatever they could. If someone was a driver, they gave him a car, and he became a chauffeur. I was sent to dig foundations. I was a very strong man, and became a leading ‘stakhanovite’ [in the years 1930-1950 in the Soviet Union, a leading worker, production rationalizer from the name of a miner from Donetsk, Aleksei Stakhanov ]. Everybody worked, men and women, with no exceptions. Women pushed wheelbarrows, carried bricks. Brother Motl also worked on construction sites. Sara, when she said she was a photographer, got a job in a photograph shop with two other Russian friends. Mom didn’t work. She was already 52 then.

We worked twelve hours every day. Hunger was killing us. We were getting some money, but it wasn’t enough. I remember, once when I got paid, I immediately went to a market, bought milk, chocolate and bread. And I ate it right there. I didn’t even manage to bring it home. There were some lessons organized, like before the war. I studied Russian there, and learned it quite fast. (I know this language until this day. Ia kak vstriechayu ruskih ludei, ia gavaryu: ‘Zdrastvuyte grazhdani federatsiy rasyskey. A zdrastvuyte. A shto-vy – Ruskyi chelovek? A pa chemu vy sprashyvaytie? Vy otlichno gavarite pa rusky…’ [Russian: When I meet Russians, I say ‘Hello, citizens of the Soviet Union.’ ‘Oh, hello. Are you Russian?’ ‘Why are you asking?’ ‘Your Russian is perfect…’]) I also went to flying club to become a pilot. They examined me, I was well suited to be a pilot. But they didn’t accept me, because I was a foreigner. We also had political lectures. A ‘politruk’ used to come to lecture. But we weren’t interested in it.

Magnitogorsk was a very big city. It was divided into several utchyastecks [utchyasteck is a city district]. There were long barracks for us. Each family got one room. At first we all lived together: Mom, Sara, myself, Motl and Malka. We were five people in one room. Near the barracks, I remember, there were stacks of fine coal. We used that for heating. Everyone took some to warm up. Otherwise we would have frozen to death. Water had to be carried, since there was no running water. There were no bathrooms, nothing. We had to go outside, in freezing temperatures. There were no telephones, no communication, it was even difficult to get letters . It lasted until Germans invaded Russia. That was on 22nd June 1941.

In mid 1942 they started drafting young people into the Russian army. They were mobilized to work. My brother Motl and I, as the ones belonging to stroitielni batalion [Russian: construction battalion], were taken to Ufaley, in the Ural Mountains. It was about 400 kilometers from Magnitogorsk. Altogether we were about 80 people, usually young people, from Magnitogorsk. On the way to Ufaley, we were given medical exams on the train. It was organized like this: the train stopped, we went to one compartment, took everything off and that was disinfected with heat to kill lice and other bugs. Because we wore dirty clothes, there was no soap, nothing.

After we arrived they assigned me to work at the Ufaleyski Nikelevy Zavod [Russian: Ufaley Nickel Factory].This factory was producing nickel for the army, to make bullets and grenades. It was all: ‘vsyo dlya voiny…’ [Russian: everything for the war]. Our job usually looked like that: cars with ore arrived, that is with the material used to make nickel, and we unloaded them. We were usually unloading at night. The temperature was below 50 degrees Celsius. Awful! It was hard, physical work.

We were getting our paiok [Russian: food ration] – almost exclusively bread. Whoever worked, got 1 kilogram of bread, whoever didn’t only 400 grams. If we worked physically, we also got soup (we were always careful to get thicker soup, more nutritious). And at home, when we went back, we’d make ‘kipyatok’, that is boiling water. There was nothing! No sugar, no tea. Many people got sick and died. Every once in a while we would get usilennyi paiok [Russian: strengthening ration]. We were also getting food coupons for meat. But they didn’t give us meat. Instead, we would get some herrings, butter and flour. We ate it quickly, on the same day we got the coupons. We didn’t celebrate any holidays. Nothing of the Jewish tradition was respected.

We lived at hozaykas, local housewives. Each hozayka that didn’t want to go to the army, and had her own house, had to take in some soldiers. In our house there were five, six men in a single room. We lived on 6 Tolstoj Street, a bit uptown when walking from the train tracks. Our hozayka took care of us – she did our laundry, made our beds. I wouldn’t be able to sleep on a bed like that today, but when you’re young, 19, 20, it’s obvious, you could even sleep on a rock. You’re healthy. I don’t remember ever getting sick. In that part of the world and with no vitamins…

We had a radio at home and we kept hearing those words: ‘Gavaritz Maskva, gavaritz maskva. Slushayte, slushayte. Nashe voiska ostavili gorod Zhytomyr, nashe voiska ostavili gorod Sevastopol.. ‘ [Russian: This is Moscow, this is Moscow. Listen, listen. Our army surrounded the city of Zhytomyr, our army surrounded the town of Sevastopol…]. And so we kept hearing about successes of the Red Army. But when they were losing, they would say nothing. What was happening to Jews in Europe, they didn’t say anything about that, so we knew nothing. We learnt about the Holocaust in Poland. Because in Russia we were listening to the radio very superficially. They were saying ‘German animals – that’s how they called them – murder Jews, then take them away…’. But we weren’t listening to the details and we didn’t quite understand. We were so tired, we didn’t feel like listening to it. We felt like doing nothing. We were poor, not properly clothed, had to fight for a piece of bread. I was hardly in touch with my family. Even though the distance wasn’t that big, one letter would travel even a month.

Sara stayed in Magnitogorsk with Mom and Sister Malka. Sara got married there. She met her husband at the end of 1943. His name was Sender Izrael. They didn’t take him to the army, just like us, because he was a tailor. And tailors were needed in Magnitogorsk. But his brother was with me in the stroibat [construction battalion, short for : stroitielni batalion], so Sara and Sender married under the chuppah. They didn’t have to hide it, but it wasn’t officially recognized. They also had a civil marriage. There were no celebrations, there was no money for it. (I wasn’t at the wedding, because I was already mobilized to work at that time). They lived in the 5th uchastka [Russian: disctrict]. His parents were elderly and they lived with them. The were no rabbis in Magnitogorsk. There were also no synagogues.

When my brother and I went to Ufaley, my mom, who was very religious, got a room in one small building. For those who wanted to pray, Mom set up a shtibl [Yiddish: room, where religious services are performed, prayers recited] there. It was illegal, but nobody bothered them. Whenever a Jew died, Mom would wash him or her and prepare the body for burial. She always got some money for it. She herself had nothing. There was a terrible famine. It was then that my youngest sister Malka came down with heart disease.

During our stay in Ufaley rules were becoming more and more strict. If someone was 21 minutes late for work, then, without a sentence, without a court, he was sent to prison for six months. I remember, my brother, who worked with me, was late once and they put him in prison. He got a six-month sentence. They put him in prison in a small town, about 60 kilometers from Ufaley. It was winter. In prison Brother got frostbite on his legs. When those six months passed, he couldn’t come back because he couldn’t even stand up. He was very weak. Whenever he got bread, someone who was stronger would take it away from him. Once I got a telegram from that prison. It said that Brother wasn’t able to come back by himself, and asked me to come and get him. I had to ask for time off. I asked them to give me a few days off, so that I could go get Brother. They gave me time off. I went to catch a train, but at that time only the army was using trains. I couldn’t get on it. I remember as if it was today, I was sitting at the train station and saying to myself: ‘I have very little time.’ I decided to walk. It was extremely cold. I took a backpack, bread, and a bottle of milk, and I was trying not to eat it all on the way. I walked on foot day and night, and finally got there, but couldn’t find the prison. I said to myself: ‘I’ll go to the train station, maybe I’ll ask there.’ I remember, I went to the train station, but found no one to talk to. There was only one handicapped man, a Russian, but he looked like a good man. I asked him where the prison was. I got lucky because he said: ‘I live near the prison, if you want, you can follow me.’ I told him I came for my brother, he let me spend the night at his place, and in the morning I went to the prison. I had the telegram, but when I went closer to the gate, they told me to move away. I was standing in the frost outside the prison. Then I saw a smiling face and heard: ‘Have you come for your brother?’ It turned out it was that nurse, Jewish, from Kiev, who sent me the telegram. Motl was telling her he had a brother in Ufaley, and asked her to notify me. And she did. If it hadn’t been for her, nobody would have done anything for us. Brother would have died of exhaustion in that prison.

I waited for a while and she brought him out, holding him under his arms. He was so thin, his beard overgrown, and he couldn’t walk. He started to cry. I picked him up and took him to that Russian, who let me stay with him the previous night. I gave Brother whatever I had – bread and milk. When he was eating, you could see how the food was going down his esophagus to his stomach. After he ate he felt sick. He couldn’t digest any more. He stayed in bed one day, and the next day I said: ‘We’ll go to my place, to Ufaley.’ We waited for the train, because I told myself: ‘I can’t walk, I can’t carry him.’ But the train that came was full of soldiers. Finally I picked him up, and got on between the cars. I was holding on to one car with one hand, and onto the other car with the other hand. I was standing stretched like that, and he was lying on my chest. That’s how we got to Ufaley. In Ufaley we had to walk quite a bit, too. We walked for a few hours, and finally got to my place, and I put him on my bed. From then on I slept on the floor and gave him my bed. In the morning we went to the factory nurse. They started wrapping the frostbite on his legs. Two of his toes fell off then, it started bleeding… I went to work and told the manager that my brother was there and that he had no shoes. He gave him the shoes under the condition that Brother would come to work. I took the shoes, but Brother couldn’t go to work yet. The manager was upset with me. But it took about two more weeks, and Brother went to work with me. He could move then, but he was very weak. He couldn’t keep up. I was helping him. With time, somehow he got better. He got healthy again.

Later in Ufaley I got certified as an ‘excavator machinist’, that is as an excavator operator. From then on I worked on the excavator. I met my first wife then. Her first name was Matl, last name Zilberson. Later she changed her name to Miriam. She came from Lodz. She was practically nusn [Yiddish: an orphan]. I know that her parents died before the war. Her father used to trade, even trade abroad. But it wasn’t going well for him, he got a heart attack on a train and died. When Miriam came to Ufaley, she was already married. She married her first husband before the war. Then they came to Russia. Then her husband was drafted into the army and no one heard from him since. He left her with a small child, a girl name Ania. She thought her husband would never come back. We met in 1944. And I was young… and I decided to be with that woman. These are all private matters, hard to talk about. It was simply love… We lived together, worked together in Ufaley. Till 1946.

After the War

In February 1946 my sister Sara gave birth to a girl, Szejla. And in the Spring that year, they organized a train to Poland. It was one year after the war ended. Before that no one could go home. And, who would have had money for a ticket then?! So everyone went home – Sister with her husband and this small child, Mother, and Sister Malka. They went to Silesia 13 to the town of Swiebodzice near Swidnica. They got a house where some Germans had lived earlier. My brother and I, we went to Poland two months later. I remember as if it was today, when the war ended, one ‘politruk’ came and asked if we wanted to go back to Poland. I said yes. All Jews from Ufaley – because I wasn’t the only one there – got on the train. There were a lot of Jews from Poland in the Ural region. They were coming from all surrounding towns. They added three or four cars and put together one huge train going to Poland. When we were passing through Moscow, some young people ran away. They wanted to stay in Moscow. There was a rumor saying that in Poland they kill the people who are on trains coming back from the Soviet Union. They were supposedly those military forces fighting against the development of socialism in Poland. This was mainly going on in Eastern Poland. I saw, by myself, when someone left the train to get some water, and got beaten up. It was near Lodz. They were asking ‘You, Jew, what are you doing here?’ Some were taken away and others got lost without a trace. I saw Jews taken away in an unknown direction. They were saying that Russia was sending its own Jews. But we were Polish Jews! We were born here… It was the truth. [In the after-war Poland Jews coming from the Soviet Union were often accused of collaborating with the Stalinist regime and conspiring against the Polish state. There were murders and pogroms.] We crossed the Polish border at the end of May 1946. We got off in Swiebodzice. But we didn’t know where Mother and the rest were. But it turned out that we were living in the same town.

The population of Swiebodzice was maybe 10,000 or 15,000. That’s my estimate. The town is near Swidnica, between Walbrzych and Wroclaw. Those were so-called regained territories [territories which used to belong to Germany, claimed by Poland after WWII]. When we arrived in Swiebodzice, there was already a Jewish Committee [specifically: a branch of the Central Committee of Polish Jews, political representation of Polish Jews, founded in 1944.] We came from Russia with no clothes or shoes. That committee was receiving various goods from America [specifically: JOINT – The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee] 14. They were getting chocolate, coffee, tea, flour, rice, canned meat – everything kosher. Those were parcels from UNRRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration – an American aid organization helping Europe after WWII]. They were also getting clothes. All clothes were put out on tables – there were dresses, pants, shoes, everything – and everyone could pick whatever suited them and take it. They were also giving out apartments. We got an apartment on Ogrodowa Street 2, on the first floor. (Russian soldiers lived there as well, since Russian army headquarters was there in town. The Russian army stayed in Swiebodzice probably until 1948. Then they withdrew.) The apartment I got used to belong to Germans. [Until 1945 Swiebodzice, in German Freiburg in Schlesien, was inhabited by Germans]. After the Germans ran away, I got that place. It was a big apartment – a living room, a room, another room, and a kitchen.

I married my first wife, Miriam, in Swiebodzice. (When we came to Poland, my wife decided to use the name Miriam in her documents, since she liked it better than Matl). That’s how it went. When I came to Swiebodzice, we registered as a married couple. During that time we found out that Miriam’s husband came back from the war. He came to us and took his and Miriam’s child, Ania, with him – supposedly for an hour – and he never gave the child back. We tried to get her back, but he pulled out a gun… and we had to accept it. But he gave Miriam a religious divorce. My brother, Motl, went for it to Lodz, found that man and got him to agree to a divorce. Those were very upsetting moments for me. I’d rather not talk about it any more. Soon after that I married Miriam at the rabbi’s. In 1948 our first daughter was born – Halina.

In truth, there was no real rabbi in Swiebodzice. But there was an older Jew who served as a rabbi. His name was Nusn Flejszer. He came from Wlodawa. It’s in the Lublin region. He was also in Russia during the war. He wasn’t a certified rabbi, but he performed services, so that everyone could pray. There was no synagogue in Swiebodzice. Religious Jews – and several of them came to Swiebodzice after the war – turned one of the rooms of a building assigned for Jews into a synagogue. We could pray there, celebrate Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Pesach. Authorities didn’t persecute it then. It wasn’t a problem. [After 1948 religious and public life of minorities in Poland was becoming more restricted by the politics of the communist authorities].

I was active only within Jewish circles at the time. There were young people and we used to spend time together. There was a place we used to get together, a Jewish club. When I had some free time (and there was a lot of free time since I worked only eight hours a day), I played ‘damka’ [checkers] or chess. We also celebrated the founding of the state of Israel there. I found out from newspapers about the UN vote [the vote on 29th November 1947 approved the division of Palestine and the creation of the independent state of Israel]. I was very happy then, excited. I was very proud. Because I am a Jew, flesh and blood. I could have all citizenships of the world, but firstly I am a Jew. It’s in my blood. I breathe it. I dreamt then about going to Israel one day.

There were about thirty Jewish families in Swiebodzice. There were two types of Jews. The first were Zionists. The second type belonged to UB 15 – just communists. I remember one meeting, as if it was today. I don’t remember exactly what it was about. Maybe we were discussing what we would organize in the town. There were those who wanted to leave, and those who wanted to stay. Discussions were very heated. The communists protested. I remember, there was one Jew whose name was Sztajn. He served in the Kosciuszko Army [The 1st Kosciuszko Infantry Division] 16. It was a liberating army founded by Bierut 17 [editor’s note: Mr. Grynberg is mistaken. The 1st Kosciuszko Infantry Division was founded by ZPP, the Union of Polish Patriots]. … and all those communists. Sztajn was a representative of UB in the town. First I worked as an apprentice at one Polish baker’s. I remember once after I left work, there was a corpse of a Polish militiaman on the street. Some group of opponents of the new Polish government came to town and shot him. Next day I heard they also killed Sztajn. I went to their funeral. A government representative spoke. Both corpses were lying on one table. They buried the Pole on the Catholic cemetery, and Sztajn on the Jewish cemetery. German Jews used to live in the town. And they had a small cemetery. This is where my sister’s Malka Perl grave is as well.

The majority of Zionist families went to Israel. Sara with her husband and child left in 1946. Then my brother Motl and Mother left. Neither my sister nor my brother had permission to leave. It was illegal 18. Illegal emigration went like this: there was word among the Jews that they could help whoever wanted to leave Poland. There was no fee for such help. People from the Jewish Committee would come and say: ‘Tonight you have to be here and here. We’re going to Klodzko where we’ll cross the Czech border…’ (I heard that there was this entire affair in Czechoslovakia related to the escapes of Jews. People who were helping Jews cross the border illegally were arrested). This was organized together with Polish authorities who were guarding the border with Czechoslovakia. Czechs would then let Jews go further, to Austria, and then they went from Austria to Italy. And there they stayed in camps until Israel would take them in.

At first I wanted to stay in Poland. But later I told myself I wouldn’t stay. I had no peace. I only wanted to go. At first I didn’t go because they wouldn’t let me go. By the end of 1948 I asked for permission to leave, but I got a refusal. I pressed and pressed, but they didn’t want to let me go. For some time I worked as an ironer in Swiebodzickie Zaklady Odziezowe [Swiebodzice Clothing Factory]. They didn’t want to let me go, because I was a very good worker. I was a ‘model worker’ [ in the Eastern Block countries someone who produced over the set norm]. I was getting financial awards. I was also awarded holidays in Szklarska Poreba [popular spa resort in the mountains]. (Syndicate, that is labor union, was in Walbrzych. I went there and was distinguished as an outstanding employee. I also got an invitation to a guesthouse in Szklarska Poreba where I spent two weeks). Half of the factory employees were party members 19. I didn’t join it. I used to go on May 1st demonstrations [demonstrations organized on International Labor Day], because they were mandatory. As a community service I used to put up posters about the production results of model workers. They kept trying to convince me to join PZPR. They were saying: ‘When you join the party, you may get a better job, not just ironing.’ But I paid no attention to it. I didn’t want to. Later, in 1950, I applied for permission to go to Israel. As I was walking home from work, two undercover militiamen came up to me – one of them was Jewish, the other one Polish, they worked for UB. I knew that Jew from Magnitogorsk. They came, took me to a militia station and started to ask why I wanted to leave. For what reason? Am I not happy in Poland? Do I need anything? I told them then that Brother was in Israel, Mother was in Israel, and I wanted to join them. I wanted to go to Israel and that was it. I couldn’t say too much… [During interrogations police often provoked testimony that could be later used against the interrogated person.]

That lasted for another year – year and a half, and I received notification saying I could leave. It was in 1951. I had to give up my Polish citizenship. When I got the permission, my brother was already in Israel. One of Jews in Swiebodzice told me about ships going to Israel. I went with my wife and daughter to Gdynia. There was a huge Italian ship ‘Lavosier.’ We took it directly from Gdynia to Israel. The ship was full. There were almost only Jews on it. The trip took about three weeks.

We got out in Haifa. There was terrible poverty there. We were to live in tents. There were food coupons. Some of my friends were drafted into the army straight from the ship. And they all died. There was a war in Israel then [Independence War, 1948 20. Well, the war is still going on there. We got mobilized to a kibbutz , but I didn’t want to live like that. My brother had a two-bedroom apartment in the Arab Yafo, where he lived with Mom. He gave one room to me. It wasn’t in Yafo, but not far from it – in Bat Yam. Brother worked as a baker there. I started to do the same thing. It was in a big bakery near Tel Aviv – it was called Degania. Every day I cycled to work for about 12 kilometers.

One day a girl from America came to Yafo. I think it was in 1953. She was religious and she was looking for a husband. She came from a family of Eastern European Jews, who went to the United States. Her name was Miriam, but everyone called her Margy. Mother set her up with my brother Motl. They got married and got documents from a rabbi. When she went back to the United States, she was already pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter and invited my brother to Philadelphia. Brother spent three-four years in Israel altogether. When Brother went to the States, he also worked in a bakery. Margy, Brother’s Wife, worked for the Ministry of Treasure. They had three daughters: Brenda, Sandra and Geraldine. Today they are all married and all live in Philadelphia. Brother, because of the illness he went through in Russia, came down with Parkinson’s disease. Brother’s Wife died in 1991. She was constantly dieting and starved herself, they couldn’t save her. A year later Motl also died.

I lived in Israel for a year and a half. My wife didn’t want to stay there though. I was planning on going to Canada. My sister Sara, after she left Poland, lived in Montreal and sent me an invitation. The closest Canadian diplomatic post was in Paris, or in Belgium. I went to Paris from Israel and got a refusal. I was left with nothing. And then what? I had to work under illegally [without a work permit] at a baker’s. I had a cousin, very religious, who lived near Paris. Her name was Chaja Sara Lis. I had to have an official address, so she registered me in the local yeshivah. I got a temporary identity card, that they renewed every once in a while. But I lived in a hotel near the Pere-la-chaise cemetery. I rented a room and lived there with my wife and daughter. I even wanted to stay in France, but when I said in the documents that I wanted to work, they told me to leave France. I waited then, wondering where I could go. There were Jewish committees then that were helping Jews leave [most likely HIAS committees] 21. I went to see them and asked for help. They took down my information and said: ‘You can only go to Brazil.’ So I went to the Brazilian consulate and got a visa. I left in 1954. That organization paid for my ticket. They couldn’t leave me in a situation like that, because I would have starved. I promised I would return the money. That was the agreement. And that’s what happened.

So I went to Brazil. I lived in Rio, in Copa Cabana. Back then in Brazil there were only rich or poor. There was no way to get a job. The earnings were very small. I was doing what all Jewish immigrants were doing. I was going from one village to another selling fabric for clothing. I went to each house and asked for double the price. I worked like that until I made enough. Then I was selling gold. Finally, I made a lot of money. Then I got a job in a hotel. I worked there as a cook and was making very good money. I wasn’t a cook, but I told them I knew how to cook. I was very clever. I was observing the chief cook… I learned fast and soon I became a master, a big master! Cooking became my profession and still is until this day. I made a fortune, but I worked very hard for it.

I subscribed to two Jewish newspapers in Brazil. There was also a Jewish radio, which broadcast in Yiddish . My daughter and I used to go to the ‘Hebraica’ club. It was a huge, three-story building. Jews used to hang out there, play cards, there were some performances … just for the Jewish community. I was always interested in what was going on there. There was one newspaper journalist, a Brazilian of Jewish origin. When the Six Day War broke out [1967] 22, he was sent to Israel as a representative of the Hebraica club. He took photographs there and sent them all to us. A meeting was organized at the club then – we were all told about what was going on in Israel.

My daughter went to an English school. After she graduated, she went to a university in Columbia. She was studying to be a psychiatrist. She got married in 1968. Her husband’s name is Paulo. He was born in Brazil. He is a musician and plays the clarinet. She had a true Jewish wedding under the chuppah. After she married, she kept her maiden name – Grynberg. Afer a while my daughter started publishing. Because of her profession she got into ‘Canaglob’ in Rio de Janeiro. It’s a television channel. This is where she gave lectures in psychiatry – twice a week for an hour. Now she lectures at a Catholic university in Rio de Janeiro. She lives in a very luxurious city – San Colorado. She’s very well off. She had one son who is now 16. His name is Domingo Meir Grynberg. Meir is a Jewish name. My grandson is circumcised in a Jewish way, he had a bar mitzvah.

In 1972 my wife Miriam died. I couldn’t live without her in Brazil. So I left the entire fortune to my daughter and left in 1973. I asked to be transferred to Germany. I worked for an American hotel concern, which had its hotels all over the world. They transferred me to Cologne, later to Dusseldorf. I prepared a hotel inauguration there and became the chief cook. When I came from Brazil, I missed my homeland, the place where I was born. I went to Poland for four days. At the time, everything was relatively expensive in Poland. The dollar exchange rate was unfavorable. So I couldn’t stay long. I went to Goworowo for a day and a half. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. I knew everything had been burnt down in Goworowo. But some local Poles, who used to work at my father’s bakery, recognized me. ‘Oh, you are Gdaluk’s child!’ [changed version of Father’s name – Gedala]. There were two boys…’. They meant me and my brother. They helped me find Father’s birth certificate and they let me spend the night at their place. Then I went back to Germany.

In the hotel in Dusseldorf I met my current wife, Krystyna. She was working there. When I saw how good she was with her hands I proposed. At first she didn’t want to marry me, but eventually we got married. Wife was born on 25th May 1933 in Wyszogrod on the River Vistula. She’s a Catholic. She has good memories of Jews in Wyszogrod. She used to go to them, and says that as a child she spoke Jewish [Yiddish] as well as Polish. My wife is very much in love with me. I am her entire world.

In 1976 we went to Spain for holidays. And I liked it there. I told myself: ‘I have a wife now, I won’t be an employee. I will be working for myself.’ I met my future partner, Edward, there. He had a restaurant, but had no cook. He said: ‘Let’s start a company. You will be a cook, I will be a waiter.’ That was our agreement, and all went very well. It was in Mata Lascania, by the Atlantic Ocean, near Portugal. A beautiful place. And I stayed there. I had some savings – 35,000 German marks. Based on this I received a permit for starting my own business. I worked with that Spaniard for a year, and then I told him I didn’t want to do that any more. I was a known specialist by then. I wanted him to rent the restaurant to me. I signed a lease for five years. When he saw how well everything was going, he didn’t want to renew it. He refused.

One day I saw three burnt restaurants between local hotels. They had been standing there for four years and nobody wanted to buy them. I told myself: ‘I’ll do it, I’ll buy them.’ I went to that Spaniard, the owner of the restaurants, and said: ‘Listen, I want to buy it.’ He looked at me as if I was a madman. But I knew what I knew. I took the walls down and made one big restaurant. I called it ‘Alfonso’, from the name of the Spanish king Alfonso. It was very popular. My previous partner, when my old clients were looking for me, would tell them that I had died. But they finally found me and came to me. I already had a good name. Everyone knew me. Usually there were no empty seats in the restaurant. You had to make a reservation. What was the house specialty? Everything was special! In the menu it said: ‘with one day notice, you can order anything you want’. There were Japanese meals, Chinese, Hungarian, Spanish… all! There was nothing I wouldn’t prepare. And so it grew… until I retired in 1987.

In 1981 my mom died in Israel. She lived to be 94 years old. She is buried in a very pretty place, on a cemetery in Bnei-Brak [a district in Tel Aviv, inhabited by ultra-orthodox Jews]. In the Jewish tradition there is a saying that after death everyone travels to Israel under the earth. Mother said that ‘she doesn’t want to travel under the earth’… so after my brother left, we tried to organize a life in Israel for Mom. We bought her a tiny one-bedroom house in Bnei-Brak. She just sat there and talked with God. She read religious books. She had a can for ‘tsdoke’, charity. Money she was getting from her children she used to give away. It was a sort of mitzvah.

We always went to Poland for Christmas, to visit my wife’s family. We bought an apartment in Warsaw 24 years ago. So, whenever we came from Spain, we didn’t have to sleep at hotels. The rest of the year the apartment was locked. A neighbor had the key. We moved there for good in 1987. I could live anywhere, but stayed in Poland. My wife had family here, and I didn’t want to move her away from her roots. I am happy here in Poland. I don’t feel any discrimination. There were no problems to regain the citizenship. Today, my homeland is Poland and Spain. When I left Poland, I forgot the Polish language. I remembered only a little. My wife kept correcting me, correcting, correcting. Now I speak better and better.

We celebrate all Jewish holidays at home. We invite our Jewish friends. I am a qualified cook, so I make challah, fish, purely Jewish food. They like it. On Sabbath my wife lights candles, but she doesn’t pray because she doesn’t know how. When I go to the Nozyk Synagogue in Warsaw 23, my wife always accompanies me. My wife was born in a Catholic family, but, if I may say - she’s as if Jewish flesh and blood . She is more concerned about Jewish affairs than I am. She doesn’t like it when someone, God forbid, attacks Jews. She immediately condemns it. When we were in Brazil, Canada, Budapest, New York, she always went to the synagogue. She would put a scarf on her head, take a prayer book in the given language and pray with me. I am very happy about it. She is an extraordinary woman with a Jewish heart, despite not being born a Jew. I wouldn’t tolerate another woman. But I don’t tell her she shouldn’t be a Catholic. When she wants to, she goes to church. But if we had a child together, I would like for it to be a Jew. I would never let my child be baptized. Never! My wife trusts me. If I didn’t want our child to be baptized, she would immediately agree.

I meet a lot of Jews who changed their last names to Polish. They are simply running away, they say that they ‘can smell anti-Semitism in Poland.’ I don’t really notice it. I feel well among Poles, I have a lot of Polish friends, but there are all types of people in every nation. I like Poles… but I like decent Poles. I don’t like anti-Semites, I don’t like those who act against Jews. Like that priest Jankowski [Rector of the Saint Brygida parish in Gdansk, known for anti-Semitism in his sermons] or priest Jan Sikora in Wolomin… I wrote a letter to priest Sikora. I asked him: ‘Why aren’t you fulfilling the Pope’s teachings, that ask all peoples to reconcile? You don’t abide by it, but in your sermons you blame Jews for everything that’s wrong in Poland.’ I never got a response to this letter. I wrote the same to priest Jankowski.

I subscribe to two Jewish newspapers: ‘Slowo Zydowskie’ (‘Jewish Word’) [Jewish bi-weekly magazine, published in Polish and Yiddish, created in 1947 as ‘Folksssztyme’] and ‘Midrasz’ [Jewish social-cultural magazine, published since 1997]. I often go to the Jewish community. I am a member of the Social and Cultural Society of Polish Jews 24. I am always very interested whenever there are some talks or performances. But I think that Jewish life doesn’t have a bright future in Warsaw. Recently I speak about it often in the Jewish club on Grzybowski Square. I go there, but there are only gray-haired people there. There is no Jewish youth. It doesn’t seem they are interested in Judaism. I asked the editor of ‘Slowo Zydowskie’: ‘Where are your children?’ Because there are 70% of Poles and 30% of old Jews at those meetings. People of my generation, and maybe 5-10 years younger. But in a few years it will all disappear. There isn’t even minyan on Saturdays! I went to the Jewish community recently. I met three girls, typical Jews. I asked them if they were Jewish. And they say: ‘No, do I look like a Jew?’ And I say ‘All Jews look like you.’ I said so, because they had typical Jewish features. I lived in various parts of the world and I can recognize that. Why is it like this in Poland? I think it’s the only country in the world where people are afraid to say they are Jewish. My opinion is that in Poland there will be a Jewish community, Jewish culture… but will there be Jews? I am a pessimist when it comes to that…

Glossary

1 Gora Kalwaria

Located near Warsaw, and known in Yiddish as Ger, Gora Kalwaria was the seat of the well-known dynasty of the tzaddiks. The adherents of the tzaddik of Ger were one of the most numerous and influential Hasidic groups in the Polish lands. The dynasty was founded by Meir Rotemberg Alter (1789-1866). The tzaddiks of Ger on the one hand stressed the importance of religious studies and promoted orthodox religiosity. On the other hand they were active in the political sphere. Today tzaddiks from Ger live in Israel and the US.

2 Hitler coming to power

In July 1932 NSDAP won the election to the Reichstag, despite not having received majority of the mandates. In January 1933, after forming a coalition with a center party, General Hindenburg, the president of the Weimar Republic, appointed Hitler for a chancellor on January 30th. Fire of Reichstag in February of that year, considered after Goering to be an act of communists, gives Hitler a pretext to arrest his political opponents (communists, socialists, liberals), as well as to pass a bill giving him legislative power. On March 5th 1933 during the next Parliament election NSDAP received 44% of votes. After the death of General Hindenburg in 1934 Hitler becomes a president and appoints himself to be a Fuehrer – a commander-in-chief – of the German nation. This way he becomes a factual dictator of the Third Reich.

3 Poalei Zion (the Jewish Social-Democratic Workers’ Party Workers of Zion)

in Yiddish ‘Yidishe Socialistish-Demokratishe Arbeiter Partei Poale Syon’. A political party formed in 1905 in the Kingdom of Poland, and operating throughout the Polish state from 1918. The party’s main aim was to create an independent socialist Jewish state in Palestine. In the short term, Poalei Zion postulated cultural and national autonomy for the Jews in Poland, and improved labor and living conditions of Jewish hired laborers. In 1920, during a conference in Vienna, the party split, forming the Right Poalei Zion (the Jewish Socialist Workers’ Party Workers of Zion), which became part of the Socialist Workers’ International and the World Zionist Organization, and the Left Po’alei Zion (the Jewish Social-Democratic Workers’ Party Workers of Zion), the radical minority, which sympathized with the Bolsheviks. The Left Poalei Zion placed more emphasis on socialist postulates. Key activists: I. Schiper (Right PZ), L. Holenderski, I. Lew (Left PZ); paper: Arbeiter Welt. Both fractions had their own youth organizations: Right PZ: Dror and Freiheit; Left PZ – Jugnt. Left PZ was weaker than Right PZ; only towards the end of the 1930s did it start to form coalitions with other socialist and Zionist parties. In 1937 Left PZ joined the World Zionist Organization. During World War II both fractions were active in underground politics and the resistance movement in the ghettos, in particular the youth organizations. After 1945 both parties joined the Central Jewish Committee in Poland. In 1947 they reunited to form the strongest legally active Jewish party in Poland (with 20,000 members). In 1950 Poalei Zion was dissolved by the communist authorities.

4 Agudat Israel

Jewish party founded in 1912 in Katowice, Poland, which opposed both the ideology of Zionism and its political expression, the World Zionist Organization. It rejected any cooperation with non-Orthodox Jewish groups and considered Zionism profane in that it forced the hand of the Almighty in bringing about the redemption of the Jewish people. Its geographical and linguistic orientation made it automatically a purely Ashkenazi movement. Branches of Agudat Israel were established throughout the Ashkenazi world. A theocratic and clericalist party, Agudat Israel has exhibited intense factionalism and religious extremism.

5 Bund

The short name of the General Jewish Union of Working People in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, Bund means Union in Yiddish). The Bund was a social democratic organization representing Jewish craftsmen from the Western areas of the Russian Empire. It was founded in Vilnius in 1897. In 1906 it joined the autonomous fraction of the Russian Social Democratic Working Party and took up a Menshevist position. After the Revolution of 1917 the organization split: one part was anti-Soviet power, while the other remained in the Bolsheviks’ Russian Communist Party. In 1921 the Bund dissolved itself in the USSR, but continued to exist in other countries.

6 Betar

Brith Trumpledor (Hebrew) meaning the Trumpledor Society. Right-wing Revisionist Jewish youth movement. It was founded in 1923 in Riga by Vladimir Jabotinsky, in memory of J. Trumpledor, one of the first fighters to be killed in Palestine, and the fortress Betar, which was heroically defended for many months during the Bar Kohba uprising. In Poland the name ‘The J. Trumpledor Jewish Youth Association’ was also used. Betar was a worldwide organization, but in 1936, of its 52,000 members, 75 % lived in Poland. Its aim was to propagate the program of the revisionists in Poland and prepare young people to fight and live in Palestine. It organized emigration, through both legal and illegal channels. It was a paramilitary organization; its members wore uniforms. From 1936-39 the popularity of Betar diminished. During the war many of its members formed guerrilla groups.

7 Hahalutz

Hebrew for pioneer, it stands for a Zionist organization that prepared young people for emigration to Palestine. It was founded at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia and began operating in Poland in 1905, later also spread to the USA and other countries. Between the two wars its aim was to unite all the Zionist youth organizations. Members of Hahalutz were sent on hakhshara, where they received vocational training. Emphasis was placed chiefly on volunteer work, the ability to live and work in harsh conditions, and military training. The organization had its own agricultural farms in Poland. On completing hakhshara young people received British certificates entitling them to emigrate to Palestine. Around 26,000 young people left Poland under this scheme in 1925-26. In 1939 Hahalutz had some 100,000 members throughout Europe. In World War II it operated as a conspiratorial organization. It was very active in culture and education after the war. The Polish arm was disbanded in 1949.

8 British certificates

On June 18th 1922, the government of the Great Britain published the first ‘White Book’ limiting Jewish emigration to Palestine. After that British authorities were giving Jews certificates for a limited number of immigrants. The Jewish Agency was responsible for distributing those certificates. That is why the majority of them went to the members of the Zionist Organization. In 1930s this was the only legal way to settle in Palestine, other than studying at the Hebrew University in Jerozolima, or marrying a person living within a British mandate.

9 Beit Yaakov (Yiddish

Bejs Jankiew): the world first system of religious Jewish schools for girls started in Krakov. Raised in a Hassidic family Sara Schnerir in 1918, with the approval of tzaddiks, like Gere rebe and Belzer rebe, turned her seamstress shop into a religious school. The school program covered both religious and secular subjects. Some time later the patronage of the schools Beit Yaakov was taken over by an orthodox organization Agudat Israel. In 1935 there were 248 schools Bait Yaakov in Poland. 35000 students were attending the schools.

10 German occupation of Poland (1939-45)

World War II began with the German attack on Poland on 1st September 1939. On 17th September 1939 Russia occupied the eastern part of Poland (on the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). The east of Poland up to the Bug river was incorporated into the USSR, while the north and west were annexed to the Third Reich. The remaining lands comprised what was called the General Governorship - a separate state administered by the German authorities. After the outbreak of war with the USSR
in June 1941 Germany occupied the whole of Poland's pre-war territory. The German occupation was a system of administration by the police and military of the Third Reich on Polish soil. Poland's own administration was dismantled, along with its political parties and the majority of its social organizations and cultural and educational institutions. In the lands incorporated into the Third Reich the authorities pursued a policy of total Germanization. As regards the General Governorship the intention of the Germans was to transform it into a colony supplying Polish unskilled slave labor. The occupying powers implemented a policy of terror on the basis of collective liability. The Germans assumed ownership of Polish state property and public institutions, confiscated or brought in administrators for large private estates, and looted the economy in industry and agriculture. The inhabitants of the Polish territories were forced into slave labor for the German war economy. Altogether, over the period 1939-45 almost three million people were taken to the Third Reich from the whole of Poland.

11 Annexation of Eastern Poland

According to a secret clause in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact defining Soviet and German territorial spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union occupied Eastern Poland in September 1939. In early November the newly annexed lands were divided up between the Ukranian and the Belarusian Soviet Republics.

12 The German - Soviet War

On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was what the Russian historiography calls the 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.

13 Settlers in Lower Silesia

Evacuation of Poles from the USSR: In 1939-41 there were some 2 million citizens of the Second Polish Republic from lands annexed to the Soviet Union in the heart of the USSR (Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Lithuanians). The resettlement of Poles and Jews to Poland (within its new borders) began in 1944. The process was coordinated by a political organization subordinate to the Soviet authorities, the Union of Polish Patriots (functioned until July 1946). The main purpose of the resettlement was to purge Polish lands annexed into the Soviet Union during World War II of their ethnic Polish population. The campaign was accompanied by the removal of Ukrainian and Belarusian populations to the USSR. Between 1944 and 1948 some 1.5 million Poles and Jews returned to Poland with military units or under the repatriation program. Between the wars Lower Silesia was part of Germany. Jews emigrated from the region during the fascist period to escape persecution. In 1939 there were 15,480 Jews living in the region, most of whom perished during the war. A new influx of Jews began in 1945 after the region was incorporated into Poland. Of the 52,000 or so Jews that arrived there, 10,000 settled in Wroclaw (formerly Breslau). Jews also moved to Legnica (formerly Liegnitz), Dzierzoniow (Reichenbach) and Walbrzych (Waldenburg).

14 Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee)

The Joint was formed in 1914 with the fusion of three American Jewish committees of assistance, which were alarmed by the suffering of Jews during World War I. In late 1944, the Joint entered Europe’s liberated areas and organized a massive relief operation. It provided food for Jewish survivors all over Europe, it supplied clothing, books and school supplies for children. It supported cultural amenities and brought religious supplies for the Jewish communities. The Joint also operated DP camps, in which it organized retraining programs to help people learn trades that would enable them to earn a living, while its cultural and religious activities helped re-establish Jewish life. The Joint was also closely involved in helping Jews to emigrate from Europe and from Muslim countries. The Joint was expelled from East Central Europe for decades during the Cold War and it has only come back to many of these countries after the fall of communism. Today the Joint provides social welfare programs for elderly Holocaust survivors and encourages Jewish renewal and communal development.

15 Office for Public Security, UBP

popularly known as the UB, officially established to protect the interests of national security, but in fact served as a body whose function was to stamp out all forms of resistance during the establishment and entrenchment of communist power in Poland. The UB was founded in 1944. Branches of the UBP were set up immediately after the occupation by the Red Army of the Polish lands west of the Bug. The first UBP functionaries were communist activists trained by the NKVD, and former soldiers of the People’s Army and members of the Polish Workers’ Party (PPR). In many cases they were also collaborationists from the period of German occupation and criminals. The senior officials were NKVD officers. The primary tasks of the UBP were to crush all underground organizations with a western orientation. In 1956 the Security Service was formed and many former officers of the UBP were transferred.

16 The 1st Kosciuszko Infantry Division

tactical grouping formed in the USSR from May 1943. The victory at Stalingrad and the gradual assumption of the strategic initiative by the Red Army strengthened Stalin’s position in the anti-fascist coalition and enabled him to exert increasing influence on the issue of Poland. In April 1943, following the public announcement by the Germans of their discovery of mass graves at Katyn, Stalin broke off diplomatic relations with the Polish government in exile and using the poles in the USSR, began openly to build up a political base (the Union of Polish Patriots) and an army: the 1st Kosciuszko Infantry Division numbered some 11,000 soldiers and was commanded first by General Zygmunt Berling (1943-44), and subsequently by the Soviet General Bewziuk (1944-45). In August 1943 the division was incorporated into the 1st Corps of the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR, and from March 1944 was part of the Polish Army in the USSR. The 1st Division fought at Lenino on 12-13 October 1943, and in Praga in September 1944. In January 1945 it marched into Warsaw, and in April-May 1945 it took part in the capture of Berlin. After the war it became part of the Polish Army.

17 Bierut Boleslaw, pseud

Janowski, Tomasz (1892-1956): communist activist and politician. In the interwar period he was a member of the Polish Socialist Party and the Communist Party of Poland; in 1930-32 he was an officer in the Communist Internationale in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. Starting in 1943 Bierut was a member of the Central Committee of the Polish Workers’ Party and later PZPR (the Polish United Workers’ Party), where he held the highest offices. From 1944-47 he was the president of the National Council, from 1947-52 president of Poland, from 1952-54 prime minister, and in 1954-56 first secretary of the Central Committee of the PZPR. Bierut followed a policy of Polish dependency on the USSR and the Sovietization of Poland. He was responsible for the employment of organized violence to terrorize society into submission. He died in Moscow.

18 Briha [Hebrew

escape]: a code name of an illegal escape action from the Sovet Union and Poland during the years 1944-1950. It was initiated by Abba Kovner, and with time became an organized institution. People were leaving through the Czech Republic, Romania, later also through Germany. The fugitives were first placed in camps for immigrants, and later went to Palestine, United States and other countries (in 1945 and 1946 about 20 thousand people yearly). The number of people who used this way to go to Palestine is estimaed for 85 thousand to 250 thousand.

19 Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR)

communist party formed in Poland in December 1948 by the fusion of the PPR (Polish Workers’ Party) and the PPS (Polish Socialist Party). Until 1989 it was the only party in the country; it held power, but was subordinate to the Soviet Union. After losing the elections in June 1989 it lost its monopoly. On 29th January 1990 the party was dissolved.

20 The War For Independence

broke out on May 14th 1948, on the day of proclamation of the country of Israel, and withdrawal of the British army from the mandate territory of Palestine. Units of Egiptian, Iraqi, Syrian and Transjordan army moved onto the Palestine territory. Those countries, not having accepted the proposed by the UN partition of Palestine, planned on destroying the new Jewish country. The Israel forces, weaker in numbers, dislodged the Arab army. In 1949 a treaty was signed between the fighting forces. Israel extended its territory, relative to the area assigned by the UN, by the western Galilea, western Negev and a part of Jerusalem. The West Bank of Jordan remained under the control of Transjordan, and Egypt kept its position in the Gaza Strip.

21 HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society): founded in New York City by a group of Jewish immigrants in 1881, HIAS has offered food, shelter and other aid to emigrants. HIAS has assisted more than 4.5 million people in their quest for freedom. This includes the million Jewish refugees it helped to immigrate to Israel (in cooperation with the Jewish Agency for Israel), and the thousands it helped resettle in Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. As the oldest international migration and refugee resettlement agency in the U.S., HIAS also played a major role in the rescue and relocation of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and of Jews from Morocco, Ethiopia, Egypt and the communist countries of Eastern Europe. More recently, since the mid-1970s, HIAS has helped Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union. In Poland the society has been active since before 1939. After the war HIAS received permission to recommence its activities in March 1946, and opened offices in Warsaw, Bialystok, Katowice, Cracow, Lublin and Lodz. It provided information on emigration procedures and the policies of foreign countries regarding emigres, helped deal with formalities involved in emigration, and provided material assistance and care for emigres.

22 Six-Day-War

23 Nozyk Synagogue

The only synagogue in Warsaw not destroyed during World War II or shortly afterwards. Built at the beginning of the 20th century from a foundation set up by a couple called Nozyk, it serves the Warsaw Jewish Community as a house of prayer today. The Nozyk Synagogue is near Grzybowskiego Square, where the majority of Warsaw’s Jewish organizations and institutions are situated.

24 TSKZ (Social and Cultural Society of Polish Jews)

founded in 1950 when the Central Committee of Polish Jews merged with the Jewish Society of Culture. From 1950-1991 it was the sole body representing Jews in Poland. Its statutory aim was to develop, preserve and propagate Jewish culture. During the socialist period this aim was subordinated to communist ideology. Post-1989 most young activists gravitated towards other Jewish organizations. However, the SCSPJ continues to organize a range of cultural events and has its own magazine, The Jewish Word. However, it is primarily an organization of older people, who have been involved with it for years.

Avram Pinkas

Avram Moisey Pinkas

Sofia

Bulgaria

Interviewer: Stephan Djambazov

Date of interview: February 2005

Avram Moisey Pinkas, 78, lives alone in a two-room flat on the last floor of a standard concrete block of flats in Musagenitsa - one of the nice Sofia’s residential areas. His wife Lilyana has died and his daughter Adriana lives with her two daughters in the USA, where she works. His daughter is divorced, but her ex-husband looks after Avram, as the latter says. Avram is a vigorous man, he doesn’t put much emphasis on his Jewish origin, and thinks his daughter doesn’t either. However, he keeps in touch with Jews in Sofia, mainly with his childhood friends, among whom is the famous Bulgarian theater director Leon Daniel, whom Pinkas meets every week. Otherwise, he almost never goes to the synagogue and the Jewish cultural club (Bet Am), which has become a very attractive place for many Sofia Jews now.

My ancestors came somewhere from Central Europe yet during the Ottoman Yoke 1 here. Memoirs of an Austrian diplomat who arrived in Vidin in 1838 read that he was welcomed here by a Pinkas who was an interpreter at the Austrian Embassy in Vidin. The text also says that this Pinkas had already adapted himself to the surrounding Balkan situation and had already lost his European and Austrian ‘polish’. The roots of the Pinkas family in Bulgaria start from Vidin, go through Lom and reach Ruse. In a book about the Jews in Vidin I found the name of my grandfather who was something like a street vendor. I thought he was a trade intermediary in the grain crops business. The father of the famous Bulgarian painter Jules Pascin 2 (who lived and worked in Paris at the beginning of XX century) was in the wheat trade and I thought my grandfather worked for his company. But perhaps there is something I don’t know. My grandfather moved to Ruse from Lom. He was a middle-class man – when he arrived in Ruse he bought a house from a Turk. It was probably cheap because the Turk was to emigrate and the house was an adobe. My grandfather’s name was Mair [Moisey Pinkas], while my grandmother was Bea [Pinkas (nee Almozino)] – Beatrice. She was an intelligent woman. She used to read books in Ladino. At home, they spoke Spanish, but my grandfather could speak Bulgarian, too.

My mother’s family came from Razgrad. Researchers of economy in Bulgarian territory of that period found the name of my maternal great-grandfather in some Turkish papers. His name was Sadak Geron and he was a guarantee to people who took loans. My grandmother told me that a long row of shops in the Razgrad’s main street was owned by her father. Sadak Geron was rich and helped debtors. When the Russian-Turkish war 3 kicked off, he got frightened and gave a bag of gold coins to each of his children, so that they would hide it. After that, he moved to live in Palestine. In old Hebrew Sadak or Sadik means ‘Saint’. He moved to Palestine after the Liberation of Bulgaria 4. My brother told me he found his traces there – a professor in the Jerusalem University was telling that a Sadak Geron helped him when he moved to Palestine, so that he could study and become a professor. My maternal grandfather Avram Geron was a trader – intermediary in the leather business in Razgrad. He used to travel around the villages in winter when people were sticking some of their livestock and he was buying the leather. But he didn’t have good luck with this undertaking. He had three daughters and a son. After the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman Yoke in 1978 he moved to live in Ruse. My maternal grandmother’s name was Simha – an old Jewish name, something like the Bulgarian Sofia [Editor’s note: actually the name is of Greek origin (Sophia) and means ‘wisdom’]. She was a housewife and she couldn’t speak Bulgarian - she could speak Ladino and Turkish. But my grandmother and grandfather were no longer rich – in fact they were quite poor, because as my mother used to tell me – when they were in Ruse they didn’t have what to eat and my grandfather used to cook a salt of lemon with water instead of soup. They used to wear standard clothes.

My father [Moisey (Bucco) Mayer Pinkas] was born in 1889 in Vidin. He completed his fourth grade in the primary school and started working as an employee at a trading company. At the beginning, he had to sweep the pavement most probably, as every freshman. I have seen a picture of him in a military uniform. I can’t say where he was in the World War I 5, but what is sure he was taken hostage by the English near Salonika (Greece). I have asked him what they were forced to do. ‘We had to clean the ship’ – he would simply say. Then he was liberated and came back to Ruse. Later, he found a job with a big company owned by Jews in Ruse, and step by step he was promoted to the position of a traveling tradesman. He was traveling between Gorna Oryahovitsa, Elena, Ruse, Sevlievo and Dryanovo and that’s how he found his clients. He was selling haberdashery goods of the ‘Obon Gu’ company (‘the good taste’). My aunt told me that once tradesmen from the country came to the company for which my father was working, and the son of the company’s owner tried to serve them, but they said they wanted my father to attend to them. They preferred him, because they trusted my Dad – everything what he had told them about the goods had turned out to be true. After that he and my uncle formed up their own enterprise, because they had already gained some clients. They worked as both retail and wholesale sellers. I remember my uncle (my mother’s brother) teaching me how to make parcels, how to fill in declarations and various forms.

My father had a sister and two brothers. Chelebi Pinkas, who lived in Bucharest and Constanta, was younger then my father who was the eldest. Chelebi married in Silistra, before the town was annexed by Romania [after WWI], and had two daughters. He remained a Bulgarian citizen even after the town became part of Romania. He moved to Bucharest and then to Constanta, where he opened a clothes shop. In 1940, when Dobrudzha was regained by Bulgaria, Romanian authorities expelled him from the country because of his Bulgarian citizenship. So he, together with other people like him, were waiting at the border with Bulgaria, because Bulgaria didn’t want to let them in. My mother then went to Varna to meet with certain generals, even the regional governor and she managed to get permission for these people to be let into Ruse. Their luggage had arrived in the town long ago before them. Until 9th September 1944 they lived in Ruse, after which they went back to Romania. Later, my uncle suffered from ulcer and he had to undergo a surgery, which caused his death.

My father’s other brother Albert Pinkas (Avram), who was the youngest, studied to become a rabbi in Germany. There he started singing in operettas and made records of evergreens translated into Bulgarian for the ‘Columbia’ records studio. That happened in the 1930s. When he came back to Bulgaria he found a business partner (because he didn’t have the money – he was poor) and they opened a factory for production of record disks. All the records were made in Germany. Even during the Hitler’s ruling he used to take whole orchestras to Germany to make records. In Bulgaria, the records made by ‘Simonavia’ company were somewhat dull. In 1939-1940 he went to Bucharest and left the company to his partner here, who robbed him. From Bucharest he moved to Belgrade where he opened another factory. When the German troops entered Serbia he was given 48 hours to leave the country. He had Iranian passport and was stopped at the border, because Bulgarians didn’t give him a transit visa. However he had a friend in Sofia - she was a designer and used to sew designer’s clothes for the ministers’ wives – she had a nice apartment in Sofia. So, when he called her she managed to take the Interior Minister Gabrovsky out of a session of the Council of Ministers and got a transit visa for Albert. He was let in, but at the station he was given a place with the transit passengers so he couldn’t get out of the departure lounge. Aunt Klara (my father’s sister) was then living in Sofia and went to see him, and she called my father. He immediately took the train in the evening, and got in Sofia in the morning where the two brothers saw each other for the last time. Albert went to Persia and after that – to Palestine. But he was captured by Englishmen and sent to a camp. After that he lived for a while in Israel, but he was not satisfied with the fact that he was not given the permission to export and import goods. Later he used to come to Bulgaria often – he had many friends here. Then he moved to Italy and spent his last years in Milan – he traveled around Europe as a trade intermediary. He used to offer everything – from diamond powder for polishing to women’s stockings.

In my mother’s high school diploma it was written that she was born in 1904. But it is dubious, however, if this was her actual year of birth. It is ridiculous that my mother [Rashel Avram Pinkas (nee Geron)] couldn’t speak Bulgarian, but she had a diploma from a Bulgarian high school showing very good scores. She did have high school education, though, after which she worked in several offices, but she soon left them. I have asked her ‘Why?’ and she would say: ‘They wanted to take advantage of me.’ That was before she got married, and after it she became a housewife.

My mother’s brother Yosif died of throat cancer. He used to smoke a lot. They were one brother and three sisters in the family. The eldest was Rebeca, who was a dressmaker. She married a Jew from Varna who later moved to Ruse where they lived. She was ill and stayed in bed, but always knew all the gossip from the neighborhood. Their father was a good man, but he also used to smoke much. He was a very professional accountant, though. The other sister, Ester, also married a widower with two children (a boy and a girl). His name was Zimmermann. She gave birth to her own child – Yosif who lived in Ruse. Her husband bought four shops in the town center and would always say that he would give each nephew a shop. But he died early. Yosif’s wife was not satisfied with her life because she had graduated from the Pedagogical Institute in Dupnitsa, but he never allowed her to become a teacher. They didn’t have children and my grandmother lived with them. She died shortly after my uncle. He was a very religious person – he had a luxurious prayer book – with incrustation and silk clothe for wrapping the book. We were always together with him on the high holidays. He used to come and collect all the nephews when there was a fair in Ruse and take us there. He would always buy something for each of us. After which we used to take a photograph of us all at the fair. When he got ill, he could no longer run his trade business and at the end - the cancer suffocated him. At that time our house had already been transformed into something like a store for the goods.

I have always wondered how my mother decided to marry a widower with two kids and my aunt told me: ‘She was in love with him.’ My mother was staying at the door when once my father came to negotiate something with her brother, and then he kissed her. My mother’s knees gave way beneath her. They had already known each other because they were some kind of distant relatives. My mother fell in love – Dad was a handsome man. However he was by 15 years older than her. And my mother married him in spite of the protests of her relatives. When my father died in 1945 he was 56, while Mum was 41, alone and with three children. They didn’t make difference between the children from his first marriage and us – we were equal and we felt each other as real brothers. The younger son [Mayer Moisey Pinkas] from his first wife died of cancer – he was a very good technician, he had golden hands as we say. For a long period of time he was denied his request to start working for the military complex in Israel, because he had been a member of the Union of Young Workers in Bulgaria 6. Finally they accepted him. After that, I remember him showing me some magazines where they praised him for something. The elder brother [Yakov Moisey Pinkas] did not have any profession. In 1948 he started working something in the accountancy department of ZHITI factory (for iron and wire). His wife was economist and in 1949 they decided to move to Israel.

My mother and father had a religious marriage in 1925 most probably. In Ruse we lived in my paternal grandfather’s house. It was situated in the Jewish neighborhood. The house my grandfather Mair had bought was large, but it was an abode – it was built directly on the floor. There was a narrow entrance hall with doors on the both sides of it. At the end of it - two steps lead to the so- called living room. The floor was wooden, but the basement was beneath the living room and the room was cool in Ruse’s summer heaths. There was a nice windowpane that overlooked a beautiful large garden with many trees – it was green and shady. We had a big walnut tree, peach trees, apricot trees, morello-trees, plum trees and pear trees. My father used to make us dig beds so that we could grow vegetables, but this happened seldom. I remember that my parents’ bedroom was on the left, and there was another room behind it – narrow and long where housemaids were accommodated. Mum and Dad, however, decided to enlarge their bedroom and removed that room. We had four rooms together with the living room. The furniture was ordinary. My parents’ bedroom was however nice – white veneer with black edges. The beds for the children were metal with bedsprings. In one of the rooms there was a couch under the window where we had meals in winters. There was an armchair in my mother’s room, while in the living room there were some Vienna chairs on high slim legs. There was also a sofa with mirrors. There were many silver souvenirs, sideboards and other stuff. There was also running water in the house. The toilet was inside the house – in the room where the fireplace for the washing machine was located. However, there was no heating in the toilet and it was cold. There was a septic pit in the yard.

We lived in this house, and my grandmother Simha with my uncle [Yosif Avram Geron] lived in another one – he always lived in rented houses. The houses he lived in were all nice because he was a tradesman of establishment. We lived with my paternal grandmother, because my grandfather had already died. I remember both my grandfathers very vaguely, because I was very young when they died. I remember the funeral of my grandfather Avram with the religious figures. I don’t remember the funeral of my other grandfather, though. Bulgarian Jews from the generation of my grandfathers were not so religious. Before that, they were a lot more religious. My grandfather had only a small beard, but it was quite standard. I can recall my grandmothers because I was nine or ten years old when they were still alive. When my sister [Elana (Suzana) Ben Yosef (nee Pinkas)] was born we were already five kids, and my grandmother lived alone in one room. My mother pressed dad to send his mother to live with his eldest son in Sofia. And her son did receive her but not in his house, because he had married a younger wife from a prominent Sofia family; he sent her to live with the mother of one cousin of theirs in Tsar Boris Street in a huge building with a yard called ‘Moskowitz Palace’ – it was built to be let to tenants.

We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich either. I was wondering how Dad managed to pay the rent for his shop. He had a shop in the town center – in the main street. The house was a building, I had only read in the novels of – it was huge with stores in the second and the third floors. We used to sell haberdashery, clothes for curtains and curtain rods. My father was the first to import curtain rods from Germany – in the 1930s a tradesman from there came to Ruse and he ordered them. After that, almost every second household in the town had such curtain rods fixed – my brother was fixing them at the beginning, after that I joined them, too. Dad was also selling buttons and other things of the kind. Dad and uncle were working together at the beginning, but then they separated. I think this happened because Dad had a huge family, while my uncle lived alone with our grandmother – he didn’t have children. Dad needed more money because of the huge family – and he remained in the shop, where he devoted himself to retail sales, while my uncle opened a new one.

My mother always had a housemaid at home. I remember that when I got the scarlet fever, my mother made all my brothers stay with relatives and at home we were only three of us – my mother, the housemaid and I. Once I had a terrible nightmare – in my dream somebody wanted to cover me up with a big glass – there was a hand stretching through the window above my bed. I startled and began crying ‘Mum, I have a pee.’ She was sleeping then but she woke up and sent the housemaid to see what was wrong with me. She woke up on her turn, came to me and started shouting – ‘Misses, fire in the house!’ The chimney was burning – so we got up and began screaming: ‘Help!’ The fire brigade was just round the corner, they came quickly and put out the fire. After 1941 Jewish families were no longer allowed to have Bulgarians for servants. So my mother started hiring Gypsy women instead. On St. Dimitar’s day five to six girls would come with a negotiator to discuss their accommodation and wage. My grandfathers and grandmothers may have had servants, too, but I can’t say it for sure. In the Jewish neighborhood where we lived, there were predominantly Jews, but some Bulgarians and Turks lived there, too. We never had quarrels with them. Next to us lived a military doctor’s assistant – a Bulgarian, we used to call him uncle Ivan. It was he who would take care of us when some of us was ill – he carried out blood-letting or cupped us when some of us had got the flu. I don’t know if any of my grandfathers had served in the army. Next to us, there was a Turkish family living also, who sent me a huge pumpkin and baklava [Turkish sweet] as a gift for my bar mitzvah.

I was born on 24th March in Ruse in 1927. My father’s first wife got ill and died in hospital in Bucharest. Her sons, Yakov and Mayer, were five and six years old when dad married my mother. I am my mother’s eldest son; a year and a half after me my brother Marko was born and much later, in 1934, - my sister Suzana, as we used to call her, but her birth name was Sultana. When she married in Israel her mother-in-law and father-in-law changed her name to Elana – so that she would have a Jewish name.

I attended a kindergarten a year before I became a schoolboy – the kindergarten was at the Jewish school. I started studying Ivrit there. We had a teacher who couldn’t speak Bulgarian, because she had come from abroad. At home, my mother and the maidservant looked after us. We had a big yard where we used to play. The ‘Maccabi’ organization 7 also had a big yard and we used to play football there. On Sundays, we used to go the gym hall. We had a sports community and we had plans for building a gym hall. It was almost constructed, but never finished, so it had neither baths nor changing rooms. However, the gym hall had all the required equipment – parallel bars, horizontal bars, wall bars and we used to go there to play from an early age.

There was an Itzko Aizner who later made of us members of the Union of Young Workers – he was in charge of looking after children at the gym hall on Sundays. He had an amateur cine-projector, and managed to find from somewhere silent films and showed them to us. He explained them and as a whole he made fabulous performances. I liked Ivrit at the Jewish school, although I didn’t understand everything. I also liked Bulgarian language, grammar and the novels from the readers. I got an especially strong impression from the novels about Levski 8. We used to study Ivrit and Jewish history, which was called Toldot. There are some people who think that the name of the Spanish town of Toledo comes from Toldot - and that it had been a Jewish town. We used to study the Old Testament in Ivrit, and we studied Ivrit from the Old Testament. There was a teacher who had taught my uncle, too. His name was Bucco Delarubisa and he used many Turkish and Ladino sayings while speaking. There was one Jewish school in the town – with between 20 and 25 pupils in a class. It was a four-year primary school and a three-year junior high school, after which the pupils had to attend the Bulgarian high school.

In my childhood years, Ruse had around 3,000 Jews out of some 50,000 inhabitants. But now I remember a lot of Jewish shops in the town’s main street. Next to my father’s one was the shop of the brothers Aladjem, next to which was the bookstore Beniesh. It was very special because the owner was receiving German and Italian editions. During the Abyssinian War there were illustrated books with pictures of Abyssinia there. Next to it there were also some other Jewish shops - Khalef who was selling hats, opposite to it there was a glassware shop, another Jew was selling shoes in the same street – and I remember his sons continued their studies in the German school even after all other Jews withdrew their children from there after 1933.

The Jewish community was very united. There was a Jewish municipality that collected certain taxes according to the financial status of the respective family. There was a rich Jew who was probably the only one to have a private steamship – tugboat as well as barges. His name was Lazar B. Aron. He was a big shot and didn’t want to pay taxes to the Jewish municipality. He even bribed journalists to write articles against our municipality. He used to wear an exquisite, nicely designed light grey suit with a black belt and a bowler hat.

In Ruse there was a big synagogue, and another one, smaller, midrash. There was another one – Ashkenazi synagogue - it is a club of the Shalom organization now 9; it had been transformed into a sports hall after 9th September 1944 10. The walls of the old synagogue were one meter wide, there was also a huge chandelier – brought perhaps from Austria – it was a luxurious one. I don’t know if the synagogue is still functioning now because it is all laths and plaster already. The small one was destroyed so that a street to the river might pass – it was before 1944. The club Bnai Brith was next to this synagogue – it was a very elegant house where weddings, balls and other celebrations were organized – it had a nice huge ballroom. Opposite to it, there was another big house, whose ground floor was hired by ‘Malbish Arumim’ organization (which means ‘provides clothes to the poor’). Middle class people – traders for example – used to gather there on Sundays to play cards; they entertained themselves. In the yard of the Jewish school there was a small building made of bricks – we used to hang the birds for Yom Kippur that had been stuck with a thin knife by the shochet. He hung them on these hooks so that the blood may drain off them. The school was destroyed in 1940 or in 1941 during the earthquake in Vrancha, Romania, and no access to these buildings was allowed for a certain period. The ‘Hashomer Hatzair’ organization 11 was also situated there.

My parents were relatively religious. We marked the holidays. On Chanukkah I would kindle the chanukkiyahs and read a prayer in Ivrit – I was good at Ivrit and when I first went to Israel, the people were surprised I could speak it. When I became 13 I was asked to say my prayer in the synagogue, because I was good at it. So I was reading: ‘A present for the school canteen, a present for somebody else…’, while the rabbi was whispering in my ear: ‘Ten eggs for the rabbi’ and I said it aloud: ‘Ten eggs for the rabbi’. After which, at noon, Dad asked me: ‘What have you said: What ten eggs for the rabbi? He came immediately to take them!?’ On the high holidays, all the family used to go to synagogue.

Bar mitzvah was a great holiday. My elder brother had his bar mitzvah in the club for the middle-class people – he had many guests and received many presents. At that day, I was introduced to a maritime captain who had saved my brother’s life in a trip to the isle, when my brother had dropped in the water and could have drowned. On bar mitzvah the boy who was celebrating had to read something as a promise.

As a young boy, I didn’t feel any anti-Semitism. There were several jokes of course – you go to the cinema and somebody would banter with you. Among the Jewish organizations, ‘Hashomer Hatzair’ was very active and every year they used to organize ‘hashara’ – they went camping, where they were marching and getting prepared for emigration to Israel, to cultivate the land there. They would usually go to Obraztsov Chiflik [‘model farm’] near Ruse. Some of the poorest people and more educated intellectuals used to attend their gatherings. Most of us, however, were members of ‘Maccabi’. On 6th May, St George’s day, 12 the day celebrated by the Bulgarian Army, every time we had representatives of the Jewish school, or ‘Maccabi’. We marched in white shirts and blue trousers. Everybody marched this day – Ukrainians, scouts, Armenian organizations, even legionnaires 13 in their brown uniforms. We were all together on St George’s day. There was also a Spanish ambassador, Aftalion was his name, who appeared in a three-angle hat, white feathers and a rapier. The Italian one also attended the ceremony. The teacher in gymnastics at school used to start a patriotic song and he made us marching while singing. I was seven years old during the putsch of 1934 [14 (see: Georgiev, Kimon)]. Ruse was all blocked – that I remember very clearly.

I had some books at home, but not many. My elder brother Yakov (Jacques) had more books because he had got influenced by the leftist ideas during his study at the high school. I remember he had books by Maxim Gorky 15. I had looked through Yakov’s ‘Brown Book’ for the persecution of Jews when I was still a teenager. He used to receive the newspaper of the Youth’s Union. When he graduated from the high school, Dad sent him to Romania to study industrial chemistry, because my uncle (my father’s brother Chelebi) lived in Constanta, Romania. I remember that my father used to read something before going to bed, but I can’t remember what exactly. Our family received the ‘Utro’ daily and some other newspapers. I learnt to read and write from the newspapers – I loved reading them. When once I found newspapers from 1927, the year I was born, I read them to see what had happened this year.

When I was a child, once we went to Varna – we were all of us together with my brothers. My sister had not been born yet. Once the whole family went to Varshets, near Oryahovo – we went by train and a car. We took a taxi from Varshets back to Oryahovo where we took the steamship to Ruse. I remember the automobile stinking of petrol and rubber. When we grew up a bit, Mum took us (my brothers and me) to Dryanovo where we stayed with a tradesman who was a friend of my father’s. We visited Dryanovo Monastery and stayed for the night there – it was very pleasant. In 1941, if I remember rightly, my mother went to Kyustendil’s mineral baths. We accompanied her, of course. But before that we had visited Bankya, near Sofia, with my parents. It must have been in 1936.

In Ruse people were very musical. There was a Jewish musical group ‘David’, that possessed all the needed instruments to form a philharmonic orchestra. In the 1930s some rich Jewish boys formed a jazz band and they ordered the instruments directly from America together with the parts. Every year or at least once in two years this band performed an operetta. There was one operetta ‘Karmuzinella’ – directed by the then-famous Bulgarian actor Matyu Makedonski. He directed also ‘Sunny Boy’ by the American singer Al Johnson. Matyu staged the play and the whole town was singing ‘Sunny Boy’ that season.

There were various traders in Ruse – they were in the cloths business, haberdashery, ironware – there was even a tradesman who had put a sign ‘Industrial Store’. There were many craftsmen – four or five tinsmiths. One of them was an Ashkenazi Jew – he was an expert in covering roofs with tin sheets. Perhaps he had been in the town since the period of the Russian-Turkish War because Russians used to cover their roofs with tin sheets. One of his sons was a glazier. Some younger men who had graduated from the technical school had opened their own workshops with one or two lathes, too. There was also a brush maker. One of the best dressmakers and tailors in the town was a Jew again. There was also a man who had a private bank, but he closed it and started selling cloths. There were also two or three Jewish lawyers. We had five doctors. Everywhere in the neighborhood, we had running water in the houses and electricity as well, but there was no sewerage system.

Friday was the market day. My father used to go shopping to the central market; there was another one – smaller. My mother had to cook for seven people these days. We had meat to our meals as much as two times a week. Once a week it was beef, the other time it was chicken or some poultry. The rest of the time we had Lenten fare. However, Mum knew dozens of different vegetable meals – for example she could make balls of spinach, unions and potatoes. The meat was only kosher. The rabbi used to go to the slaughterhouse and put his seal. So when you go to the butcher’s and see this seal, you can simply say ‘I want from this’. We would buy from different tradesmen – it depended on which way would Dad come home after he closed his shop at 12 o’clock on Friday. He could not pass through the butcher’s, he could pop in the grocer’s. There were several such grocers – Jews whom we used to buy from. When he was to buy something, he could decide to buy us a whole cart with watermelons for example - he hires a cart, selects the watermelons and we all go home to unload it. The same happened when we had to buy logs for the winter. Turks from Deliorman [a region in Northeastern Bulgaria, around the town of Shumen, with a significant Turkish population] came to Ruse to sell their wood. We used logs and coal for heating. There was one wood stove in the wall between the two children rooms. My mother and father had another one in their room.

My father was a broad Zionist and every time voted for the broad socialists. But he was never a member of a party – he was just a broad Zionist. My parents’ relationships with the neighbors were good. Their friends were mostly Jews. However, there was a period when they used to gather with another group of friends including the head of the State Security Service in Ruse – Savakov was his name. Every Sunday my parents would go somewhere – they used to play cards when visiting somebody in the afternoons. They used to gossip – it was a group of seven or eight Jewish families. They played a game with cards called ‘remi’. The played poker, too. They played on money bets, but very small sums – stotinki [Bulgarian equivalent of cents]. A man from that group had some relatives in Paris, while another one, who was a money-changer, had some money to be exchanged and the exchange rate in Paris was very favorable, so he gave the money to the first man. The latter, however, gambled them away in a casino in Monte Carlo and he lost the courage to come back to Bulgaria. Because he had to give the money back. His family – three kids and a wife - lived in very poor conditions here, but all their Jewish friends helped them while he was in France. And after a year or so, they decided they should bring him back from France. They did not remit his debt, but they bought a kiosk for him, where seamen – Czechs, Hungarians, Germans used to exchange their money. So he bound himself to return the money step by step taking care of his family in the meantime. It was a kind of friendship that deserves mentioning.

I was never a victim of anti-Semitic reactions from the part of my teachers, but from pupils – yes. When I was at the high school there was a small legionnaire that tried to banter with me, but we had a Bulgarian friend – strong and well-built member of the Union of Young Workers – he just took him by the armpits and lifted him up after which the boy ran away. Later we became very close friends with this Bulgarian boy who helped me then. In the third grade of the junior high school I took private lessons in Bulgarian grammar. I was not good at all at this subject and we had a very refined teacher in grammar, a Bulgarian woman, who agreed to give private lessons to me. When I studied at the Jewish school, my friends were Jews. Even in our group of UYW we were Jews only. But at the high school I had one or two Bulgarians for friends. We still meet with them now. Apart from our school responsibilities, we regularly went to the cinema. There was a cinema in the neighborhood, called ‘Odeon’. We often watched films there. There was a total of four cinemas in the town. We used to watch American films, but I liked the French ones, too. There was an American sequel series ‘Andy Hardy’. Mickey Rooney [a popular American actor] was playing Andy Hardy and he was starring in each of the films in the series: ‘Andy Hardy in New York’, ‘Andy Hardy…’ - God knows where… He was a very good actor.

We used to gather sometimes on birthdays – we were both girls and boys. We also used to dance - we had a record disk with dance music and we used to listen to it all day long. The gramophone was a mechanic one. During the war a café was opened in a shop and it became something like the Jewish café. We used to gather there. The Maccabi organization had a cultural section, too. We had a group leader there and he used to make us play ‘court sessions’ – we had to write our speeches in advance. It was interesting. Once a boy from Haskovo came to lecture on the sex subject.

I started swimming in the Danube River when I was 9 – before that I was weak and often ill. After the age of nine I started getting stronger. But we never visited beaches. There was a wooden building with two wooden swimming pools next to it – the first was for men, the second one – for women. The river water flowed into these pools. It was not until we became 15 or 16 when we started swimming in another place – it was outside Ruse and it had sand and the riverbed was flatter. It was after 1944 when they opened a beach with a big opened swimming pool for both men and women. The river then was already dirty. Swollen corpses of animals floated on it and tree trunks were carried perhaps by some floods.

In summers, together with my parents we used to go to Obraztsov Chiflik or to Lipnik, where there is a park now. These days, however, there was only a spring and a forest. We would wake up at 3 o’clock in the morning and walk the 12-kilometer distance to Lipnik. Sometimes we used to go only teenagers there. When the economy started to recover in 1933-1934, the whole group of friends around my father used to hire a bus to go there. Then they could afford it to go by bus to Obraztsov Chiflik, too. There was also an Austrian steamship agency that used to organize various celebrations and offered river cruises for 24th May 16. And then we, the children, received Vienna ice-cream with two biscuits into it. We also visited the hunter’s park in Ruse – we used to have diner on Sundays there. There was a bus line to that place. We didn’t go there regularly – just sometimes. There was also a train that had a stop at Obraztsov Chiflik – it was the train for Varna. My friends and I were on our way to Obraztsov Chiflik on 22nd June 1941, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Some students from the Agricultural School broke the news for us when we came to Obraztsov Chiflik. I was 15 then.

The anti-Semitism in Bulgaria came from the institutions and the laws that were adopted. The Law for Protection of the Nation 17 put restrictions for us. My father as a trader had to pay a one-off tax that swallowed his capital. He had to close his shop, because no Jews were allowed to run stores in the main street. However, the students who were studying at the high school were not expelled from there. But the Sofia students who were interned 18 to Ruse from Sofia were not let to study in the high school. We were not allowed to walk in the town’s main street, we could only stay in our neighborhood. We used to go for walks in David Street which was the central one in our neighborhood. Our group of friends had chosen another street where to walk – it was a smaller one. We were around ten of us and the writer Dragomir Asenov was one of us [The real name of Dragomir Asenov is Jacques Melamed (1926-1981): a writer and playwright. Dragomir Asenov is a literary pseudonym and not a changed name. He spent six years in an orphanage. He graduated university after World War II. In the early period of his work he wrote a lot of pamphlets, articles and features for the press. The late works of the writer are devoted to Bulgaria's history and the modern times. His most famous works are his plays 'Birthday' (1964), 'Roses for Doctor Shomov' (1966), 'Hot nights in Arcadia' (1970), which were staged in Bulgaria and abroad] – he used to lecture us; there were other interesting people, too. We used to gather at somebody’s home, mainly at the houses of two of the girls. At our gatherings we didn’t only have mere talks. Our parents approved of these meetings because they could see we were serious people. We had to wear those yellow stars. The curfew hour was set to 9 p.m. By that time in the evening we had to be back home and we couldn’t go out after that. The so-called legionnaire boys came to our neighborhood to have fights with us. Some more strict nationalists used to curse us at school. We continued studying at the high school, but in 1942 the high school was dismissed and we were sent to our houses to hide from the bombardments. I had then only two years before graduation. And we resumed our studies yet in 1944. They didn’t change our names – we had, however, four names. Instead of Avram Moisey Pinkas I became Avram Moisey Mayer Pinkas. They just added our grandfather’s names to the three we already had. We had yellow identity cards, where the four names were written.

In 1942-1943 I started working for a young Jewish man – his father had a cardboard workshop. He was making dressing-cases of cardboard and leather. There were mirrors in them and room for combs. I worked for him for several months until one day I came back home and told Dad we could make such things alone. He had long been despaired – no jobs for us, Mum had let all the rooms in the house – some relatives had come to live there because they had been interned from Sofia, as well as a man from Ruse together with his wife from Romania. And when my father heard what I had said he uttered: ‘Let’s see.’ So my brother and I made some of these dressing-cases, he took them and he went out to the bazaar. When he came back he was fluttering with excitement: ‘We are starting, we are starting’ he shouted. After that, he bought mirrors, cut them into smaller ones and we started producing these cases. He came back to life – he was a tradesman. And it was this way that we managed to patch up the situation somehow because Dad had to take loans before that - my uncle Chelebi had helped him for a certain period.

In 1943 I was involved in the so-called Cherven Conspiracy. There was a group of Jews who went underground and the members of the Union of Young Workers gave me money to buy them windproof torches, medications and other useful stuff. We collected also some clothes and put them into a suitcase or two. One of us took a suitcase to the baker’s where someone had to come and take it, but nobody came and the baker called the police. They took the suitcase and asked the parents of those who had gone underground to identify the clothes. I had put three or four of my father’s winter undershirts in that suitcase. At noon my aunt came (her son Mois was among the arrested underground revolutionaries) and said: ‘When I saw these undershirts I was about to lose consciousness’ – she had immediately got aware of whose that clothes were, but she had said nothing. After that, more than one hundred people were detained, because the underground revolutionaries who had been arrested, were forced to give away all the people who had helped them in the region.

We were arrested, too. Of course, we were of no interest to the police, but we were set free after we spent some time under custody and we got a lot of hiding. We were arrested seven or eight people among whom was Moil Levi, the surgeon who later made the by-pass operation of Lyuben Berov in Israel [Lyuben Berov was Prime Minister of Bulgaria in 1992-1994]. We were arrested together with him one morning and we were set free together, after they made a speech for us. However, we were released on recognizance not to leave. One day they called our parents and told them to show up the next day at the port at seven in the evening. It was June 1943 and we thought we were to be deported. However, we were interned to the school in Somovit, where they had organized a camp – it was my father, my mother, my younger brother and sister, and I, because my elder brothers were sent to forced labor camps 19. It was such a starvation then! We thought the barges were waiting for us to deport us. Besides – all the Jews from the inland were interned to places near the Danube River. It looked like as if this was the goal – convenient places for future deportation. We stayed there for a while after which we were set free – only several families were released, though. There was an officer there who was beating even old women, he was slapping us in an effort to scare us. He was replaced by a lawyer in a police uniform – who was milder – and then we got a permission to go to the Danube under escort to have a bath now and then. Later they moved the camp to Kailuka 20 near Pleven – where the arson of the bungalows happened and several old people were burnt in the fire. Authorities said it was an unintended fire and after that everybody was set free.

When the Bagryanov’s cabinet came into office shortly before 9th September 1944 [Ivan Bagryanov was Prime Minister from 1st June 1944 till 2nd September 1944] and the ban for traveling was cancelled, I set off for Shumen. My brother was working in the forced labor camp on the road to Veselinovo. So I went to Shumen, and from there I got to Smyadovo by train, where from I walked to Veselinovo. My brother was so excited when he saw me. I stayed there for the night and the next day I set off back to Shumen, where I stayed for a while. On 8th September 1944 in the afternoon we went to the building of the town’s jail when the political prisoners were set free. Some friends of mine and I decided to go to Gorna Oryahovitsa by train where we expected to meet some other friends who were set free from the Pleven’s prison. On 9th September 1944 we met some acquaintances and we were off to Ruse together with them. A spontaneous meeting happened at every station. However – the train stopped at a point 30 kilometers away from Ruse – the Russians had entered the country and had blocked the railway line. So we set off on foot – in Dve Mogili [Two Hills] village some communists found a cart for our luggage - and we walked to Ruse where we got back in the evening.

I was a police officer after 9th September 1944, I guarded the building of the regional government – I stayed there for the night too, I had a gun. It was for a month or so. After which I took up my high school education again – the secretary of the regional government had called for us and had said: ‘Now, go to study!’ We were paid a monthly policeman’s wage and we took up our high school education again. I had been in some amateur artist activities under the guidance of theater actors yet from the period of my high school. I used to hold performances for the workmen – I was reciting verses and such things. We formed up the Mayakovsky 21 club there and the club continued its existence in Sofia at the House of Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship organization when we moved to study at universities in the capital. Before that my father had formed twice joint-venture companies with partners, and his partners cheated him twice. Dad opened a small haberdashery shop after 9th September 1944 and when he died in 1945 the shop was to be run by my elder brother, but he found a job in Ruse’s ZHITI (‘Iron and Wire Industry’ – a plant for barbed wire and nails) and so my mother had to take care of the shop. But she couldn’t manage it. Finally, she closed the shop and started selling all kinds of things from home. At a time she was letting some parts of the house – to a motorist from Navigation Maritime Bulgaria and his wife – they were living in two of the house’s rooms. Even so, my mother lived in poor conditions.

When I graduated from the high school I tried to start working something, but I was an amateur. I changed many jobs when I finally decided to apply for the theater school in Sofia - there was still no VITIZ (Higher Institute of Theatrical Art) these days. [In 1947 The Theater School, following a decree of the National Assembly, was transformed into DVTU (Public Higher School of Theater), later known as VITIZ (Higher Institute of Theatrical Art) during the communist regime and as NATFIZ (National Academy of Theater and Film Arts) after 10th November 1989.]. I used to prepare myself for admission together with Leon Daniel with whom we were friends from Ruse – we had lived in neighboring houses there. I applied for the school in 1947 and I was admitted to enroll in the first master class of Philip Philipov [a famous Bulgarian theater director]. I did not receive scholarship, because D.B. Mitov (journalist and intellectualist) had called the Jewish boys and told us (we were 12 of us) ‘Turn your scholarships down, so that more students may get scholarships, the Consistory will give you money anyway.’ So we agreed with him, but later the Consistory stopped our money – the other students could afford to buy watches and we lived in poverty - I have had tea with bread for supper. My friends and I were living in a nice rented flat – but we couldn’t pay the rent – actually we bilked the owners with the rent for three or four months. After that, I failed my exams and I had to go back to Ruse, because there were no make-up exams these days. I took up amateur artistic activities with a company in Ruse. After a while, it became a paid position with the Dimitrov’s Youth’s Union [22 (see: Komsomol)].

That’s how I spent 1948 and in 1949 I applied anew, this time to study staging. I was admitted again. And I failed my first-year exams again. The class tutor was Georgi Kostov. One day I met Philip Philipov in the street in Sofia and he told me: ‘Oh, Mois – that’s how he used to call me - you have ‘poor’ (2) [out of 6] in staging, but you have ‘good’ (4) in acting. You know, I will let you in the acting class again.’ The same day I met Georgi Kostov: ‘Oh, Pinkas, he said, the first year in staging is really difficult – sketches, things. I will write ‘satisfactory’ (3) to you – next we’ll have parts from plays – it’s easier.’ I told him of what Philipov had told me just before minutes, and Kostov seemed satisfied: ‘Oh, really, very good, very, very good.’ So I continued my studies in the class taught by Philipov. The last year of my studies Radoi Ralin [Radoi Ralin (1923-2004), penname of Dimitar Stoyanov, was one of the greatest Bulgarian satirists during the totalitarian period] came to VITIZ to search for young students. I turned up immediately at the editorial office of the ‘Starshel’ [‘Hornet’] satiric weekly where he was working then. Then he told me that the newspaper celebrated its anniversary every year – in the form of public reading usually – but he asked if we could think of something more theatrical. ‘Of course, we could’, I said. Then Zahari Petrov and Vasil Aprilov joined us with the question: ‘Where should we start from?’ I told them they already had it in the newspaper and suggested to start from the foreign policy articles. The newspaper then had a regular Friday material ‘Ridgeway in Europe’ – Ridgeway was the General Secretary of NATO then. So we made up several sketches – Ridgeway in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Turkey. And that was how we started.

We did create a play – every evening after the usual study exercises at VITIZ we gathered to rehearse the new performance – it was late in the evening after 10.30 p.m. – the authors watched us, corrected the text and on the other day we would rehearse again at the editorial offices of ‘Starshel’. I invited some colleagues, because Radoi wanted more actors – he wanted it to be a theater. I created the roles myself – I used to read the newspaper and pick up characters. A bit later Philip told my colleagues at VITIZ I had passed the final state exam because I had managed to create a performance out of nothing. The first night came out in 1953, after Stalin’s death – after that we played it in many theaters and we were paid some money from the entrance tickets. We had a very good manager. We made a total of 16 performances, but then someone complained about certain passages in the text and Valko Chervenkov [Prime Minister and General Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party at the time (1950-1956)] called for Chelkash [Starshel’s editor-in-chief] and told him: ‘You’d better occupy yourselves with the newspaper, there are people who will do the theater.’ That is how the performances were stopped – but it was a brilliant show – the theaters were overcrowded.

We graduated in 1953 and we had to fulfill our military duty as candidate-officers at the military school in Kyustendil. When we came back in August, we were called by Slavcho Vasev [a journalist and one of the people in charge of the cultural issues at the Ministry of Culture] – and he sent us to Dimitrovgrad to form a theater there. So I set off for Dimitrovgrad. I married in the summer of 1954. My wife was then studying industrial chemistry in Sofia. We knew each other yet from the Sofia period of the Mayakovsky club. She, Lilyana Kirilova Mandicheva, was one of the singers at the club. In the middle of the theater season (1954-1955) I left Dimitrovgrad and came back to Sofia where I couldn’t find a job. Ivan Bashev, who was then Minister of Culture, did not allow Albert Angel to hire me at the Selski [Village] Theater, situated in the Sofia town center opposite the Sofia University 23, because I had left the Dimitrovgrad Theater.

So I stayed unemployed for a year. After that I was employed with the Selski Theater – we were traveling around the country and I could send money to my wife. It was like that until 1959 when I told her I was not going to play again for the Selski Theater. It happened that Vili Tsankov [famous Bulgarian stage director; at that time director of the Burgas Theater] let me join the Burgas Theater company, where my friend Leon Daniel was the stage director. Leon had assigned me a nice role in ‘The Death of Sisyphus’, but I came late from Israel where I had gone to visit my mother and brothers. My mother, sister and one of my brothers moved to live there in 1948 [24 (see: Mass Alliyah)]. In 1949 my eldest brother (who was married and had a child) emigrated there together with my younger brother who was studying here mechanical engineering. He continued his education in Israel.

I myself didn’t want to go to Israel because I wanted to become an actor. I couldn’t even imagine to go there and be an actor, although later I found in some of the largest Israeli theaters some Bulgarian actors who had been interns in Bulgarian amateur companies. They had neither graduated from a theater academy as I, nor spoke Ivrit. So most probably I would have been in those theaters, if I had gone there. So be it. I didn’t want to go, because all my friends were here, in Bulgaria – Leon Daniel, Dragomir Asenov, some others. We were inseparable yet from our childhood years. Leon was born in Ruse, while Dragomir had been interned to Ruse together with his family.

I visited Israel for the first time in 1959. We were let to go, but my daughter, Adriana Pinkas, had to stay here with her grandmother. She was born in 1958. It was a hard year for my wife – she was pregnant – but she did her state exams. My wife and I stayed in Israel for a month and a half. She had to meet my mother, my brothers and relatives. We visited Israel once more in 1990.

So, I came late because of my visit to Israel and Leon Daniel had given the part to Leda Tasseva [a famous Bulgarian actress], and I almost didn’t play this season. But at the end of it the theater had some problems on ideological reasons and 16 of the actors were hired by other theaters. Nobody took me, though. So one evening we were out to a restaurant in Burgas with the cinema director Nikola Korabov and I asked him: ‘Why don’t you take me in the cinema?’ He said they really needed assistant directors, but the candidates were asked to pass a test. I asked him if he could help me with the preparation for the test, he said ‘yes’ and did his best after that. I applied for the position and passed the test. I asked the commission to write me a certificate that I had passed the test – and I brought it to Karalambov, the newly appointed director of the Burgas Theater. I needed to show it to him, because as a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party, they were not allowed to let me leave the theater. But the new position was an open one and the test I had passed was a reason enough to let me go.

Well, I had my leave and I stayed in Sofia for four or so months when I was in the variety show until Sharleto [the cinema director Lyubomir Sharlandjiev] invited me as an assistant director for his first film ‘Chronicles of the Feelings’. So I worked there for five months and after that I found myself jobless again. After that I was an assistant to the director Georgi Alurkov. Then I got a permanent job with the film center as an assistant director. The Piskov family [cinema directors Irina Aktasheva and Hristo Piskov] invited me as a second director for ‘Monday Morning’. After that I became a man of age – over 40 years – and I said to myself: is the assistant director’s job something I would like to do – to co-ordinate actors, to find people, to organize mass scenes. No, it wasn’t for me. So I started searching for topics for shorts and popular science films. And I found my place in the Sofia Studio for Popular Science Films where I worked until retirement. I worked there although one of the directors there, Chukovski, was a kind of an anti-Semite. I made between 20 and 30 films and I retired in 1987.

My Jewish origin was not an obstacle, because I haven’t put much emphasis on it. When Bulgaria cancelled its diplomatic relationships with Israel I attended a gathering where a lot of bullshit was said – but what could one do – you had to listen. My daughter was not allowed to go to Israel when she graduated from the high school – they were afraid she was to marry there. But when she got married in Bulgaria she was allowed to go there together with her husband. It happened before 1989. We hardly brought her up in accordance with the Jewish traditions. Now she lives in America together with her two daughters. Her ex-husband is in Sofia and works as a tradesman. They got divorced. She is now looking after her children and he is looking after me. We haven’t observed the Jewish traditions. We may have eaten matzah from time to time. I have occasionally visited the synagogue.

My life hasn’t changed much after the democratization process that started in 1989 25 – I don’t work any more, so I can’t feel the unemployed man’s worries. Now I read books and I have a group of friends – we meet with the brother of Dragomir Asenov – he is an expert at the oncology institute in Sofia – we have been friends with him yet from our childhood years in Ruse. Every Friday I have dinner with Leon Daniel, we just have a sip and talk. There is another Jewish family I visit. My wife died at home of cancer. The ‘Joint’ 26 association used to pay some money for the medicines. My pension is 160 levs [around 80 USD]. I rarely go to the synagogue and Bet Am 27. I have received aid from the German ‘Claims Conference’ - they paid around 7,000 EUR in three installments. I still have from this money and I don’t waste it – I bought the land lot of the summer house in Staro Selo village, and I went to America to visit my daughter – and I think I can still count on some of this money for two or three years.

Translated by Alexander Manuiloff

Glossary

1 Ottoman Rule in Bulgaria

The territory of today’s Bulgaria and most of South Eastern Europe was an integral part of the Ottoman Empire for about five hundred years, from the 14th century until 1878. During the 1877-78 Russian-Turkish War the Russians occupied the Bulgarian lands and brought about the independent Bulgarian state, which however left many Bulgarians outside its boundaries, mostly in areas still under Ottoman rule. The autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia united with Bulgaria in 1885, and Bulgaria gained a small part of Macedonia (Pirin Macedonia) in the Balkan Wars (1912-13). However complete Bulgarian national unity was never achieved as many of the Bulgarians remained within the neighboring countries, such as in Greece (Aegean Thrace and Makedonia), Serbia (Macedonia and Eastern Serbia) and Romania (Dobrudzha).

2 Pascin, Jules (1885-1930)

Born Julius Pinkas into a Jewish family in Vidin, Bulgaria and became world-famous as Jules Pascin. He was a painter, aquarellist, engraver, and a distinguished representative of the Paris school from the beginning of the century. He worked in Germany, France, the UK, and the USA and traveled around Europe, Central America, Northern Africa and Palestine. His works present fresh, ethereal, and soft in tonality people from the valleys – street vendors, dancers, prostitutes etc. He committed suicide in 1930 in Paris. Paintings by Pascin are preserved in the Museum of Arts in Paris, in Grenoble and in many private collections in the world.

3 Russian-Turkish War (1877-78)

After the loss of the Crimean War (1856) the Russian Empire made a second attempt in 1877 to secure its outlet from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean by conquering the strategic straits (Bosporus and Dardanelles) and strengthening its position in the Balkans. The pretext of the war declaration was pan-Slavism: protecting the fellow Christian Orthodox and Slavic speaking population of the Ottoman controlled South Eastern Europe. From the Russian controlled Bessarabia the Russian army entered Romania and attacked the Ottomans south of the Danube. With enthusiastic Bulgarian support the Russians won the decisive battles at Plevna (Pleven) and the Shipka straight in the Balkan Mountains. They took Adrianople (Edirne) in 1878 and reached San Stefano (Yesilkoy), an Istanbul suburb, where they signed a treaty with the Porte. This provided for an autonomous Bulgarian state, under Russian protection, bordering the Black and the Aegean seas, including also most of historic Thrace and Macedonia. Britain (safeguarding status quo on the European continent) and Austria-Hungary (having strategic interests in the region) initiated a joint Great Power decision to limit Russian dominance in the Balkans. Their diplomatic efforts were successful and resulted in the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. According to this Bulgaria was made much smaller and large populations of Bulgarians remained outside the new frontiers. Eastern Rumelia as an autonomous Ottoman province was created. In Berlin the Romanian, the Serbian and the Montenegrin states were internationally recognized and Austria-Hungary was given the right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina to restore order.

4 Liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottoman rule

Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in early 1877 in order to secure the Mediterranean trade routes. The Russian troops, with enthusiastic and massive participation of the Bulgarians, soon occupied all of Bulgaria and reached Istanbul, and Russia dictated the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878. This provided for an autonomous Bulgarian state, under Russian protection, bordering the Black and Aegean seas. Britain and Austria-Hungary, fearing that the new state would extend Russian influence too far into the Balkans, exerted strong diplomatic pressure, which resulted in the Treaty of Berlin in the same year. According to this treaty, the newly established Bulgaria became much smaller than what was decreed by the Treaty of San Stefano, and large populations of Bulgarians remained outside the new frontiers (in Macedonia, Eastern Rumelia, and Thrace), which caused resentment that endured well into the 20th century

5 Bulgaria in World War I

Bulgaria entered the war in October 1915 on the side of the Central Powers. Its main aim was the revision of the Treaty of Bucharest: the acquisition of Macedonia. Bulgaria quickly overran most of Serbian Macedonia as well as parts of Serbia; in 1916 with German backing it entered Greece (Western Thrace and the hinterlands of Salonika). After Romania surrendered to the Central Powers Bulgaria also recovered Southern Dobrudzha, which had been lost to Romania after the First Balkan War. The Bulgarian advance to Greece was halted after British, French and Serbian troops landed in Salonika, while in the north Romania joined the Allies in 1916. Conditions at the front deteriorated rapidly and political support for the war eroded. The agrarians and socialist workers intensified their antiwar campaigns, and soldier committees were formed in the army. A battle at Dobro Pole brought total retreat, and in ten days the Allies entered Bulgaria. On 29th September 1918 Bulgaria signed an armistice and withdrew from the war. The Treaty of Neuilly (November 1919) imposed by the Allies on Bulgaria, deprived the country of its World War I gains as well as its outlet to the Aegean Sea (Eastern Thrace).

6 UYW

The Union of Young Workers (also called Revolutionary Youth Union). A communist youth organization, which was legally established in 1928 as a sub-organization of the Bulgarian Communist Youth Union (BCYU). After the coup d’etat in 1934, when parties in Bulgaria were banned, it went underground and became the strongest wing of the BCYU. Some 70% of the partisans in Bulgaria were members of it. In 1947 it was renamed Dimitrov’s Communist Youth Union, after Georgi Dimitrov, the leader of the Bulgarian Communist Party at the time.

7 Maccabi World Union

International Jewish sports organization whose origins go back to the end of the 19th century. A growing number of young Eastern European Jews involved in Zionism felt that one essential prerequisite of the establishment of a national home in Palestine was the improvement of the physical condition and training of ghetto youth. In order to achieve this, gymnastics clubs were founded in many Eastern and Central European countries, which later came to be called Maccabi. The movement soon spread to more countries in Europe and to Palestine. The World Maccabi Union was formed in 1921. In less than two decades its membership was estimated at 200,000 with branches located in most countries of Europe and in Palestine, Australia, South America, South Africa, etc.

8 Levski, Vasil (1837-1873)

Bulgarian national hero. Vasil Levski was the principal architect of the campaign to free Bulgaria from the oppression of the Ottoman Empire. Beginning in 1868, Levski founded the first secret revolutionary committees in Bulgaria for the liberation of the country from the Turkish rule. Betrayed by a traitor, he was hanged in 1873 as the Turks feared strong public resentment and a possible attempt by the Bulgarians to free him. Today, a stone monument in Sofia marks the spot where the ‘Apostle of Freedom’ was hanged.

9 Shalom Organization

Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria. It is an umbrella organization uniting 8,000 Jews in Bulgaria and has 19 regional branches. Shalom supports all forms of Jewish activities in the country and organizes various programs.

10 9th September 1944

The day of the communist takeover in Bulgaria. In September 1944 the Soviet Union declared war on Bulgaria. On 9th September 1944 the Fatherland Front, a broad left-wing coalition, deposed the government. Although the communists were in the minority in the Fatherland Front, they were the driving force in forming the coalition, and their position was strengthened by the presence of the Red Army in Bulgaria.

11 Hashomer Hatzair in Bulgaria

‘The Young Watchman’; A Zionist-socialist pioneering movement established in Bulgaria in 1932, Hashomer Hatzair trained youth for kibbutz life and set up kibbutzim in Palestine. During World War II, members were sent to Nazi-occupied areas and became leaders in Jewish resistance groups. After the war, Hashomer Hatzair was active in ‘illegal’ immigration to Palestine.

12 St

George Day: The 6th of May, the day of the Orthodox saint St. George the Victorious, a public holiday in Bulgaria. According to Bulgarian tradition the old cattle-breeding year finishes and the new one starts on St. George’s Day. This is the greatest spring holiday and it is also the official holiday of the Bulgarian Army. In all Bulgarian towns with military garrisons, a parade is organized and a blessing is bestowed on the army.

13 Bulgarian Legions

Union of the Bulgarian National Legions. Bulgarian fascist movement, established in 1930. Following the Italian model it aimed at building a corporate totalitarian state on the basis of military centralism. It was dismissed in 1944 after the communist take-over.

14 Georgiev, Kimon (Stoyanov) (1882-1969)

Bulgarian prime minister. In the 1930s he was a member of the right-wing military movement 'Zveno' (Link). Together with fellow officers he carried out a coup d'etat in June 1934 and became prime minister. He abolished all political parties and trade unions. Imitating the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, he introduced a corporative economic system. In 1935 King Boris III, an enemy of ‘Zveno’s’ politics committed another coup and Georgiev went in exile. Later he returned to Bulgaria but was arrested and put in jail. During WWII he joined the anti-Axis pro-communist Fatherland Front. In September 1944 the Fatherland Front carried out another coup and Georgiev became prime minister again. In 1946 he was succeeded by the communist leader Georgi Dimitrov and became minister of defence. Later he resigned and withdrew from politics.

15 Gorky, Maxim (born Alexei Peshkov) (1868-1936)

Russian writer, publicist and revolutionary.

16 24th May

The day of Slavic script and culture, a national holiday on which Bulgarian culture and writing is celebrated, paying special tribute to Cyril and Methodius, the creators of the first Slavic alphabet, the forerunner of the Cyrillic script.

17 Law for the Protection of the Nation

A comprehensive anti-Jewish legislation in Bulgaria was introduced after the outbreak of World War II. The ‘Law for the Protection of the Nation’ was officially promulgated in January 1941. According to this law, Jews did not have the right to own shops and factories. Jews had to wear the distinctive yellow star; Jewish houses had to display a special sign identifying it as being Jewish; Jews were dismissed from all posts in schools and universities. The internment of Jews in certain designated towns was legalized and all Jews were expelled from Sofia in 1943. Jews were only allowed to go out into the streets for one or two hours a day. They were prohibited from using the main streets, from entering certain business establishments, and from attending places of entertainment. Their radios, automobiles, bicycles and other valuables were confiscated. From 1941 on Jewish males were sent to forced labor battalions and ordered to do extremely hard work in mountains, forests and road construction. In the Bulgarian-occupied Yugoslav (Macedonia) and Greek (Aegean Thrace) territories the Bulgarian army and administration introduced extreme measures. The Jews from these areas were deported to concentration camps, while the plans for the deportation of Jews from Bulgaria proper were halted by a protest movement launched by the vice-chairman of the Bulgarian Parliament.

18 Internment of Jews in Bulgaria

Although Jews living in Bulgaria where not deported to concentration camps abroad or to death camps, many were interned to different locations within Bulgaria. In accordance with the Law for the Protection of the Nation, the comprehensive anti-Jewish legislation initiated after the outbreak of WWII, males were sent to forced labor battalions in different locations of the country, and had to engage in hard work. There were plans to deport Bulgarian Jews to Nazi Death Camps, but these plans were not realized. Preparations had been made at certain points along the Danube, such as at Somovit and Lom. In fact, in 1943 the port at Lom was used to deport Jews from Aegean Thrace and from Macedonia, but in the end, the Jews from Bulgaria proper were spared.

19 Forced labor camps in Bulgaria

Established under the Council of Ministers’ Act in 1941. All Jewish men between the ages of 18–50, eligible for military service, were called up. In these labor groups Jewish men were forced to work 7-8 months a year on different road constructions under very hard living and working conditions.

20 Kailuka camp

Following protests against the deportation of Bulgarian Jews in Kiustendil (8th March 1943) and Sofia (24th May 1943), Jewish activists, who had taken part in the demonstrations, and their families, several hundred people, were sent to the Somovit camp. The camp had been established on the banks of the Danube, and they were deported there in preparation for their further deportation to the Nazi death camps. About 110 of them, mostly politically active people with predominantly Zionist and left-wing convictions and their relatives, were later redirected to the Kailuka camp. The camp burned down on 10th July 1944 and 10 people died in the fire. It never became clear whether it was an accident or a deliberate sabotage.

21 Mayakovsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich (1893-1930)

Russian poet and dramatist. Mayakovsky joined the Social Democratic Party in 1908 and spent much time in prison for his political activities for the next two years. Mayakovsky triumphantly greeted the Revolution of 1917 and later he composed propaganda verse and read it before crowds of workers throughout the country. He became gradually disillusioned with Soviet life after the Revolution and grew more critical of it. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1924) ranks among Mayakovsky’s best-known longer poems. However, his struggle with literary opponents and unhappy romantic experiences resulted in him committing suicide in 1930.

22 Komsomol

The communist youth organization in Bulgaria during socialist times. The task of the Komsomol was to spread of the ideas of communism among worker and the peasant youth. The Komsomol also aimed at providing a communist upbringing by involving the youth in the political struggle, supplemented by theoretical education.

23 St

Kliment Ohridski University: The St. Kliment Ohridski university in Sofia was the first school of higher education in Bulgaria. It was founded on 1st October 1888 and this date is considered the birthday of Bulgarian university education. The school is named after St. Kliment, who was a student of Cyril and Methodius, to whom we owe the existence of the Cyrillic alphabet. Kliment and his associate Naum founded several public schools in Ohrid and Preslav in the late 9th century with the full support of King Boris I.

24 Mass Aliyah

Between September 1944 and October 1948, 7,000 Bulgarian Jews left for Palestine. The exodus was due to deep-rooted Zionist sentiments, relative alienation from Bulgarian intellectual and political life, and depressed economic conditions. Bulgarian policies toward national minorities were also a factor that motivated emigration. In the late 1940s Bulgaria was anxious to rid itself of national minority groups, such as Armenians and Turks, and thus make its population more homogeneous. More people were allowed to depart in the winter of 1948 and the spring of 1949. The mass exodus continued between 1949 and 1951: 44,267 Jews immigrated to Israel until only a few thousand Jews remained in the country.

25 10th November 1989

After 35 years of rule, Communist Party leader Todor Zhivkov was replaced by the hitherto Prime Minister Peter Mladenov who changed the Bulgarian Communist Party’s name to Socialist Party. On 17th November 1989 Mladenov became head of state, as successor of Zhivkov. Massive opposition demonstrations in Sofia with hundreds of thousands of participants calling for democratic reforms followed from 18th November to December 1989. On 7th December the ‘Union of Democratic Forces’ (SDS) was formed consisting of different political organizations and groups.

26 Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee)

The Joint was formed in 1914 with the fusion of three American Jewish aid committees, which were alarmed by the suffering of Jews during World War I. In late 1944, the Joint entered Europe’s liberated areas and organized a massive relief operation. It provided food for Jewish survivors all over Europe, it supplied clothing, books and school supplies for children. It supported the establishment of cultural meeting places, including libraries, theaters and gardens. It also provided religious supplies for the Jewish communities. The Joint also operated DP camps, in which it organized retraining programs to help people learn trades that would enable them to earn a living, while its cultural and religious activities helped re-establish Jewish life. The Joint was also closely involved in helping Jews to emigrate from European and Muslim countries. The Joint was expelled from East Central Europe for decades during the Cold War and it has only come back to many of these countries after the fall of communism. Today the Joint provides social welfare programs for elderly Holocaust survivors and encourages Jewish renewal and communal development.

27 Bet Am

The Jewish center in Sofia today, housing all Jewish organizations.

Nesim Alkabes

in Taksim

NESIM ALKABES
Istanbul,
Turkey
Interviewer: Meri Schild
Date of Interview: June 2005

When I went to interview my friend’s father, Nesim Alkabes, I had not met him; all I knew was that he liked to talk and had a lot to talk about. I went to their home in Levent [a neighborhood on the European side of Istanbul] situated in a new complex. He and his wife are very affable and pleasant people, I had a great time in their company. Nesim Bey (Mr. Nesim) is 1m70cm tall, with white hair and blue eyes, and a radiant face. The fact that he has trouble walking has not stopped his optimistic, happy nature, and he is full of jokes. He is slightly portly and is very hospitable. His spouse Erna Hanim (Mrs. Erna) is 1m60cm, tall, well-kept despite her age and radiant. Her features indicate that she was very beautiful when she was younger. Erna Hanim, like her spouse has a pleasant personality, is hospitable, and is a good cook as well as a good wife. This couple, Nesim and Erna Alkabes are representatives of an old Istanbul family. In their simply and tastefully decorated clean home, you are surrounded with a peace of mind. When you enter their home, the kitchen is situated on the left and a 25 square meter living room is situated across a not-so-small entrance hall. To the right of a short corridor, there is a medium sized bedroom, an office and a smaller bedroom. Even though the bedrooms are not large, they reflect the peace of mind of the occupants. Right across their bed is a large, color picture of their wedding day. They were both good-looking. Thinking that at the time people did not have the luxury of hairdressers and makeup, I realize that Mrs. Erna is as beautiful as an actress and Mr. Nesim is as handsome. The office is where Nesim Bey spends most of his day. Unfortunately he suffers from Parkinson's, and he spends his days reading geography books, consulting atlases, taking detailed notes on different countries as a mental exercise. According to him, he has covered 190 countries. He files the information on every country’s capital, surface area, population, gross products and the languages spoken. Nesim Bey enjoys studying books on Turkish and French History as well as geography. He follows the weekly Jewish newspaper, Shalom 1, takes notes on it, and pastes some of the articles and pictures on his walls.

Family background

My family background

My paternal grandfather was named Nesim Alkabes, grandmother Sinyoru Alkabes, and my maternal grandfather was named Hayim Vitali Alkabes Sisa. But I never met any of my grandparents, therefore I do not have any information on them. I only knew my maternal grandmother Ventura Sisa. (Unfortunately I do not know her maiden name.)
Ventura Sisa was born and raised in Hasköy; she was a tall brunette with dark eyes, and was a very cultured and helpful person. All Sephardic Jews conversed in Judeo-Espanyol [Ladino] 2 at home or among themselves then. In addition to that my grandmother was fluent in French and Hebrew (due to the fact that she studied at the Alliance Israelite 3 in Haskoy). That is all I remember about her, when I knew her she was already a widow and spent most of her time in our home. Unfortunately I do not remember when she died.

I do not know the education level of my paternal grandfather Nesim, who was very pious. He also conversed in Judeo-Espanyol like every Jew. He was born and raised in Balat [One of the neighborhoods on the European side where Jews lived] and owned a fabric store in the same neighborhood in a two-story brick building. At the time, there was no domestic fabric industry. My grandfather used to sell fabrics on the first floor, and ready-to-wear clothing (men’s pants and suits) on the second floor. In this store where my father took over eventually, fabrics imported from Czechoslovakia, Germany and England were sold between 7 and 9 liras per meter and the price was low for the superior quality of the merchandise. My grandfather also served as a volunteer usher (honorary) at the synagogue in Balat.

My father Hayim Vitali Alkabes was born in 1881, and grew up in Balat, on Leblebiciler street [a neighborhood on the European side of Istanbul]. (The fact that it was also Atatürk’s 4 birth year was a source of pride for him). He studied at the local Alliance Israelite Universelle school until he was 13. He learned to be fluent in French there. In addition he learned Hebrew and studied religion at home studying with a rabbi for 5 years.

When my father turned 15, my grandfather taught him to take over the job and he focused all his attention on the affairs of the Synagogue. In this way, my father became a merchant and had a business at a very young age. Since he was in charge of the business, he earned the money for his family, in other words my father would give my grandfather a monthly allowance for the family’s expenses. In this store, there were 2-3 employees helping my dad (I don’t know their responsibilities).

In 1918, my dad decided to expand the business and rented a 4-story building in Sultanhamam [the region on the European side where wholesale businesses are concentrated], across Hacipolo Han [owned by a Greek citizen where there were sellers of dry goods] along with three gentlemen named Zakuto, Galimidi, and Treves (because I was very young I do not remember their full names). In this way, they formed the company of “Vitali Alkabes Zakuto et Compagnie” [French for “Vitali Alkabes Zakuto and Company”] with four partners. My father had a 50% share, and the others 18%, 12% and 15%. On the first floor they sold fabrics, on the second floor men’s apparel, and the other two were reserved for manufacturing. When we say manufacturing, they would cut the pieces necessary for the ready-made clothing. But let me be clear here, there were no machines to do the cutting, all the fabrics were cut by hand. The cutting was done by our scissor-expert Nisim Nebabis. The fabrics that were cut by hand were given to outside workshops for tailoring. This was how the job was divided inside the store: My father was in charge of the fabrics, and Mr. Galimidi was in charge of the ready-made clothing. Mr. Zakuto and Mr. Treves helped Mr. Galimidi in the clothing business.

In those times different ethnic groups usually lived separately. For example, of the 50-60 thousand Greek citizens, half lived in Fener, most of the Jews lived in Balat and Ayvansaray, and the Muslims lived in Eyup. [These neighborhoods are on the European side and close to Balat]. I think my father had an affinity for learning and talking in foreign languages; he would converse in Greek as if it was his mother tongue even though he had no formal education, his Greek customers would mistake him as one of their own when he chatted with them. They would ask him: “Ines Romeos veya Ovreos?” [Greek for: “Are you Greek? or Jewish?”].

My father was one of the 36 best known fabric merchants, that is to say, we were considered wealthy. He was good at his job, he was very attentive and pleasant with customers, and he was a very good salesman (now they call it marketing expert); he would convince every person who entered the store to buy something. But he would never lie to them in order to sell merchandise, he would always tell the truth, in one word, he was an honest merchant.

Starting in 1935, Sümerbank 5 founded factories in Merinos, Hereke and Defterdar [different cities in Anatolia] and started “domestic fabric” manufacturing. After that date, importing fabrics became very expensive and we started selling domestic fabrics too.

My father had two sisters and two brothers. Ester (born in 1875) and Coya (born in 1878). I do not know their education levels. I only knew that Tante Coya [that’s how he called his aunt] married twice, got divorced both times because of financial problems, and because she did not have kids. My father, who was a very good and compassionate person would always host her in the house we grew up between Pesach and Shavuot.

My father’s other sister, Ester was fluent in French (unfortunately I do not know her education level), she was married to someone with the last name Gabay, I don’t remember his first name. He died on the field in the Turkish War of Independence 6. (I wasn’t even born yet, I don’t know many of the details). Tante Ester and her daughters Margorit (we called her Margo) and Ojeni became widows and my aunt who was a strong woman continued struggling through life. Tante Ester had both her daughters educated in Alliance Israelite, her daughters’ French was as good as their mother tongue. Margo worked at the Grand Rabbinate with Haribi Rafael Saban for 15 years. (He was our Grand Rabbi, the grandfather of Rıfat Saban, the lawyer). She married Sami Kazes and had a daughter named Coya. Coya is married to Selim Sages; they have a daughter and a son. (I don’t have any further information). Now they reside in Istanbul, in Gayrettepe [a neighborhood on the European side that was popular with Jews in the 1970’s]. Öjeni is married to an accountant, Rıfat Ventura and did not have children. Rıfat Bey made his living by being the accountant for 34 companies. Rıfat Ventura died around 1975, Öjeni around 1980, both are buried in the cemetery in Arnavutköy. Tante Coya died in 1959, Tante Ester in 1960. Both my aunts are buried in the cemetery in Kuzguncuk [a neighborhood on the Asian side of Istanbul].

My father had two brothers named Ishak (born in 1887) and Moiz (born in 1884). Uncle Ishak was born in 1887 and grew up in Hasköy [a neighborhood in the European side of Istanbul]. He studied in Balat [another popular Jewish neighborhood in the European side of Istanbul] in the Yeshiva. When my grandfather died my father took over to enable his brothers to get jobs. He opened a store for Uncle Ishak in Sultanhamam [the commercial district on the European side where wholesale goods are bought and sold] where he sold goods such as suits, pants and coats and in this way provided him [Uncle Ishak] with a job. Uncle Ishak was married to a lady who we called Tante Viktorya. (I don’t know a lot of details about this lady). As far as I know she spoke Judeo-Espanyol and of course Turkish. Unfortunately they did not produce children from this marriage. My Uncle Ishak died in 1963, he was buried in Kuzguncuk. A few years later, when his spouse passed away, we buried her next to my Uncle Ishak.

Uncle Moiz was born in 1884, like the rest of the family members, he also grew up in Hasköy. Because he studied in the Yeshiva in Balat he knew Hebrew very well. When he was around 23, 24 years of age, my father opened a store for him in Sultanhamam right across Uncle Ishak’s store, selling men’s suits and coats, just like he did for his other brother. This store was bigger compared to Uncle Ishak’s. Uncle Moiz was married to a lady named Rasel (Caldean). (Unfortunately I do not know her maiden name). They had three daughters and three sons. Their names according to their birth years were as follows: Ojeni (born in 1912) Ortans (born in 1915), Ester (born in 1919), (Liyaciko) Eliya (born in 1921), (Nisimiko) Niso (born in 1923) and Rifat (born in 1925). All three girls studied at Alliance Israelite.

Unfortunately Rasel died very young in 1943. After her mother’s death, one of the daughters, Ester took over her father’s care. My Uncle Moiz died in 1958, he was buried in Arnavutköy cemetery next to his wife.

Among my cousins, Eliya, we used to call him “Liyaciko”, studied in a Turkish school in Balat. However Liyaciko never liked his school and one day when he was 9, he ran away from school. The police were notified and they found Liyaciko in Silivri [It is one of the summer destinations on the European side now. Even now with all the highways that were built it takes 2 hours to get there from the center of Istanbul] and returned him to his family. I don’t know how he went there, the police brought us Liyaciko. Following this event, Uncle Moiz placed Liyaciko as an apprentice in my father’s store. In 1948 he married Ernesta Fresko, the sister of Sabetay Fresko who was a merchant of ready-made clothing in Sultanhamam, they had a girl and a boy (Mose). While everything was going well, he was stressed by the 6-7 September events 7 in 1955, and was feeling bad about the political climate when the brother of his spouse Ernesta who was settled in Milan said to him:
“My dear sister, we were very sorry to hear about the events in Istanbul. You can come here whenever you want, we will help you in any way we can” and Eliya took his whole family and moved to Milan. He opened a fabric store there and raised his family. Their daughter (I don’t remember her name) is an educator and currently works at a Jewish school in Italy. His son Mose is a gynecologist, I know that both his children are married, that he even has grandchildren, but because they are far away, I don’t have detailed information about them.

Unfortunately Liyaciko died in 1961, his spouse Ernesta in 1963; they are both buried in Italy.

My other cousin Niso, we used to call him Nisimiko, studied in Balat like his older brother, started working as an apprentice to a leather merchant at a very young age. In time he learned the trade and opened a store in Kapalicarsi [Covered Bazaar] 8 and became a leather merchant. He married Luiza (I don’t know her last name). They were very wealthy, they lived at Nisantas. [A neighborhood on the European side where the rich lived after the 1945’s]. They had two sons. Their children studied in Istanbul but I forgot the names of the schools. In 1965 Nisimiko passed away and was buried in Istanbul. His spouse Luiza had a brother who was settled in Panama. After her husband’s death, Luiza and her children went to stay with her brother and stayed there. Because the Spanish spoken in Panama is so similar to our Judeo-Espanyol, they did not have language problems. When they went there the sons were 32 and 33 years old, they earned their living doing import and export. Luiza is still alive. The children travel to Italy once in a while for business, so they have occasions to see their cousins. (One of my daughters Rosita lives in Italy.)

[I could not get information about Öjeni, Ortans, and Rıfat despite my insistence.]

My mother was one of four siblings.

My mother’s youngest brother Nesim Sisa (born in 1893) only went to school for three years (I don’t know where he studied) and was forced to start working at a very young age. Because of his hard-working, honest and enterprising personality, he learned the ropes of the business where he was apprenticed in a very short time and opened a 4-story store in Karaköy named “Galata Bonmarsesi". [One of the centers of commerce on the European side]. On the ground floor there were men’s shirts and shoes, second floor, men’s suits, coats and ready-made clothing, the third floor was manufacturing and the top floor was the warehouse. The back side of the top floor was next to the “Zülfaris Synagogue” [today it is the Jewish museum that was inaugurated by the 500.th Year Foundation] 9.

Nesim Sisa married Fortüne Aluf (I don’t know her birth date), a graduate of Alliance Israelite at the age of 23. His wife’s brother, Rafael Aluf was one of the famous stationary merchants of his time. In his store in Tahtakale, which was his own property, he would manufacture notebooks by importing paper [One of the important neighborhoods on the European side where today every kind of merchandise is sold wholesale]. Nesim and Fortüne lived in Sishane, in a flat in the family apartment “Aluf Han” a little further down from the Italian Synagogue. [One of the neighborhoods preferred by Jews on the European side]. Their marriage produced Elvir (born in 1921), Beki (born in 1923), Ester (born in 1925) and Meri (born in 1930), four daughters. All of them graduated from Saint Benoit. [French missionary school] [In those times this school was only until the end of junior high, so it was only eight years].

Beki, Ester and Meri married right after school. (Then it was very rare for girls to study a long time, when they had prospects, they would be married right away at 16-17 years of age). Only their oldest daughter Elvir studied in Robert College [today’s Bosphorus University] 10, because she studied in English, she knew it well. There, she met Sabetay Elvaşvili who was of Persian origin, dated him for 2 years and then got married at the Zulfaris Synagogue in 1945. They had a daughter named Rosita and a son whose name I cannot recall. Elvir’s husband Sabetay was also a good merchant. He would bring silk fabrics from Bursa. One of his customers reported him for cheating on the price. Sabetay and his family were deported to Diyarbakır in 1943 for 3 years. Still, both Sabetay, and Elvir were such warm and affable people that the mayor of Diyarbakır became their closest friend, every night their families would get together and play poker. From then on they were under the protection of the mayor. When their deportation period ended, they were forced to leave the country because of Sabetay’s Persian nationality and in 1946 moved to Israel, where they raised their children. In 1950, on a spring day, when their son was 2 and their daughter 3, Sabetay climbed a tree to pick a fruit that his daughter Rosita had seen and desired, and just as he was about to pick it, lost his balance and fell. As a result of the fall, he was badly injured and contracted tetanus. His body did not respond to the therapy and unfortunately he died 3 months later (I don’t remember the year). Elvir married an Iraqi Jew 6 months after his death and they still live in Israel.

Beki married Vitali Illel after graduating from St. Benoit at the age of 18. (I don’t know the education level of Vitali) At Marputçular [A neighborhood on the European side where commerce is prevalent] he would sell “Boneterie” (men’s shirts). His father-in-law (Beki’s dad) was his son-in-law’s best customer. They had two sons (I don’t know the names). One of them moved to Italy. The reason was that this son who had followed in his father’s footsteps in the business did not make it, because he could not pay his debts, he took his family with him and started a new life in Italy. I don’t have much information about this person. Their other son stayed in Istanbul. He has mental problems, he has always been a burden to his family. I don’t know why he has always been depressed. I don’t know where he is now...

The daughter of Nisim Sisa, Ester also studied in St. Benoit. She married Albert Baruh in 1955 at the Zulfaris Synagogue. He was in import and export, they moved to Israel in 1960. They had 2 sons. They are both still alive.

Nisim Sisa’s other daughter, Meri also studied in St. Benoit like the other members of the family. She married a thread manufacturer Momo Levi in 1960. They had a daughter. This girl married a Muslim gentleman and had three daughters. Momo unfortunately died in 1990 and was interned at the Arnavutköy cemetery. Meri still lives in her flat in Macka (one of the best neighborhoods on the European side). My uncle Nisim’s spouse Fortüne Sisa died in Istanbul in 1980 and is buried at the Arnavutköy cemetery. After his wife’s death, my uncle Nisim who had been suffering from diabetes for a long time went to London thinking he would get better care and unfortunately died there. His family brought his body back to Istanbul and buried him next to their deceased mother.

Turkey (consequently also Istanbul) was being governed by occupying countries during the 1910s and the English and French governments would give a certificate called “Protégés Orientaux” to every person leaving the country; [these certificates would be considered that person’s passport]. My mother’s two other brothers Albert and Vitali Sisa (I don’t know their birthdates] did not want to live here [Istanbul] and in 1918 went to France to try their luck and settled there. After they left, they were forbidden to reenter Turkey because they did not have a Turkish passport. Both brothers lived in France as “Protégés Orientaux”. They did not have any papers to prove they were Turks. In time Vitali became sales manager for the firm he had been working for and married a lady from Strasbourg, they had two daughters. He died around 1975 and was interned there. Because they were far from Istanbul, I did not know this family, I do not have much information.

His brother Albert became the night guard for a store, [now it is called “Security” personnel] he also married a French Jewish lady, they had a daughter named Elvira. In 1950 the Turkish president Celal Bayar 11 declared a pardon for Turkish citizens living abroad as “Protégés Orientaux”, and allowed them to visit their country for 3 months every year. Alber took advantage of this pardon and came to Istanbul with his daughter, we met and took them around with my family. I will never forget, one Sunday I took my wife, my 3 daughters and my 2 guests to a place with live music; “Beyaz Kelebekler (White Butterflies), Henny Vasilaki” who was famous at the time, were playing, the table was filled with “filikas” [a type of cheesy börek made with phyllo dough], haydari [made with yoghurt, garlic and mint], kroket and mezes of different kinds, I had paid 30 liras for 6 people for the food, drinks, fruit and coffee we consumed (this could have paid for one month’s rent). After this visit we did not have a chance to meet again, but we kept in touch by corresponding on every occasion. Albert who died in 1983 is buried in France. His daughter Elvir worked for the French municipality for long years, I think she retired and now lives around Versailles. I don’t have any information about Albert’s wife.

My mother Sara Merkada was born in 1891 and raised in Hasköy. [A neighborhood on the European side]. She first attended the preschool in the English school in Hasköy (at that time it wasn’t usual for girls to attend school in a lot of families) and unfortunately attended school only 2 years. Her father who owned a grocery store said: “You studied for two years, that is enough for you” and removed his daughter from school and kept her at home to help her mother. Apart from Judeo-Espanyol, the only foreign words my mom knew was to count up to 100 in English.

The fathers of my parents knew each other from the business community; they arranged for the marriage of the young couple while talking to each other one day. When they met, my mother was 17 years old, with a height of 1.80 cm. and a weight of 115 kg., and my father was 27 years old with a height of 1.55 cm., and a weight of 65 kg. None of these contradictions prevented their marriage. They had 11 children but only 6 survived. Öjeni (Surjon 1911), Ester (Krespi 1915), Elvir (Alkabes 1917), me Nesim (1920), Eli (1923), Albert (1926). These were our birthdates and we struggled through life. Our other 5 siblings died (I don’t know the cause of their deaths, maybe they were premature etc., my mother never talked about this, anyways we were very young).

My father was very authoritarian despite having a small frame, my mother on the other hand, was very easy-going, very respectful towards her spouse, she was someone who had dedicated her life to her family. Because my mother was 10 years younger than my father, he was the boss in the house. My father loved us a lot even though he was authoritarian and would do everything we asked as much as he could. Still, on the Sabbath, we would keep our distance from him and never demand anything. That’s because my father normally smoked 1,5 packs of cigarettes a day, and on the Sabbath, refrained because of his faith and would be very cranky. My father was a religious man and my mother would carry out the religious obligations as much as she could in deference to him. Even though my mother was religious she would not wear a wig, she would only use a scarf when she was out on the street. Because we were raised in a religious household, we still live and perform according to our religious beliefs.

In our house, my mom, my dad, 6 children, our maid Fatma, who was the wife of a policeman and my father’s widowed aunt “Tia Hursulachi” (that’s how we called our great-aunt) lived all together. Because there were a lot of us, my mother was very busy; my mom, my aunt and my grandmother, who spent most of the year with us spent almost all their day in the kitchen. That is why my mother left the house only once every two weeks, because she was overweight, (I could call her “obese”, apparently she was fat since she was a child) my father would take her with a horse-carriage even to a distance of 200 m. (We used to live on Istiklal Caddesi then, instead of vehicles, there were horse-carriages “Fayton” [A comfortable wooden carriage pulled by one or two horses, with a maximum capacity of 4 passengers]. Someone had to get on the horse-carriage before my mom every time, otherwise the carriage would tip off balance and fall on its side. Other than horse-carriages there were trams for public transportation “Tramvay”. There were two categories of trams: the green one cost 5 kurus, the one we called first class and which was red, cost 8 kurus. There were only 5 to 10 taxis. My mother could not take the tram or the taxi. My father enjoyed life, along with my mother, they would frequently go to “Londra Bar” (London Bar) on Istiklal Caddesi. He liked to drink raki 12. They would drink, eat appetizers, and listen to music. When I grew up, occasionally I would join them (there were 8-9 ladies who had beautiful voices and who would sing traditional Turkish music).

My father did not quit smoking while alive. Even though our doctor Sinay said to my father: “Mr. Vitali you will die, please quit smoking”, he kept at it without giving up and died in 1965 at the age of 81 due to heart failure. Because he was from Kuzguncuk we interned him in the Kuzguncuk cemetery. (I forgot the first name of the doctor).

Growing Up

I, Nesim Alkabes, was born on July 21st, 1920 in our brick home that was 30 m. further from Galata Kulesi [the Galata Tower: a neighborhood on the European side where Jews congregated in the beginning of the 20th century] with the help of a midwife. All my other siblings were born in this house like me. My father had bought this house with his savings. We lived on one flat and rented out the other 3 flats. We lived there between 1920-1928. As far as I remember, it was not a big house. The entrance opened up to a hallway, at the end of it was the bedroom of my maternal grandmother, but it was such a small room that she did not have a bed, she would make one for herself every night on the floor. We had a closet we called “Yükli” in this room. We would put items such as mattresses, comforters in there. The system of sleeping on a floor bed worked for all of us, we all slept on the floor. We warmed the house with a coal-burning stove as well as a Belgian stove called “Salamandra” where you would feed it coal from the top and remove the ashes from the bottom. The maid lit these stoves. In the bathroom of this house, there was a shower boat, we didn’t have a tub, and once a month, in accordance with the rules of kashrut, we would go to a hamam in Kasimpasa together with all the ladies of the house (because I was still young). We would go there with a horse-carriage, this was a big event for us (paseo). The men would go to “Galatasaray Hamami” every Friday.

My father always preferred investing in real estate. Accordingly, he bought a 3-story, 8 bedroom wooden house in Galatasaray (on Kaleci Kulluk Street) [A neighborhood on the European side]. This was a neighborhood preferred by Greeks. He rented out the bedrooms in this house for 8 liras a month to either divorced or widowed Greek ladies, in this way he helped them out a bit. These apartments would share the kitchen and bathrooms on each floor.

Until the 10th anniversary of the [Turkish] republic, Friday was the official rest day of the week. After 1933, it was changed to Sundays. The reason for the change in days was that everywhere in the world Sunday was the official holiday. The fact that we had Friday as the holiday was affecting the stock market and the economy suffered as a result.

My first school was where the Neve Shalom Synagogue 13 is located now [A neighborhood called Sishane that Jews preferred at the beginning of the century]. We had a synagogue called Knesset there, below the Synagogue we had our Jewish primary school. After I studied for 3 years in this school, I went to Saint Benoit for junior high and graduated. When I was only 8, my father provided me with 5 years of religious education in the form of two hours twice weekly from Rabbi Gabay who came to our house, just as his father had done for him. My father was very wealthy; we would pay the Rabbi 2 liras a day, sugar cost 28 kurus. The cost was decided by Atatürk then. “Bu iki lira babama bir bardak su gibi gelirdi” “These two liras were like a glass of water for my father” [this is his saying]. As result when I celebrated my bar-mitzvah, my Hebrew and knowledge of the Torah was excellent. We celebrated my bar-mitzvah ceremony by inviting three priests from my school and our relatives to our house on a Sunday.

The home I remember most was in Beyoglu [a neighborhood on the European side on a street called Rue de Péra where people would dress up to walk around or to shop] the 4th story of “Meymenet Han” which was located on the corner of the hill where today stands the Palais de France. On the ground floor of this apartment we had a store called “Bazar de Bébé” where they sold children’s clothing. Because our apartment was located in a corner where the main street and the side street met, there was a lot of light and space. It was 200 square meters, and in the living room, out of 8 windows, 5 looked out on Istiklal Caddesi and 3 to the side street [today it is called Nuri Ziya Sokagı]. Next to the living room we had a room called “Fumoir” [french for “smoking room”], which was quite large. Whenever we had guests, my sisters’ girl and boyfriends, my father’s friends or our relatives, smoking was allowed only in this room; in addition we had a gramophone in this room and we would play waltzes, tangos etc. with what were called “stone records” that were produced by “Sahibinin Sesi” and that we had bought for 2 liras (we could buy 6 kg. of sugar with this money, a kg of sugar was 28 kurus, bread was 8 kurus).

Other than our dance parties there were nights when we hosted dinner parties, other than the Sabbath or the holidays. As you can imagine our nights were very lively in our home. My father’s sisters Tante Coya, her two daughters and Tante Sarina would come to visit two to three days a week, we were a large family; twice a day the butcher Dalva (Someone who sold kosher meat in Shishane) would stop by and take orders. My aunts also placed their orders and always my father would take care of the bill.

We had beds in this house for the first time. Our system of sleeping in this house was like this: My three sisters in one bedroom, in the other us three boys, in the master bedroom my mom and dad with their own bathroom [parents’ bathroom]; (my father would take a shower every morning before he left the house even then). We had another bathroom other than the parents’, and in yet another bedroom our aunt (we used to call her Tiya Hursulachi) and our maid Fatma hanim slept. My father was a very humane, family-oriented person. He took in our widowed aunt who was desperate after her husband’s death. We called her “Tiya” [Ladino for “aunt”], she spent the last 8 years of her life with us; she was very pious and unfortunately we found her dead the morning of a Shavuot day in her bed, we interned her next to her husband as our religion dictates. My Tiya loved me and protected me so much that she was like my personal attorney.

Our home was one of the modern ones of the time, we had electricity and running water. Our house was heated by two Salamandra stoves located in the hallway and the living room (it was harder to keep warm than a coal-burning stove because it was much larger and we had to remove the ashes of the coal that was put from the top, from the drawer located in the bottom and add coal again before it went out) and a Chinese stove in the dining-room. The job of Fatma Hanim was really hard in winter, thanks to her, the rooms we lived in were always warm. Our bedrooms though were cold, on snowy days our father would put rugs on top of our comforters. We would heat water by burning logs on a stove-type apparatus. The stoves in the kitchen worked by gas piped into buildings. We have always had Muslim household help. Only, when I was 18, we had a 15-year-old helper named Fortüne from Bursa. My first life experience was with this girl. When, 3 months later, my mom became aware of the situation, it was the end of my first love affair. After that day we never again had a non-Muslim helper.

We would bathe on Fridays because it was “Shabbat”, we would give the Sabbath bride its due. As I said, because my family was religious we tried to live accordingly. On Saturdays, there was no cooking or showering. All the food was prepared by my mom and Tia Hursulachi, starting on Thursday and mostly on Friday. We did not have pressure cookers then, our Sabbath meal was prepared with two days’ labor (today usually most of the meals are cooked in pressure cookers by Sephardic ladies). In this way we would rest on Saturday. On our return from the synagogue we would eat “Biskochikos [a kind of cookie] prepared by my mom and drink hoshaf (stewed fruit juice) [prepared the day before].

Because my father was the oldest and the partner with the largest share, the other partners and their spouses, the accountants (one was Mr. Bohor, I don’t remember the name of the other) and their spouses, their friends, the secretary in the office, Mlle. Margo, all came to our house on the holidays. Mlle. Margo later became the long-term secretary to the Grand Rabbi “Harbi Rafael Saban” who was very open-minded, and receptive to reform and change. (I don’t remember who was the Grand Rabbi before Rafael Saban, following him it was Rav. Asseo for 41 years). Margo married Sami Kazez when she was 30. They would always come to our house for the holidays (Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot), they would greet my mom and dad and chat. Normally on a Passover night we were 10 for the seder, with my father’s sisters Tant Coya, her two daughters, Tant Sarina (Ester) and our secretary Mlle Margo, we would be 14 at the table.

The rent for this house was 120 liras. (As I said before, my father was so wealthy that this rent money was similar to drinking a cup of sea water) (At the time a captain’s salary was 90 liras). My father was very extravagant; after we rented the house, he brought two painters from Italy. He had them decorate my sisters’ bedroom with pink flowers, the boys’ bedroom with blue flowers and his room with flowers of different colors.

Even though we had hot water and a bath tub in the house, the ladies still went to Galatasaray Hamam on specific days of the month. My dad and us boys did not have such specific days to go to the Hamam. Even though the Hamam was so close to the house my mom was so overweight that she had to go there with a horse-carriage.

The story about Fatma Hanım who lived in our house and helped my mom with housework was as follows. My father had a very good customer in Gönen [A town near Balikesir on the Marmara Sea] whom he gave merchandise to. The farmer brother of this customer had married his daughter to a policeman working in Istanbul Aksaray Karakolu [A neighborhood on the European side]. But this uncle police had to sleep in the police station every night except Wednesdays, so to help with the household budget they could place her in a dependable home as a live-in. My dad explained this offer to my mom and they accepted; and Fatma came to live with us. Her husband would come every Wednesday evening to pick her up and bring her back Thursday morning. They were such conservative people that Fatma never left the house other than on Wednesdays. Fatma lived with us for 8 years. One day when her husband said: “I am sorry, I have become a sergeant, I want my wife to live with me”, Fatma left us.

At home we would all sit around in comfortable pyjamas, neither my mom, nor my dad had special clothing that they wore at home. Because the house wasn’t very warm, we would wear jackets called “Coin de feu” (short jackets made from sheltand fabric). The girls wore long robes made again from sheltand.

Of course when the family started growing and the fiancees would visit we could no longer wear pyjamas. For example, my wife Erna has never seen my dad like that, my father was always in a suit and tie.

When we lived in this house I was about 8 years old and was studying in Saint Benoit junior high school [A French school on the European side where girls studied until 8th grade and boys studied until end of high school]. Before St. Benoit, I went to the school beneath Neve Shalom, there the curriculum was Turkish. My father wished that I learn French so he enrolled me at St. Benoit. Before I started I took a test and enrolled in the second grade of “Petit College” [The name given to the primary school department of this school]. In this school we only had 3 hours of Turkish classes a week, these were History, Geography and Turkish, the rest of our classes were in French. At the time report cards were given every weekend. I was a very good student, my grades would change between 16 and 18, out of 20. In our class of 32, I ranked 4th in general, and 1st in math. Our French principal would say: “Vous êtes dans le bon chemin mon petit, continuez” [you are on the right path my little one, continue].

I would bring this report card home and my dad would sign it with a lot of pride.

What a nice coincidence that today we reside in the same apartment as my class teacher, Mademoiselle Palensya (of course she is quite old now, she lives here with her son. We meet from time to time and reminisce).

As I said before, in this place we had our synagogue which we called Knesset and beneath it our primary school. There were only 40, 50 children left and most of them started getting their education in other schools rather than the Jewish school. The Grand Rabbi of the time, Rav Harbi Rafael went to see our president Celal Bayar and requested a bigger synagogue for the Jews because our population was growing. As a result of this initiative, the Neve Shalom Synagogue 13 was built.

In this apartment our downstairs neighbor was the fabric merchant David Anjel and his family, upstairs neighbor was M.Ü. Mayer, who was one of the famous brokers of the time and imported fabrics and ready-made-clothing from Europe. (I do not know what M.Ü. stands for, that was his name). My father would sell fabrics in his store that this gentleman imported.

Our second home was on the first floor of Dilber Han in Tozkoparan. This building was built by someone named Benardete who was an importer in Canakkale. We rented a flat on this 6-story, 12 unit building. Our rent went down to 42 liras when it was 120 liras for our home on Istiklal Caddesi. When you entered the house first you entered a hall, and that would open into the living and sitting rooms. In the back there were 7 bedrooms. We had to feed logs into the stove to get hot water in the bathroom. The heating of the house was also with a stove in winter. We had electricity and running water.

During those years my father was still a partner in the company “Vitali Alkabes Zakuto et Compagnie”. The business continued until 1932. The effects of the recession that happened in the U.S.A. during 1929- 1930 started affecting Istanbul in 1931. The I O Us (I owe you) started returning without being paid. My father had signed these I O Us and had to pay the value on them. My dad was continually trying to pay his debts.

At the time, as a result of a proposition from France for my oldest sister Ojeni who was born in 1911, my mom, dad and sister left for France in the summer of 1932 for what they thought was a 15-20 day trip. Their trip to France proved to be quite difficult. First they took the boat named Stella Moris to Marseilles which lasted 8 days and then from there took the train to Paris. This voyage coincided with a period named “Shiva Avsarmeta” (the three weeks of mourning) unbeknownst to them. They were able to come back 2 months later. During those weeks, there can be no marriages by the Rabbinate, no house buying, no new clothes and no moving into a new home. They were there and had nothing to do, so they stayed in a hotel for 2 months, married my sister and returned. My sister’s wedding was done in a hotel (just like in Israel, the rabbi came to the hotel). The ceremony wasn’t done in the synagogue (my brother-in-law was an atheist, maybe that’s why it did not take place in a temple, I am thinking that he must have accepted being married by a rabbi out of respect for my father), in the evening, after a family dinner for 90 people, my mom and dad returned to Istanbul again on the boat named Stella Morris after an 8-day voyage.

When my father returned after this long break, he saw that the ripple effects of the American recession had spread all over Turkey. One of his partners in the store had passed away and the others had pulled back their capital when they realized they could not meet their debts. The store was on the edge of bankruptcy. My father got very upset and said: “When I was away for two months what did you do this place? How could you not pay the debts?” “If we had paid the debts, we would be penniless, our kids would starve. We did not have a choice. This economic crisis has brought down all of us” they replied and annulled their partnership. My father was obliged to give up our store. My father had a lot of investments. He paid all of our debts by selling each flat in our 4-story house in Kuledibi for 12,000 liras (for a total of 48,000 liras) and another flat in Galatasaray for 8,000 liras. [Neighborhoods on the European side where Jews live together].

One day, when I was still 17 years old, my father said to me: “My dear son, you are the oldest of my three boys, I am already 56 years old and very tired; you finished junior high and learned French well, you are almost a genius in math, you took accounting lessons, you also speak Spanish, you are well educated, from now on please come and help me." “But daddy, what are you saying? I want to study law” I replied but I could not defy my father and started in business.

With the money he got my father opened a new store in Mahmutpasa, on Rızapasa Yokuşu (Hill) [One of the oldest neighborhoods on the European side where wholesale commerce is done]. It was a fabric store and the first ones he sold were the leftovers from the old store. My father had such an honorable reputation in the fabric industry that the merchants who imported merchandise from England would prepare the bills and give them to us as consignment. We would sell these fabrics, calculate our money and make our payments within 1 to 1,5 months. There was no domestic manufacture of fabrics in Turkey, all of Anatolia would buy foreign fabrics from Istanbul, our business was doing well because supply and demand was quite high. In this store and in the old business, Rafael Levi and my cousin Eliya worked with us. Customers from outside Istanbul would come to our store to choose merchandise. We would pack these, warehouse them in Sirkeci [A neighborhood on the European side] and in the evenings truck them and send them to their destinations. I started working in the store when I was 17, I was in charge of accounting and the customers. My brother-in-law Henri’s (In Judeo-Espanyol we called him Haskiya, the husband of my sister Öjeni) father Nisim Surjon was sent as an ambassador to Italy by Padisah (Sultan) Abdülhamit 14. Nisim Bey (Mr. Nisim) did not get along with his wife, she settled in France in the 20th. arrondissement [neighborhood]. At the time their son Henri was studying in Galatasaray Lisesi (highschool). It was a boarding school, when he graduated he tried to go to France to get a law degree but the Turkish bureaucracy did not give him a passport. That’s because Istanbul was occupied by the French and British then. Henri applied to them, and got the “Protégé orientaux” certificate and left for France, but the Turks rescinded his Turkish nationality. How unfortunate that the French also did not accept him as French. My brother-in-law finished his law degree with this certificate and married my sister Öjeni in 1932.

My father had transferred 20,000 Turkish liras to France as a dowry for my sister. With this money, the young couple opened the store “Bonneterie” on Rue des Pyrenees. My sister would stay at the store and my brother-in-law would go to adjacent cities to buy merchandise and take orders. The pleasant days unfortunately were short-lived because the world was on the edge of a new war.

During the second world war when the Germans invaded France, they could not touch my sister when she said “I am a Turkish citizen." The Nazi hunters were after Jews like everywhere else in the world. The staff of the police station where my sister lived would learn that the Germans were coming to look, beforehand, and warned all the Jews. Because my brother-in-law Henri was neither Turkish nor French nationality, he would escape to the nearest villages when he heard. He would hide for a few days and then return home. My sister’s store was open for business and she would earn some money. Her husband would come whenever he could, shower, eat, take some money, and when he got news, he would take the train and go hide in the nearby villages. This continued for 4 years. Only once when he was at the train station, just as he was boarding the train two Germans noticed him. When they started asking: “Stop, who are you? What are you?” my brother-in-law who had been an atheist until that day, prayed for the first time: “Please God, save me” One of the Germans took pity on him and can you imagine that he said: “Let him go, maybe he has a child."

My brother-in-law boarded the train right in front of the Germans and descended at the Gare St. Lazare. He went to the synagogue there, took lessons of Torah and Hebrew from the rabbis and as if this were not enough, started fasting 5 days a week. For a long time he only ate on Tuesdays and the Sabbath. He took a vow that he would live this way because G-d had saved him from going to the camps and he followed it. He became the volunteer custodian of this synagogue.

During his escapades, he became a member of French Underground Resistance, he never fought the Germans, but he gave blood 7 times to injured French soldiers. When the French government became aware of this, they said: “From now on you are a French national” and gave him his French passport.

Their store remained open between 1932 and 1941 for about 9 years. One of the Germans became manager in the store, took over half the money earned, my sister could not tolerate this for long and transferred the store to another merchant. She received a good amount of goodwill money from this transfer, their house belonged to them, they had no rental expense, my brother-in-law Henri had started working as a salaried employee at the synagogue near Gare St. Lazare where he was the custodian. In this way they lived independently.

My sister gave birth to a son named Leon Davit Surjon. Leon is a full Frenchman. He completed his whole education and career there. He became an employee of the Ministry of Finance after graduating from university. Today he is 67 years old and currently is an inspector in the ministry. I was able to meet him when he visited Istanbul in 1987.

When Celal Bayar became president, he granted a pardon to a lot of people like my brother-in-law who had been expelled and passed a law allowing them to enter Turkey for three months a year. That’s why my brother-in-law and sister were able to come visit us after many long years. I was married to my wife Erna in those years and we lived in Kadıköy [A neighborhood on the Asian side]. My brother-in-law stayed with us for only three months but took advantage of his time here. My sister and her son Leon stayed for 5-6 months, of course when it was this long, we rented a small flat in the apartment owned by my father’s second wife Mrs. Eliz [the information is provided later]. There was a period of 7-8 months of discord between my brother-in-law and my sister, finally my brother-in-law convinced my sister and the family resumed their life in Paris. Because my brother-in-law was French, my sister also took on the French nationality, they were both eligible for social security by the French government. My brother-in-law died in 1995, my sister in 1999 in France and were interned there.

My wife Erna Adoni was born on December 25th, 1924 and raised in Kadıköy. We met in 1947 at a party given by a mutual friend, and we liked each other. Because she is a graduate of St. Benoit like me, she speaks it as well as I do. When we decided to get married, Erna was 22, and I was 27. We went to ask for her hand from her father. I asked for a dowry of 25 thousand liras but he indicated he could not. He gave me a counter offer: “I will give you 10 thousand liras. You live with us for 2-3 years until you have enough savings (Meza franka, [Live-in son-in-law]), you won’t be responsible for any expenses, in this way you will save money."

I loved Erna so much that of course I accepted this offer. Other than my father-in-law, Erna also had an offer: “Look Nisim, I am a fan of Fenerbahce, you are a fan of Galatasaray. If you do not become a fan of Fenerbahce I will not marry you.” [The most important two soccer teams in Turkey]. I was obliged to accept and we had our civil ceremony on June 5th, 1947 in a place called 6. Daire [The office where weddings are officiated belonging to the municipality of Sishane, a neighborhood on the European side where Jews live]. Following that we got married at the Zülfaris Synagogue on August 10th, 1947 [On the European side, in Karaköy, where the Jewish museum is located now]. After our wedding, we spent our honeymoon in Tarabya Hotel for 2 days [On the European side, overlooking the Bosphorus, one of the trendiest hotels of the time where all rooms overlooked the water; today unfortunately it has been transferred to the private sector and is in ruins] and Bursa Celik Palas for 4 days. I was done with my military service by then and was working with my father.

My wife Erna’s older brother Leon Adoni who was born in 1922, graduated from Saint Joseph High School and finished medical school in Istanbul Tıp fakültesi (Istanbul School of Medicine). He did his residency in dermatology. He opened a clinic on the famous Abanoz Street, because maladies like syphilis were very common here (this street was on the European side, and was very popular among men). But the number of patients he had, coupled with the limited opportunities alienated Leon from here (Istanbul). He decided to try his luck in the United States. He took private lessons to improve the English he had learned in school. He applied to Ohio State in 1950 and when he was accepted, he immediately left. His specialty was very relevant. Beautiful, young girls would come for treatment of acne, and a lot of men, gonorrhea etc. Thank G-d he became popular in a short time. From Ohio he went to Cleveland, then to Philadelphia. One day, he had a Russian Jew named Berenice as his patient, he fell in love with her while treating her acne. They married a short time later, had three sons. In time they owned a beautiful, 3-story villa with a garage, backyard and pool. Thank G-d they became very wealthy, they are in good shape.

A few years ago we visited them for a few weeks. Berenice is a very pleasant, nice and smart lady as well as being practical. One day, while we were there, she said to Leon: “Shall we give a party in honor of your sister and brother-in-law tonight” and she proceeded to call and invite 40 people. My wife Emma started to panic: “It is 11 a.m., how will you manage to feed so many people? There is nothing in the house." Berenice, without a care in the world, got in her car and said: “Bye bye, I will see you in a little while, you go ahead and sunbathe, swim, enjoy yourselves."

A few hours passed (we are not used to this kind of thing), a catering company came, immediately they set out tables in the garden, 3 waiters arranged the food on trays and served. All this expense cost 400 dollars. Berenice inherited money from her dad, she was rich. She never worked, she only replaced the secretary in her husband’s office when she went on vacation.

Their oldest son has a drugstore. The younger son buys real estate, repairs them and resells them. They have produced grandchildren for them. The middle son remained single, I don’t know what he does. But none of the three have any financial difficulties.

My father-in-law, Moiz Uriyel Adoni, was born in 1895. I don’t know which school he studied at but he is a primary school graduate. He learned French by practising. My father-in-law was someone I respected a lot. He was very knowledgeable on some subjects as well as being pleasant and cordial.

The home-furnishings store opened in Beyoglu [on the European side, where Rue de Pera is located, the place where the trendiest stores are located and where the most fashionable people shop] by a family who had emigrated from Italy to Istanbul, Lazarro Franko (name of store and name of family are the same), was a company that continued from father to son. My father-in-law started working with the third generation of this family as an apprentice at a very young age. As the years passed, his boss grew to like him. He made him a partner in his store with 10% since my father-in-law’s knowledge of the business and his customer relations were very good. There were three partners in the store (I don’t remember the names).

My father-in-law would go to Ankara [the capital of Turkey, where all the political events happen] to get measurements for the upholstering and curtains of Cankaya Palace [the villa where the president resides, even now], would bring samples from the store and ask Atatürk: “Here you go, my pasha, whichever fabric you prefer, that is what we will use for the upholstery." They were pretty close with the Pasha. My father-in-law would always personally attend the business he had with the government, he did not trust anyone.

Let me tell you an incident demonstrating how humble Atatürk was. One day when my father-in-law was measuring the upholstery for the sofas, Atatürk said: “It would be better if we carried this sofa to the other room." My father-in-law responds: “Certainly, my pasha, let me call one of the staff." “What am I here for, if you hold it from one end, we’ll do it together” he said.

Another memory involves Atatürk’s tailor. Atatürk’s tailor was a Jew with the family name Hazmonay, someone who was very good at his job and who stuttered, his workplace was in Tünel [A street off of Beyoğlu, on the European side]. In one word, he was a “first class” tailor... Atatürk would bring the fabrics for his suits from Ankara, call Hazmonay, have him take his measurements and place his orders for everything including tuxes. Atatürk liked Jews and all other non-Muslims, I appreciate both him and what he stood for and try to apply his ideals to this day.

Lazarro Franko’s grandchildren were capitalists, my father-in-law was the one in charge of the whole operation in the company. He was known and trusted by everyone in the commerce industry in both Ankara and Istanbul as well as the banks.

The lower floor of the store was the warehouse and a bathroom, the top floor was where home-furnishing samples were displayed. At midday, they would close for an hour. Usually the other two partners would go home for lunch. My father-in-law would bring his lunch from home and eat there since he lived in Kadiköy. Because he was the oldest person in the store, he was always in possession of all the keys, including the safe. One day, during lunch break, when my father-in-law went downstairs to wash his hands, he was murdered by a person who was both night guard and salesclerk in the store, at the age of 83 (in 1978) using a tie. The partners, unaware of the incident, found the doors unlocked when they returned. There was no nightguard nor was my father-in-law around. “Moiz, Moiz where are you?” they called out and when there was no response, started looking for him. Of course the scene in the lower floor was horrible and the guilty party had run away. They called the police.

Later, of course, the culprit was captured and interrogated. At the interrogation he said: “I killed Mr. Moiz because I thought there were 1500 dollars in the safe." “I did not do this murder alone, I called my cousin to the store and we spent the night there. In the morning when he showed up, my cousin hid downstairs, I did my daily chores as usual. We had planned it all. At lunch time when Uncle Moiz went downstairs to wash his hands, my cousin was going to strangle him, take the keys and open the safe, and we would run away. Everything went according to plan. However, we found 1,500 Turkish liras, not 1,500 dollars." The court sentenced them to 18 years in jail. There were two pardons in time and they got out in 10 years.

At the time I [Mr. Nesim] was working at “Bahar Mefrusat”. When I got the news, it was unfortunately too late. What a pity that the most important event among the bad ones that happened to our family was for such a senseless reason. My father-in-law had worked for 65 years in this business and he left 85 thousand liras in his will. This sounds like a funny amount now but at the time it was valuable.

My mother-in-law, Roza Uziyel was the niece of a very wealthy family. She had finished the British school of the time, she did not speak French (Unfortunately I do not know the name of the school). Even though I do not know how she met my father-in-law, they got along beautifully and were always very happy. My mother-in-law had two siblings named Albert and Roza. My mother-in-law was a very talkative, pleasant and giving person. My wife’s family was as religious as mine.

Both my father-in-law and my mother-in-law’s brother Albert would go to the synagogue before work. Uncle Albert was a graduate of Saint Joseph. He was very knowledgeable and educated but he was not bold, he was timid. Because of his personality, Uncle Albert would work in the store of Lazarro Franko as an employee for 300 liras a month. When he retired, of course they compensated him but it wasn’t a satisfying amount of money.

My mother-in-law’s sister Fani did not get married since her family could not afford a dowry and was single all her life. Unfortunately we lost my mother-in-law at a very young age, at 62, within three months, from a cancer of the uterus, we buried her in Kadıköy. My mother-in-law’s sister Fani said: “Moiz, if you don’t remarry, I will take care of you and my brother Albert."

My father-in-law lived in the same house as Albert and Fani for 20 years as a widower. Aunt Fani took care of them for long years and one day I said to my wife: “Erna, if you want, let’s ask your aunt to come live with us, she can help you and it will be a change for her. What do you think?” Fani was very hardworking person, so much that she even helped with our kids’ homework. Our children loved this great-aunt. One night, she was in a lot of pain, we gave her medicine, it did not work, we took her to see a doctor, gave her the medicine that was needed, but she was still in pain, and moaning. One night before I went to bed I prayed: “Please G-d, help me find a medicine so I can save this woman." Of course not every prayer is answered, but I prayed so wholeheartedly that I dreamt of a rabbi who told me: “In the morning wake up early and mix this... and this... with water in the kitchen, have your patient drink this on an empty stomach for 3 days” (I don’t remember the details).

Excuse me, but late at night, when I got up to use the bathroom, Fani was also awake: “Fani, don’t eat anything, I will give you something” I told her. I ran to the kitchen and prepared the mixture I dreamt about and had her drink it. Truly, in three days her pain was gone. How can I not believe in this holy being? Of course he does not give us everything we want, but still we have a sense of his presence close to us. Fani died 28 years later, at the age of 77, and we buried her in Kadıköy.

Since both his siblings were dead, we did not want to leave Albert alone, he was already 80 years old. We took him home and took care of him. We had a spare bedroom and this is how we lived for 3 years. Later he was half paralyzed, it was not possible to take care of him at home. We were obliged to put him in Or-Ahayim Hastanesi (Hospital) 15. The expense was steep, thankfully my wife’s brother Leon from the United States helped financially. Albert lived in this manner till 1986. We interned him in Kadıköy. We took charge of all the burials in this family, we had the stones made by an expert we know in Kuledibi.

During the War

I was called to military service between 1942 and 1945. I was a soldier in the 3rd regiment of the 2. Air force battalion for 36 months, i.e. 3 years. In the first year of this period, we built the Malatya airport by mixing sand with cement and water. In the following 6 months, we dug gutters that were 2 m. deep in Adana airport to drain rainwater and filled them up with stones. The next 6 months I was a “writer” in the Canakkale Regiment. I would take roll call every morning and evening. I would look for runaways, I would grant doctor’s visits to the sick ones. Here also they were building an airport, the soldiers were working under harsh conditions. These soldiers needed 2000 calories a day, I took care of the food supply. I spent the next year in Yakacik Samandra [a neighborhood on the Asian side], and the last six months in Zonguldak Kokaksu as the writer of the regiment. There were quite a few Jewish youths from Izmir and Istanbul in this regiment.

The first year of my military service I was in Malatya as I said. We had a client in Asirefendi Caddesi (street) [A neighborhood on the European side], Naim Rejion who was a fabric merchant and he had a branch in Malatya named “Faik ve Sevket Bitlis." Once a week, on my off day I would go to this office, write a letter to my family and send it.

I had served in Malatya for a year and progressed in the building of the airport when the undersecretary of the air force of the time, Zeki Dogan, came for an inspection and said: “These kids have worked very hard, they are tired, send them back home for 3 weeks."

I always say “G-d knows what he is doing." Before I came home for my leave of absence (the year 1943), the Ministry of Finance had demanded 100 thousand liras as “Varlık Vergisi” (Wealth Tax) 16. When I heard this I wrote to my father: “My dear father, you cannot pay this money, our net worth is only around 35, 40 thousand liras, we cannot cover this 100 thousand liras. Whatever you do, try to hide the merchandise in the store of Uncle Nisim” I said. Before my father could ponder how to hide the fabrics, I was back home on vacation and the next day my father said to me: “My child, I will not go to work today, I am very tired. You have been in this business for 5 years, you will know what to do” and sent me.

I took my siblings aside and told them: “None of you go to school today, you all come to work, I have a good plan, we will save this business together." We went to the store. I cut up 9 meters from each fabric and packed it, my siblings carried these packages to my uncle’s store all day. My uncle reserved a room in his warehouse for us, we hid all the packages there. As you can see, I stole my own merchandise. The next day 3 people came from the Ministry of Finance. “You owe 100 thousand liras. When and how will you pay?” “I swear, this store belongs to my father. I am a soldier, I have a leave of absence, I am helping my father” and I showed them my papers. “As you said, you have no say in this store, do you know the price of this merchandise?” “Of course, but I cannot allow you to sell them below the purchase price” I said, but their attitude was hardening and I was a soldier, I had to keep quiet. “We will sell all this merchandise against your debt, but since this will not cover it we will send your father to Askale [a small town in the east of Turkey where non-Muslims who could not pay the Wealth Tax were deported]."

My father first paid 6 thousand liras against his debt. That day 101 rolls of fabric were sold, they made 33 thousand liras from that, so we could pay 39 out of 100 thousand. They paid 2 liras a day to work in Askale, so according to the calculations, my father had to stay there till the end of his life and unfortunately my father who was 59 at the time spent 10 months in Askale under very harsh conditions. They would shovel snow all day, as I said, my father was pious and it was not possible to find kosher meat. He only ate dry bread, olives and cheese all this time. Since they did not have beds they would sleep on a chair in the coffeehouse where they were favored, and they would go to the bathroom in the open. He had to spend very miserable days. As luck would have it, a customer who used to buy merchandise from us and who was in Askale went to the captain and asked: “May I ask permission to take Vitali Alkabes once a week to my home?” and the captain who pitied my father consented. In this way, even if it was once a week, my father could satisfy his basic needs such as bathing, sleeping and a hot meal.

Of course, we were all very sad at the time. My siblings were in school, I had to go back to my military unit, and when we were all wondering how we would pay the rent and the house expenses, a neighbor friend who was a merchant asked: “My son, Nisim, I would like your father’s store, how much goodwill money would you like?” I asked for 10 thousand, but settled on 7 thousand. I gave half of this money to my mother, and I took the other half. In the military the food was tasteless, I was obliged to buy from the cafeteria. My mom rented out a room in the house, and in this way provided for the house expenses.

My Uncle Nisim Sisa was settled with 90 thousand liras tax, he had enough profits from his store, he was able to pay his debt.

Another time I had a three week leave of absence, I sold the fabrics that we hid in my uncle’s store and converted them to money. In this way we provided help for my mom again.

The 2nd World War was going on while I was in the military service, as you know, the Germans were trying to take over all of Europe, Winston Churchill (the British Prime Minister) came to Adana (a region on the southern part of turkey) by plane. He had a meeting with the staff of the British, French and Greek consulates and the president of the time, Ismet Inönü 17, for 8 hours. Churchill said to Ismet Pasa: “If you would open a front against the Germans, we could surprise them”. Inönü rejected Churchill’s offer; “No, I am not going to enter my country in war. The Germans are very strong, my country cannot live through another war."

After the meeting with Inönü, the staff from the embassies took turns and during the talks, when Churchill learned that people over 55 were battling death in Askale because of the “Varlik Vergisi” (Wealth Tax), and that 15-20 people had already died, he said: “What kind of an injustice is this, how can your conscience allow you to send these poor old people to death. You will immediately grant them pardon and release them” and my father and the others returned home. Most of the ones who returned had lost a lot of weight and were ill. My father, despite losing 9 kilos, was healthy.

My father rested for a while then decided to open another business to earn a living for the family. Rafael Aluf who was a distant relative became partners with him for 30 thousand liras. At the time I was about to get married to Erna, as I mentioned before my father-in-law had given me 10 thousand liras as dowry, I became partners with this money. My father put together the money we earned selling the hidden fabrics and the savings of my mother and had a capital of 6 thousand liras. In this way we formed “Vitali Alkabes ve Ortaklari Adi Komandit sirketi” in Mahmutpasa Manastır Han [A neighborhood on the European side where wholesale commerce is done on a big scale] in 1945, and we worked there till 1965 selling wholesale fabrics.

After the War

On May 27th, 1960, there was a military coup. The prime minister of the time, Adnan Menderes 18, foreign minister Fatih Zorlu and others were hung after a long period of interrogation and judgements. As the political situation was so precarious, the economy also started suffering. Our customers started missing their payments. We were paying the vouchers that we had signed. We received a voucher every hour. We had a credit of 30 thousand liras in Ziraat Bankası. Even though I had been married for 15 years, I had never asked for money from my father-in-law, but unfortunately I was in such a bind that I had to ask him: “My dear father, do you have money? Can you lend me some?” “ I have 20 thousand liras, it is yours” he replied.

Even though we took 15 thousand liras from my older brother Albert, we could not get a handle on our debts, the vouchers kept coming. We sold our merchandise at half price, finally we paid all our debts 100%. We did not want to settle with the creditors and unfortunately went bankrupt. We closed the store on December 31st, 1965. My father died on Febr. 29th, 1966.

Of course life went on and I had to continue working and earning money, I had a family. For a year I worked as a middleman. That is to say, I would provide a client with goods, in return I got a commission from the merchant where I bought the goods. One day, “Marcello Ajas”, who was a fabric merchant said to me: “the son of Fıcıcıoglu (owner of the store, someone I knew very well, a ready-made clothing merchant who I sold quite a bit of merchandise), is going to the military, they need someone reliable, if you want apply, at least you will have a salary." As soon as I learned I went and said: “Good day Halil Bey (Mr. Halil), how are you? I heard you are looking for someone, if it is convenient, I would like to apply." “Wonderful, as you know my son is leaving for the military, there are 25 people working in the company. I won’t be able to handle it alone. You know the business very well, you could help me a lot. How much salary do you want?” “Truly, I would be very happy if I got 500 liras a week." That was good money at the time, a kilo of meat cost 8 liras. I worked for 6 years with these conditions.

Later I was employed by the company “Bahar Meftrusat” for a salary of 42 thousand liras. I worked there as a sales manager for 10 years and retired. This store also has an interesting story. At the time the brothers Max and Michel Suraski, who were British Jews, had a fabric company. These gentlemen had opened a branch in Istanbul, this store was a 4-story business. During the rush of the Wealth Tax, they gave their merchandise (the merchandise in the store) to the nightguard Hüseyin Gürpinar, by paying him to take it to a warehouse in Sultanhamam in the late hours of the night and hide it there. Later, they sold this merchandise and smuggled the money to England. They were able to return home without incurring any damage. One of these brothers was married to a lady from Istanbul, he had Wolf and two other sons whose name I can’t recall. When Wolf became an adolescent he went to Israel and unfortunately died in a heart wrenching traffic accident. The other sons stayed in England. Unfortunately I don’t have more information about this family.

My mother developed varicose veins in her legs after her second pregnancy due to being overweight and for 25 years lived with open sores. My mother would clean these sores every day and dressed the wounds. At the time I was working in my father’s store, my father would say”: “Take money from the safe and buy your mom the supplies she needs." I would never let the house run short on these supplies. My mother went to a professor in the German Hospital for a check-up when she was 56 years old, when the doctor said: “Merkada Hanım (Mrs. Merkada) I can dry these sores with electrical beams, it is a very easy operation, don’t worry, you will be very comfortable." We took my mother to the hospital, the professor claimed that the surgery was successful. My mother stayed in the hospital for 8 days, then she returned home, but she was getting worse and worse. We realized she was ill and took her to see Dr. Barbut who was a cousin of my mother and the chief doctor of Or-Ahayim Hastanesi (hospital) [the first and only Jewish hospital on the European side]. He told us: “When your mother’s wounds were open, they would drain, now when they are covered, the infection stays in the body."

Unfortunately while we lost time at home, the infection had spread and reached the brain. Dr. Barbut took over my mother’s care. He put her on “Ilkaparin” (a kind of antibiotic), (one box cost 33 liras and she had to take 3 boxes), her body did not respond well to this therapy that lasted two months and unfortunately we lost my mother in 1947, in the hospital while my wife and I had been engaged for only two months. Because she was born and raised in Hasköy, we buried her there.

After he lost my mother, my father did not marry for 3 years. According to the Jewish faith, when a man is widowed with young children, he has to marry the sister of his deceased wife. My father did not follow this tradition, but married a childless lady, Eliz Franko, in 1950 with a civil ceremony. There was no religious ceremony in the Grand Rabbinate because they did not approve of this marriage. Eliz Hanım (Mrs. Eliz) had a 5-story building next to the Grand Rabbinate building of today. [on the European side, on Yeminici street close to Tünel] She lived in one of the flats and rented out the others. Before she and my dad were married they both signed papers forfeiting their rights to the inheritance at the notary. (After the death of either one, the other would not have the right to inherit). This building belonged to Eliz Hanım, after she died it went to her family. According to their agreement before the wedding, my father would give Eliz Hanım 300 liras a month for expenses, the rest she would take care of.

Eliz Hanım was a very good lady and took very good care of my father, they got along very well for the 16 years that they were together. Our store was at Mahmutpasa then [on the European side, one of the important centers of commerce], my father had grown old and every night we would return home by taxi (it was 5 liras), go up one flight of stairs, and I would leave my dad with Eliz Hanım. When we got home, Eliz Hanım would have prepared some appetizers and set the table. Before I could even say: “Have a good night.” “No, I will not let you go, first have a glass of raki, then go home” she would reply.

As I mentioned before, my father took care of his clothing. Even though he suffered from an insidious disease, on the outside, he had no symptoms. When my wife and I went to visit him one morning we found him sitting in his chair as usual in his suit and tie; his face was ashen; unfortunately he was having a heart attack and could not breathe, even though we loosened his tie we could not prevent death. He died in 1965 at the age of 81, we interned him in Kuzguncuk.

A year after his death, Eliz Hanım also died (I don’t remember where she was buried).

My older sister Ester was born in 1915. She graduated from Saint Benoit, and then completed the tests of Baccalaureate at the Palais de France with “outstanding academic achievement." In this exam there were subjects like Histoire (history) and Geographie Française (French geography), Geometrie (geometry), Botanic (biology). We had a beautiful piano in our house. Both Ester, and my other older sister Öjeni had taken lessons from the same instructor and they both played the piano well.

Ester married Yako Krespi in 1938 in the Zülfaris Synagogue [today it houses the Jewish museum inaugurated by the 500. Year Foundation]. My brother-in-law, Yako had a hardware workshop in Tahtakale, he would manufacture different sized tin boxes. From this marriage they had Viki (1940), Jojo (1943) and in (1948) twins named Hayim and Moshe.

My niece Viki, who was born in 1940 graduated from Saint Benoit. She married Mevorah Lago, a lawyer from Edirne in 1960, in the Zulfaris Synagogue. They had two daughters. One of them is named Eti, I forgot the name of the other one. Both are graduates of university. In 1990 Viki’s husband unfortunately passed on, he was buried in Istanbul. She married a gentleman named Jak a short while later (I don’t remember his family name), they currently live together.

Her daughters worked with the Turkish Airlines and they sent both of them to Israel. One of the girls is in charge of the Tel Aviv office of Turkish Airlines, she is married and has children.

The other girl is married to a gentleman who is a shirt merchant and has children (I don’t know the names). These two nieces currently reside in Israel.

My other nephew Jojo who was born in 1943 also finished Saint Benoit. He opened a metal hardware workshop in Dolapdere [A neighborhood on the European side], went to be with his sibling in Israel at the age of 35, worked with him for 5 years; returned to Istanbul. He married a lady named Beki at the age of 48 (I don’t know the last name). They did not have children, maybe they did not want them. His business is in Sishane [A neighborhood on the European side where the Jews lived at the turn of the century, today it is a tourist area and houses complementary electrical industry]. He imports projectors from Israel and sells them. He is 62 years old now.

The twins on the other hand celebrated their bar-mitzvah ceremony at the age of 13 in the B'nai Brith building of today. At the time the business of Yako (Jak) unfortunately wasn’t going well and he had a hard time raising so many kids. When Hayim and Moshe turned 14, they sent them to Israel and settled them there.

They, themselves settled in Israel after marrying their daughter, 10 years after the kids went to Israel. Ester died in 1995, my brother-in-law preceded her, they are both buried in Israel.

Hayim sells electronics. He married Beki who had emigrated from Istanbul and had three children. Two of the kids are college students, the other one manages a small gyros restaurant.

Moshe on the other hand is a military captain, there is a very interesting story about his career. The Israeli government had made an agreement with France about buying 5 ships but even though they had been paid for, the ships were not being delivered. The government devised a plan where they changed the last name of Moshe, prepared a new passport for him and flew him to France with a few helpers. The team reached France and raided the ships that belonged to them and brought them to Israel. My information about this period unfortunately is limited, I have been removed from events like the birth of Israel, and they did not write letters. Moshe’s wife is of Algerian origin, I don’t remember her last name, but his marriage to Maggie produced two sons. One of these children, I am sorry to say, died in a traffic accident at the age of 13, the other one is about to open a butcher shop.

My sister Elvir who was born in 1917 graduated from Saint Benoit like all of us and spoke French as well as a French born person... She married a Bulgarian Jew who was a drummer, unfortunately their union did not last long, they only stayed married for one year and separated; they did not have children. After this experience my sister unfortunately became schizophrenic, she was constantly sick and would get therapy. Her last years were spent in “La Paix” [Private psychiatric hospital]. My sister Ester and I would take Elvir on the weekends when she felt better to the movies with the doctor’s permission.

My brother Eliya who was 3 years younger than me was born on November 3rd, 1923, after finishing Saint Benoit attended the Technical University and got his masters in mechanical engineering. As a result of his education he knew French and English. He was very good friends with Süleyman Demirel 19 who was our prime minister for a long time since they studied in school together. Süleyman Bey graduated a year before my brother Eliya. Eliya, like Süleyman Bey, graduated with “outstanding achievement” on his diploma. Süleyman Bey started out with a masters in mechanical engineering; likewise he was the head of the Water Department in Ankara. My brother, when he graduated said: “I will go to Ankara and look for a job” and left home. He got to Ankara, and when he talked to Süleyman Bey, he told him: “There is an empty desk there, go sit down.” My brother Eliya worked there exactly 4 years.

Later Burla Biraderler [One of the first companies importing electronics from Europe] was opening a new branch and were looking for workers; someone came to ask Eliya: “How much do you make here? Come and work as a manager for me," so he started with them and was a manager in the company Burla Biraderler for 15 years.

My brother Eliya dated Suzi Strumza and married her in Zülfaris Synagogue, he loved her so much (his wife), he did not even get a dowry [the synagogue on the European side where the weddings of the time took place. Today it is replaced by the Jewish museum established by the 500th Year Foundation]. My sister-in-law Suzi went to a Turkish school. She spoke French well even though she learned it by listening only. This marriage produced Rina and Vili with his twin Teri.

Their daughter Rina had a very successful and remarkable education. After graduating very successfully from Robert Kolej (College) [today’s Bogazici University (Bosphorus University)], she became the English teacher at Macka Teknik Universitesi (Technical University) for long years and retired from there. I don’t mean to brag, but our family produced a lot of smart people. Rina married Izak Eskenazi. Izak sold medical supplies. Their marriage did not last long, they were obliged to separate. From this marriage, Rina had two daughters. Today they are settled in the United States and are married (I don’t know the girls’ names, nor where they work).

Their son Vili became an engineer like his dad. He is married to a Jewish lady from Istanbul. Today he is the father of two children who are 25 and 30, but I don’t know their names or anything else.

Their other daughter Teri emigrated to Israel after 1980. There she married a Frenchman and had a daughter. Teri had mental problems, I think that is why their marriage did not work. After divorcing, the daughter settled in France with her father. Teri, on the other hand, currently lives in a Kibbutz, she lives on the social security she gets from the government.

My sibling lives in Suadiye [A neighborhood on the Asian side], even though he is 82 years old, he still earns money translating books about electronics. Since we have both grown old, we can only communicate by phone, we see each other only on holidays or special days.

My older brother had an evening that I am proud of. As I said, my brother and Süleyman Bey were so close that when Süleyman Bey took over the presidency, he invited my brother and his wife to Cankaya.

My brother Albert who was born in 1926, studied at Saint Benoit, and then became an engineer like our older brother Eliya. His [Albert] French and English are also excellent. Even though there is a belief that non-Muslims are not employed by the government, Albert got a successful result from a test given by the government and became a “Control Engineer” for the government [government employee]. First he built a 7-story building for the Electric Company in Okmeydanı. He built the Electric Center at Batman and returned to Istanbul. As his 8th job he did the check-up of Atatürk Kültür Merkezi (Cultural Center) His job was to check the material used in making the buildings, not to permit theft, misplacement or reduction in materials.

Albert married Ivet Galin (I don’t have information about her family or her education). They had a daughter and son. Their daughter Sara is married to Dario Katalan. I know that their son-in-law Dario has a factory but I don’t know what he manufactures. Sara has two sons, ages 13 and 17. Unfortunately I don’t know their names.

My brother Albert’s son Heymi Alkabes is a gynecologist. He married a lady with the family name Arditi, but I am sorry to say the marriage ended in divorce in such a short time as 6 months. He went to Sıvas for his obligatory service, he worked at the health clinic there. There he met his colleague, pediatrician Berna Hanım and got married. Even though Berna is Muslim, she is very close to the family, we like her a lot. Of the boy and girl twins they had, the boy lived a very short time because his brain hadn’t developed. Their daughter is a very healthy young girl (I don’t know her exact age).

Erna and I had three daughters from our union. Our oldest daughter Sara was born in 1948, Rosita in 1950, Stella in 1954. I earned good money in the period when we were raising the kids, we did not have financial difficulties. As I explained before, my wife Erna is from Kadıköy and we lived with her family for 2 years. Later we moved out of our in-law’s house and lived around Kadıköy in a house with a heating stove for another 3 years. In this house the living room was right across the entrance hall, and we had 3 bedrooms and a bathroom off of a pretty long hallway. We would heat our 120 square meters house with a Belgian made stove that we had bought for 230 liras. Our kitchen and our bathroom could not be heated in very cold weather.

When our oldest won the right to enter “Nisantası Isık Lisesi”, we moved to Nisantas [on the European side] (1955). This house was on “Safak Sokak” which is parallel to Rumeli Caddesi which is the main route in Nisantas. This house was also 120 square meters and had a stove. When you entered the square shaped hall opened up to the livingroom and “salle a manger” [dining room]. We had a large earthenware stove in our living room. We had a salamandra stove in the middle of the hallway connecting this side with the back of the house. At the end of the hallway we had our and the girls’ bedrooms. We would leave the bedroom doors open and warm up with the heat from the stove in the hallway. As you can imagine, our rooms could be considered cold in winter but we never got sick, our children were quite healthy in this regard. Our bathroom and kitchen was quite modern, we got our hot water from the water heater that was connected to natural gas. All of our three daughters finished their primary education in Isık Lisesi and went to Saint Benoit for high school.

We had 7-8 couples as friends, on the weekends whenever weather permitted we would go on picnics, sometimes with kids, and at other times meet up in homes, chat and play cards. After a certain year (I think around 1960), we bought weekly tickets to “Konak Sineması” (movie theater) so we saw a movie every week. We would go to the theater once a month, as well as the movies. In addition, there was the trend of “Muzikhol” [music hall] then. There we would be served food from a fixed menu and we would listen to the most famous singers of the time. On new year’s eve, we would always attend a ball outside of the house, we would eat, listen to music, dance and have fun till the morning, when we returned home in the morning, the girls would have woken up, we would eat breakfast together and then we would go to bed. Our daughters have always been very understanding, they would play quietly while we slept.

Our oldest daughter Sara dated Erol Penso for 8 years and married in Neve Shalom on March 1970. They always lived on the European side, in a modern house. They raised two sons named Ceki (1972) and Niso (1974). Our daughter Sara always wished to study in college, while she was raising her family, (1997) she entered the university placement exam which is very hard and got accepted to the French Language and Literature faculty in Istanbul University, graduated in 4 years. She has the right to translate and translates books and scientific articles. Their son Ceki has been married to a nice girl for two years, Niso on the other hand is engaged, G-d willing we will marry him in December. Currently we reside in the same apartment.

Our middle daughter Rosita married Jojo Balibarıssever (September 30th 1973), a chemical engineer who graduated from the Bosphorus University, in Neve Shalom after finishing high school... My son-in-law worked for long years with Charles Danon who owns the Istanbul branch of Guido Modiano, which is centered in Italy. In 1980, Mr. Guido offered my son-in-law a job in Italy since he was very happy with his work. In this way the family moved to Milan. Guido Modiano’s company manufactures fabric machines and my son-in-law would market them here, when they moved he started marketing them to the whole world. The company has a profit of 8% from each machine sold, my son-in-law, in addition to his fixed salary, (the boss likes him so much that) gets 1% of this profit. Each machine has a sale price of at least 1.5 million dollars (you can make the calculations). That is why their financial situation thank G-d is very healthy. Their two children Semi (1977) and Rifka (1976) are now grown up. Their son Semi works in a very important advertising company in Italy. Their daughter Rifka studied child psychology in a university in London. During that time she married Remi Menenson (Ashkenazi Jew, French origin) in 2004. They currently reside in London. Rifka works as a child psychologist in a Jewish school in London. Her husband Remi is the head of Deutsche Orient Bank’s London branch. Remi’s mother is Jewish, father Catholic. This family unfortunately could not continue with their marriage and are divorced. Mme Murielle is a pediatrician, lives in Paris and is very religious, the father has settled in the United States and is remarried to a Christian. We met Mme. Murielle when she came to Istanbul on the occasion of the wedding.

Our youngest daughter Stella graduated from Bosphorus University with a degree in chemical engineering with outstanding achievement. With the help of the Israeli government she did her masters and doctorate in “The Weismann Institute of Science” in Rehovot for 8 years. After graduating she sent all her diplomas to New York and applied for a job. Of course she was accepted, she has been working as an academic for 20 years while continuing her research. She is now a United States citizen and is single. She comes every summer to Istanbul for 3 weeks to see us.

As you can see, we have grown old, thank G-d for our children, they always look after us. We live in the same apartment as our oldest daughter Sara, she comes every day to check on us, and when the weather permits, takes us to either to eat seafood or have a cup of tea by the Bosphorus with our son-in-law and sometimes with the grandkids. We have been retired for a long time (January 1st, 1985), I get 520 thousand liras, my wife Erna gets 500 thousand liras from social security. (After the death of my father-in-law, the partners continued depositing his social security in his daughter Erna’s name, when she completed 5,000 work days, she had a right to retire. In this way my wife also gets social security payments). The money just about covers the household expenses. We manage thanks to our daughters, we live in such a house. If not, we would have to live in Kasımpasa in a one room house, and live on carrots and potatoes. Thank G-d, they are all “reconaissante” [appreciative]. Rosita and Stella help us financially, Sarika and Erol help out financially as well as they can, but the moral help they give is boundless. Unfortunately, I have grown quite old, I have Parkinson's, tachycardia, shortness of breath and prostate problems, that is why I wake up depressed in the mornings, and on such days cannot say my morning prayers, even though I try, I cannot do it. I turn on the television, listen to some music, feel a little better, after having my breakfast I go into my office and read the newspapers, and cut out the articles I like and file them. Some nights I wake up around 4, go into the kitchen and make myself vegetable soup and carrot salad. Now I spend my time eating.

Glossary:

1 Shalom

Shalom: Istanbul Jewish weekly, founded by Avram Leyon in 1948. During Leyon’s ownership, the paper was entirely in Ladino. Upon the death of its founder in 1985, the newspaper passed into the hands of the Jewish community owned company Gozlem Gazetecilik. It then started to be published in Turkish with one or two pages in Ladino. It is presently distributed to 4,000 subscribers

2 Ladino

Ladino: also known as Judeo-Spanish, it is the spoken and written Hispanic language of Jews of Spanish and Portugese origin. Ladino did not become a specifically Jewish language until after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 (and Portugal in 1495) - it was merely the language of their province. It is also known as Judezmo, Dzhudezmo, or Spaniolit. When the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal they were cut off from the further development of the language, but they continued to speak it in the communities and countries to which they emigrated. Ladino therefore reflects the grammar and vocabulary of 15th century Spanish. In Amsterdam, England and Italy, those Jews who continued to speak ‘Ladino’ were in constant contact with Spain and therefore they basically continued to speak the Castilian Spanish of the time. Ladino was nowhere near as diverse as the various forms of Yiddish, but there were still two different dialects, which corresponded to the different origins of the speakers: ‘Oriental’ Ladino was spoken in Turkey and Rhodes and reflected Castilian Spanish, whereas ‘Western’ Ladino was spoken in Greece, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia and Romania, and preserved the characteristics of northern Spanish and Portuguese. The vocabulary of Ladino includes hundreds of archaic Spanish words, and also includes many words from different languages: mainly from Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, French, and to a lesser extent from Italian. In the Ladino spoken in Israel, several words have been borrowed from Yiddish. For most of its lifetime, Ladino was written in the Hebrew alphabet, in Rashi script, or in Solitro. It was only in the late 19th century that Ladino was ever written using the Latin alphabet. At various times Ladino has been spoken in North Africa, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, France, Israel, and, to a lesser extent, in the United States and Latin America

3 Alliance Israelite Universelle

Alliance Israelite Universelle: founded in 1860 in Paris, this was the main organization that provided Ottoman and Balkan Jewry with western style modern education. The alliance schools were organized in a network with their Central Committee in Paris. The teaching body was usually the alumni trained in France. The schools emphasized modern sciences and history in their curriculum; nevertheless Hebrew and religion were also taught. Generally students were left ignorant of the Turkish language and the history and culture of the Ottoman Empire and as a result the new generation of Ottoman Jews was more familiar with France and the west in general than with their surrounding society. In the Balkans the first school was opened in Greece (Volos) in 1865, then in the Ottoman Empire in Adrianople in 1867, Shumla (Shumen) in 1870, and in Istanbul, Smyrna (Izmir), and Salonika in the 1870s. In Bulgaria numerous schools were also established; after 1891 those that had adopted the teaching of the Bulgarian language were recognized by the state. The modernist Jewish elite and intelligentsia of the late nineteenth century Ottoman Empire was known for having graduated from alliance schools; they were closely attached to the Young Turk circles, and after 1908 three of them (Carasso, Farraggi, and Masliah) were members of the new Ottoman Chamber of Deputies

4 Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal

Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938): Great Turkish statesman, the founder of modern Turkey. Mustafa Kemal was born in Salonika; he adapted the name Ataturk (father of the Turks) when he introduced surnames in Turkey. He joined the liberal Young Turk movement, aiming at turning the Ottoman Empire into a modern Turkish nation state and also participated in the Young Turk Revolt (1908). He fought in the Second Balkan War (1913) and World War I. After the Ottoman capitulation to the Entente, Mustafa Kemal Pasha organized the Turkish Nationalist Party (1919) and set up a new government in Ankara to rival Sultan Mohammed VI, who had been forced to sign the treaty of Sevres (1920), according to which Turkey would loose the Arab and Kurdish provinces, Armenia, and the whole of European Turkey with Istanbul and the Aegean littoral to Greece. He was able to regain much of the lost provinces and expelled the Greeks from Anatolia. He abolished the Sultanate and attained international recognition for the Turkish Republic at the Lausanne Treaty (1923). Under his presidency Turkey became a constitutional state (1924), universal male suffrage was introduced, state and church were divided and he also introduced the Latin script.
5 Sumerbank: institution founded when the Turkish Republic was founded (1923) to en hance the economic situation of the country. Sumerbank formed the greatest textile group in the country with its 40 textile factories. Giant institutions like SEKA (paper), Erdemir (steel), Seker (sugar) were byproducts of Sumerbank and constituted the basis of Turkish industry. Sumerbank was founded as a bank because of the government’s lack of funds. It continues to serve the country even today.
6 Turkish War of Independence: Turkish War of Independence (1919-1922): After the Ottoman capitulation to the Entente, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later Kemal Ataturk) organized the Turkish Nationalist Party (1919) and set up a new government in Ankara to rival Sultan Mohammed VI, who had been forced to sign the treaty of Sevres (August 1920). He was able to regain much of the lost provinces; stopped the advancing Greek troops only 8 km from Ankara and was able to finally expel them from Anatolia (August 1922). He gained important victories in diplomacy too: he managed to have both the French and the Italian withdrawn from Anatolia by October 1921 and Soviet Russia recognize the country and establish the Russian-Turkish boundary. Signing a British-proposed armistice in Thrace he managed to have the Greeks withdrawn beyond the Meric (Maritsa) River and accepted a continuous Entente presence in the straits and Istanbul. In November 1922 the Grand National Assembly abolished the Sultanate (retained the Caliphate though) by which act the Ottoman Empire ‘de jure’ ceased to exist. Sultan Mohammed VI fled to Malta and his cousin, Abdulmejid, was named the Caliph. Turkey was the only defeated country able to negotiate with the Entente as equal and influence the terms of the peace treaty. At the Lausanne conference (November 1922-July 1923) the Entente recognized the present day borders of Turkey, including the areas acquired through warfare after the signing of the Treaty in Sevres.

7 Events of 6th-7th September, 1955

Events of 6th-7thSeptember 1955: Pogrom against the ethnic Greeks in Istanbul. It broke out after the rumour that Ataturk’s house in Salonika (Greece) was being bombarded. As most of the Greek houses and businesses had been registered by the authorities earlier it was easy to carry out the pogrom. The Greek (and other non-Muslim communities) were hit severely: 3 people were killed, 30 were wounded, also 1004 houses, 4348 shops, 27 pharmacies and laboratories, 21 factories, 110 restaurants and cafes, 73 churches, 26 schools, 5 sports clubs and 2 cemeteries were destroyed; 200 Greek women were raped. A great wave of immigration occurred after these events and Istanbul was cleansed of its Greek population.

8 Covered Bazaar (Grand Bazaar)

In the year 1461, the Grand Bazaar was built under the rule of Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror. During the 16th and 18th century, many fires and earthquakes broke out near or in the Bazaar. The whole story of the Bazaar is one of continuous destruction and reconstruction. The Kapalı Çarşı was established on its present site by Sultan Mehmet II. Although it has been destroyed several times by fires, the Bazaar is essentially the same in structure and appearance as it was when it was first built four centuries ago. There are streets of jewellers, gold-smiths and silver-smiths, of furniture dealers, haberdashers, shoemakers and ironmongers. In short every taste is catered for; one has but to wander and inspect and bargain. Today the Covered Bazaar consists of approximately 60 lanes and more than 3,000 shops.

9 Zulfaris Synagogue/Museum of Turkish Jews

This synagogue, recorded in the Chief Rabbinate archives as Kal Kadosh Galata, is commonly known as Zulfaris Synagogue. The word is derived from the former name of the street in which it is located: Zulf-u arus, which means Bride’s Long Lock. Today the street is called Perchemli Sokak which means Fringe Street. There is evidence that this synagogue preexisted in 1671, when Haim Kamhi was Chief Rabbi, as the foundations date from the early 15th century Genovese period. However, the actual building was re-erected over its original foundation, presumably in the early 19th century. In the 1890s, repair work was carried out with the financial assistance of the Camondo family and in 1904 restoration work was conducted by the Jewish community of Galata, presided over by Jak Bey de Leon. (Source: www.muze500.com)

10 Robert College

Robert College: The oldest and most prestigious English language school in Istanbul since the mid-19th century providing education to the elite of Turkey as well as other countries in the region. Robert College was born in 1863 in the village of Bebek by the Bosphorus, when Christopher Robert approached Cyrus Hamlin with his desires and found a receptive audience. Hamlin, an American schoolmaster, had been running a school, a bakery and a laundry in Bebek at the time. Robert was a wealthy American industrialist desiring to establish in Turkey a modern university along American lines with instruction in English. These two men, an educator and a philanthropist, successfully collaborated to found Robert College. Until 1971, it included two campuses: the actual Robert College exclusively for boys and the American College for Girls. In 1971, the American College for Girls and the Robert College boys school united and co-education started under the name of Robert College at the previous American College for Girls campus. At the same time the Turkish government took over the boys’ campus, which became Bogazici University (Bosporus University). Robert College and today’s Bogazici University were and still are the best schools in Turkey. Through the years, these schools have had graduates occupying top positions in Turkey’s business, political, academic and art sectors.

11 Mahmut Celal Bayar

(16.05.1883 -22.08.1986) Minister, Prime Minister and President of the Turkish Republic. Celal Bayar was born in Bursa in 1883. His family is believed to be of the Karaites in Bulgaria. In 1908, he joined the Young Turks movement and also became a mason. He joined the war of independence with the alias Galip Hoca. He was active in Western Anatolia during the war; then afterwards he became the Bursa representative in the first National Congress of the Turkish Republic. He became Minister of Economy in 1921. He played an important role in the foundation of Is Bank in 1924. He became Prime Minister in the 1937-1939 term. After the foundation of the multi-party system in the Turkish political life he and his friends founded the Democrat Party in 1946 and was elected president of that party. After his party won the 1950 elections he was elected as the third President of the Turkish Republic by the National Assembly in the same year. He had to quit after 10 years because of the military coup in 1960. He was sentenced to death by the Yassiada Court; his sentence was then changed to a life sentence. However in 1964 he was freed due to illness and then in 1966, he was pardoned by the President of the time, Cevdet Sunay. Celal Bayar died in 1986.

12 Raki

Raki: Anise liquor, popular in many places in the Balkans, Anatolia and the Middle East. It is principally the same as Greek Ouzo, Bulgarian Mastika or Arabic Arak.

13 Neve Shalom Synagogue

Neve Shalom Synagogue: Situated near the Galata Tower, it is the largest synagogue of Istanbul. Although the present building was erected only in 1952, a synagogue bearing the same name had been standing there as early as the 15th century.

14 Sultan Abdulhamit II (1842-1918)

Conservative ruler (1876-1909) of the late 19th century, saving the Empire, once more, from collapse. He accepted the First Ottoman Constitution in 1876 but suspended it in 1878 and introduced authoritarian rule after the Berlin Congress when - due to European Great Power interference - many of his European possessions were lost to the newly independent Balkan states (Serbia, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria). After losing Tunesia to the French (1881) and Egypt to the British (1882), he turned towards Germany as an ally and signed a concession for the construction of the Istanbul-Baghdad railway (1899). During his reign the University of Istanbul was established (1900) and a nation-wide network of elementary, secondary and military schools was created. The Empire went through immense modernization: a railway and telegraph system was developed and new industries were created. Despite the continuous effort of the Zionists he wouldn’t allow Jewish settlements in the Holy Land, neither would he give it to the British. Sultan Abdulhamid II was abdicated by the Young Turk Revolution in 1909 reestablishing the Constitution and expelling him to Salonika.

15 Or Ahayim Hospital

Or Ahayim Hospital: Istanbul Jewish hospital, established in 1898 with the decree of Sultan Abdulhamit II and the help of idealistic doctors and philanthropists. As a result of various fundraising activities the initially small clinic was expanded in 1900. Today, the hospital is still operating serving both Jewish and non-Jewish patients with the latest technologies and qualified staff.

16 Wealth Tax

Wealth Tax: Introduced in December 1942 by the Grand National Assembly in a desperate effort to resolve depressed economic conditions caused by wartime mobilization measures against a possible German influx to Turkey via the occupied Greece. It was administered in such a way to bear most heavily on urban merchants, many of who were Christians and Jews. Those who lacked the financial liquidity had to sell everything or declare bankruptcy and even work on government projects in order to pay their debts, in the process losing most or all of their properties. Those unable to pay were subjected to deportation to labor camps until their obligations were paid off.

17 Inonu, Ismet (1884-1973)

Inonu, Ismet (1884-1973): Turkish statesman and politician, the second president of the Turkish Republic. Ismet Inonu played a great role in the victory of the Turkish armies during the Turkish War of Independence. He was also the politician who signed the Lausanne Treaty in 1923, thereby ensuring the territorial integrity of the country as well as the revision of the previous Treaty of Sevres (1920). He also served Turkey as prime minister various times. He was the ‘all-time president’ of the CHP Republican People’s Party. Ismet Inonu was elected president on 11th November 1938, one day after Ataturk’s death. He was successful in keeping Turkey out of World War II.

18 Menderes, Adnan (1899-1961)

Menderes, Adnan (1899–1961): Turkish prime minister and martyr. He became one of the leaders of the new Democratic Party, the only opposition party in Turkey in 1945, and prime minister after the elections in 1950. He was re-elected in 1954 and 1957 and deposed in 1960 by a military coup, lead by General Cemal Gursel. He was put on trial on the charge of violating the constitution and was executed. (Source: http://www.encyclopedia.com/

19 Suleyman Demirel

(1924- ), Turkish political leader, president of Turkey (1993-2000). A successful engineer, he became leader of the Justice party in 1964, deputy prime minister in Feb., 1965, and prime minister in Oct., 1965. His failure to halt civil anarchy in the form of student riots, leftist agitation, and political terrorism forced the resignation of his centrist government in 1971. He again served as prime minister (1975-80) of a coalition government, but in 1980 civil turmoil led to an army coup. Demirel was ousted, detained (1980, 1983), and banned from politics until 1987. From 1991 to 1993 (now as leader of the conservative True Path party) he was again prime minister, after which he became president. Although the presidency was largely a ceremonial office, a series of short-lived and unstable governments enabled Demirel to acquire considerable power.

Sally Uzvalova

Sally Uzvalova
Ukraine
Chernovtsy
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya

Sally Uzvalova is a short slim woman with a straight bearing. She has gray hair neatly cut. Sally is friendly and dignified. Within few minutes of our discussion I felt like we had known each other for a while. She speaks fluent Russia, although her mother tongue is Rumanian and she started learning Russian during the Great Patriotic War. Sally enjoyed giving an interview. She is the only survivor of all members of her family and she hopes that her story will become a monument to all of her relatives that were morally and physically obliterated by the Soviet power. Perhaps someone related to her family will read her story and contact her.

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

My grandfather on my father’s side Idel Barzak was born in Lodz in 1870s. I have no information about his family. They all stayed in Poland. My grandfather Idel finished Yeshiva in Krakov. He was a cantor. There were no vacancies in the synagogues in Lodz or Krakov and my grandfather was sent to the town of Soroki [Bessarabia, about 1000 km from Krakow]. He was a cantor in the synagogue there for 40 years, until 1940. His wife, my grandmother Hana came from Soroki. My grandmother was the same age as my grandfather.

Before 1918 Soroki belonged to the Russian Empire. In 1918 the town became a part of Rumania. Rumanian language became a state language. It wasn’t a problem for local population. As Moldavian was very close to Rumanian. There were slogans in public places: “Please, speak Rumanian”. Soroki was a provincial town where the flow of time only left its signs on people, but not on the town itself. It was a small town. There were about 500 Jewish families that constituted about half of population. There was also Moldavian and Russian population. There were no national conflicts in the town. Jews lived in the central part of Soroki. Moldavians were farmers in their majority. They lived in the outskirts of the town. Land was less expensive in the outskirts of the town and they had their farm fields, vineries and orchards. There were few Jewish attorneys, doctors and pharmacists in Soroki. Most of the Jewish population finished cheder (4 years) and were handicraftsmen. Most of the Jewish families were poor. Apart from this all Jews observed all Jewish traditions. There was no theft or adultery among Jewish people. They led a very decent life. However, there were two brothels in Soroki with red lamps on them: one for officers and one for soldiers, but Jews never visited them. There were big Jewish families, there wasn’t much space in their dwellings and led a transparent life. Everybody knew everything about their neighbors. All Jews were religious. In the morning and in the evening all Jews regardless of their profession dressed up to go to pray at the synagogue. There were two synagogues in Soroki – one bigger synagogue in the center of the town and a smaller one – near the Rumanian fortress in the outskirts of the town. Working people went to this smaller synagogue and the richer attended the synagogue in the center. On Friday every family got prepared for Shabbat. On holidays children gathered in the yard of the big two-storied synagogue to listen to the shofar. On holidays all Jews were dressed up. Bearded men wore their clean clothes and black hats. Their wives were housewives for the most part. But some women like my grandmother had to work to support their families. Girls from poor families that didn’t have an opportunity to study in grammar schools went to study a profession after finishing Jewish primary school. Girls were dressmakers or embroideresses for the most part.

When my grandfather was not busy at the synagogue he prayed at home and read religious books. I remember him praying with his twiln on his hand and forehead. A cantor must have received a small salary, because my grandmother owned a store to support the family of six members. It was a small store that occupied just one room in the house where the family resided. The store was open from morning till late evening and my grandmother worked there just. She sold essential goods in her store. My grandparents had five sons. The oldest Itzyk was born in 1895. The next one was my father Borukh that was born in 1898. Meyer was born in 1900. Leon (Leib) was born in 1906. Daniel, the youngest son, was born in 1908.

My grandmother’s business and my grandfather’s salary of a cantor in a synagogue allowed my grandparents to provide for the family, but it was not enough. They lived in a small house. My grandmother and grandfather lived in one room, five boys lived in another and the store was housed in the biggest room. There was a hallway between my grandparents’ room and the store where my grandfather had his desk with his accessories for praying and religious books. He prayed in this room. My grandfather was a man of average height. He wore payes and a big beard. He wore a yarmulke at home and a big black hat when he went out. My grandfather was a very nice and kind man. My grandmother was a tall and big woman. She wore long skirts and dark long-sleeved blouses. She always wore a shawl. My grandmother had thick dark hair, but I got an impression that her head was shaved and she wore a wig. When her grandchildren wanted to stroke her hair she never allowed us to do so. Perhaps, she was afraid that we would move her wig. My grandmother was a hardworking and energetic woman.

They celebrated all Jewish holidays and followed the kashrut. All members of the family knew Russian, Rumanian and Moldavian, but they spoke Yiddish in the family. On Friday my grandmother lit candles to celebrate Shabbat. I remember Shabbat in my father’s family where the tradition of celebrating Shabbat in the parents’ house was observed even when the sons were married and lived with their own families. My grandmother was a brilliant cook and always made Gefilte fish, chicken and hala bread at Shabbat. After the prayer the family sat down to festive dinner. My grandmother made food for two days to stay rested on Saturday.

My father and all five children worked very hard. The boys finished cheder (4 years) and after they had to go to work. Their parents couldn’t afford to give them education. My father worked at the state tobacco plantation since he was 11. He took a piece of mamalyga (Editor’s note: corn pudding) and a clove of garlic or an onion to work. Working hard he made some saving and at 27 he owned a house and two stores. His brothers were also doing well. Leon was my father’s partner. He married a Jewish girl from a very poor family. She had no dowry, but she was very pretty. Leon and his wife Liya had a son. Yasha was born in 1933. My father’s older brother Itzyk owned a restaurant located in the central street in Soroki. He had 6 children. Meyer owned a big shoe store. He had two children: son Lyova and daughter Bella. Daniel owned a tavern with 6 or 7 tables in it. Moldavian farmers used to drop by for a glass or two of a drink. They could have a snack: marinated herring or pickles made by my grandmother. Daniel was married and had a son.

My mother’s family lived in Yassy, Rumania. My grandmother and grandfather came from Yassy. My grandfather Ishye Roitberg was born in 1860s. My grandmother Golda was 2-3 years younger than my grandfather. I didn’t know any about my grandparents’ families. My grandparents owned a small shop where they made children’s clothes and bed sheets. There were 5 or 6 employees working in the shop. My grandmother cut fabrics. She did the cutting at night, so that seamstresses could make lovely pillows, overalls, dresses and baby’s loose jackets during a day. I remember blue and red ribbons used as adornments. I liked to play with them.

Yassy are located in Northeastern Rumania near the current border of Rumani with Moldavia. Yassy was a bigger town than Soroki. There were many Jews in Yassy, about 50% population. They were all religious. There were few synagogues in the town. I remember one of them where my grandparents took me when I came to visit them. This was the biggest synagogue, nicely and richly furnished and decorated. My grandfather had a seat of his own on the lower floor and my grandmother had a seat in the upper floor. There was a strong Jewish community in Yassy that made contributions to the synagogue, to support the poor and sickly Jews and even to provide a dowry to orphaned girls or girls from poor families. My grandfather and grandmother were very religious. They celebrated Shabbat and all Jewish holidays and followed the kashrut. My grandfather had many books in Hebrew and in Yiddish: religious and classic. He used to read in the evening. My grandparents worked very hard, but they provided well for the family. They had six children: three sons and three daughters.

The oldest son Yankel was born in 1895. The next one was Mark, born in 1899. Their next son Shymon was born in 1902. Then there came three daughters: Fania, born in 1904, my mother Tonia, born in 1906 and the youngest daughter Etia, born in 1911.

The family lived in their own house in the center of Yassy. Their sewing shop was in the same house. The house was big enough: the girls and the boys had rooms, one room belonged to their parents and there was a big living room and a kitchen that served as a dining room on weekdays. At Shabbat and on holidays the family had meals in the living room.

My grandparents spoke Yiddish and the children spoke Rumanian to one another. The boys studied at cheder and the girls had a teacher coming to teach them at home. They studied Hebrew and to read and write in Hebrew and Yiddish. All boys finished a Rumanian lower secondary (8 years) grammar school and continued their studies. Yankel studied in Yeshiva in Bucharest. After finishing the Yeshiva he became a gabba at the synagogue in Bucharest. He was married and had three children. Shymon graduated from Medical Faculty at the Bucharest University. Mark opened his own footwear store in Yassy after finishing a commercial college. They were all married and had children.

All three daughters finished a grammar school. Besides studying general subjects they were taught manners. Men willingly married graduates of this grammar school, as they made good wives and assisted their husbands in business. My mother’s sisters married wealthy men. Fania got married in 1927 and Etia - in 1930. Fania’s husband Matey Levinzon was a businessman and Etia’s husband owned a store.

My grandfather Ishye died in Yassy in 1932. He was buried at the Jewish cemetery in Yassy in accordance with the Jewish tradition.

In 1923 my father was recruited to serve in the Rumanian army two years. He served in Yassy where he met my mother’s older brother Mark. Mark invited my father to his home at weekends. My father met my mother and fell in love with her. It was love at first sight. My mother was a striking beauty when she was young. She became “Miss Yassy” several times. My father asked my grandparents their consent for marrying their daughter. They told him that my mother didn’t have a dowry. My father didn’t give up and they got engaged. After their engagement my father took my mother to the jewelry store and bought her a golden ring and a watch. This was his first gift to my mother. He was madly in love with her. This was a heavenly love and they kept it through their marriage.

In 1925 after the service term of my father was over, my parents got married. My father was 25 and my mother - 19. They had a wedding party in my mother parents’ home. My mother’s parents had just completed the construction of an annex to their house where they were going to locate their sewing shop. My parents had their wedding party in this annex. They had a traditional Jewish wedding. The rabbi from a big synagogue conducted the ceremony. There was a big wedding feast after the ceremony. There were many guests. My father’s relatives from Soroki came to the wedding. After the wedding my father took his young wife to Soroki. My father didn’t have a house. At the beginning my parents rented a house from an old gray-bearded man Volovskiy.

Growing up

In some time my father purchased that plot of land from him and built two big houses. He started construction of the 2nd house after I was born. I was born on 14 October 1927. I was named Sarah, but I mispronounced the sound “r” in my childhood saying “Sally” instead of “Sarah”. Everybody started calling me “Sally”. My father wanted me to live nearby after I got married and built a 2nd house near his own house. The 2nd house had big Venetian windows: my father saw them when he was in Rumania. He used to joke that if my mother didn’t let my admirers in, they would enter the house through the windows. We didn’t have a stove. My father built a modern house without a stove. There was no water supply or sewerage in Soroki. We had a big tank of water in the attic supplying water to the bathrooms, toilets and the kitchen. When the Soviet power was established in 1940 both houses were nationalized. They house a museum of weapons now.

There were room maids in our family. I had a room maid of my own. My mother helped my father to do business. She started to work in my father’s fabric store. My father was accounting and purchase manager of the store. In each store there were 2-3 employed shop assistants that were Jews. My mother supervised the shop assistant and advised her customers on what to select. Many people came to the store to take a look at the beautiful wife of Borukh Barzak. And they bought more from the store. My mother helped my father in many ways. My father always listened to my mother’s advice about the fabrics to purchase. My mother often arranged dinner for his business partners when they came to Soroki. It was very good for my father’s business to demonstrate that he managed his business and his household with efficiency.

My father came home for lunch. I tried to finish my lunch quickly, because then my father rode me on my sleighs for about an hour and we both enjoyed being outside in the fresh air. My father loved me dearly. When I grew older he often took me on his business trips. I was very happy to spend time with my father.

My farther was a very kind and honest man. Older Jews called him “a giter id” – a good Jew in Yiddish. Other people often came to ask my father’s advice. One of his clerks was to go to serve in the army. There was a possibility to pay a redemption fee to save a recruit for service in the army. The fee was equal to the price of a horse. My father paid this price for the man and the clerk continued his work in the store. Another clerk’s sister was getting married and had no dowry. My father gave her shoes, underwear and clothes that he had in his store. His clerks were Jewish people.

My father loved his parents. Before going to buy goods in Bucharest or other towns he went to ask my grandmother’s Jewish blessing. When he returned he went to see his parents and give them gifts that he brought from his trips. He had to pass our house, as his parents lived farther from the railway station and I often saw him going past his home to see them.

My mother always wore beautiful clothes that my father brought from Bucharest. My father and mother were a very handsome couple. They were different, though. My mother was a very educated woman, while my father just finished cheder. My mother taught him to clothe with taste and good manners. They used to dress up in the evening and go to the synagogue hand in hand. I don’t remember them arguing. My father was a very smart businessman and a good family man. He always tried to please his beloved wife. When he went to make purchases he loaded what he bought himself saving on loaders and bought big boxes of chocolates for my mother that cost 500 lei each. This was a lot of money at the time. My mother ate a box of chocolate in one evening. I tried to finish my lunch as soon as I could and my father took me out to toboggan. When I grew up my father took me with him when he went on business trips. We enjoyed spending time together.

My father and mother were very religious. My father had a seat near the Eastern wall at the synagogue and my mother had a seat on the upper floor. My father made charity contributions and took care of some poor families giving them money to buy matsah for the holidays. My father made contributions to the synagogue. The synagogue provided food products to poor families to celebrate Pesach. They bought clothes for the needy families. But every Jew had special clothes for go to synagogue. However poor they might have been every man had a black suit, kippah and a black hat and woman had fancy gowns. My mother also put on a fancy dress and they went to the synagogue holding hands. When my father came home from work in the evening he put on a suit of fine cloth, white shirt and a tie and a black hat. We spoke Rumanian at home. I only heard Yiddish when I visited my grandparents.

My parents followed the kashrut. We also had kosher utensils for dairy and meat products for everyday use. I remember washing my hands in the sink when some foam splashed onto a casserole. The soap was not kosher! It was a tragedy. I was told to get out of the kitchen and was not allowed to come in there for quite some time. My mother took the casserole outside, because it wasn’t kosher any more. My mother had special dishes and kitchen utensils for Pesach. She took he everyday dishes and utensils to the attic for the whole period of Pesach. We always had matsah at Pesach. My mother had a Jewish cook that made traditional Jewish food and baked traditional cookies. She made gefilte fish and chicken at Shabbat. Halas were delivered to rich houses. Poorer people made hala bread by themselvesWe had ridges filled with ice. Ice was placed in the upper part where there was a tube water drain. Every morning a big piece of ice wrapped in hay was delivered to our house. My father cut it into smaller pieces and sprinkled with salt to prevent it from melting. My father liked to do shopping himself. He got up at 5am to go to the market to buy the best chicken, cottage cheese and everything else. He opened his store after he returned from the market. My father always bought live chickens. Our cook brought the chickens to the shoihet. There was a Jewish butcher’s shop selling kosher veal and beef.

We often went to visit my grandparents on Jewish holidays. There was a rule in the family that the sons and their families celebrated Shabbat and holidays in their parents’ home. At Shabbat my grandmother lit candles and said a prayer over them. My grandmother baked halas, made Gefilte fish and strudels. My grandmother said a prayer over the candles and then we all prayed for health and wealth of all members of the family. Children also participated in prayers. Then the family sat at the table. Men drank a little vodka in small silver glasses and women drank a little bit of wine. Then we had a festive dinner. My parents went to the synagogue on Saturday. The cook made food for Saturday on Friday. She baked buns with chicken fat and cracklings, made stew with meat and potatoes and made various tsymes dishes. She left the food in the oven to keep it warm until the following day. Stores were closed on Saturday. On this day our father read us a section from the Torah and in the evening we often had guests. A Moldavian man came to light the lamp and stake the stove. He was paid for this service.

At Pessach the whole family was going to in parental house. They put a big table in a bigger room to have the whole family fir at the table. The sons came with their wives and children. There was traditional food for Pesach on the table: Gefilte fish, chicken broth, matsah and potato puddings and most delicious strudels, salt water, greeneries and bitter horseradish. Salt water symbolized tears of Jews and horseradish – bitterness of the Jewish slavery in Egypt. The greeneries were dipped in salt water and eaten. My grandfather conducted the Seder. One of his grandsons asked him traditional questions. We followed all traditions, as my grandfather was a cantor at the synagogue.

My father’s brothers had children and we were all very close. We often came to see our grandparents. Our grandmother was always happy to see her grandchildren. Our grandfather always prayed when he was at home. Sometimes we took advantage of the situation running into his store to grab a lollypop or something else. Our grandfather couldn’t reprimand us because he couldn’t say a word during his prayers. He only murmured “M-m-m”, but couldn’t punish us for what we did. There was a tray with a small silver glass of vodka and a piece of leikech – honey cake. After the prayer our grandfather dipped a piece of leikech into vodka and sucked it. Our grandfather was very proud of his sons and hoped that his grandchildren would also be a success in life.

In 1933 my mother gave birth to a boy. He was named Oscar. His Jewish name was Ishye after my mother’s father. The whole town was invited to the ritual of circumcision. There was a big table with gifts for children in the middle of the yard. There were 300 packages with candy and fruit. There was a violinist playing and there was much joy that a son was born.

When I turned 7 my parents sent me to the French grammar school in Yassy. I stayed in the boarding school. This grammar school was founded by French nuns and they were also teachers at the school. We studied all subject in Rumanian. There were quite a few Jewish girls in the grammar school. My mother and her sisters also studied at this grammar school. The fee to pay for my studies was rather high, but my father was sure that he would be able to provide for me.

I was to study 12 years at the grammar school: 4 years of primary school and 8 years of grammar school. We studied all general subjects plus embroidery, sewing rules of conduct, music, reception of guests, ethics and esthetics. The nuns wore long black skirts with white stripes and always had books of prayers in their hands. All nuns had finished closed higher educational institutions for girls and had at least the level of B.S. During classes there was silence in the building of the school. We had uniform of our school.

We were taught to respect older people. We were taught to be honest and kind to people. These nuns taught me the basics of morale and ethics. I was a spoiled girl from a wealthy family. My father expressed his love to me with gifts, but he couldn’t spend enough time with me to teach me what I needed to know. I’ve lived my life according to the principles that I learned from the nuns. We were taught to evaluate our behavior and to be critical to it. Every morning nuns called the names of the girls and each was supposed to evaluate her behavior during a previous day based on the 10-grade scale. The nuns were watching us and took notice of our misconduct to check how objective we were in our evaluations. We were also supposed to speak nicely to guests and be well mannered and reserved. We were to move in a nice manner and bear ourselves decently. The girls were prepared to be a wife, a mother and mistress of the house. We studied to play the piano, sing and dance.

Jewish girls arranged charity concerts and invited our families to attend them. The money that we collected selling tickets was spent to buy clothes for girls from poor Jewish families at Pesach. Pupils of other faith arranged charity concerts to contribute the money to poor families of their faith. We were taught to help less fortunate people. We celebrated all religious holidays at the boarding school. Jewish girls learned to celebrate Shabbat and light candles. We celebrated Pesach, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and Purim. Jewish girls also studied the rules of kashrut where we learned to make a menu for different occasions, cook and lay the table.

We had mandatory classes of religion – separate for believers representing different religions. The Rumanian government respected the right of national minorities to study their own language. We were taught to respect somebody else’s religion. A rabbi came to teach Jewish girls Hebrew and Yiddish. We had a special classroom for our classes. Catholic church and Christian pupils had their religious classes too.

There were rich libraries with a big collection of books in Yiddish translated into Rumanian. Jewish rules were well respected in the grammar school. Religion played the main role in the life of every family.

After Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 fascist organizations appeared in Rumania. For some period of time the Rumanian police didn’t stop their anti-Semitic attacks, but when the organization of kuzists (1) intended to usurp the power gendarmes shot kuzists in all Rumanian towns. They didn’t execute all of them, but it became a warning to all other fascists and they quieted down.

In 1940 the USSR declared an ultimatum to Rumania demanding Bessarabia and Moldavia. My father realized that the situation was rowing severe and came to Yassy to take me home. I had finished primary school and was in the 2nd year of secondary school. My grandmother Golda was terrified and begged my father to move to Rumania. My grandmother invited some Russians that had emigrated from Russia in 1918 that told my father about the horror of the Soviet power. However, my father was convinced that his children would reach more in the Soviet country that in Rumania. He said that he was young and strong and he could go to work. We had a German radio at home - «Telefunken». My father knew Russian and often listened to broadcast from the USSR. He believed the Soviet propaganda about equal rights and friendship between all nations, the right to labor and rest and social justice. He thought that in the Soviet country he wouldn’t have to worry about supporting his family because the state would take care of many issues. My father strongly refused from moving to Rumania. When I was leaving the boarding school the nuns told me something that imprinted on my memory and stayed there forever: “Girl, we are sorry that you are leaving, because there can be no good in the country where people don’t believe in God. There is no other truth on the Earth but faith in the God. Please remember what we’ve taught you and stick to these rules in life”.

We arrived at Soroki and on the next day the Soviet army came to the town. This happened on 28 June 1940. The stores sold out their stocks. In three days NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs) arrested my father and his brother and partner Leon, as “socially dangerous elements”. They were considered “dangerous” to the society, because they were co-owners of a store with hired employees that meant that they were “exploiters” in terms of the Soviet power. My father and Leon were put in jail and then they were sentenced to 8 years in a high security camp. Shortly after the trial my father and Leon were sent to Siberia along with thieves, bandits and other criminals. My grandfather Idel, cantor, couldn’t bear it. He died of a heart attack. The synagogue that was still functioning helped my grandmother to bury my grandfather according to the Jewish tradition at the Jewish cemetery in Soroki. Before he died my grandfather told his grandchildren that he had buried his favorite picture in the basement of the house. There was an old Jew reading a book painted in that picture. The Jew had a handsome face and beautiful face. My grandfather believed this picture to be holy and didn’t want anyone who didn’t believe in God to have it. He asked us to get this picture when we grew up.

After my father was arrested there was a search in our house. The Soviet representatives took all our valuables into a big room and sealed the door. Among NKVD representatives that arrested my father and then did the search was Itzkevich, a Jewish man. Later this man stayed to live in one of our houses along with his Jewish wife. He came from Donbass. For some reason he felt sorry for my mother. He told her that he would go to lunch and leave the sealed door open for her to take what she needed from this room and then he would seal the door again. He addressed my mother “Madam” instead of “Comrade” that was typical for Soviet authorities. My mother said that all she wanted to have were golden coins hidden in the cornice and a box with her jewelry. I don’t remember how I got to the cornice, but I managed to get these coins. We buried them in the basement near the picture. Later that Itskevich man gave us a letter from our father (he was in the camp in Solikamsk) that was delivered to the NKVD office like all mail from prisons and camps. In this letter my father was telling us that he was sent to Solikamsk in the former Molotov region. He was very concerned about us and begged us to forgive us for his crucial mistake leading to such critical situation. After imprisonment of my father and a search in the house the Soviet authorities left us alone.

My father’s other brothers didn’t have hired employees and had no problems with the Soviet authorities for some time. Meyer and his wife worked in a store and Itzyk also worked. Daniel, the younger son, his wife and their son lived in a room in their parents’ house. They made wine for the tavern and my grandmother made herring with onions and pickles for snacks.

Our first year in the soviet regime was terrifying for us. We were in expectation of something to happen. We didn’t know Russian and couldn’t listen to the radio or read newspapers. There was tension hanging in the air like before a storm. At the beginning of June 1941 the local authorities ordered villagers from neighboring villages to come to the central square with their horse-driven carts. They were told to wait for directions to come. It was a cold and rainy summer. The farmers slept on their carts wrapped in heavy coats and wrapped their horses in horsecloths and blankets. This lasted for 3 days.

On the night of 12 June the silence exploded in women’s screaming and children’s wailing. Richer people and people with average income were taken out of their houses and onto the carts. They didn’t get a chance to take any luggage with them. The carts moved in the direction of the railway station in Floreshty where trains were waiting for them. I can still remember the tapping of horseshoes on the cobbly pavements of Soroki. It lasted for about 24 hours. People were afraid of looking out of the window or leaving their home. On this day all other members of the family were sent in exile as suspicious elements: my grandmother, my father’s brothers and their families. On 15 June 1941 (editor’s note; 6 days before the beginning of the Great patriotic War) all these people were put on a train with barred windows at the railway station in Floreshty. Inhabitants of Floreshty came to the station to give some food to people on the train, but the convoy took this food away. The train headed to Mogochino village of Krasnoyarsk region, Siberia, in 3500 km from their home. The village was fenced with barbed wire and patrol dogs guarded the area. Every day an orderly called the roll. They lived in dugout houses that they excavated by themselves for two years before barracks were built. Town people were dying, as they were not adjusted to the severe conditions of the cold climate. Men went to work at the wood throw. The ones that failed to complete a standard scope were deprived of their miserable ration of food that they also shared with their families. My grandmother and her son’s wives dug out mice holes and made soup with nettle and mouse meat. They starved to death, swell from hunger, had their feet and hands frost bitten. In 1942 the older brother Itzyk, his wife and 6 children died. They were buried in a common grave and there was no gravestone installed or no other indication of their personalities. Their exile was for an indefinite period of time. Only in 1980, in 40 years’ time the survivors were allowed to return, but they were not allowed to reside in bigger towns. However, they all stayed in Mogochino. Meyer went to exile with his wife Golda and two children: Leo, 14 years old and Bella that was 9 years old. Their children grew up and got married and had children of their own. Meyer loved his wife dearly. He was a tall handsome man and Golda was a short slim woman. Meyer died in 1980s, shortly after his wife. We have no information about their children. Daniel went to exile with his beautiful wife Eva and their 6-year-old son. They had another child in exile. Eva died in 1988 and Daniel - in 1992.

The only Jewish whore of Soroki, a beautiful woman, was also sent to exile. The Soviet power treated whores and wealthy people in a similar manner. Her mother made kvass (Russian drink made from bread and yeast) for sale. They were a poor family and the girl went to work in the brothel for officers when she turned 15. When she was to go in exile her mother couldn’t understand why she was sent away – in her opinion she was a working woman! In the camp the woman worked for the guards of the camp. She returned to Soroki after the war wearing a fur coat and golden rings. She told us the story of our relatives, as correspondence with inmates of the camp was not allowed.

On 22 June 1941 the Great Patriotic war began (2). At night the Rumanian and German troops came close to Soroki. The town was not bombed, but planes flew to the East over the town. A local farmer that knew and respected my father came to tell us that Germans exterminated Jews and that we should better leave the town. He took us across the Dnestr that was the territory of Ukraine and put us on a train. We decided to go to Solikamsk where my father was. When the train stopped I got off to run to a nearest village to exchange my mother’s pieces of jewelry for food. Once I saw that my train started when I was coming to the station. I don’t know how I managed to catch it, but I didn’t drop the food that I had. There was a conductor on the stairs to the last railcar that grabbed me.

After covering about 1000 km we arrived at a village in Stalingrad region that belonged to Povolzhiye Germans (3) that had been deported. We stayed in their houses. We needed to move down the Volga River, bit it froze and we had to wait. We seemed to have been forgotten by the authorities. There were no jobs and shops, offices and schools were closed. We stayed there until autumn 1942. We didn’t have any clothes with us. Our neighbor made me some kind of underwear from an old military overcoat. My mother was a phlegmatic person and my brother took after her. They didn’t take an effort to change things. I take after my father. I was the only one that could get things. I knew firmly that I had to take care of my family. My mother and brother were swollen from lack of food and indifferent. I went to the market to exchange my mother’s rings and earrings for bread and sugar. I have the hardest memories of that period. It was the period of famine when bread was released for coupons. Bread was delivered to a store in a two-tier box on a cart. I stood in long lines. The ration of bread was 300 grams for dependants, 400 grams for clerks and 500 grams for workers. One young man desperate from hunger came to the cart from an opposite side, opened the hook and stole a loaf of bread. He started running when people standing in line saw him and began to chase after him. He managed to finish this loaf of bread while running, but the crowd caught up with him and beat him to death.

When ice on the river melted down we moved on. We sailed 500 km to Astrakhan on a freight barge. We had to stop there, as my brother and mother were too weak to even walk. We were accommodated at the “Rodina” [Motherland in Russian] in Astrakhan. It was overcrowded. There were about 3.5 thousand people accommodated there. There were only 221 survivors by spring next year. Children and adults were dying and their bodies were dumped in the foyer of the cinema theater. Every morning a truck came to take away the corpses. People had lice. I didn’t now about lice before. I ran to get some boiled water, food and sugar. Later I got ill with typhoid and was taken to a hospital. I survived there by miracle. My mother came to take me away one day and the next night the hospital was destroyed by bombing. Nobody survived. During one of raids a splinter injured my cheek. The wound didn’t heal and festered. I could touch my gum through the wound.

My mother couldn’t speak Russian. Somebody felt sorry for her and she got a job at the hospital. She was attendant at a surgery room and I assisted her. I remember how we removed amputated arms and legs from the surgery room and stored them in a shed. The 3 of us were accommodated in a small room in the hospital. We slept on heaps of hay on the floor.

I had beautiful handwriting. We practiced a lot at the grammar school. At that time all typewriters were removed from offices. I wrote all reports and documents at the hospital. I had my face bandaged. I had it washed with manganese solution in hospital and bandaged with gauze dipped in manganese solution. This gauze got dry and stuck to the wound and on the next day when I came to have it dressed the nurse tore the old dressing off to replace it. I weighed about 30 kg when I was 15 years old. Manager of the hospital told my mother that I needed to have enough food to heal the injury. But where were we to get this food. Once I came to the railway station. There was a train with prisoners-of-war that were allowed to take a breath of fresh air. They were Rumanian prisoners-of-war. I got so happy (I didn’t understand they were enemies). I ran to them asking “Gentlemen, where do you come from?” They were stunned to hear me speaking their mother tongue. They went back on the train and dropped me a bag full of food from the train. I couldn’t lift this bag and I lay on it. There was butter, tinned meat and fish, dried bread and chocolate and other food. I stayed there for a while. I was in the state of shock and couldn’t move. Later I dragged this bag home. My mother was at work in the hospital. I put a little butter onto the gauze and applied it to the wound. In the morning the wound miraculously closed and the wound began to heal.

During the raids I begged the Lord to let a bomb hit a train with food for the front. After the raids many people came to the railway station hoping to find food. Those that were stronger managed to get more, but I also managed to grab something that I brought home. I went to school, but I worked as a cleaning girl there. I also listened to teachers and began to learn Russian. I also cleaned the office of director of the school and she gave me a bowl of sour milk. She allowed me to read other pupils’ notebooks. Once she asked me to make a stove in a pigsty. I mixed cow manure with straw and dried pieces of this mixture in the sun. I didn’t know how to make a stack and I made a stove with two openings (like the ones I saw in a German village in Povolzhiye). I got a bowl of sour milk and a loaf of bread for this work. I gave this food to my mother and brother.

We didn’t observe any traditions during the war. There were hardly any Jews in our encirclement. We were just trying hard to survive. We never thought that we were not allowed to work on Saturday or that we had to celebrate. Besides, we were so intimidated by the Soviet reality that we were afraid to even mention any Jewish holidays or traditions.

In 1944 a part of Bessarabia was liberated. At the end of 1944 we obtained a permit to go to Reshetilovka station in Ukraine. Local authorities dictated destination points at their own discretion. The tried to keep people that previously resided at the areas that joined the Soviet Union shortly before the war.We – me and my mother and brother went back on open platforms. We had no luggage. When our train stopped on a station I got off the train and entered an office at the railway station. I saw a pen in an inkpot on the desk and changed the name of Reshetilovka to Floreshty in our ticket. It worked however surprising it might be. We were going on a military train heading for Rumania. We arrived at Soroki. Or acquaintances couldn’t recognize us. When I said I was the daughter of Barzak they got scared because I looked more like a ghost. I had a coat made from a uniform overcoat, address made from a military shirt and boots made from heavy woolen boots.

My family background
My early life
The famine
Before the war
During the war
After the war
Glossary

We got to know that Liya, ex-wife of Leon was in Soroki. We went to her house and she took us in. I went to our former house and got a box with golden coins from the basement. I put them in my boot. Liya’s father, a religious man, that attended the synagogue twice a day, saw me hiding mit and took it away. When I complained to Liya he told me to keep my mouth shut or we would all go to where my father was. So we found the coins – and we lost them. I have no idea what he did with this money or weather it brought him what he wanted.

In Soroki we heard what happened to my father. At the end of 1944 he committed suicide at the wood throw in Siberia. He couldn’t bear the thought that he had made a wrong choice and ruined his family when he didn’t follow my grandmother’s advice. My father wrote a farewell letter sending it to the town hall of Soroki. I don’t know whether this letter would have reached us if it hadn’t been for a woman from Soroki that used to be my room maid that had worked at the town hall since 1940. She gave us the letter. My father wrote: “I destroyed my family and there is no forgiveness for me. I have my hands and feet frost-bitten and I’ve become an invalid at 42. I don’t know whether members of my family are alive, but if they are please sent them this letter”. After sending this letter my father put his head under a circular saw at the wood cutting site. It was a typical method of suicide in the camp. My father was buried in a common grave that was a usual burial site for inmates of the camp.

When I heard that Liya was getting married I told her that Leon was alive. She replied that I was too young and didn’t know much about life. She married a Jewish man, invalid of the war, and lived with him and Leon’s son.

In May 1945 the war was over. People told my mother that she could move to Rumania. The borders were open and many people left for Rumania. Me and my mother and brother arrived in Chernovtsy on October 1945 to move to Rumania from there. But right before our departure the border was closed. We were offered to cross the border illegally for some fee, but we didn’t have money and feared the Soviet power much. We didn’t take the risk of finding ourselves in Siberia instead of Rumania and settled down in Chernovtsy. I began fighting for our survival. We rented a small room in an old Jewish neighborhood. I got a job of assistant accountant at a canteen. I was allowed to have a bowl of soup and take two home, for my work. Later I went to work as an accountant at the textile factory and the three of us could move to the hostel of the factory. There was a big wooden trestle bed in the middle of our room with straw on it. My mother and I slept on the sides and my brother slept between us. There was terrible famine in Chernovtsy in 1945–46. When I managed to get a glass of flour we added a spoon of flour to a glass of boiling water sprinkling it with salt and that was our meal. My co-employees felt sorry for me. Once I got 3 m of cheap fabric for jerky sweaters. I sold it to villagers or exchanged for food. My brother went to the first form. He was growing up fast and was always hungry. When he was in the 3rd form he helped some pupil with mathematic receiving a bowl of soup for his efforts.

Our acquaintances told us what happened to our relatives. The husband of my mother’s sister Etia turned out to be a gambler and womanizer. Etia divorced him before the war and returned to her parents’ home. When the war began Etia and her mother stayed home. They perished in their house during an air raid in 1942. My mother’s older sister Fania, her husband and their children moved to Israel after the war. Life conditions were severe at that time – lack of food, malaria, etc. Fania and her husband died in early 1950s. We have no information about their children, as well as about my mother’s brothers.

In 1946 uncle Leon came to visit us. He was stay in the camp for two more years after our father death. In 1945 he was allowed to settle down in a village instead of the camp and he could also visit his family and spend a month with us. At first Leon went to Soroki where he got to know that his wife had remarried. She didn’t even want to talk with him. Leon came to Chernovtsy. He was struck with grief. We talked and cried with him a whole night. He was very sorry that he couldn’t anything for us, as he had to go back to Siberia. Uncle Leon stayed in Siberia. He worked as an accountant and died in 1966. He was buried at the town cemetery in Solikamsk.

We didn’t observe any Jewish traditions after the war. My cousins that went to Siberia and we were afraid of going to synagogue or celebrating Shabbat and Jewish holidays at home. Like weaning a baby from breastfeeding everything Jewish was cut away from us. The only thing that stayed with us was our language. During the Soviet power there were people in Chernovtsy that got together in secret to pray. Only old people that had nothing to fear went to the synagogue. This fear of the Soviet power was with us for a lifetime. My mother always went to the other side of the street when she saw a militiaman. She was always afraid of hearing someone knocking on the door. Although she was good at languages she failed to learn Russian – I guess it was because of her fear. She lived until the end of her life knowing that the Soviet power put an end to everything good that she had in life. Struggle against cosmopolites in 1948 added to our fears (4). This was open persecution of Jews. My mother was afraid to discus this subject even in whisper. She concealed her past and I never mentioned my wealthy and well-to-do family when I was applying for a job. I worked on two enterprises, 20 years at each of them. I was afraid of changing a job, even if I was offered better conditions and better salary. I was afraid of having to fill up questionnaires answering questions about my parents or relatives abroad. I never mentioned my relatives in Siberia or Rumania. I had no past and no relatives – I was an incubatory person. The Soviet way of life remained alien to me – I didn’t know my rights and I didn’t even know that I could apply for getting an apartment.

In 1949 I got married. My co-employee, foreman at the factory, introduced me to my future husband. When he told me that a friend of his wanted to meet me I asked him whether he was a Jewish man. I couldn’t ever imagine even dating a non-Jewish man. I was a very shy girl. My mother continuously repeated to me that the only dowry I had was my honor. I invited the two men to my home. Other young men got scared off by my living conditions and nobody wanted to take responsibility for an additional burden – my mother and my brother. I was a breadwinner in the family; there was no one else to take care of them. They came to meet my mother and brother.

My future husband’s name was Jacob Uzvalov. His real name was Oswald. I don’t know how and when he changed his last name. Jacob was born to a religious Jewish family in Bendery (a Rumanian town at that time) in 1920. His mother’s name was Molka and his father’s name was Jacob. Jacob’s father was Molka’s 2nd husband. She had two sons with her first husband. They were much older than Jacob. Her first husband died and in 1918 she married Jacob Oswald, a very nice man. He was also a widower and was about 50 years old. His two sons and a daughter moved to America in 1930s. In 1920 Molka’s husband and her old sons fell ill with typhoid. The boys recovered, but Jacob died. His son Jacob was born after his father died. In 1923 Molka got married again. She gave birth to a son in 1924 and became a widow again before the war. Her last name in her 3rd marriage was Finkel. In 1943 her younger son perished at the front. Her older sons went to work in Rumania and stayed to live there. Jacob entered a professional school in Bucharest. He became an elevator mechanic and got a job at the government house. Jacob loved his mother. In 1944 Jacob moved to Bendery from Bucharest. His mother’s house was ruined by bombing and the locals took away whatever was left. Jacob and his mother moved to Chernovtsy and Jacob got a job at the railcar depot. Before the war my husband corresponded with his stepbrothers from America. They wrote that although they didn’t know him he was still their brother and they invited him to visit them in the US. After the war their correspondence stopped. When in Bucharest Jacob got fond of the communist ideas and even distributed flyers. It happened somehow that all communists in Rumania were Jews and Rumanians didn’t care about communist ideas. Jewish young people got inspired by communist ideas hearing that life was almost a paradise in the USSR. Jacob joined the communist Party when he came to the soviet Union. He was always a convinced communist.

After visiting us Jacob sent us a portable stove on the next day. It was staked by coal and the stack was adjusted to the flue. He also sent half a ton of coal and a bag of potatoes. My mother got very scared asking me what he wanted from us. It took Jacob some time to explain to her that he just wanted to help us. Gradually my mother began to trust him. On 30 April 1949 we got married. We just had a civil ceremony in the district registry office. We didn’t have a wedding party, because we were so poor. After our wedding I moved in with Jacob. His mother was very kind to me and I came to liking this plain kind woman. Molka was a religious woman. She observed all Jewish traditions and celebrated Shabbat and all Jewish holidays. She kept it to herself and only her closest people knew about her religiosity. Molka didn’t go to synagogue. She prayed at home. She strictly and quietly observed Jewish traditions. I joined her and felt like coming back to my happy blissful childhood. We couldn’t always afford a chicken and Gefilte fish on holiday, but there was always matsah at Pesach. My mother-in-law made it herself. We didn’t go to synagogue, because my husband was a communist and at best it might result in his having to quit the party. Molka had a book of prayers and we prayed at home.

When I got pregnant my husband got scared. We were very poor and he tried to convince me that we couldn’t afford a baby. Molka felt that there was something wrong. She interfered and thanks to her interference I had a son born on 6 June 1951. We named him Boris after my father. We lived from hand to mouth. I didn’t have diapers and wrapped my son in newspapers. My mother-in-law was very happy to have a grandson. My husband was afraid of having his son circumcised. My mother thought it was all right, but my mother-in-law insisted on circumcision. Her son said to her “Mother, do you want me to go to jail?” Yes, we were living in constant fear. Regretfully, Molka didn’t see he grandson growing. The next year at Pesach she was making matsah. It was hot and her blood pressure got higher, but she didn’t stop her work. Molka had a stroke. She died on the first day of Pesach in a week’s time in 1952. I insisted that she was buried at the Jewish cemetery, but my husband was afraid of it.

I took Stalin’s death in 1953 easy. For those that were born during the Soviet power Stalin was an icon and an idol, but for me he was a criminal and an embodiment of all evil that Soviet power brought to our family. Everything about the USSR stirred an inner protest in me. I never talked about it, but it lived deep in my soul. There is still fire burning inside me and it will never die. It is pain for my loved ones, for my family that was destroyed physically and morally. After ХХ Party Congress (5), in 1960s I received a letter from KGB where they wrote that my father was completely rehabilitated and that it was all a mistake made in his regard. So simple…

I tried to raise my son a Jew. In 1954 during census my 3-year-old son asked me to write his nationality as Russian. When I asked him why he wanted to do so he said “Because Russians are good and Jews are not. That’s what children say in the yard”. I was horrified to hear this, but I began to explain to him that Jews were smart, talented and intelligent people. I read to him books by Jewish authors and told him about actors, musicians and scientists. He gradually came to knowing the history of Jewish people. He began to study Hebrew and Yiddish. It was only possible to do this in secret at that time to avoid accusations in Zionism and Jewish chauvinism. Such accusation might result in arrest and exile. My son was very good at singing. After my mother-in-law died we stopped celebrating Jewish holidays. We worked on Saturdays and Jewish holidays were also working days. My husband was against religion. However, our son was inspired by the Jewish way of life and I didn’t interfere with him. When my son studied at school I took him to Soroki to show him my hometown. We went to the museum that was my former home. The janitor of the museum recognized me exclaiming “here’s the mistress of the house!” I didn’t remember her, although we were the same age. I asked her to let me show my son around the house during lunch interval. She left for lunch and I took my son to the basement. While she was away we managed to dig out my grandfather’s picture. Later, when my son grew up he restored the picture. After he died I gave the picture to Hesed in memory of my family and my son.

My husband and I were extremes. He was a communist and I was a former “bourgeois” woman, but we got along well, because political subjects were a taboo in our family. It was the only subject that might cause argument in the family and we didn’t touch it. My husband didn’t even show me his Party membership card, so sacred his ideas were to him.

My son was 14 when something happened that imprinted on our life. He went to the synagogue with his friends. The very fact of it might become grounds for accusations, but he also talked to foreign tourists in English. At that time any contacts with foreigners were suppressed by KGB [State Security Committee] had their informers in all organizations, even KGB. KGB called my son for interrogations for a whole year. They were trying to make him their informer, but my son didn’t agree. He signed a non-disclosure document that obliged him to keep a secret the subject of their discussions. We got to know about it later. After a year my son was left alone. He finished school and served in the army in Kamenets-Podolskiy. After his service in the army our son entered electro technical college there. Upon graduation he returned to Chernovtsy.

In 1970s Jews began to move to Israel. I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to change my life. My mother and son also were for leaving the USSR. But we faced resistance of my husband. We tried to convince him to change his mind, but it was in vain. Perhaps, men in our family are doomed to make wrong decisions that destroy them and their families.

In 1970s I went to work at the Regional Fuel Department dealing with gas and coal. I was Deputy Chief accountant. I retired from there 20 years later. I didn’t face any anti-Semitism at work. I was an only Jewish employee. I was sociable and friendly. However, I faced anti-Semitism on a state level when I came to the Human Resources Department to ask them to appoint me to the vacant position of Chief accountant whose duties I actually performed. Human resources manager told me firmly that firstly, I was not a member of the party and secondly, I was a Jew. And he added “Your husband hasn’t been appointed to the position of manager of depot, has he?” My husband, however, faced anti-Semitism expressed by his co-workers. Although he got along well with them every morning, when he came to work he saw “zhyd, it’s time for you to retire” written on his desk or something similar. They might not greet a Jew with birthday, although it was a tradition to greet every employee on his birthday. Now everything is different on the outside, but I believe there is an anti-Semite in every non-Jew. Only fools and drunken people express it while smart people try to hide it.

In 1975 my son worked as electrician at the factory. He was called to KGB again. They wanted to turn him into an informer and threatened that they would put him in jail if he refused to cooperate with them. My son came home pale and upset and refused from eating. I was worried and thought that he was suffering from unhappy love. It never occurred to me that it was something else that troubled him. Once my husband and I began to ask him about what was the matter with him and he told us the truth. My husband was very angry and said that the next time when my son was called to that office he was going with him. He believed that being a member of the Party he could talk to KGB on equal grounds. How naïve he was! He went to that office and my son and I were waiting for him at home. My husband came home and said that at first the KGB officers got angry that our son broke his obligation for non-disclosure of the information. They said that they would have to teach our son what we failed to teach him. Then they told my husband that they knew where he worked and that they also knew that once he laughed at a Party meeting. Then my husband got an idea and he said that he knew who their informer was at his work. The KGB officer that was talking with him yelled at him “Don’t you dare to touch that man!” and my husband replied “Then leave my son alone”. The KGB stopped pestering my son, but fear crawled into his heart, like it did into mine and my husband’s.

Boris married a Jewish girl. I was very happy for him and couldn’t wait to become a grandmother. But this marriage cost my son a life. He was told that his wife was unfaithful to him. My son found out that it was true. He was so shocked that he had a stroke. My son was paralyzed for few years. I was taking care of him trying to soothe his suffering. He died on 4 April 1988 when he was 36 years old. The Jewish cemetery was closed and we buried him at the cemetery of Chernovtsy and installed a gravestone on his grave.

My brother Oscar’s life ended tragically. He graduated from the Lvov Polytechnic Institute and got a job assignment at the TV factory “Electron” in Lvov. He was among developers of the first modified TV sets that replaced tube TVs. My brother was married to a very nice Jewish girl named Rita. They had a daughter – Sabina. Rita studied at the Medical Institute. They were very poor and lived in one room. Oscar decided that they would move to Israel. He went on tour to Israel to make an acquaintance with the country. There he took a bus tour. Terrorists installed a bomb in the bus and there were no survivors after the bus was blasted. This happened in 1980. His wife and daughter live in Lvov.

After our son died I tried to talk my husband into moving to Israel. One of her stepbrothers on his mother’s side and his five children lived in Israel. He found my husband and sent us an invitation. I begged my husband to agree telling him that our son had died and it would be good to reunite with our relatives. And again my husband refused, because he was afraid to leave familiar places.

In 1990 my mother got very ill. She was paralyzed and we had to move her to our home. She lived 3 years and died in November 1993. We buried her near my son’s grave. Then my husband got ill. He was suffering for a long time. He died on 2 September 1996. No member of my family was buried according to the Jewish tradition.

I am alone of my big family. The only thing I have is a place at the cemetery and I hope to be buried between my husband and my son.

Many things have changed in Ukraine in the recent ten years. I wish my close ones had lived to see restoration of the Jewish life. Hesed helps me with food and medications. I often attend lectures and meetings in Hesed. It gives me strength to go on. But Hesed cannot replace my family for me. I am not feeling well and I am losing sight. I wish there was someone to tend to me, but I am alone. I only pray to God to take me promptly when my time comes.

Glossary

1.   Cuzists – members of the fascist organization in Rumania in 1931-44 named after Cuza Alexandru (1820-73), Prince of a Rumanian principality in 1862-66, in 1859 Moldova and Valahia became his principalities. He was known for his ruthless chauvinism and anti-Semitism. Dismissed and banned in 1944 after Rumania was liberated from fascists.

2.   On 22 June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring a war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War.

3.   Stalin’s policy, forced deportation of the Middle Asian people to Siberia. People were thrown out of their houses and into vehicles at night. They were caught unawares. The majority of them died on the way due to starvation, cold and illnesses.

4.   Anti-Semitic campaign initiated by J. Stalin against intellectuals: teachers, doctors and scientists.

5.   20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956. Khruschov publicly debunked the cult of Stalin and lifted the veil of secrecy from what was happening in the USSR during the Stalin’s leadership.

Anatoliy Shor

Anatoliy Shor
Bershad
Ukraine
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: May 2004

I visited Anatoliy Shor with a member of the Bershad Jewish community. Anatoliy lives in a two-bedroom apartment in a 2-storied apartment house. He told us that this house was built to replace the cottage that belonged to his wife’s family. Anatoliy’s apartment is stuffed with old books covered with a layer of dust. There are signs of neglect everywhere. Anatoliy seems to feel quite comfortable finding his way through this mess. He is a very nervous person. He was shell shocked during the war, and this affected his health condition: he gets confused about the dates, events, names of people, and at times has problems with finding the right word. He jumps up and runs around the room showing some certificates, documents, and I need to wait patiently until he composes himself.

My paternal and maternal ancestors came from Bershad town [about 270 km south-west of Kiev] in Vinnitsa province. Bershad was a Jewish town: the majority of its population in the late 19th – early 20th century was Jewish. Jews resided in the central part having their houses closely adjusting to one another, with small backyards with hardly any space, but for a little vegetable garden and a shed. Jews in Bershad dealt in crafts: they were tailors, shoemakers, potters, glass cutters, small store owners and vendors. Ukrainians and Russians lived in the suburb, on the other side of the Dohna River meandering around the town. Jews bought their food products from Ukrainian farmers, and the Ukrainians went to get their clothes, shoes and haberdashery from Jews. They were good neighbors and respected each other’s traditions and religion. Jews spoke Yiddish and were also fluent in Ukrainian, as well as Ukrainians understood Yiddish very well. Ukrainian farmers brought their products to the market square in the central street: there were wagons loaded with vegetables, poultry and fish at the market on market days. Vendors and their customers bargained in Yiddish, Ukrainian and Russian all at the same time. I liked the market. My mother took me shopping. There was a pretty Christian church in the town attracting Jewish children with its golden domes and the bells tolling. However, the kids were taught that Jews were not allowed to go inside, so we all kept our distance from the church admiring the sight of it.

Regretfully, my grandmothers and grandfathers died before I was born. My parents told me a little about them, but my memory failed to keep this information, which is the result of the wounds and the contusion that I had during the Great Patriotic War 1. My paternal grandfather’s name was Shmil Shor, but I can’t remember my grandmother’s name. They were born in Bershad in the middle 19th century. I don’t know what exactly Shmil was engaged in, but he was a small craftsman and worked from morning till night to provide for his family. He was very religious and went to the small synagogue near his house every day.

There were 13 or 14 synagogues in Bershad, there was a cheder, a shochet and a Jewish hospital.

All synagogues, but one poor little synagogue, were closed in the middle 1930s, the buildings were destroyed during and after the Great Patriotic War: people disassembled them for wood and construction materials. My grandfather also prayed at home and observed all Jewish traditions: he followed kashrut and celebrated Sabbath and followed all other rules. My father’s older brothers actually told my father about their family. There were two or three of them, but I can’t remember the names. I know that one of them moved to America at the beginning of WWI, and the rest died before the Great Patriotic War. They were much older than my father. My father Pinkhus Shor was the last baby in Shmil’s family, when my grandmother expected no more children. He was born in 1890. Like his older brothers my father was raised religious and studied in the cheder. My grandfather and grandmother died from an epidemic of typhus almost at the same time in the early 1900s. My father went to study the sheepskin jacket maker’s toil at the age of 8-10. His older brothers supported him, but he had to start work at an early age anyway. When WWI began, my father was recruited to the czarist army almost at once. About a year later he was severely wounded and taken to hospital. When he was released from the hospital he returned home. I don’t know how my father met my mother – they actually may have known each other, or my grandfather knew my mother’s family, or they may have met through a shadkhan. Anyway, my parents got married in 1918.

I know about my mother’s parents even less. All I know is my grandfather’s name was Naftul since I was named after him, but I don’t remember his last name, or my grandmother’s name. My maternal grandparents were 5 years younger than my paternal grandparents. I don’t know what exactly my grandfather did for the living. My mother only told me that he was a poor craftsman. My grandmother had several children, but only my mother’s older sister, whose name I can’t remember, and my mother Reizl, born in 1893, survived. My mother was the last child, born in the family. She studied 2 or 3 years in a Jewish school, and this was all education she got. According to a common vision at the time, this education was more than sufficient for a girl from a poor Jewish family. Reizl could read and write in Yiddish and knew prayers that her father Naftul taught her. My grandfather and grandmother were very religious and raised my mother religious, too. My parents’ wedding, despite the troubled times, attacks of gangs 2, revolution 3, hunger and devastation, was arranged according to all Jewish rules. Before the war we had my parents’ wedding picture on the wall: my mother wearing a white gown and a veil and my father wearing a black suit. They were photographed the moment they stepped into the chuppah at the most beautiful synagogue in Bershad. My parents were hopeful about the revolution believing the communist propaganda with all their heart. They did not take part in the communist movement, but they were enthusiastic about everything new it brought in.

My parents lived in my mother parents’ home. My mother was a housewife. My father made warm sheepskin coats that were in demand with Jews and Ukrainians in Bershad and the neighboring villages. My father worked very hard. He often worked till late at night by the light of a kerosene lamp putting coats together and embroidering in read woolen yarn on them. Coat makers of Bershad had an unwritten rule that they followed: they divided the neighboring villages to do their trade in the areas that were assigned to them. My father often traveled to his villages where he had customers. He stayed in his shop, which was arranged in our house from morning till late at night, but there was nothing that could force him to work on Sabbath, the sacred tradition that he never breached. In 1919 my older brother named Shmil after my father’s father was born. This was a hard time. Mama told me that when gangs broke into the village, the whole family found shelter in the basement and she pressed her palm to little Shmil’s mouth to keep him quiet. If he had cried out, the bandits might have discovered the family. The town seemed to be overburdened with all kinds of trouble in those years: hunger and robbers had a hard impact on my grandmother and grandfather who fell ill and died. I don’t know the exact time of their death, but it happened before I was born.

My early life

I was born on 7 January 1922. I was given the name of Naftul after my mother’s father at the synagogue. According to the rules I had a brit milah on the 8th day after I was born. In 1926 my sister Haya was born, and in 1928 – my younger brother Gersh was born. I have dim memories about my childhood. There were three rooms and a kitchen with a Russian stove in it in our house, located in the Naberezhnaya Street, the embankment of the Dohna River. Our town was located in the southern part of Ukraine, and the summers were long and warm, so I spent most of my time playing with friends outside. There was runoff ditches along the pavement in the streets and little bridges over them to give access to houses. When they were filled with water after a rain, we liked making paper or wooden boats letting them sail in the ditches. When we grew older we ran to the river bank where were bathed and lay in the sun on the sand beach. There were only Jewish children around since we lived in the Jewish part of the town. We spoke Yiddish at home and to one another. I only heard Ukrainian, when I went to the market with my mother and she bargained with vendors in Ukrainian. By the way, Ukrainians could also speak Yiddish, so both sides enjoyed the bargaining to their heart’s content. The Ukrainian vendors showed my mother a great deal of respect and always made discounts for her. Mama was also very polite with them: she asked them how things were, how they felt and wished them health and luck. For me, a small Jewish boy that I was at the time, going shopping at the market with my mother was a kind of lessons of friendship and peace, and I was learning to respect people of different nationalities. Since early childhood I was interested in every living thing in the surrounding: I wanted to know the structure of wings of butterflies and dragonflies, I used to watch an ant moving, dissect a fish or a frog to see what there was inside. My interest to the inside of living beings was so strong that I used to dissect insects to find out what they were like and how they worked all together. I remember, when I was a child, the girl, whom I liked, caught me at this very interesting process, when I was tearing off dragonfly’s wings watching it. The girl ran away scared, ran to my mother to complain about me. Mama told me off, but this didn’t make my interest to the living beings fade: perhaps, these were the first demonstrations of my desire to deal in medicine. Though the girl never approached me again and so, this was how my first love crashed.

However, our family was a traditional Jewish family, and according to the rules, when I turned 4, my father took me to the melamed in cheder. The teacher had 8 boys in his group and we took turns having classes at the pupils’ homes. When it was turn to have a class in our home, my mother made delicious little pies for the whole bunch of us. 80 years have passed, but I still gratefully remember our teacher and can still remember the Jewish literacy he taught us. Since my childhood I saw my father putting on his tallit and tefillin to pray. When I grew a little older I accompanied him to the synagogue, and on Saturday I carried his prayer book following him. We looked forward to Sabbath. Before Sabbath mama cleaned and washed the house and covered the tables with clean flax tablecloths. On weekdays she cooked borsch, beans and noodles, but on Friday morning she started cooking for Sabbath and there was delicious smell of the Saturday food teasing us – sweet and sour stew in the pot in the oven, gefilte fish with vegetables cooking in another pot, mama took crispy challot from the oven. We washed ourselves and dressed up waiting for our father to come home from the synagogue to start celebrating Sabbath. Mama wore a white kerchief. She lit candles and covering her eyes with her hands read the prayer, my father pronounced the blessing and we dipped a challah into the salt. We were even allowed to sip few drops of red sweet wine. Mama left the ceramic pots with food for Saturday in the oven that she sealed and closed with a lid. The food kept warm in the oven. Mama opened the oven by herself, though it was against the rules – she had to invite a Christian person to do this kind of work, but my hardworking mama could not imagine that somebody else’s hands would touch the food that she had cooked with so much love. She used to say that the Lord would forgive her for this fault. We also followed kashrut. We had special utensils for meat and dairy products, boards and tableware and mama taught us to eat correctly according to the kosher rules. And how we looked forward to Pesach! Mama cooed everything so delicious for this holiday: kigelekh, kneydlakh with chicken broth, rich boiled chicken, and pies. There were such preparations to this holiday! The walls were whitewashed with the mixture of clay, lime and whiting, all corners were scrubbed. The house was shining clean. Long before the holiday we went to the market where mama chose a chicken for the seder on Pesach. I liked watching her lifting the hens – white, black and speckled, blew under their tail base to fid out whether they were fat enough, and would be good to make nourishing chicken soup. There was fish splashing in huge tubs: mama looked at their gills – how bright red they were, and also the fish eyes – whether they lost the luster. Of course, she did – we wanted the very fresh fish on our table. Also, mama bought new clothes for us, kids, here, at the market: trousers, coats or shoes. I can’t remember mama buying anything for herself: she always wore her old dress, always clean, and a kerchief. She found it important to buy something new for the children, and I believe, she enjoyed it greatly to give presents to her dear ones. My father conducted the seder reclining at the head of the table. Shmil posed the four questions to him and when he grew older it became my duty. I was looking for the afikoman, for which I could get any gift from my father.

I also liked other holidays, particularly Chanukkah, but not just because kids were given presents. Everything seemed to be brighter and merrier on this holiday. Ama’s douhnuts with jam were the most delicious, and so were potato pancakes fried to crust. I remember my father telling me about the Chanukkah and why there were dishes with plant oil on the table on this holiday. I liked autumn holidays with Simchat Torah crowning them, when the Torah scroll was taken out of the synagogue, and all Jews were dancing and singing following the rabbi. We also celebrated Shavuot and Sukkot. My father made a tent from planks and branches in the yard and we had meals there and spent most of the time in this tent. We also had guests. Rosh Hashanah was as grand as Pesach. My parents fasted on Yom Kippur, and when I grew older I also joined them.

In 1929, when I turned 7, I went to the 7-year Jewish school where Shmil studied. I took a great deal of interest in the living surrounding. I could spend hours watching dragonfly or beetle’s wings, or disembowel a frog to see what was there inside. I liked natural sciences and decided that I would become a doctor or a biologist. I began to attend a group of nature studies and the town library where I read almost all books about nature, medicine and animate nature. However, my interests were not limited to nature. I also had other interests. I became a pioneer 4 and was very proud to wear a pioneer neck tie. I remember the ceremony in the newly built club. Mama made a festive dinner. On that day I went to bed wearing my new red neck tie – I didn’t want to part with it even in my sleep. I was a rather active pioneer. I had a good memory and I was the fastest of all with learning poems and songs. I took p[art in amateur performances and concerts on Soviet holidays. There were many Soviet songs in Yiddish and I enjoyed singing them on the school stage. For the active pioneer work I was awarded a trip to a pioneer camp in Vinnitsa region. All pioneers from Bershad went there in a bus singing pioneer songs. I particularly liked the morning and evening linings. Before leaving the camp we arranged a concert and a pioneer fire. Well, this was the only time I went to the camp. In summer we usually spent one or two months in the village where my father was working. We stayed in a Ukrainian hut and I ran to the river bank with village boys. Nobody ever mentioned the nationality or the language one spoke. We just didn’t bother.

The famine

This beautiful new life ended in autumn 1932 when famine 5 started in Ukraine. I remember swollen dying people. Dead bodies were loaded onto wagons in the morning and taken to the cemetery where they were buried in common graves. They were mainly Ukrainians who came to the town from their villages hoping to get some food. The Ukrainians from the village where my father often went to work supported our family. They brought us whatever little they could share. We also tried to help the needy with whatever we could give them. We ate mamaliga , soup with nettle and herbs. Mama always shared whatever food we had with villagers – she never refused anyone. We were provided little buns or some thin soup at school.

In 1933 the situation began to improve gradually. I studied in my secondary school. I liked parades on 1 May and 7 November 6, and taking part in school concerts. There was a Jewish amateur theater in Bershad. It staged plays of popular Jewish authors, mostly of Sholem Aleichem 7. I often went to the theater with other boys. I also attended the class of political knowledge in this same club that housed the theater. We sincerely believed in the communist ideals and socialism, I read political books and brochures, and even made reports on the current international political situation presenting them at the club and at school. However strange this may sound, my school activities were in no conflict with my Jewish life and education at home. For me my home and school existed separately. The authorities were adamantly struggling against religion 8, destroying churches and synagogues. We were taught that there was no God and I kind of believed it, but at home I willingly followed our Jewish rules and there was no contradiction between the two spheres of life. Before I was to turn 13 the melamed began to visit our home preparing me for the bar mitzvah. There was the only operating synagogue at the time in Bershad where we celebrated my coming of age. Our neighbors and my friends came to a dinner at home in the evening.

In 1937 I finished school. At this time my parents sold our house in Bershad and we moved to live in Lesnichevka village of Odessa region [350 km south of Kiev]. My father had come to work in this village before and had few Ukrainian friends. He was no longer young and could not walk so far away from home. He wanted to spend more time with the family. My older brother Shmil stayed in Bershad. After finishing school he went to work at the sugar factory and lived in the dormitory. I also left Lesnichevka pretty soon. That same year I entered the general Medical Faculty of the Medical College in Tulchin town near Bershad. I had all excellent marks in my school certificate and had no problem entering this college. I shared my room in the dormitory with 6 other tenants: four Jewish and two Ukrainian guys. Of course, this matter was of no significance for us and we did not just get along well, but were friends. Of course, I could celebrate Sabbath no longer and I had to give up following the kosher rules: carefree and continuously hungry students that we were ate whatever we could get. We received parcels from home, and we opened them and ate the pork at my friend Alyosha had in his parcel and the kigeleh and strudel that my mama brought us. At Easter my Ukrainian friends shared Easter bread with me, and I liked it enormously. Of course, I did my best to celebrate major Jewish holidays with my family at home. At least I never missed my favorite Pesach. There was no synagogue in the village, but we brought matzah from the town. I never failed to spend my favorite holiday in the warm atmosphere of my home with my dearest folks.

Before the war

I joined the Komsomol 9 in College. I was also an active Komsomol member and was even elected to the Komsomol committee of my college where I was engaged in the propagandist work. However, the situation was getting more and more difficult. This was the period of mass arrests [Great Terror] 10, but we did not know the truth about this period until the 1990s. This was not just a troublesome, but really a contradictory period. I was surprised that yesterday’s leaders of the party and the state, Lenin’s comrades 11, were declared ‘enemies of the people’ 12 one after another, and disappeared from the life of the country. Common people were arrested and vanished. I didn’t dare to share my doubts even with my friends, but I think these same issues bothered them as well. I remember the state of subconscious fear: on one hand, our life was improving, there were the sounds of bravura music of new Soviet songs and marches glorifying the Soviet country and inspiring optimism heard from everywhere: on the radio in the streets and in clubs, but on the other hand, thee were many primed scared people around, horrible revelatory articles published in newspapers declaring those, who had been our idols and heroes to be enemies, and the strangest thing was that they confessed of having committed terrible crimes. Fortunately, none of my family or friends fell victims to this persecution. The international situation was growing tense. We read about fascism and Hitler wishing to conquer Europe in newspapers, but we didn’t know about his actions against Jews. We began to have military training in the college where we were openly told that fascist Germany was a probable enemy of the Soviet Union. However, after execution of the Ribbentrop-Molotov 13 Pact, regarding which my friends and I had a rather ambiguous opinion, the open propaganda against Germany stopped. My older brother was recruited to the army, when the Finnish War 14 began.

In 1940 I finished my college with honors and was assigned 15 to the position of an assistant doctor in Belyayevka village of Odessa region. There was no doctor in Belyayevka and I had to take care of patients with all kinds of diseases having to take prompt and important decisions. I also assisted at childbirth. There was predominantly Ukrainian population in this village. Its residents showed a great deal of respect to me. First of all, because I was an educated and was in demand. There was a nice library in the village and I continued reading to improve my knowledge. I was one of the very few educated people in the village and I was obliged to conduct political classes, make reports and read lectures on the political situation in the country and in the world. Of course, the essence of those lectures was that everything in the country was wonderful and great. That the only threat we were facing was international imperialism, that nobody would dare to attack us, and if they did, we would defeat them on their own territory – this was how we had been raised and what we believed piously. I made Ukrainian friends, and girls were looking at me, but I knew that I was to marry a Jewish girl since I was a child: my parents convinced me so, and this was an axiom for me. So, I never gave any hope to any girls and treated all of them nicely.

I was in Belyayevka village, when the Great Patriotic War began. My older brother, who had returned from the Finnish War just few months before, was mobilized to the front on the first day of the war. I went to the front on 7 July 1941 from the district center of Olgopol. My mother was crying. I told her to take care of my younger sister Haya and brother Gersh. I also told them to evacuate, but my father was doubtful about it. He remembered the time of WWI and didn’t believe that Germans could be violent toward Jews.

I was given the rank of senior lieutenant of medical service and made commanding officer of the sanitary platoon of 395 rifle division. For few months I took part in combat action providing the first medical aid to wounded military on the combat fields. Our division was retreating like the rest of the army. There were frequent bombings and attacks of the promptly advancing enemy. In autumn we took defense of Mariupol. In October 1941 fascists sent their landing troops to Mariupol and our division was disgracefully defeated. I got into encirclement. I had a through bursting wound in my leg. It caused the hell of pain. Fortunately I had bandages and antiseptic substances to treat my wound. I stayed in the bushed alongside the road for a day or two, and when I understood that the division no longer existed I started on my way back home. Thinking about the fear that never left me during this hard way is terrifying and shameful. My leg ached unbearably and I was hungry and even more so thirsty. Of course, I already knew about harsh treatment of Jews by Germans, and I knew that was hanging by a thread , if anybody knew I was a Jew. Fortunately, I didn’t quite look like a Jew and occasionally I went to smaller villages where people gave me food and sometimes I could spend a night in a shed or a hayloft. However, I spent most nights in haylofts or in the woods to stay away from people. I told villagers that I had fallen behind my unit and was wounded: there were many soldiers and officers plodding on the occupied territory. It took me few weeks to get to Lesnichevka where I joined my parents and my younger sister and brother.

My parents had mixed feelings, when they saw me, they felt happy that I was alive, even if I was wounded, but also, they were concerned about my safety: besides being a Jew, I was a commanding officer of the Soviet army. Our village happened to be within the Transnistria zone 16. We were the only Jewish family in the village, but fortunately, there were no German or Romanian troops in Lesnichevka. They assigned a senior man in the village, but he knew my father well and respected our family warning us about any arrivals of fascists into the village. Unfortunately, I cannot remember his name. Other Ukrainian villages also helped us as much as they could. They knew that we were Jews, but none of them ever reported on our family. Life was hard like anywhere else in the occupation. My father didn’t have a job and all we had to eat was actually what we could grow in our miserable vegetable garden. Occasionally other villagers brought my father eggs or some milk or a piece of pork fat. My mother or father never had any forbidden food while my brother, my sister and I were glad to have this non-kosher food that was forbidden by our religion. So we lived in Lesnichevka for a whole year, but in January 1943 fascists on motorcycles and policemen broke into the village capturing villagers to send them to Germany. They found out that there was a Jewish family in the village. My parents, my brother and sister were taken to the ghetto in Bershad, and set me to the construction of a bridge near Nikolaev.

This was the hardest year in my life. I was to be there 40 days initially. But I was kept there for 8 months. This was actually a concentration camp. The inmates were young men, who could manage to do the hardest work. We broke stones, carried heavy stone blocks, and installed bridge supports without any construction plant or tools. We slept in caves in the hills like beasts. At dawn the policemen yelled and this was a signal for us to start our drudgery day’s toil. We were thin from hunger, ragged and covered with scabs. In the afternoon we were given some thin soup and in the evening we had a glass of carrot tea and a slice of bread. Prisoners were dying every day, but the fascist machine never failed to deliver another group of prisoners from the Pechora concentration camp 17, and different ghettos in Transnistria. Those men got as exhausted as we were very soon. At times it seemed to me that I had died and was placed into hell for whatever sins. Once I (by that time I had been in this hell for almost 8 months) rebelled and demanded normal conditions of life. I argued with the policemen. One of them took me to a bridge support, turned me with my face to the wall and fired his machine gun. The bullets broke the support just few centimeters from my face. I fell from horror. Then this policeman approached me, helped me to stand up, slapped me on my shoulder and said in Ukrainian: ‘You’ve got luck…’. I am still unaware whether this happened because he was kind to me or it was his boss’ direction. Probably, God had mercy on me. This happened on Saturday. On the following Sunday representatives from another camp arrived to select craftsmen: carpenters and cabinetmakers. I said I was a cabinetmaker. A group of men and I were taken to some place. I still don’t know where this was. We drove about 100 kilometers. There were barracks where we were accommodated. His place seemed luxurious to me compared to this hell where I had been before. This happened in winter 1943-44. In late January 1944, when the Soviet army was close, fascists took on their retreat. This must have been such emergency for them that they had just forgotten about us. In early February 1944 there were no Germans or policemen left in the camp. From there I went to Bershad, where my family had been kept.

I didn’t have to cover as long the distance as I had to back in 1941, but I was so weak that each kilometer or even meter seemed enormous to me. On 16 February I reached Bershad. There was still a ghetto there and I found my family there: my parents, my brother and sister. They survived the horrors of the ghetto, hunger, violence of policemen and Romanian guards and hard forced labor. They looked terrible and I looked no better after being kept in the camp. I sat at the table and mama gave me some thin soup that seemed more delicious than any prewar chicken soup, so starved I was. We talked in the evening. My parents told me how they managed to survive how they bribed the policemen and Romanian guards, and how Ukrainian villagers brought them potatoes and beans to the gate of the ghetto. They stayed in an empty house that belonged to some Jews who had evacuated. There were many such houses in the ghetto. Mama kept my sister in hiding in the basement to save her from evil eyes and raptorial eyes of the occupants who raped and killed young girls. There had been an action conducted shortly before I arrived. A traitor reported on a group of inmates who collected money for the partisan unit of Yasha Thales, a Komsomol activist from Bershad. They found the lists and killed all people whose names were on the list. My parents did not fully recover from the horror of this massacre and feared that fascists might kill all inmates of the ghetto before their retreat. Perhaps this was their intention, but they just didn’t have time to do this. On 16 March, one month after I arrived in the ghetto, the Soviet army came into Bershad. There was no battle: fascists just ran away hastily. I remember how exhausted and intimidated inmates of the ghetto went to meet the Soviet tanks, how they kissed the soldiers crying from the mixed feeling of happiness and grief. The field kitchen provided food to the survivors.

I realized that my documents about recruitment me to the army were lost during the mess and confusion of the retreat in 1941, or else I could be subject to the tribunal for desertion. Therefore, when I received a subpoena from the military registry office, I just didn’t mention that I had been in the army before. On 28 March 1944 I went to the Soviet army again. This time I was assigned to the position of a sergeant of medical service. I served at the Southwestern Front liberating Ukraine, Moldavia. We were in Nove Zamky town, [today] Slovakia, when the war was over. The situation then was very different from what it was like back in 1941. We were advancing on all fronts chasing the enemy away from our homelands. We were high-spirited to fight and take revenge. We felt like having no mercy and killing all those who caused so much suffering exterminating hundreds of our compatriots – Jews, Russians and Ukrainians, raped our women and killed old people. My heart was tormented from the feeling that I had actually deserted back in 1941, however unintentionally, and I did my best to redeem my fault in the past. I went to the front line evacuating the wounded soldiers and officers, though this was not my direct duty: I was to receive the wounded and provide medical aid at the medical facility. On 13 January I was sent to the rear of the enemy with a group of surveyors. This happened in Bohemia. We stayed in an ambush for few days and I had my both feet frost-bitten. I massaged them and did whatever possible considering the circumstances, but I never fully recovered afterward. On 15 April 1945 I was wounded by a mine splinter and shell-shocked in Nove Zamky town. I was taken to hospital and demobilized later. I returned to Bershad in late 1945.