Travel

Jan Fischer

Fischer, Jan (1921)

Praha
Česká republika
Rozhovor pořídila: Silvia Singerová
Období vzniku rozhovoru: listopad 2003 - březen 2004

PLEASE NOTE - this is only the transcript of the interview, the final edited version will be uploaded later

Kazeta č. 1, strana A:
 

Q: Jak se jmenoval váš tatínek?

A: Richard Fischer.

Q: A maminka?

A: Julie Ledererová, rozená.

Q: Měl jste nějaký sourozence?

A: Bratra jménem Herbert.

Q: Staří rodiče od tatínka?

A: Dědeček se jmenoval Jakub Fischer a manželka Róza, Rozálie.

Q: A rozená?

A: Jeje... Musel bych se podívat. Dejte tam otazník, mám to tady, ale nevím to zpaměti.

Q: To nevadí. A maminčiny rodiče?

A: Maminčini rodiče, to je horší. Já o nich celkem nic nevím, protože nevím ani jak se jmenovala její maminka. To byla katastrofa celý ten příběh. Máma byla z chudý rodiny. Její máma se zamilovala do srbského.. to je taková historka romantická.. do Srba, který tady pracoval jako zlatník v Praze. Tedy byl goj, Árijec. Měl s mojí babičkou dvě deti, teda máma, ještě ta měla sestru. On se samozřejmě na ně vykašlal, utek jim. Moje babička mladá umřela, ty děti přišly do sirotčince a tak dále.. To byla historka jaksi smutná. Nemám o tom nic, materiály, jenom legendu z vyprávění.

Q: A jak se jmenovala vaše babička?

A: Nevím. Bohužel. Zřejmě mi to máma řekla, ale to už je 60 let. Já si nepamatuju babičku.

Q: A vače manželka?

A: Hana rozená Meisslová.

Q: A vaše děti?

A: Jan a Táňa.

Q: Kdy a kde jste se narodil?

A: 19.července, 1921 v Praze.

Q: Žil jste někdy jinde?

A: Jenom v Terezíně. Ne.

Q: A jaké školy jste absolvoval, vaše vzdělání?

A: Mám reálku s maturitou a 2 semestry DAMU a dost.

Q: V Praze jste chodil do školy?

A: Jo.

Q: Kde jste pracoval?

A: Toho bude moc. O co vám jde? Před válkou a za německé okupace jsem měl několik podružných míst, dělal jsem ve výrobě brejlí a tak. Po válce jsem už šel k divadlu. Začínal jsem jako herec a pak jako asistent režie, režisér. Celý život jsem dělal divadlo, s výjimkou když mě vyloučili z partaje a vyhodili ze všech míst, tak jsem dělal všelicos – čerpače vody, skladníka… ale to není podstatné.

Q: A kdy vás vyloučili ze strany?

A: 1971.

Q: Vrátíme se k dětství. Co si pamatujete na rodinný dům a vaši rodinu, co se týče židovských tradic.

A: Naše rodina byla asimilovaná, takže ty židovský tradice tam už byly jenom zprostředkovaný. Naše rodina nedodržovala, nejedli jsme kóšer, nechodili jsme do synagógy. Bylo to jenom jaksi v rodinné tradici to existovalo, takže se to jaksi respektovalo, ale neslavilo.

Q: Věděl jste od malička, že jste Žid? Věděl jste co to znamená?

A: Věděl, jenže to vědění obnášelo tehdy něco úplně jinýho, než si lidi dneska myslej. To nebylo nic zvlášť zajímavého, poněvadž jsme byli obklopeni lidmi podobného typu. Nebylo to nic výjimečného, to bylo jako kdyby jste byly v Sokole nebo co. Byl Žid, tak byl Žid. …Nebyli jsme praktikující…

Q: Stýkali jste se s židy?

A: Stýkali jsme se s židy stejného druhu, asimilovanými…

Q: Takže jste nikdy nechodili do synagogy?

A: Ne, nikdy. Ani rodiče ne.

Q: Jak jste mluvili doma?

A: Doma jsme mluvili německy a s personálem nebo v praxi česky. Já mám německý školy například. To je zase tím, že tatínek měl zastoupení pro Československo německých firem – Zeiss a Zeiss ikon optiku. Můj brácha studoval techniku, ten byl ten inteligent, já byl ten blbec, kterej měl převzít ten obchod. Tak jsem musel samozřejmě umět německy a ta němčina byla u nás jaksi zvyklá. Ale nebyli jsme.. němectví jsme nějak nerespektovali, to prostě bylo normální. Já nechci rozvádět historické výlety, ale… Ta první republika je dneska nepochopitelná, například si všimněte, že můj bratr se jmenoval Herbert a já Jan, což bylo jaksi masarykovství. Masaryk byl velkou modlou. Tudíž češství, židovství, němectví, proč? V demokratickém státě přece o nic nejde. Což pak samozřejmě dopadlo trošku jinak, ale tehdy se v to věřilo. I ta pokrokovost, náboženství se respektovalo, ale nemuselo se dodržovat.

Q: Takže jste mluvil německy a česky jste se naučil kde?

A: Ne, já jsem se naučil nejdřív česky kupodivu, poněvadž jsem měl slečnu k dětem, která se o mě starala. Já jsem uměl nejdřív česky jako dítě. A pak teprv začli s němčinou…

Q: Takže váš mateřský jazyk je čeština?

A: Abych vám řek pravdu, já to nevím. Kdyý to beret takhle ortodoxně, tak vlastně jo. Jenže ta úroveň češtiny a později tý němčiny byla kardinálně jiná. Pochopitelně jsem, když máte německý školy, tak literatura, jazyk, gramatiku, jsem byl v té němčině lepší. Ale ta čeština mi byla dost vrostlá, nebyla mi ničím cizí nebo podivná.

Q: Takže vy jste měli celé dětství slečny k dětem:

A: Ono to brzy skončilo. Nebyl průběh tak dobrej, takže další slečnu už si nepamatuju. To byla jenom tahle a pak už konec. No, ostatně tatínek s ní měl poměr, takže to byl dvojí účet.

Q: Jaký jazyky ještě umíte?

A: Umím slušně anglicky.

Q: Teď procházíme základní údaje, jestli chcete říct něco víc...

A: Nechci. Proč bych dělal nějaký proklamace.

Q: Byl jste na vojně jako voják?

A: Normálně na vojně jsem nebyl, já jsem byl v Terezíně, v Osvětimi. Pak jsem se vrátil na Slovensko, do Košic, tam jsem se dostal na Ministerstvo informací a dělal jsem v rozhlase. Vy jste příliš mladá, ale historicky možná, to je taková zajímavá kapitolka. Byl jsem na tom ministerstvu, tam u řeky byla taková patrová budova. V prvním patře byla česká vláda, to jsme měli dvě kanceláře, třeba vnitro si přišlo pučovat psacá stroj a dole byla slovenská národní rada. Tam jsem pracoval. A jednoho dne, poněvadž věděli, že jsem v Terezíně hrál divadlo, mě někdo vyzval, že potřebujou do rozhlasu, že se bude zase vysílat Čs. rozhlas. Tak jsme tam byli tři čeští hlasatelé, někdy v dubnu 1945. Pak přišla  mobilizace, já jsme musel vopustit rozhlas a šel do armády, byl jsem 2 a půl měsíce v armádě a pak byl konec války a já jsem koukal mazat z armády pryč. Byl jsem v Svobodově armádě, ještě nebyla československá, zahraniční armáda a tam jsem byl v důstojnický škole, takže na frontě jsem nebyl.

Q: To bylo všechno v Košicích?

A: Ne. V Košicích mě odvedli a dostal jsem se do Popradu do důstojnický školy. A šli jsme pěšky do Levoče myslím, nejezdili vlaky. Já na Košice vzpomínám moc rád. To bylo pár příjemných týdnů.

Q: Jenom týdnů?

A: No, jak dlouho jsme tam byli? Měsíc, 6 týdnů. Pak přišla mobilizace a šlus. Šli jsme pěšky do Levoče, nejezdili vlaky... Pojďme dále.

Q: Řekněte mi něco o vašem bratrovi.

A: Bratr Herbert studoval techniku, nepodařilo se mu dostudovat.

Q: Byl starší nebo mladší?

A: Narodil se 1915. O 6 let byl starší než já.

Q: V Praze?

A: Ano, my jsme pořád pražské děti.

Q: A jeho mateřština byla..?

A: To je to samý... Pak pracoval v podobné dílně jako já, vyráběli jsme brýle. Oženil se. Ona říkala že je Árijka a pak z toho vylezlo, že není, že je buď míšeňka nebo nevím co. A můj brácha ji zachránil, aby ona nemusela do lágru, tak se rozved, šel do lágru on a už se nevrátil... Svou dívenku zachránil.

Q: Děti neměli?

A: Ne.

Q: A víte, kdy ho zabili?

A: Ne, nevím, 1944 někdy, ale detaily nevím. On jel do Osvětimi transportem, zřejmě z Terezína, zřejmě šel do plynu… ale detaily nevím.. asi někdy ´44 ho zabili. Mámu taky nevím, ta skončila prý v Bergen – Belsen, ale… to jsou jenom takové matné stopy, že někdo říkal, že ji viděl…

Q: A vaše manželka? Kdy se narodila?

A: Jako já 1921, ale 1. ledna. Myslím, že se narodila v Praze, ale oni pak bydleli mimo Prahu, poněvadž její táta měl velkostatek, pak už byl jenom správce a pak to prošustroval… Ale do detailu nepujdete... Když to budu brát jako literárně, tak je to možná zajímavý, možná i historicky, společnost tý tehdejší doby, těch přesunů z tehdejší, chudší do bohatých... Měl jsem vám říct, že... Jak můj táta měl ty německé firmy, tak samozřejmě v 1938 ho zbavili toho zastupitelství. A on v tu dobu měl dluhy, protože samozřejmě německé výrobky se hůře prodávali. A tatíček, protože byl čestný obchodník tak, to že má dluhy a nemůže je zaplatit nesnesl a spáchal sebevraždu v ´38. Nám všecko sebrali, zabavili a zůstali jsme plonk, máma, brácha a já v podstatě bez peněz.

Q: Takže jste zústali sami s maminkou?

A: Jo.

Q: A kdy se narodil váš tatínek?

A: Datum přesný z paměti nevím, musel bych jít do papírů. Títa se narodil 1885, máma 1884.

Q: Narodil se v Praze?

A: Víte, že to nevím, ale myslím, že jo.

Q: Ale žil v Praze?

A: Jo, jo.

Q: Jaký měl vzdělání?

A: Myslím, že měl jenom maturitu. On měl Obchodní akademii a maturitou.

Q: Jeho povolání bylo obchodník, on vlastnil ty továrny nebo...?

A: Ne, v zastoupení cizích firem. Velkoobchod by se to dalo nazvat. Dostal zboží z Německa a tady to prodával obchodníkům.

Q: Říkal jste, že nepraktikoval náboženství?

A: Ne, ne... Oni byli liberální naše rodina a byli na to hrdí, že jsou.. bez náboženství, moderní. Táta sympatizoval se sociální demokracií. Byli liberální, lehce doleva.

Q: Některý asimilovaný chodili na velké svátky do synagogy.

A: To je možný, ale já si konkrétně nepamatuju. To uznávali, ne že by to zapírali, ale nepraktikovali.

Q: Jeho mateřština byla němčina?

A: Jeho mateřština byla němčina. Je to tak. Ale taky ještě se hlásil… Já jsem to zjistil, teprv když jsem se hlásil, já jsem to nevěděl, bylo sčítání lidu, myslím ´33 nebo ´34 a já jsem tam byl hlášenej jako Němec. Jsem měl nepříjemnosti z toho po válce…

Q: Kde byl na vojně váš tatínek?

A: Na vojně byl u 28. pluku, to byl pražský pluk. Za války byl v Bruck an der Mur, v Rakousku, v Korutanech. Tam sloužil.

Q: Měl sourozence?

A: Měl tři sourozence, dva bratry a sestru. Bratři byli Oskar a Erich Fischer a sestra byla Anna, která se provdala za dr. Altshula a umřela v Kanadě. Emigrovali těsně před válkou, za prvních zvuků děl se odebrali do Kanady, ještě jim potopili loď.

Q: Kdy se narodili a kdy umřeli?

A: (smích) Já to vím zhruba, můžem to rekonstruovat. Oskar byla si o 3-4 roky mladší, čili ten se narodil 1890. Erich 1893, nebo tak nějak. Anka 1895, tak nějak, v odstupu 2-3 let se narodili.

Q: V Praze?

A: Jo.

Q: Jaký měli zaměstnání?

A: Dědeček byl krejčí. Ta národnost byla otázka. On byl z Berouna, přišel do Prahy se učit krejčovině. Ty Židi venkovští museli samozřejmě bejt Češi. Protože na tý vesnici by jinak těžko přežili. Takže ta národnost byla u nich taková, řekl bych spíš pohyblivá. V Praze se vyučil krejčím, zřejmě byl dobrej, osamostatnil se a měl krejčovský salón, ale to už mluvil německy. Žil nejvíc z toho, že šil pro profesory pražské německé univerzity. Oni nosili tenkrát uniformu. To byla jeho klientela. Takže odvozuju z toho, že on musel šít Einsteinovi uniformu, když on přišel do Prahy. A měl tady asi 10 zaměstnanců, takže on byl dost movitý. Byla to slušně situovaná rodina.

Q: Byl praktikující žid?

A: Myslím, že jo. Babička Róza, tu si pamatuju, ta byla ještě praktikující. Dědečka už jsem neznal, ten umřel v roce, když já jsem se narodil ´21, babičku jsem ještě znal, ještě žila pár let.

Q: A umřel v Praze?

A: Jo... A ty bráchové, ten mladší Oskar, ten měl taky myslím Obchodní Akademii, ale táta když měl tu firmu, když dostal to obchodní zastoupení, tak ho vzal jako spolupodnikatele, měl třetinový podíl na firmě. Ten mladší Erich, ten se živil všelijak, ten moc štěstí nepobral. Pracoval jako zaměstnanec v různých firmách. Já ho pamatuju jak prodával pneumatiky… Ten se nedomoh velkého majetku.

Q: Byli ženatí?

A: Jo. Oskar si vzal Vídeňačku Vali rozená Pietschová. Německy psaný (smích). Ta tady s ním žila, to byla Árijka samozřejmě. Takže on šel do Terezína až na poslední chvíli, on to tady přežil. Neměli děti. Ale Erich měl, rozenou Weinerovou... Jak ona se jmenovala? To je jedno. A měli syna Jiřího, ten byl se mnou v Terezíně. Ten byl vyučenej instalatér a já jsem s ním dělal. To bylo velký štěstí pro mě, že jsem v Terezíně dělal s ním. Měl jsem dobrý zaměstnání, kde jsem byl relativně svobodnej. Tak to byla ta chudá větev, ten se dostal k instalatéřině.

Q: Oskar a Erich byli nábožní?

A: Ne. Nebyli nábožní, z té mladší generace nikdo. Prarodiče jo, ale rodiče už ne.

Q: A sestra tatínka?

A: To je to samý.

Q: Taky se narodila v Praze?

A: Jo.

Q: A jaký měla zaměstnání?

A: Vona myslím v práci nikdy nebyla. Ona si vzala toho Altschula. To je zajímavé. Rudolf Altschul, jeho táta měl velkoobchod v Praze s jižním ovocem. Tedy měli se celkem slušně.A von byl typickej židovskej intlektuál! Krásnej, ty brejličky, ten frňák a pleš a tak. A byl úžasná hlava! Začal studovat techniku, ale aby se uživil, uměl ještě těsnopis a chodil psát do parlamentu protokol. Ale poněvadž jeho tatínek dostal rakovinu... tak on přešel na medicínu, aby moh tátovi pomáhat. Tu medicínu vystudoval, na pražské německé univerzitě. Specializoval se na psychiatrii. Měl asi 2 semestry Sorbonny a pak když absolvoval, tak jel na praxi do Itálie, do Říma, tam byl nějakej slavnej profesor Mingazini se jmenoval, psychiatr světovej. Tam pracoval asi rok dva. Pak se vrátil, tady založil praxi, samozřejmě, že moc bohatej nebyl, bejt psychiatr německej v Praze, když už byl Hitler, nebylo moc dobrý. Já si pamatuju: už tenkrát z tý psychiatrie ho zajímala neurologie a přes neurologii až k histologii. Například mu posílali mozky různé, zvířat… A to pod mikroskopem studoval a psal několik prací. To už byl ženatej s mojí tetou. Ty svoje separáty, které rozeslal po světe, první odpověď dostal z Kanady a pak dostal daleko lepší z Ameriky. A říkal, ne Kanaďani byli první, jedu tam do Saskatonu. Jeli tou lodí Atény, to byla první loď, kterou Němci potopili, civilní. V ´39, někdy v říjnu nebo tak. Potopili ji u skotských břehů, ale oni se zachránili, do Kanady se dostali. On se tam stal profesorem na univerzitě, dostal Rockefelerovu nadaci, přešel definitivně na tu histologii. Měl několik zajímavejch prací. Arteriosklerozou se zabýval. Vymyslel nějaký léky a tak. Byl to nesmírně vzdělanej pán. Znal i literaturu, historii. Uměl italsky, francouzsky, anglicky, německy, česky a to perfektně! V těch jazycích on pracoval. Pak umřel poměrně brzy. Byl to takovej člověk, kterej přečníval vysoko průměr. Ale byl to nepraktickej žid, vobě ruce levý (smích). Ale intelektuál jak hrom.

Q: A děti?

A: Děti neměli, bohužel.

Q: Pamatujete si, kdy umřela ta vaše teta v Kanadě?

A: No... tak ještě myslím za bolčevika, 1987 tak nějak.

Q: A Oskar a Erich?

A: Erich umřel v Terezíně, to jsem ještě seděl u něho, to měl rakovinu žaludku a Oskar umřel ´62-3, tak nějak

Q: Takže Erich byl v Terezíně?

A: Jo. Oskar byl taky v Terezíně, ale ten už tam byl jako míšenec na závěr. Na konci tam byli míšenci a smíšené manželství. Na 3 měsíce jenom, v listopadu přijeli tak nějak.

Q: Ještě bych se vrátila k dědečkovi Jakubovi. Jaký měl vzdělání, on byl krejčí?

A: Detaily nevím, myslím, že byl vyučenej krejčí.

Q: Byl na vojně?

A: Nevím. Myslím, že ne. Nikdy jsem nezaslech ani zmínku o tom. Ale nevím, jak to tenkrát bylo v těch létech. Jestli musel nebo nemusel na vojnu v těch 80. nebo 90. letech 19. století.

Q: On se narodil v Berouně?

A: Ano. 1840, tak nějak. Já tady mám takovou starou rodinnou kroniku. Ale to není důležitý pro vás.

Q: Je, kvůli tomu, že to je archiv... aby se ty data uchovali. já si to pak opíšu. Víte něco o sourozencích vašeho dědečka Jakuba?

A: Ne. Myslím, že nebyli v Praze, něco bylo ve Vídni… Nemůžu vám posloužit.

Q: A babička?

A: Babička Róza byla babička Róza. Malá kulatá, roztomilá bába to byla. Byla s ní sranda, měla smysl pro humor…

Q: Oni s váma bydleli v Praze?

A: Ne. S náma nebydlela, nejdřív byla sama, pak bydlela jednu dobu u Oskara, poněvadž neměl děti, kdežto u nás byla rodina.

Q: Ona byla pražačka?

A: Ne, ne... Počkejte, přinesu rodinnou kroniku...

Q: Kdo to napsal tuhle kroniku?

A: Víte, že nevím. Oskar to zdědil někde… Tady je zauční list dědy...

Q: To je krásný.

A: Tady jsou nějaký dokumenty... Ani nevím co to je. Jo, Reissová se jmenovala babička, ano! A Ignáz Reiss, to už nevím... To byl asi její brácha. Švenkovi ty byli ve Vídni.

Q: Tady máte něco hebrejsky, vidíte?

A: No, tak máte co číst...

Q: To je jidiš. To já nepřečtu.

A: Já vám to samozřejmě pučim. Já jsem to nebyl schopnej prostudovat. To je pro historika práce... To je švabach... Brief meines Grossvaters an seiner Tochter Terese verehelichte Eisne. Vúbec nevím, nemám potuchy, kdo to byl!.. Tady jsou nějaký ty parte... No, jo tak to byla asi Kinder... A to jsou ty přiženěný. Tak Jákob Fischer si vzal Rózu Fischerovou, takže to byla máma báby. Datum 1896. A tady je Ignáz. Tak pro historika je to žrádlo, tohleto... Ale to podle mého názoru, to by chtělo asi pozornosř důkladnější. Dokud si to neprostudujete... Ale je to hezký.

Q: Když mluvili jidiš, to byli asi ještě praktikující?

A: Jo, tihle jo. Generace Jakoba ještě byli praktikující. Ono to souviselo asi s přestěhováním do Prahy. Na tom venkově. To tady máte v těch materiálech, co se tam dělo v těch rodinách. Ale když se přestěhovali do Prahy, asi s tím pak praštili... Tady je kresba dědečka na úmrtným loži, někdo to nakreslil. ´21. Mein teurer Vater Jakob Fischer, einem Tag von seinem Tode. Oskar to nakreslil! A tady máte rodokmen.… Tmáň, on je z Tmáně u Berouna... Zajímavý na tomhle pro mě je ta historie Židů. Jak se ta asimilace, ten přechod, to má co dělat taky s historií Rakousko – Uherska… My jsme na ně větčinou zlý, my Češi. Ale vono to tak úplně nená. Ten Franz Josef, byl sice blbec, zkostnatělej, ale nebyl ve všem reakční. Zákony byly liberální. Židům to velice přálo. Jedna věc, která je trošku problém tady v této zemi. Ty židi, od Josefa II., byli osvobozený, 1848 skončily úplně ghetta, tak Židi byli vděční té vládě, která je osvobodila, dala jim naprostou rovnost. Vemte si ty návaly, té Einsteinovy generace na univerzity, těch doktorů, profesorů, lékařů..! Židi se vrhli na vzdělání, z těch ghett se vyhrnuli a byli tomu Rakousko-Uhersku vděční, protože jim dal svobodu. Fakt je ten, že Vídeň byla dost antisemitská, Praha ne. To jsou takový detaily... Ale co jsme to chtěli.

Q: Chtěli jsme zjistit, jestli váš dědeček měl bratry a sestry.

A: No, jo tady jsme zjistili, že jich měl fůru. A to chcete napsat?

Q: Jestli mi to pučíte, já bych si to napsala a okopírovala.

A: Čestný pionýrský.. (smích)

Q: Víte, jak zemřela babička?

A: Nevím, asi na rakovinu, prostě zesnula. Ještě pčed válkou, v 30. letech. To tam najdete taky... A moje knížka na to vlastně navazuje.

Q: A ona byla ještě praktikující?

A: Jo, ano.

Q: Mluvila německy?

A: Mluvila německy a samozřejmě česky. To bylo normální. S personálem se mluvilo česky, doma německy.

Q: Ještě se vrátíme. Vaše manželka?

A: Meisslová Hana. Támle mám obrázek.

Q: To je krásnej obrázek.

A: Hezkej no. Předválečnej ještě.

Q: Byla židovka?

A: Jo. Narodila se v Praze, ale žili mimo Prahu, její táta byl velkostatkář.

Q: Její mateřština byla němčina?

A: Já vám to tady prostě nevím. Oni byli češtější...

Kazeta č. 1, strana B:

Q: Jaké měla školy?

A: Ona měla dvě třídy gymnázium, ale nedodělala to.

Q: A zaměstnání?

A: Zaměstnání? Vy nejste historička, takže vám to cpu zbytečně, ale.. Je zajímavý, že osud jejího otce a mého otce byly velice paralelní. Já znám ještě další. To bylo zákonitý za první republiky, jak to bylo s tou celou zemí. Po tom velkým rozmachu přišel pokles… Utíkáme trošku z reality do metafyziky, ale... To souviselo i s tou psychologií těch lidí, i s dějinami, s tím Hitlerem a vším. Velká krize, 30. léta, která hluboko zasáhla naši rodinu taky. Já si to pamatuju velice velice živě: tu strašnou atmosféru, furt zvonil někdo u dveří pro jídlo, na ulici upad někdo, tady v Košířích bydleli ve skalách lidi… Republika měla milión nezaměstnaných, to bylo strašně moc! Prostě, její tatínek byl velkostatkář, ale hrál na burze. Prošustroval velkostatek, pak byl správce, pak byl menším správcem a ještě menšího statku. Měl manželku. Mám tady jedinou fotku schovanou, byla to krásná ženská! Nóbl, taková elegantní fajnová dáma. Pak to šlo dolů, tak ona se s ním rozvedla. On spáchal sebevraždu, jako můj táta, střelil se do hlavy ale netrefil se. A moje žena a její ségra ho ještě ošetřovali než umřel… Ona mi to nikdy v životě neřekla, já jsem se to dozvěděl až po její smrti, to je zajímavý. Když se rozvedla její máma s jejím tátou, moje žena byla jaksi velice dotčena. Ta její máma si vzala... jako druhého manžela toho německého skladatele, který napsal toho Císaře z Atlantidy, před 5 lety to bylo strašně slavný, v Londýně to hráli… To jméno... A ten měl předtím tři děti. Prostě ona (manželka) utekla od rodiny, v 16 letech se osamostatnila a dělala učitelku gymnastiky. Ona pak tančila, moderní, ne balet, ale výrazové tance. Takže byla tanečnicí. A po válce, když jsme se vzali, tak šla dělat do kanceláře. Pak pracovala v ČET- ce jako korektorka. Léta.

Q: A její sestra?

A: Její sestra Dáša byla krásná, taky mám jedinou fotku, blondýnka, nebyly si vůbec podobný. Skončila v Aušvic. Což Hanka moje žena strašně těžko nesla smrt její sestry. Ty zářezy byly hluboký. Moje choť měla těžký válečný trauma. To, co tady děláme to před ní nebylo možný. Nesmělo se mluvit vo lágrech, vo Židech, absolutně to nesnášela, dostala okamžitě šok a utekla. Říkala, neříkej to, nechci to slyšet.

Q: Bylo to i kvůli tomu, že před válkou byli asimilovaní?

A: Já myslím, že ne. To bylo psychologicky jenom... Zřejmě na ní to bylo jako na mladou holku moc, ta sebevražda jejího táty. Takovej slavnej skladatel – jeden z těch co byli v Terezíně. 

Q: Vaše děti:

A: Mám dceru a syna. Mám dceru Táňu, nar.1947, syn Jan 1949. Dcera je herečka, toho času poslankyně parlamentu. Syn je podnikatel, má agentúru reklamní, propagační.

Q: Mají děti?

A: Syn má dvě děti, syna a dceru. Vnučka studuje ještě na vysoký škole, její brácha se vrh na reklamu, grafik… Teď se chce odstěhovat do Paříže. Krásný kluk to je, vysokej kluk, nápadnej. Dcera má syna, ten je ovšem mrzák, má mozkovou obrnu, je v ústavu. Vždycky ho na Vánoce a na léto na chalupu berem. Nemůže chodit, je na vozejčku.

Q: Takže máte 3 vnoučata.

A: Jo.

Q: Vaše děti byly vychovány jako židi?

A: Ne. Od malička myslím, že to nevěděli, my jsme jim to řekli, až když byli trošku starší. Oni samozřejmě hlásej se k tomu, ale ne nábožensky, ideově.

Q: K identitě se hlásí?

A: Ano... Táňa má teď holt jiné starosti v tom parlamentu. Ta to dotáhla z nás nejvejš, paní poslankyně... Ale já to vodskáču. Ona žije v jiným světě, ona se mi vzdaluje. Já nejsem politolog(...) Kdysi jsme byli oba od divadla a bylo to fajn. Teď je to horší, nemá čas na nic. Ona to bere vážně. Jdeme dál.

Q: Vaše maminka?

A: Julie. Milovala mého bráchu. Já jsem byl ten domácí kašpar, kterého všichni takhle poplácávali. Ta rodina byla vnitřně rozbitá, nebyla dobrá. Skončilo to pak tou sebevraždou táty, to souviselo i s tím, že on měl životní pojistku. Věděl, že když umře, tak my máme dostat sto tisíc, což tenkrát byly velký peníze. Leč on to měl u Fénixu a když umřel, tak v ´38. rok Němci stáhli kapitál z Fénixu a on skrachoval. To jsou takový anekdoty historický.

Q: Maminka byla pražačka?

A: Maminka se narodila někde.. a v Praze vyrostla. Já o ní celkem moc toho nevím. Ten srbskej zlatník. Bydleli tady někde na Starém městě v jedné místnosti, která byla rozdělená křídou a tam bydlely dvě rodiny. Její táta ten Srb, ani nevím jak se jmenoval. Utek a nechal tu rodinu v bídě. Ta máma umřela, moji mámu dali k nějaký tetě na vychování, tam samozřejmě byla jako ten cizí prvek. Pak se zamilovala do táty atd. A tak to pokračovalo abych tak řekl smutně dál.

Q: Jak umřela vaše maminka?

A: Nevím... Jela do Osvětimi samozřejmě, ...nechci o tom mluvit. Z Osvětimi šla prý do Bergen – Belsen, tam stopa končí.

Q: Měla nějaký zaměstnání?

A: To ne, byla doma. V týhle generaci to neexistovalo... Ten zlom je se stoletím, 20. stoletím.
...
A: Teta byla Videňačka. Její máma byla tajemnicí na nějakým ministerstvu ve Vídni a dělala poslední sekretářku panu Dolfusovi, kterého zastřelili nacisti. Ona byla u toho. Tak já měl líčení o tom jak zastřelili Dolfusa. Takže my jsme zdědili ten komplex toho strašnýho 20. století na plný pecky.

Q: Podíváme se na nějaký fotky.

A: To je Richard. Kde to je to nevím, ale je to za 1. světový války, zřejmě v nějakým vojenským objektu, jestli v Praze nebo v Rakousku, to nevím.
Tady je táta taky. Budeme muset pracovat energicky, protože jsou toho štosy.

A: Táta v Praze 1922. Vidím, že jsou tu pěkný poklady, já už na to zapomněl. To je strýc Oskar s Táňou, to je moje dcera... Tady to jsou sourozenci, Richard, Oskar, Erich a Anna. Zleva doprava podle věku... Tohle je taky krásný, to jsme měli asi nějaký auto takhle. Teď já se začínám rochnit v tom. To je Oskar... Hele, to je něco! Svatební fotka táty s mámou.

Q: To bylo v kterém roce?

A: To vám nepovím, před válkou, může to být tak 1910-11... Tady jsou pravé skvosty. Oskar na kole... Tohle je pravděpodobně děda, ale já to nevím... Tohleto je nádhera úplná, ale já vám nevím která z famílie to je. To je přece skvost! To je Josef Kajetán Tyl, můžem to dát na jeviště a jedem... Nadporučík na koni, ale von neuměl jezdit, jen tam tak sedí... To jsou tři bráchové. To je táta, Oskar, Erich.... Ale tohle je moc hezký! To už se málokdy vidí, ještě jak se to dělalo na ten karton...  To jsem já s bratrem.

Q: Víte v jakém roce?

A: Tady mě mohli být 3-4 roky, takže v 24 roce... Tohle jsou ty fotky co jsme tam měli venku na stěně.

Q: To si můžu půjčit? To jste vy s manželkou a kde to je?

A: Na Příkopech, tak 46´. zhruba.

Q: A tohle?

A: To je naše rodina, ´22-3. Ženská část rodiny. Já to léta neviděl, já se v tom nehrabu...

Q: Někdy je zajímavý se k tomu vrátit.

A: No, právě, já bych to dobrovolně asi neudělal... Je to nádhera... Je to hrozně smutný. Kolik hořkosti je v těch osudech, kolik hrůzy. To je babička Róza, to je moje máma, to ja Anka teta, brácha, já. To je někde na venkově na letním bytě. Mě tady byly tak 3 roky...

Q: Tady máte napsaný Karlák, to je na Karlovým náměstí?

A: To je zajímavý. Karlák, nevím o té zdi. Ale to je nedůležité. Tady máte dvakrát rodinný snímek bratři Fischerovi, brácha a já... To jsou legendy... Tohle je taky krásný: Rodina na Příkopech 26´. – 27. Teta Vali, ta Vídeňačka a maminka... Já vám nebudu všecko dávat... Tady jsem krásný mladý, před válkou ještě, to mi bylo tak 16-17 let... Tohle je hezká fotka. Tady pochopíte všecko. Já vám to nebudu vykládat, je to tam všecko „napsaný“. To je ta slečna, co mě učila česky. Je vám to jasný, podívejte se na ten ksicht tý mámy. Ta fotka mluví. Krásná.

Q: Tak já si to pučím.

A: No, to nemám radost.

Q: Jak se jmenovala ta slečna?

A: To nevím... Tady jsme měli nový auto, heleďte... Tady, tohle je krásná fotka! Táta, protože uměl fotografovat, tak on byl fotograf pluku. To je nějaká nádherná chlastačka za války, rakousko- uherskejch oficírů. Ta má úžasnou atmosféru. Šampus na stole, páni důstojníci, tady mají nějakou ženskou…  Tady je můj brácha, když mu byly asi tři roky a tady je napsaný Šono tóvo... Koukám, že tady máte žně!

Q: Máte krásný exempláře!

A: Že jo, já ani nevěděl... Erich, můj bratranec, táta, brácha. Brácha nevycválanej ještě, brácha nevycválanej... táta mladej.... Toto je komické! Svadba mého syna, to byl vlasatej ještě, jednou ho chytli policajti a vostříhali ho. ...Tohle je velice zajímavé, to musím opečovat tuhle fotku. Tohle je oficiélne zahájení Národního shromáždění. 28.10. A tady je táta s foťákem... Zřejmě tam něco fotil.

A: ...Bába Róza a dědeček Jakub. Tady je máte, to byl krásnej pár!

Q: Jaký jste měl vztah s dědečkem?

A: Já ho neznal. On byl prý velký srandista, on měl strašně rád zvířata, což v naší rodině se zdědilo, protože máme furt nějaký potvory kolem sebe. Měl boxera psa, který byl vycvičenej, vodil tátu když se ožíral v noci domů. A byla rodinná tradice, že máma ráno se přišla podívat a táta ležel na zemi a pes v posteli. A pak měli papouška, který uměl mluvit, měl  ho v dílně, jak šili. On se naučil prdět, když přišli zákazníci. (smích)... Tohle je Oskar mladej...

Q: To jsou poklady, tyhle starý fotky...

A: Tak to je rodina...

Q: Kdo je tohle?

A: Anna, Erich a ...cizí člověk. To je u dědečka v bytě.
A to už jsou divadelní fotky... Věc Makropulos... a tak dále.
...
Q: Jak probíhalo divadlo v Terezíně?

A: Proto je neopakovatelný… My jsme hráli špatně divadlo. Já jsem se neviděl samozřejmě, ale já nic neuměl, já byl začátečník. Většina z nás byli amatéři, někdo uměl.. My jsme nemohli dělat nějak zvlášť dobrý divadlo, ale o to tam nešlo. A tady začíná celej ten klíč k tomu. My jsme dělali divadlo, stejný lidi v hledišti a na jevišti. Tam nebylo, že jeviště a hlediště a hledají kontakt, chtějí vzájemně si něco říct. Všichni si říkali jedno a totéž. Celá ta souvztažnost divák, umělec, byla úplně jiná… Ta nečasovost tam hrála evidentní úlohu, protože nešlo o kariéru, nešlo o peníze, nešlo o lásku, to všecko neexistovalo. Šlo o nějakej zbytek duše, která zoufale volala o pomoc. O to byla silnější ta duše a o to to naše úsilí muselo bejt silnější… Já dávám hrozně rád k dobru historku, na kterou si moc dobře pamatuju: Už před těma posledníma transportama ´44., teda v létě, na podzim, ten film byl na jaře, tak se to hroutilo velice rychle, transporty jezdily jeden za druhým až jsme jeli i my. Ale v tom mezidobí, než se to začlo hroutit, než jsme viděli, že to ghetto se rozpouští, že tady se něco děje. My jsme seděli pohromadě a nevím kdo přines korespondenční lístek a říká tohle jsem dostal. Nevěděl odkud, bylo to z Osvětimi. Bylo to v těch několika řádcích, který byly dovolený a ty první písmena tam bylo GASTOD, jsme dešifrovali. A teď co? To je to co je neuvěřitelný, my vůbec nevěděli co to je! Protože přece nikoho nenapadalo, že jsou plynové komory, že se lidi likvidujou v plynových komorách! Zastřelit jo, pověsit jo, ubít palicí jo, ale plynový komory? My jsme tomu nerozuměli!... To je zvláštní detail toho, že člověk si neuvědomuje, že to co prožil, v něm leží. Že toho zážitku se nemůžete zbavit... To je jako, když někdo má nevybuchlej granát v sobě. Já dneska vím, že v tomhle věku už neexploduje, to je mi už jasný. Ale nicméně vím, že tam dělá, co se mi stalo s těma Italama (rozhovor o divadle), že jsem se najednou roztřásl…Ono mě to zranilo….

Q: To je asi všechno v podvědomí...

A: Ano. Já to neříkám proto, abyste mě litoval, hodnej, já ti koupím bonbón. Aniž bychom to věděli, jsme tím nutně poznamenaní.

Druhý rozhovor:
21.11.2003

Q: Jak si pamatujete na dodržování tradic u babičky?

A: Já jsem byl dítě, ona když umřela, tak mě bylo asi 10. Tak nevím, nakolik byla pobožná. Ale já měl ještě jednu tetu, ta byla pobožná! Tu jsem Vám zapřel… Děda Jakub měl sestru. Emma. A ta si vzala kantora z pražské synagogy. Ta byla praktikující, ta měla doma mezuze na dveřích, chodila pravidelně. Ta byla vopravdu svatá, bělovlasá… Já jí pamatuju. To byla židovská svatá, úžasná baba to byla, báječná, hodná!

Q: Vy jste se s nima stýkali?

A: Když jsem byl malý, tak jsme bydleli ve stejném domě, pak jsme se odstěhovali, tak jsem ztratil s ní kontakt. V Týnské ulici.

Q: Ještě jsem se zapomněla zeptat. Jak tam má v kronice váš dědeček ty výučný listy, tam jsem našla zajímavou věc, možná je to detail. V jednom je psaný česky Fišer a v druhým německy jako Fischer. Nevíte jestli si neměnili jméno? Třeba žili na tý vesnici tak se psali česky a když se přestěhovali tak německy?

A: Není mi známo, že by se měnilo jméno, ale z mého života je mi známo x-krát a dodnes, jeden to píše tak, jeden tak. Z českýho lajdáctví, tam dají es s háčkem. Já bych se dost vsadil, podle všeho co vím, že určitě nechtěli, aby se to psalo s háčkem. Oni spíš, ten sklon k němectví se držel až k mým rodičům, to se zlomilo až u mě. Takže nevím, proč by to dělali.

Q: Vy jste říkal, že jste byl psanej jako dítě jako Němec?

A: Ano 1933 když bylo sčítání lidu. Já to nevěděl samozřejmě. Až když jsem se vrátil a potřeboval jsem papíry, tak jsem zjistil, že jsem tam psaný jako Němec, bylo mi 10.

Q: A měl jste nějaký nepříjemnosti kvůli tomu?

A: Měl, samozřejmě! Poněvadž z toho lágru jsem neměl papíry, tak jsem potřeboval národnost doložit a ejhle! K tomu jsem potřeboval ten výpis. Manželka to vybíhala. Já jsem musel nějak žádat, aby mě uznali národnost českou. Ještě, aby mě vodsunuli…(smích) Nějakým lidem se to stalo samozřejmě, ale mě se to nestalo, díky tomu, že jsem byl v lágru.  Nikoho by nenapadlo, že bych přijel z Osvětimi a hlásil se k Němcům.

Q: Mě babička říkala, že po válce se na Slovensku nesmělo mluvit maďarsky. Bylo to tady takhle s němčinou?

A: To bylo s němčinou taky.

Q: Stalo se vám osobně něco?

A: Já jsem německy nemluvil! Já jsem od 1939 asi s němčinou skončil. Nevzal jsem ji do huby. To je taky jedna věc, o které by se dala napsat studie, – ty proměny nacionality. Já jsem léta letoucí byl toho názoru, že fašismus, holocaust je věc Němců. To je německá vlastnost. Dlouho mě to trvalo, než jsem na to přišel, že to není jenom německá věc, že jiný národy jsou téhož názoru! Samozřejmě to proměnilo můj vztah k Němcům, protože jsem zjistil, že  ne každý Němec je fašista. Kdežto když skončila válka… problematika odsunu Němců. To je moje subjektivní hledisko: Já když jsem se vrátil do Prahy, což bylo v červnu 1945 ještě v uniformě vojenský, tak samozřejmě s Němcema jsem skončil, Němci byli nepřátelé. I když si vzpomínám na tý cestě z Polska domů, taky jsme kusy šli pěšky a čekali na vlaky. Tam byl nějakej ruskej voják a měl tam 10 Němců vojáků zajatejch, něco na poli pracovali, uklízeli. Jsme se dali do řeči a on zjistil naše čísla, že jsme byli v konclágeru a tak a on mě dal automat a říká na, zahraj si s nima trošku, pocvič si s nima. A v tu chvíli mi najednou přišlo, že to nejde. Ty lidi, který neznám, nic o nich nevím, z motivace jenom, že jsou Němci, tak to nejde… To je myslím dost typický. Co já vím, většina lidí z lágrů, pokud nenarazili na nějakého člověka, kterého znali a věděli o jeho vině, tak nebyli krvelační. Poněvadž toho měli dost, nehodlali dělat stejné věci… Ale když jsem se vrátil, to byla situace, kterou si už málokdo vybavuje: za a/ v tý době od konce války až do podzimu vypukly všechny věci, který se za války nevěděli. Všechny ty lágry, všechny ty zločiny. Z českých archívů, co se dělalo tady, koho zastřelili… Čili najednou se na Němce vyvalilo strašně hrůzy, kterou způsobili za tý války. Samozřejmě ty lidi, který nejmíň trpěli, byli největší mstitelé, ti kluci z těch RG – Revolučních gard – já jsem se s nima moc do styku nedostal – ty se chovali velice špatně. To byli frajeři, kteří teď byli najednou velcí, to byli ušlápnutý kluci protektorátní… Ty brutality, který se s Němcema děli, já připisuju těmto lidem, kteří sami patrně vůbec nic neprodělali, ale chovali se jako mstitelé celého národa. My jsme to rozhodně nebyli. Ale na druhý straně... vím, jak jsme se dovídali, co se tady dělo za revoluce, věci který nebyly známý… Čili všechno zlo se na Němce vyvalilo, v národě byla strašná nálada:  musíme si to s nima vyřídit. To je za a/ - ta první vlna pomsty, hněvu, nenávisti. Lidi si vyřizovali, někteří, který měli, někteří si vyřizovali jenom vztek, nebo kradli.. Vždyť víte, že většině židů ukradli téměř všechen majetek. My jsem taky přišli o všechno. A za b/ - s touto náladou v zádech, samozřejmě Beneš měl své subjektivní důvody, jeho komplex mnichovský je známý. Oni pochopitelně měli udělat to, co se dělalo v Německu, kde byla okupační armáda, denacifikace, stanný soudy. Jenže my jsme neměli nic. Já jsem byl v tý Svobodově armádě a skončil jsem v červnu nějak, mě propustili… To se odehrávalo u náhradního pluku, kterej byl v Kroměříži. To byla jediná armáda kterou jsme měli, ta Svobodova. Ta protektorátní armáda částečně byla v Itálii a částečně měla 5-8 tisíc, to nebylo nic… Měli jen lehký zbraně. Tahle armáda byla k ničemu. A ta Svobodova byla v šíleným rozkladu. Když jsme byli v Kroměříži, tak se to všechno rozpouštělo, ty lidi samozřejmě toužili domů, domů, domů. Tady ta vláda neměla ani peníze ani program co s tou armádou dělat. Nikoho nenapadlo tady tu armádu držet, dát do kasáren cvičit a nasadit někam. Ta se rozpustila. Jak měla tato česká vláda dělat nějaký organizovaný věci s Němcema? Měly být tábory organizovaný, mužstvo, dozor, soudy, policie.. Protektorátní policie byla prolezlá, nebyla spolehlivá. Naše vláda poválečná neměla prakticky možnost nijakým způsobem realizovat denacifikaci, tak se na to vykašlala! Samozřejmě, že když viděli, že je zle a začíná to bejt skandál, tak… začli trošku to přibrzďovat, ale v podstatě neměli ani možnost do toho zasáhnout. To by se nemělo nikdy zapomenout.. V Německu měli pevný armády, organizovaný... my jsme ji neměli. Vemte si jak vypadali úřady po revoluci. Ty byly prolezlý náckama, fašounama… O to se nedala opřít žádná organizace. A to se zapomíná. Půl to byla taky jejich chyba, půl to byla taky jejich bezmocnost. Fakt je, že velká snaha nebyla... Ale v tý špičce benesovský museli vědět, že nemají žádný trumfy v ruce.

Q: To je zajímavý.

... A: Dělal jsem v Německu představení, tak jsem tam měl výtvarníka, s kterým jsem to musel domluvit. Taky jsme seděli a něco vychlastali při té příležitosti a on byl (ve wehrmachtu, jako voják. Ptal jsem se ho, kdy jsi zjistil, že Hitlerovi se nedá věřit? Někdy začátkem 1945. A to byl inteligentí, mladý kluk!).

Kazeta 2, strana A:

Q: Zeptala bych se na dvě jména. Jak se jmenovala žena vašeho bratra Herberta?

A: Jmenovala se Marta, ale nevím jak dál. Nevzpomenu si. Vypadlo mi to.

Q: Stýkal jste se s ní po válce?

A: Minimálně jsme byli v kontaktu. Tady byl ten stín, že on kvůli ní se rozved, tím se odsoudil k smrti, ale pak vylezlo, že ona je položidovka, takže ona vlastně nás podvedla všechny. A hned si taky vzala nějakýho. Byla trošku tedy… do luftu. Nechci říct, že byla špatná, ale nebyl to nějak moc kvaltině vnitřní člověk. A já když jsem s ní ztratil kontakt, než jsem ji našel po válce, než jsme se sešli, tak žádnej kontakt nevznikl... Pak byla nemocná, s nohou, nemohla chodit... Z toho nebylo nic. Jakoby byla z jinýho typu člověka. Nepatřila do rodiny.

Q: Jak se jmenovala manželka vašeho strýce Ericha?

A: Weinerová rozená, křestní jméno... Možná, že si vzpomenu.

Q: Ještě by mě zajímalo, jak to bylo po válce? Kdy jste se oženil?

A: V roce 1947.

Q: Kde jste bydleli a jak jste si hledali živobytí?

A: To je těžký zkrátit. Dělat škrty v životě... Já když jsem se vrátil, tak jsem stál před problémem, co mám vůbec dělat. Ničím jsem nebyl, byl jsem jenom maturant na německý škole, ale to nehrálo roli. Nevěděl jsem, co mám dělat. Možná bych byl studoval, ale když je člověk sám, nemá zázemí a nic, tak to je těžký. Taky jsem nevěděl co, tak jsem se rozhod pro to, co jsem měl nejradši, tj. divadlo, který jsem dělal v Terezíně... Sešli jsme se ještě pár lidí, který jsme to dělali v Terezíně, bylo nás asi tři nebo čtyři. Dali jsme se dohromady. Nejdřív jsem bydlel u lidí tady v Praze, s kterými jsem se seznámil, přes kumšt a tak. A pak jsem s Františkem Jíškou, kamarádem, taky hercem, jsme požádali o byt a dostali jsme byt, dvoupokojovej. Tak jsme tam spolu bydleli. On se pak oženil, tím pádem mě vyhodil a já jsem se přestěhoval k mojí budoucí manželce, která měla garsoniéru. Ona přišla do Prahy dřív než já, ona se vrátila do Terezína transportem. Řada transportů se vrátila zpátky do Terezína, poněvadž je neměli už kam dát. Takže ona tam byla hned na konci války a jela do Prahy a tady se jí podařilo.. oni dávali byty lidem z koncentráku. Dostala garsoniéru.

Q: Museli jste se hlásit tady na obci?

A: Kdo chtěl tak samozřejmě se mohl hlásit na obci, ale stačilo na Národním výboru, taky jsme neměli papíry žádný. Ty byty nám taky přidělovali dokud byly. Začal jsem dělat to divadlo, nebylo to moc lukrativní, poněvadž jsem nic neuměl. Manželka pracovala někde v kanceláři, hned po válce a taky tancovala. My jsme se poznali v Terezíně. A dál jak ten život pokračoval? Bydleli jsme v garsónce, samozřejmě jsme byli chudý jak kostelní myši, ale to nám nějak vůbec nevadilo. Ta svoboda a najednou ta možnost žít a něco v životě udělat a to divadlo nás bavilo. To mělo různý peripetie, nakonec já jsem se dostal do Vinohradského divadla jako asistent, slavného režiséra Frejky, což mě velice vnitřně uspokojovalo. Prachy to byly ubohý, ale manželka taky pracovala v ústřední radě odborů.

Q: Už jste měli děti?

A: Ještě ne. 1947 se narodila dcera. Celkem dost spokojeně jsme žili…

Q: Jaký jste měli kamarády:

A: Těch bylo víc. Pár lidí bylo ještě tedy z lágrů, někde se vyskytli kolem nás. A pak byli noví kamarádi z toho světa, kde jsme pracovali, v divadle zejména.

Q: Pamatujete si, že by po válce byl antisemitizmus tady?

A: Tahle otázka je dost záhadná. Já jsem po válce neměl pocit, musím říct, že ne. Kromě drobností, ale v podstatě velkou roli to nehrálo. Ex post ovšem po létech, když jsem se zamyslel nad tím, když jsem viděl víc do věcí a do charakteru lidí, tak jsem si uvědomil, že řada nehod nebo špatných výsledků se možná měli připsat antisemitismu.

Q: Pracovní myslíte?

A: Pracovní jo. Privátně nikdy jsem se nesetkal v lidské společnosti.

Q: Když se podíváte na židovskou obec po válce?

A: Neměl jsem na to čas ani chuť se věnovat židovský otázce, poněvadž, když pracujete v divadle, tak máte strašně blbej rozvrh, máte dopoledne zkoušky a večer představení. Moc času vám nezbývá. Ale já jsem nebyl bez kontaktu s kile. Občas jsem jim pomáhal nějaký Pésach nebo něco, nějaký věci sestavit, nebo občas jsem tam zašel na oběd a tak. Měl jsem takové řídké kontakty. Oni o mě nestáli, nebo já o ně, nevím, nějak jsme se moc neskamarádili. To se ovšem změnilo teď. Teď jsem na ně vyloženě naštvanej! Jednak židovská obec tady nikdy nebyla ortodoxní. Pan rabín ačkoli je to spisovatel a kdysi disident a prima chlap, tak dneska je to konzervativní zaprděnej dědek. Oni například pro tu kulturu nedělaj ale vůbec nic! Nehnou prstem! Interně na obci to jo. Oni pro kulturu neudělali nic. Například já jsem napsal tu svou knížku, poslal jsem jim to samozřejmě, ani mi nepoděkovali, ani neřekli bú, akorát ve Věstníku vyšel, od Mirka Kárnýho, kterýho jsem znal z Terezína, taková recenze. Prostě je to nezajímá. Oni nepodporujou lidi. A nemyslím tohle, že je jediná kultura. Divadelnictví, v muzice, oni nepodporujou lidi, nezvou je na konzerty…

Q: Myslíte, že to bylo jinak těsně po revoluci.

A: Po revoluci to byly jiný starosti, restituce a tak.

Q: Měl jste snahu se tam angažovat?

A: Neměl jsem snahu se tam angažovat. Oni mi to nabídli, v 50. letech nebo tak nějak, jsem sehnal nějaké lidi, aby zazpívali a tak. Říkali, že jsou rádi, když pro ně pracuju, ale že by chtěli, abych se přihlásil jako člen obce. Já jsem řekl, nezlobte se, ve mně to přesvědčení není. Rád s váma budu pracovat, ale nechtějte po mě vyznání víry. Tenhle problém známe. Ta situace v Praze nebo v Čechách, že náboženství neznamená moc. Já nejsem neznaboh, ale církev mě jaksi… Já jsem neměl chuť stát se subjektem církvi. Jenom bejt nominálně členem nějaký církvi? To je neupřímný.

Q: Vnímal jste svoje židovství ne jako náboženství, ale...?

A: Já jsem to svoje židovství nikdy nezapíral taky. Některý lidi si měnili jméno a tak, to jsem nikdy nedělal, já jsem to klidně přiznával. Ale po stránce náboženské, já nevím jestli jsem žid nebo křesťan, že věřím v pánaboha, ale ne v určitého, který má určitý znamení.

Q: Snažil jste se nějak ovlivnit děti?

A: S dětma jsme na to téma dlouho nekomunikovali, až když byli větší. Oni oba dva to přijali velmi pozitivně.

Q: Ptali se vás na holokaust?

A: Jo, jistě. Moje žena měla velké trauma poválečný, před ní jste nesměl říct žid, nesměl jste říct koncentrák... Ale mezi řečí, nebo když jsme byli sami, já jsem to nijak netajil před dětma. Oni to samozřejmě věděli. Pochopitelně jim nelíčíte ty detaily. Já jsem vám říkal jak vznikla ta knížka?

Q: Ne.

A: Děti už léta říkaly, měl bys to někdy napsat, to je škoda… Já jsem říkal, ale jděte s tím do háje, o tom se napsalo dost. A když mě umřela manželka v roce 1997, umřela v létě tady, jsme ji pohřbili a já jsem jel na chalupu. Jako každej rok dcera Táňa v červenci odjela, koncem srpna, já jsem poprvé v životě zůstal sám na chalupě. To byl takovej zvláštní pocit, vnitřní meditativní situace. Najednou mě napadlo, že teď, když jsem tady sám, bych to moh napsat. Teď se stalo něco, co je zcela zvláštní. Já jsem si nikdy o sobě nemyslel, že umím psát. Já jsem spíš myslel, že je to obor, kerej mi opravdu nejde. Takže jsem moc toho v životě nesepsal. Překládal jsem. (…) Teď se stalo něco, co je možná hrozný a krásný. Já jsem si vzal tušku a psal jsem. Já jsem nemusel přemýšlet, škrtat nic. Jak tu knížku znáte, tak je to vod a do zet.  …To mi říkaj všichni, že je to napínavý, hezký. Ale já jsem došel k tomu závěru, že to jsem nepsal já, to psal opravdu pánbůh, jako něco o čem jsem nevěděl, mě to diktovalo... To je neuvěřitelný. Já jsem ani nepřemýšlel. Nutně v tom je moje erudice jazyková, divadelní, to je někde uvnitř, nemáte to srovnaný vědecky, systematicky. Ale když máte úkol, tak se najednou ta systematika dostaví sama. Najednou ta osa tady je a vy ji sledujete, aniž by jste věděl proč. Ale já jsem ani nepřemýšlel.

Q: Děti to znali už předtím?

A: V podstatě jo. Některé věci ne, ty osvětimské, ty jsem spíš tajil. Spíš to všecko znaly heslovitě, protože v tý knížce jsem to líčil víc do detailu. Když s někým sedíte a bavíte se, tak přece jen nepopisujete, jak vypadalo krematorium. To můžete v literatuře. Ale i v tý knížce je to napsaný dost zkráceně. Měl jsem pocit, že kdybych víc to rozváděl, dostalo by to zcela jinou atmosféru než chci… Já jsem nechtěl napsat, jako jakej jsem chudák… To se dostáváme k velmi příbuznému tématu: Koncentrák a co z toho? To je strašně složitý poněvadž je to velmi subjektivní a kořeny tý reakce se dají těžko vysledovat. Ta naše rodina předválečná nežila příliš šťastným životem. Tu otcovu smrt jsem prožil jako velkej šok, ale spíš objektivně než subjektivně. Já jsem ho měl rád, ale nebyla to pro mě osobní tragedie, my jsme k sobě tak blízkej kontakt nikdy neměli. Byla to spíš katastrofa toho postavení ve světe a v živote. Žádný peníze, žádný zázemí, žádná budoucnost. Byl to absolutní krach jednoho světa. Tady skončila jedna éra, jmenovala se první republika. Tady jsme se dosatli k jednomu tématu. Ten krach v roce 1938, po Mnichovu, on zemřel o měsíc pozděj,… tady byla tragédie antisemitizmu, fašizmu českého… (...) Nevím proč teď vytáhli kritiku Karla Čapka. Kritizovat ho teď, je nepatřičné z pohledu 50 let později. Tenkrát znamenal něco jinýho, než co znamená teď. Nicméně ten byl ten lidskej, Masaryk a Čapek patřili k jádru tý republiky. Třeba Válka s mloky je zdviženej prst proti fašizmu, nebo Továrna na absolutno... Hlásil se k tý první republice. To byl ten nejtragičtější moment. Mě bylo 17. Nabízí se fráze, zhroutil se jeden svět. Bylo to první obrovské zklamání lidstva. Jako takového, nejenom, že se ukazovali fašisti a Vlajka noviny, ale taky lidi Vám blízcí se najednou strašně změnili. Ne, že jste je viděl v jiným světle, to taky. Ale oni Vás viděli v jiným světle! Do tý doby to slovo žid nic neznamenalo. To bylo spíš něco jako menšina, brali jsme to jako fakt. Moji rodiče byli velcí masarykovci. Já jsem byl Jan bratr Herbert podle masarykových synů. To jsem x-krát dětem vykládal. To byl větší šok než okupace Němců! Poněvadž to byla vnitřní zrada. Najednou jste viděla, že jste žila na tenkým ledě… Že pod tím je něco, co jenom tušíte a můžete jenom instinktem odhadnout, protože oficielně to není. Když jste mluvila o tom antisemitismu, teď je to taky na místě. Protože je i teď… (...) Když se podíváte na tu dnešní politiku, tak taky ten antisemitizmus není moc populární, oni vědí, že na něm by nic nevidělali, ale kdyby mohli vydělat... Klidně. Vnitřně mají pořád odstup k těm židům, keré nemaj rádi atakdále... To, co bylo potom, byl jenom důsledek toho zhroucení obrazu člověka. Pak se jenom projevoval hůř a hůř. Ale už nebyl novej. Novej byl po Mnichově. Znáte tu poesii Halase a Siferta, tam je to nejlép vyjádřeno. To ve mně leží daleko víc, než ta Osvětim, to strašný zklamání, že ten člověk Ansich, je něco úplně jinýho než si člověk myslel. A proto jsem strašně nedůvěřivěj vůči lidem…

Q: Měl jste po válce problém komunikovat tady s lidma?

A: Ne. Měl - neměl.

Q: V souvislosti s tím, že se proměnili...?

A: Jenže na opačnou misku vah padla ta druhá stránka človečenství. A to vám neříkám nic novýho, kdyby v lágrech nebylo, a to vždycky vnější tlak upevňuje vnitřní, nebejt přátelství, nebejt kontaktu člověka k člověku, tak to nebylo o přežití. Bez kamarádů, bez soudržnosti, to nešlo přežít.

Q: S přátely po válce jste se o tom bavili?

A: Minimálně. Jenom když jsme se sešli, kamarádi z lágru. Lidi, který nebyli s náma, říkali, vy jste ale příšerný cynici. Poněvadž my jsme si z toho ex post dělali srandu… (smích) To nemůžu vysvětlit, ale to je osvobození od strašnýho traumatu, takže jsme vypadali jako cynici příšerní. 

Q: A povídali jste si o židovství obecně?

A: Ne. To židovství přišlo zase na řadu v 50. letech, Slánského procesy, ty to zase oživily. I když já bych řek, že většina českých intelektuálů to odmítala. To byl spíš folklor namířenej dolů a ne do těch vyšších kruhů. V těch divadlech jsem moc fašismu nezažil... Já jsem na antisemitismus strašně choulostivej! Ambivalence člověka… teď jsme zase u jiný otázky.

Q: Snažil jste se to židovství předat dětem, ne v tom náboženským smyslu...?

A: To židovství předat, ani ne… To ódio toho Poláčka, samozřejmě to mám v sobě a oni se ho naučili taky. …Ale já bych to tak ostře neohraničoval, oni se cítej jaksi spřízněni se židovstvím, abych to změkčil. Mají k tomu vnitřní vztah. U těch dvou mých nemanželských dětí, který nebyly vůbec vychovány židovsky, poněvadž máma byla árijka a z kruhů ne příliš intelektuálních, tak ty, když jsme se dostali na jednu loď, ty to židovství velmi rychle převzali. Ta Zora je z nás všech nejvíc Židovka, chodí na kile, má tam známý a dělá pro ně něco. Já ji k tomu nikdy neved, ona si to sama. To je zajímavý.

Q: A vnuci to taky nějak vnímaj?

A: To už moc ne. A vnuci, to už moc ne. Syn si vzal árijku, Táňa se nikdy nevdala.
...Židovství má dvě stránky, jednu tu racionální, druhou tu iracionální. O té druhé geneticky daný, jestli věříme na tradici, nebo na duši, tam jsem asi mnohem víc žid. To cítění tady je, a zřejmě i u dětí se objevilo. U těch vnuků ne... Ta třetí generace už ne...

Třetí rozhovor:
18.3.2004

Q: Mě zajímá to poválečný období. Jak probíhal po válce proces se změnou na českou národnost?

A: Já o tom vím velice málo, protože to vyběhávala moje manželka. Velice pilně. Na nějaký úřady se muselo jít a musela se podat nějaká žádost, ale šlo to bez problémů, protože jsem jednak byl v komunistický straně a jednak jsem byl v koncentráku.

Q: Setkal jste se s podobnými případy?

A: Ne. Nesetkal jsem se s žádnýma podobnýma lidma, jednak to každej tajil... ale je to blbost, protože copak já za to můžu, co v r.´33 otec za mně napsal?

Q: Pamatujete si, jestli to bylo součástí Benešových dekretů?

A: Myslím, že ano. Německá národnost musela opustit tuto zemi, pokud neprokáže, že nebyl fašista. Což u mě nebyl problém, že jo.

Q: To byla česká nebo československá národnost?

A: To, co jsem dostal, jo? Já myslím, že to už byla česká národnost, československá byla jen za první republiky.

Q: Takže to bylo rychlý?

A: No, žádný zvláštní potíže si nepamatuju. První byl ten šok, když jsem to zjistil. Já to nevěděl přece. Ježišmarjá seš Němec, co s tím budeme dělat?... Já už ani nevím, v kterým roce to bylo. Mám dojem, že už to bylo po únoru. Nevím.

Q: A s tám, že jste měl německý školy, s tím vám nedělali problém?

A: Ne.To spadalo do stejný krabičky, německé národnosti, německé školy, ale on žádnej Němec není... Ale já pro ně nebyl vůbec zajímavej. Asistent režie.

Q: A mezi lidma s touhle národností jste neměl problémy?

A: Von to nikdo nevěděl! Já jsem to sám nevěděl dlouho a když jsem to zjistil, tak jsem to nechodil roztrubovat, pochopitelně.

Q: Mluvil jste česky, že?

A: Samozřejmě.

Q: Ještě by mě zajímalo, jak jste říkal, že jste změnil názor na Němce. Jak jste k tomu došel?

A: To nebyl impuls, to bylo pomalé, ale smutné poznání skutečnosti. To samozřejmě souviselo s tím, jak se odkrývaly karty v Rusku. Komunizmu. Najednou člověk zjistil, že fašizmus, tedy jinými slovy, agresivita, násilí.. není, což jsem do té doby myslel, že to je nějakou specifikou německého národa, tato teorie se taky velice rozšířila. To je na dlouho, chcete to na 10 minut nebo na 5?

Q: Povídejte...

A: To je složitá věc, protože tady se míchají emoce s vědomím nebo politickým národem. Ty emoce, to nejde jenom o mně, závisí na tom, co daný člověk prožil. Jestli někdo prožil protektorát tady v klidu a míru a ještě si přikrádal něco, jeho emoce možná nebyly tak silný, možná dokonce byly pozitivní, protože  z toho měl zisk, výhody. Kdežto u lidí, kteří to prožili krutě, samozřejmě ty emoce byly silnější. Já si ovšem myslím, že nejsilnější byly uprostřed. Faktem je to, že 90 procent lidí, který byli v koncentráku, brutalitu nesnášeli. To byla životní zkušenost, že nic není horšího než člověka zbavit lidskosti a zbavit ho práva atd. Takže brutalita nám byla cizí. Nevím o moc případech, že by lidi z koncentráku se osobně mstili. Pravý opak to bylo u těch, kteří to měli jen zprostředkovaně, jenom zboku, to byli většinou lidi, kteří sami nic neprodělali. To je taková pastička, která je dost složitá a nemůžete to nějak definovat... Taky to souvisí s výchovou, s náboženstvím... Ten agresivní postoj k životu... Takže já jsem samozřejmě Němce nenáviděl, ale nenáviděl jsem je, abych tak řekl lidsky, neměl jsem nikdy choutky k nějakým agresím. Poněvadž jsem Němců znal víc, tak mi jich částečně bylo líto, to byli slušní lidi. Nicméně tady byl jeden problém, který se nejmenoval Němec ale esesák. Ten problém, jak vyrobit esesáčka, ten ve mě žil strašně dlouho. A žije ve mě vlastně dodnes, ale má už jinou vlajku. Něco co jsem nedoved pochopit. V tý knížce taky o tom píšu. Takový primární zážitek, když jsme přijeli do Osvětimi a jak nás vedli nahoru do lágru a ten esesáček s flintou kšeftoval, říkal: máte někdo hodinky, prstýnky... A on je kšeftoval. A byl to Volksdeutsche, mluvil nějakou provinční němčinou, nebyl to žádný rodilý Němec. A jak jsme takhle šli a on kšeftoval, tak z lágru vybíhali holky, v kombiné a tak, nevoblečený, jestli nemáme něco k žrádlu. My jsme měli kousek chleba, tak kluci házeli přes plot. A von takhle kšeftoval, a najednou se otočil sundal pušku a udělal pif a říká: tak co máš ty za hodinky? To byl šok! Člověk, který jen tak mimochodem zastřelí ženskou, kterou nezná a pak se věnuje zase svým šmejdům... To byl ten velkej otazník, jak vyrobit tohoto netvora?! Jak se to dělá? Kde se to rekrutuje? To byl ten kardinální problém, který se na ty Němce dost rozšířil, málo platný, s německými dějinami to mělo souvislost. Stalo se to v té zemi, za těch a těch okolností. S tím jsem si dlouho lámal samozžejmě hlavu a furt to ovlivňovalo můj vztah k Němcům. Člověk nevěděl dost dobře jakej postoj zaujmout. Je to něco jinýho k jednotlivci, kterýho potkáte a víte co je zač a k národu... Bylo mi jasný, že nelze nenávidět dlouho národ. Shrnout to všecko pod jednu střechu a nenávidět. Například tento problém, já jsem jednou hostoval v Německu... s jedním výtvarníkem, to byl fajn chlap. Jsme popíjeli, kecali. A jednoho dne jsem se ho zeptal, jsem měl dojem, že jsme dost kamarádi, tak jsem říkal: Poslouchej, řekni mi... (kdy jsi na to přišel, co se děje za Hitlera?)

Kazeta č. 2, strana B - prázdná

Kazeta č.3, strana A:

A: ...ten Němec na to přišel v zimě ´45, nebo na jaře, v lednu. To samozřejmě souvisí s tím, že on byl ve Wehrmachtu poddůstojník. Někde na frontě, nevím kde. A samozřejmě už prohrávali. Takže tady byl tlak nejenom ten myšlenkovej, ale byl tlak abych tak řekl fyzickej. Tedy, že se blíží průšvih. S tímhle hochem, kterýho jsem považoval ne za nacistu, ale za  solidního, slušnýho člověka, tak tohle mě strašně zarazilo, jsem si uvědomil, že voni skutečně nevěděli. Teď se dostanete do toho problému: Co to je nevědět? Nevědět a nevědět to je dvojí. Můžu nevědět z blbosti a taky můžu nevědět, protože nechci vědět. To asi v těch kolejích se pohybovalo celý. V podstatě ten antisemitismus a ta agresivita jim vnitřně vyhovovala. Nesmíme zapomenout, že chyba už se stala předtím, že Francouzi tomu Německu nadiktovali po první světový válce, takový strašný podmínky, že tam byla bída... a z toho vylez Hitler, z této situace. Tam už bylo zaděláno na nenávist a pomstu... a na tyhle pudy lidský, který jsou strašně silný. Dyť se podívejte kolem sebe. Furt pomsta, pomsta, budou se věčně mstít. Já nevím, kdy pomsta pomine. Teď ta zpráva v tom Kosovu, někde se mordovali děti... nemůžou zapomenou.

Q: A jak jste si to spojil s tím Ruskem, jak jste říkal?

A: Tak samozřejmě... Po Stalinově smrti, když začly vylejzat ty reálie, když člověk si uvědomil, že něco podobného, i když ty informace jsme dostávali velmi pomalu. Přece jenom ze západu se něco dozvěděl člověk. Tak jsme si uvědomovali, že ten komunismus se tak velmi nelišil. Čili esesáčka vyrobili i tam.

Q: To už jste si uvědomoval tehdy v 50. letech?

A: Ne. Postupně. Ono to tak kách nešlo, ale taky já jsem tak inteligentní nebyl, abych si to skloubil všecko...

Q: To byla taková propaganda, že to asi ani nešlo vědět.

A: No, právě. Zase na druhý straně, ta propaganda. Tlak budí protitlak, že jo. Jak se člověk jednou vymanil z toho komunistickýho vlivu, najednou pochopil, že je na tý špatný straně jak ten Němec. Tak samozřejmě hledáte argumenty, ty opačný. Ty se pak začli zbírat a nakonec jsme vyděšeně... Já vím, že když Chruščov odhalil Stalina. To nikdo netušil, že Stalin je vrah, milion násobný vrah, jak se choval k lidem a tak. Člověk časem zjistil, že to není národnost, ale spíš sociální a politické podmínky, které esesáčka pomůžou vyrobit. Samozřejmě nějaká ideologie k tomu bejt musí. Musíte kápnout kapku jedu do tý polívky, aby jste ji úplně votrávil. Ale není to tedy tak těžký. To víme dneska všichni, tenhle můj úžasný objev, který se zrodil někdy kolem těch 60.let.

Q: A když byl Slánskýho proces?

A: Moc silně, samozřejmě! To byl pro mě šok, tedy pro všechny židy... Najednou tady vyvstal... Zejména moje choť, která měla válečný trauma, těžký, nesnesla o židech a o lágru, tak ta byla taky v šoku. Když jste otevřeli noviny a tam stálo židovského původu tak.. co to je?! Takhle se to po kouskách...

Q: A v osobním kontaktu v těch 50. letech nestalo se vám... nějaký narážky...?

A: Ne, ne, ne. Přece jenom jsem měl jisté negativní zkušenosti. Nešlo jenom o Slánskýho a o židovství vůbec, vono šlo o to odhalovat nepřátele uvnitř Strany. Nepřítel nemusel být zrovna špion, ale i člověk, kterej to viděl špatně, nebyl na správný linii. A do toho mě chtěli šoupnout. Ještě když jsem byl v městských divadlech, tak začli na mě říkat, že se chovám blbě k nestraníkům. Idioti. Někdo to vymyslel. Ono se to pak uhasilo ten oheň, nic se nestalo.  Pak ještě jednou se mi stalo, ale z jiné polévčičky. Když začla nová vlna antisemitizmu, někdy koncem 50. let – kosmopolita! To mě označili za kosmopolitu. Vím, že... nebudu jména říkat. Na ministerstvu kultury byla jedna známá, báječná ženská, kterou jsem léta znal, říkala: No, seš báječnej režisér, ale jako Tyla nemůžeš režírovat, seš přece kosmopolitní. Říkám? proč? -No, to víš! Věřili takovým blbostem! Jak na někoho přilepíte takovou pomluvu, to se lepí velmi dobře. Když budu o vás roznášet, že nosíte kalhoty, poněvadž máte křivý nohy, tak polovina lidí tomu uvěří.

Q: Oni vám diktovali co máte režírovat v těch 50. a 60. letech?

A: Ne. Vždycky se přiděluje režie.

Q: A nebylo to, že by vám zakázali něco?

A: Ne, ne, ne. To nikam nedospělo, protože pak byly ty poměry v divadlech takový a onaký. Pak to úplně zhaslo, ale byl to zas jeden z těch pokusů, jak vyřadit, furt se hledal ten nepřítel. To byla nemoc komunistů, voni neustále hledali nepčítele. A nakonec ve mě ho našli, protože mě když vyloučili ze strany... Ta komise to byla smutná sranda, trapný, absurdita, takový idioti... mě obvinili, že já jako starej soudruh jsem měl vědet! To, co jsem neudělal. Za to mě vyloučili, že jsem nebyl na tý správný straně. Co jsem neudělal! Ty, si měl vědět. Zřejmě jsem se nechoval podle normy, že jsem fandil Dubčekovi a celý tý obrodě.

Q: Ještě se chci zeptat, jak jste mi říkal, že tady byly ty revoluční gardy...

A: Ty já znám jenom z doslechu, já tu nebyl při revoluci.

Q: To byli nějaký místní vojáci?

A: Nevím, kde se rekrutovali. Byli to mladý lidi, mezi 20 a 30. Jestli byli samozvaní, nebo kdo jim dal... Měli odložené německé letní uniformy, takový kaki a rudou pásku RG. Řádili jak černá rota, bylo bezpráví, policie byla zalezlá, ta zmizela, intoxikována Němcema. To jsou ty chvíle, který se v dějinách opakujou. Bezprívá, nezákonnost se vždycky zneužijou.

Q: Takže to bylo jako odboj?

A: Ale ne! Ty byli po revoluci. To nebyli ti co bojovali předtím, partizáni. Revoluční gardy, asi se zúčastnili část z nich boje, v revoluci pražský, pražskýho povstání. Ale ty povstaly až po, když skončilo povstání, najednou se objevili v uniformách a tak, prohlíželi byty, zabavovali, hlídali Němce, fackovali. To byla taková banda lidí bez nějakýho názoru, prostě využili situace...  ...Ptejte se, já jsem povinen vám  odpovídat. Ne, já to cítím jako povinnost, já chci, aby lidi pochopili o co vždycky kráčelo a o co vždycky kráčí. Na co si dát bacha a čeho se vyvarovat.

Q: Tak ještě jsem se chtěla zeptat něco z vaší rodiny. Váš děda Jakub bydlel někde na venkově a pak se přestěhoval do Prahy. Vy jste říkal, že on na tom venkově mluvil česky a pak až mluvil německy, nebo...?

A: Já vám to nepovím, já už jsem ho nezažil... On umřel přesně v ten rok, kdy jsem se narodil. Vím to všechno jenom z doslechu. Já si myslím, nevím to jistě, že ono to souvisí taky ještě s jednou jinou věcí. Tenhle problém je dost zamotanej a já ho nemůžu objasnit, protože vím příliš málo, jenom si to rekonstruuju. Souviselo to s rokem 1848 a s tím, že otevřeli ghetta, že židi dostali přístup k občanskému životu... Tím pádem ty židovské enklávy v těch malých městech či vesnicích, já nevím 2 rodiny, 4 rodiny, se jim najednou otevřeli dveře. A protože politická nálada byla samozřejmě protirakouská, demokratická mezi lidmi, tak najednou ty otevřený dveře se ukázaly jako přijatelný pro obě strany.  Židi se začli aklimatizovat a Češi se k nim začli chovat jinak, ne jako k Rakušákům. Protože na tom českým venkově, oni... ti, co měli vyšší vzdělání, samozřejmě museli chodit na školu, ale nevím jestli židovský školy.... hlavně mluvili asi jidiš a česky. Nemůžu si pomoct. Na tom Berounsku, já pochybuju, že tam proč by tam mluvili německy. Neměli s kým. Leda s vrchností. Já nevím, kdo měl německý školy, ale to taky asi pčed rokem 1848 asi moc nebylo.

Q: Myslíte, že je možný, že se naučil německy až v Praze?

A: Já si myslím, že jo. On inklinoval asi hlavně z obchodních důvodů k Němcům. Na druhý straně on se učil... u Orlíka. Teď se mluví o tom malíři, jeho brácha byl krejčí, toho Emila Orlíka. Můj dědeček se u toho bratra malíře Orlíka, učil. On měl firmu tady na Národní třídě. Tam zřejmě se mluvilo německy. Můj dědeček potom, když si otevřel svoji firmu na Jungmannově náměstí, tak se specializoval, nevím jak k tomu došel... hlavně šil pro německé profesory uniformy... Tenkrát se nosili uniformy a ty von dělal. Čili z toho jsem vydedukoval, že Einstein si u něho musel nechat ušít uniformu... Víte, když člověk ty kořínky rozplétá, tak zjistí, jak je to strašně složitý a teď z toho udělejte ještě obraz... politicko- psychologický.  Uvědomte si, co to bylo za lidi, jak mysleli, to je strašně těžký. Tak jasný je, to je fenomén dodnes platnej, když jsme už začli u Orlíka a Einsteina, když se podíváte na seznam Nobelových cen, tak tam máte, já nevím, jestli to někdo spočítal, podle mého odhadu aspoň třetina jsou židi. A jsou to židi z tohoto milieu, o kterém teď mluvíme. Hlavně středoevropský... Francouzů ani Angličanů ani ne... hlavně odsud jsou to hlavně německá jména, Polsko, Rusko, ta jidiš oblast. Člověk si uvědomuje, že to musela být obrovská exploze, to osvobození, to otevření. Zase nesmíme zapomenou, jak to Rakousko- Uhersko nemáme rádi, tak oni se v tomto ohledu chovali solidně. Oni skutečně antisemitizmus potírali. Byl tam samozřejmě, ale na jiný úrovni, ale nebyl jaksi podporován. Židi získali úžasnou svobodu a sebevědomí. Jelikož tady byl zjevně.. a to je moje teorie, nějakej potenciál, kterej neumím pojmenovat. Ať už to byly školy, jako třeba židovský chedery, ať už to byla znalost písma a čtení, filosofie – Talmud, prostě tady byl úžasný potenciál, který se osvobodil, tak najednou začal explodovat. Doktoři... advokáti, profesoři, najednou úžasná exploze vzdělanosti. Což jako je příjemné vědět a poslouchat. Tak, kde on ten dědeček v této melangi zrovna stál, na kterým místečku, to nevím. Intelektuál von nebyl, v naší rodině žádný intelektuálové nepovstali, žádný inženýr, učitel, profesor, všecko obchodníci... Tam jenom čichám, ale nevidím to tam.

Q: Pak tady mám, že váš táta když chodil do školy.. psal jste takovej termín „Einjährig Freiwilliger“.

A: To byl rakousko- uherskej institut, že maturanti se mohli přihlásit na 1-roční dobrovolnou vojenskou službu, tím ji zkrátil. A oni většinou z nich udělali ty... adepty, tedy důstojníky, aspiranty důstojníků. To máte Švejka, Biegler, jednoroční dobrovolník. Takže von měl zkrácenou vojnu, ale musel mít maturitu a dostal nějakou... praporčík.. no byl to nejnižší důstojnická hodnost.

Q: A tam na tý fotce s fotoaparátem?

A: Ne, to už byl důstojník. Von byl porušík nebo dokonce nadporučík na konci války.

Q: Strýc Oskar, co dělal po válce?

A: Zajímá vás lidský vztah? Von už nedělal nic, už byl v penzi. Celou válku přežil, protože jeho manželka byla árijka Vídeňačka.

Q: Oni se nerozvedli, že?

A: Právě, že ne!... On šel do Terezína, to byl listopad, někdy na podzim, byl tam 3,4 měsíce. Ty už nebyli ohrozený transporatama, neměli moc žrádla, ale jinak se jim tam celkem nic nedělo. Němci už taky byli vychladlý... v zimě 1944-45.

Q: Takže žil po válce v Praze?

A: Jo. Jeho pak ranila mrtvice, ochrnul, seděl doma. Z něho se pak stal se z neho strašnej komunista. Tím, že byl raněn mrtvicí a byl deklasovanej... takhle von byl velice krásný nladý muž. Nějakou dobu se tradovalo, že chodil s Jarmilou Novotnou, prej. Chodil na plesy a tancoval. Byl takovej... jak se to říká, společenskej tvor. Neměl žádný povolání, táta ho vzal do obchodu, mu dal třetinovej podíl, ale pak to zkrachovalo, když táta spáchal sebevraždu... tak von chtěl nějaký peníze, prostě rozhádala se rodina. My jsme spolu nemluvili, tedy naše rodina s jejich, protože oni nás zradili. No já do toho neviděl. Takže po válce, já jsem se k němu hned nehrnul. Až po nějaký době jsem je vyhledal. Samozřejmě se to všecko smazalo. Jak vám říkám, on pak byl raněnej mrtvicí. Seděl doma a čet Rudý právo, poslouchal rádio. Neměl kontakt s lidmi. Když jsem tam přišel, tak jsme se pohádali obyčejně o politice... Prostě primitivní takový, ale za to on nemoh, byl raněnej mrtvicí, to je nemocnej člověk, co s tím. Jinak na tom případě Oskara není nic zajímavýho.

Q: Je pohřbený tady v Praze?

A: Oni jsou pohřbený na Podolským hřbitově... Já jsem to léta platil, pak mě neposílali upomínku a pak jsem zjistil, že ten hrob zrušili. Že jsem neplatil. No to jsou svině, to dělaj naschvál, víte? Já jsem to několik let platil na 5 let dopředu... Měli hrob zase na prodej... Ale to je taky jeden ze znaků, které mě a podobné lidi liší od ostatních. Já ty symboly smrti neznám, nemám. Z celý rodiny není nikdo, není žádnej hrob a já myslím, že ani hrob nemusí bejt. Manželku jsme spopelnili a máme ji za chalupou pod obrovským stromem a já tam chci taky. Takže mě ani není líto, že není hrob. Kolik milionů hrobů není.

Q: Nemáte nikoho z rodiny pohřbenýho na židovským hřbitově?

A: Mám tam tu babičku Rózu, ale ani nevím, kde to je. Tam jsem byl na pohřbu samozřejmě, to si pamatuju, to mi bylo asi deset. V Praze na židovským hřbitově... Já tam vždycky chodím k doktorce, a to se tam vždycky zastavím u tý druhý brány a koukám na Františka Kafku, ten mě vždycky přitahoval ten hrob. A vždycky tam  někdo dá kytky (smích).

Q: Máte vy nebo někdo v rodině židovský jméno?

A: Ne.

Q: Ani nevíte o někom, že by měl?

A: Ne. V mém obzoru tedy ne...

Q: Říkal jste, že jste měl jednu tetu, když jste byl malej, která byla za kantora provdaná. Oni asi byli pobožní.

A: Jo, ta byla pobožná. Teta Ema. To byla svatá žena, tu jsem měl strašně rád. To byla typická babička jako z pohádky. Bělovlasá s drdůlkem a vždycky něco dobrýho k jídlu udělala, byla strašně hodná a milá. ...Nepochybně ty židovský jména, někde kolem tety to bylo, ale u toho Jakuba, to muselo už skončit.

Q: Říkal jste, že o rodině vaší mámy nevíte vůbec nic.

A: Strašně málo, poněvadž ona o tom odmítala mluvit. A oni tedy samozřejmě byli asimilovaní, židovství tam určitě nehrálo žádnou roli, už vůbec ne, v tý rodině. Poněvadž oni byli velkostatkáři, já nevím, jak se k tomu ta rodina dostala, pak to ten táta prošustroval na burze a šli dolů a dolů. Ale například vím historku, že... měli sousedy nějaký, nějakou šlechtu, on je pozval. To byla moje máma malá u toho, lítal, měl letadlo a teď říkal, milostivá pani teď uvidíte něco, co jste ještě neviděla a spad a zabil se. To byla taková rodinná historka, že teď uvidíte, co jste ještě neviděla a bum ho (smích). Takže oni se spíš orientovali an tyhlety kruhy, nóbl, bohatý. A tam došlo k tomu, že ta babička moje.. já mám jen takovou malou fotičku, to byla velice krásná ženská, taková nóbl, ta mu to vyčítala, von se picnul, to jsem vám říkal.  ...On byl jen správce statku, pak šel ještě dolů, rozpor v rodině, nemluvili spolu a tak dále. Rozvedli se, moje máma  (žena) v 17 utekla z domova, najala si v Praze garsoniéru a  žila jako učitelka gymnastiky a moderní tance dělala. A táta se střelil, ale nezastřelil... A vona a její sestra, která byla velice blondýnka, nádherná, goj dítě. Tak ty holky toho tátu ošetřovali, zatímco máma si vzala německýho skladatele, co napsal tu operu v Terezíně, Císař z Atlantidy... dyť je slavnej. Kaiser von Atlantis. Byl to Němec, dvakrát rozvedenej. A moje máma (žena) ho strašně nenáviděla, chvíli u nich žila a pak utekla. A Dáda, její sestra, ta bohužel zahynula v lágru a to byl její celej nejhorší komplex. Z rozbitý rodiny šla do lágru a přišla o všecko. Prostě zhroutilo se to, s velkým výbuchem, tragicky... Všude se to zhroutilo výbuchem, tím, že oni toho tátu ošetřovali a že máma si vzala toho...

Q: On byl Srb?

A: Ne. To byl mý matky, teď jsme u manželky...

Q: A od vaší maminky. Její táta byl Srb a tu babičku jste neznal?

A: Maminka – babičku jsem neznal. Nevím ani jak a kdy umřela. Nevím nic.

Q: Byli manželé?

A: Myslím, že ne. Moji mámu adoptovala nějaká teta, ta se jmenovala Ledererová. To byla adoptivní teta. Poněvadž ta máma zřejmě umřela. Máma měla ještě sestru, tu jsem zažil, ta byla v ústavu, na vozejčku, tu jsem viděl 2 krát v životě. To byla sestra mojí matky.

Q: Ta maminka byla židovka, tedy i vaše maminka byla židovka?

A: Moje máma? Byla, ale jaksi nepraktikovala náboženství... Já nevím, kdo byli ti Ledererovi. Vím, že když si táta mámu vzal, von si vzal  chudou hodnou židovku...  sirotka. A taky to špatně dopadlo... jak to bývá mezi lidmi obvykle... Když se ptáte genealogicky.. ale já nevím, vy se ptáte o tom pozadí, ale o jakém - politickém, národnostním, sociálním, to pozadí je různobarevný.

Q: Vlastně se to odvíjí z toho osobního vztahu k těm lidem.

A: U mě?

Q: No.

A: Ten je chabej, protože mě pomřelo... Já když jsem byl malý, tak jsem měl jenom jednu babičku. Žádná rodina nebyla... Ty správný židovský rodinný vazby, ty jsem já nezažil.

A: (...) To byla taková velice avantgardní, tedy tenkrát levičácká, dělal jsem s Burianem a tyhlecty pokrokový, Voskovce a Wericha, měla taneční studio a taky měla gymnastky, kde patřila pak i moje manželka. Několik holek, se kterýma ona dělala choreografie, zejména do činoher. Tam jsem taky, ne nepoznal, my jsme se znali z Terezína, ale jenom povrchně a v Praze jsme se setkali právě v divadle. Ona tam tancovala a já tam dělal asistenta, tak jsme to dali dohromady.

Q: Říkal jste my minule, že máte 3 vnuky, potřebuju ty jména.

A: Teď přemejšlím, kolik jich vlastně je.. (smích).

Q: Vy máte nevlastní děti? To jste mi neříkal!

A: To jsem vám zamlčel! Já mám 2 děti nemanřelské, jménem Zora a Jinda, ty maj taky vnuky, tak jich mám hodně, ale není tady ta vazba nějaká. Oni žijou každý jiným způsobem...  Táňa má syna, to je Kryštof a syn má Martina a Valiku, Valérii. To jsou 3 legální. Pak mám ještě 4 ilegální...

Q: S nevlastníma dětma se stýkáte?

A: Jo, dokonce velice čile.

Q: Oni se hlásej k židovství?

A: To je zajímavý... To bylo pro mě veliký překvapení. Já jsem to mojí nevlastní dceři řek, to její máma ještě žila, ta byla taky tanečnice. Při premiéře, to bylo v ´70 a tam jsme seděli a já jsem jí to řek, s vědomím její mámy. Ona to ví od těch šasů. Dokud žila manželka, nechtěl sjem ji tahat do rodiny, tak jsme se stýkali jenom občas. Takže jsem ji ztratil trošku z dohledu. Pak manželka umřela a my jsme se začli stýkat hojně, tak jsem zjistil, že oni se přiklonili k židovství, zejména ta Zora. Ona chodí na kile... Jindra taky, ale neprovozuje to nějak. Přihlásili se k židovství. Mě to taky překvapilo. Já jsem je nenaváděl.

Q: Radili se s vámi o tom nějak, když se šli přihlásit za členy obce?

A: Já myslím, že nejsou členy, ale maj tam kontakty. Zora jezdí na hory s partou z kile. Maj tam kontakty, který já nemám. Já jsem se tam nikdy nespřátelil.

Q: A jejich děti, vnuci?

A: Ne. Ty děti jsou velký. Ona si vzala psychiatra, kterej se odstěhoval do Německa a ona s ním šla do Německa, ovšem legálně a tam se ty děti narodili. Takže oni maj německý školy. A on je položid. Což jsem já léta nevěděl. Takže tady ještě ty děti její mají tátu položida a matku taky položidovku. Ty se k tomu nepropracovaly. Tím, že se narodili v Německu. Tak ten kluk ten Honza má občanství německé i české. Ta Mariána, její dcera, ta žije s Angličanem... teď jsou v Budapešti. A ještě abysme okořenili polívčičku, Honza si namluvil Čiňanku, z Tchajwanu. Fajn holka....

Q: To jste kosmopolitní rodina.

A: Jo... Seznámili se na internetu.

Q: Vážně?

A: Jo! Korespondovali si, našli se a pak jednoho dne on tam odletěl... Holka byla tady a byla sympatická, ona tady chtěla poznat... A na podzim chce tady zůstat. Ale to máte tady ten kosmopolitismus. Ty děti vyrostly v Německu, tak ztratily kontakt, schválně se tady vyhýbám výrazu s vlastí, s domovem. A jelikož ten táta je podivnej člověk, je takovej. Takže tady máte zaděláno na to jaksi.. ten výraz vykořenění je silný. Každej je přímo vodněkud a voni nejsou přímo vodněkud, takže to tak nepociťovali...

Q: A Jindřich má taky děti?

A: Má taky děti, dva kluky. Sem tam mě přídou navštívit.

Q: Jak se jmenujou?

A: Jeden se jmenuje Vašek a druhej musím říct, že nevím, protože se mu říká Hužva... Tyhle věci jsou tak složitý, to lidstvo... Teď jsem čet Halíka, on tam má kázání o rodině... Přiznejme si, že o čem tady mluvíme, tři čtvrtiny souvisí s rozpadem rodiny v Evropě, ve světě. Způsoben taky Hitlerem ale v podstatě ten rozklad dál pokračuje. A tady je celá tragédie lidstva. Ne, že by konzervativně všecko muselo být patriarchální rodina... Vztahy se rozvíjejí... jak bych to řek... morálně i sociálně. Ta klasická rodina měla jakýsi statut, jakousi tradici, byla daná a nutná. Převažovalo zemědělství a malovýroba, takže ta rodina spolupracovala. Když táta je támhle v kanceláři a máma je v národním výboru, tak co? Takže rozklad rodiny nám přivádí ty největší trable, protože morálka je v čudu. Láska, k mámě, k dětem, soudržnost... A to tady se promítá i v naší rodině, poněvadž ten můj syn Jindra se  oženil s holkou, kerou si musel vzít... teď jsou nepřátelé...  Ten rozklad musí přijít. Nejdřív to začíná u rodiny. Ten kluk co ubodal toho učitele. To je všecko takový typický příklady toho, že ta entropie, která není národní, která není... má souvislost s civilizací, s civilizačním proudem, my jsme zřejmě na tom jako kdysi v roce 300 - 400, jako rozklad toho celýho systému je očividný. A pozor podle mého názoru zatím to nebezpečí zatím nehrozí, ale není to zanedbatelné. Podívejte, co se jim zase povedlo. Já jsem dost vyděšenej...

Kazeta č. 3, strana B:

A: Řekněte mi, jak se díváte na bejvalýho domovníka? On byl na jedný straně... takovej a takovej. A to je problém celý historie, poněvadž záleží na tom, z jakýho konce se na to díváte. Takže najít nějakej pevnej bod, že kterýho byste se orientovala, jako z toho majáku koukala na to 20. století, to je strašně těžký. A relativizovat taky nemůžete, protože začnete omlouvat, chápat. Ono je to šíleně těžký! Proto jsem se ptal, jestli děláte tu hebraiku taky jazykově nebo jako jenom historicky.

Q: Já nejsem historik.

A: To je jasný, ale museli ste tím projít. To je strašně těžký. Aby člověk věděl, kdo vlastně je, to je strašně těžký. Fanatik to má jednoduchý. Ten to ví okamžitě.

Q: To je docela dobrá útěcha...

Fira Shwartz

Fira Shwartz
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya
Date of interview: October 2002

Fira lives in a big comfortable apartment in Troyeschina - a new neighborhood in Kiev. One can tell that the family cares for one another and keeps the home in good order. Fira is a very sociable lady, although interviewing her is a bit tough: she only talks about what she wants to talk about and avoids any subjects that may bring back heart-rending memories.

I have no information about the family of my father Israel Shwartz. He perished when I was a small child. I've never met anybody from his family. I don't even know where my father was born. We only have a death certificate stating that he died at the front near Leningrad in 1942 at the age of 41. Therefore, he must have been born in 1901.

I know more about my mother's family. My grandfather on my mother's side, Itzyk Borodianskiy, was born in Gornostaypol, a small town near Chernobyl, in the 1860s. He came from a poor family with many children. His parents were religious and observed all Jewish traditions. My grandfather studied at cheder and at 10 he became an apprentice to a glasscutter. He worked as a glasscutter in Gornostaypol for his whole life. He owned a small shop where he received and carried out orders.

My grandfather was married twice. He had two sons from his first marriage: Samuel, born in 1892 and Yankel, born in 1897. My grandfather's first wife died shortly after Yankel was born. About a year after his wife's death my grandfather remarried. His second wife, Esther, was ten years younger than my grandfather. Her family lived in Chernobyl. She came from a poor family, was the younger daughter and had no dowry. Esther was a housewife and a very nice woman. My mother, Rosa Borodianskaya, was born in 1905. My grandmother died in 1932 during the famine in Ukraine 1. She died before I was born, and all I know about her is what my mother told me. We also kept a photograph of her.

They lived in a small wooden house in Gornostaypol with three small rooms and a kitchen. My mother took me there once when I was 5 years old. I have some dim memories of my grandparents' house. There were earthen floors with quilted rugs on them. It was dark in the rooms because the windows were very small, and there were trees around the house. There were two stoves in the house: one in the kitchen, which was used for cooking and heating one room, and one to heat the two other rooms. The stoves were stoked with wood because charcoal was too expensive at the time. The ceilings were low and whitewashed. I remember a big nickel-plate bed, in which my mother and I were sleeping during our visit. The letter 'E' was embroidered on the sheets, and my mother told me that my grandmother Esther did the embroidery. There were also woolen carpets on the walls embroidered by my grandmother. They had a garden and a kitchen garden near the house.

My mother's older brothers studied at cheder. They also completed seven years of the Jewish lower secondary school in Gornostaypol. My mother studied at secondary school for eight years.

My mother's parents were religious. Her father read religious books after work. He prayed in the mornings and in the evenings. I don't know for sure whether there was a synagogue in Gornostaypol, but I believe there must have been one. Uncle Samuel told me that there were quite a few Jewish families living in Gornostaypol. My mother's family celebrated Sabbath and all Jewish holidays. I know this from my mother's brother Samuel, who later replaced my parents.

Gornostaypol was a small and quiet town. All stormy events shattering the country at that time - Jewish pogroms, the Revolution of 1917 2 and the Civil War 3 - didn't affect the town. I know that the Revolution didn't change anything in the life of my mother's family: They had been poor before and they remained poor afterwards.

My grandparents' children left the house when they grew up. Samuel became a tailor in Gornostaypol and moved to Kiev when he was 17. He got a job at a military tailor's shop where they made uniforms for soldiers and officers. He was an apprentice there at first, but he was very good at sewing and soon became one of the best tailors of the shop. He married a Jewish girl called Rosa. She came from Kiev. They had two children: a son called Semyon, born in 1922 and a daughter, Bella, born in 1928.

Yankel moved to Baku, Azerbaijan [2,000 km from Gornostaypol]. He went with his former classmate whose brother had moved to Baku two years before. I know very little about Yankel's life in Baku. He worked at a plant. He married a Jewish girl from Baku named Diphia, and they had two children: a daughter called Beba and a son called Naum.

After finishing school in the 1920s my mother moved to Kiev. Uncle Samuel convinced her that there were more opportunities in a big town. I know very little about my mother's life before I was born. She told me that she worked as a nurse in a kindergarten. I don't know how she met my father. He was a forwarding agent at the railway post office. My parents got married soon after they met. My mother was 24; my father was four years older. They had a civil ceremony at the registry office. Weddings were considered to be a bourgeois vestige, so they had no wedding party.

My father lived in a communal apartment 4. There were two other families living in this apartment. My father's room was small and dark. Its only window faced an entry corridor of the building. There was a wardrobe, my parent's bed, my bed, a table and a few chairs in the room. There was a big common kitchen where each family had its own Primus stove. There was a strong smell of kerosene in the kitchen due to kerosene containers that were kept there. My mother worked for some time after she got married, but she quit her job before I was born and stayed at home afterwards.

I was born in Kiev in April 1936. My mother called me Fira. Actually, this is affectionate for Esphir, but Fira was the name my mother gave me and the name written on my birth certificate.

I remember very little of my childhood before the war. I didn't go to kindergarten. My father often went on business trips, and I recall how happy I was when he returned from his trips. He took me out and bought me ice cream. I don't think my parents were religious. At least, I don't remember any celebrations of Jewish holidays or Sabbath at home. At that time religion was viewed as a thing of the past. Many young people rejected religious traditions and rituals as something outdated and unnecessary. We spoke Russian and celebrated Soviet holidays when my father was home. My mother cooked and we had my father's colleagues over as guests.

Grandfather Itzyk visited us quite often. He was living alone in Gornostaypol at the time. I remember him praying every morning and every evening. He put on his tefillin before saying his prayers. He explained to me what it was. My grandfather also had a tallit. that was like a big white scarf with black stripes and frange on edges. My mother cooked Jewish food when my grandfather visited us: she made gefilte fish, chicken broth with dumplings and baked strudels. My mother told me that she learned how to cook Jewish food from her mother. My grandfather wore a black velvet kippah at home and a black cap to go out. He wore a long black jacket and striped black trousers. He had a small gray beard. My grandfather was short and very vivid. My mother and father spoke Yiddish with him, but he spoke Russian with me. He liked me a lot and called me ketsele [kitty]. My grandfather was an old man, and our neighbors treated him with respect.

I was 5 years old when the war began. I remember that my father and I were planning to go for a walk on the slopes of the Dnepr River that Sunday, but in the morning he told me that it was cancelled. I burst into tears, because I was so unhappy about it. My mother cried, too, and I thought that she was disappointed by not going to the park. Only later did I understand that she was crying because of the war.

My father was released from service in the army because he was a railroad employee. He also received a railroad carriage at his disposal for the evacuation of his family. We all went to evacuation in this carriage at the beginning of July 1941: my mother's brother Samuel, his wife and daughter Bella, my father's fellow worker, his wife and two children, and our family. Uncle Samuel was not subject to recruitment due to his age. Samuel's son, Semyon, was recruited to the army during the first days of the war even though he should have been released from the army because he had one shorter leg and walked with a limp. He perished at the front in the battle for Moscow in 1941. My mother's other brother, Yankel, lived in Baku throughout the war. He was ill and released from service in the army.

We had very little luggage with us. We only took the most necessary clothing, my toys and children's books, my bed linen and a few casseroles. My father told us that we would return home soon. I don't know how it happened that Grandfather Itzyk stayed behind in Gornostaypol. When the town was occupied by the Germans in September 1941 my grandfather went to Kiev on foot. He walked about 100 kilometers. Kiev was already occupied by the Germans. My grandfather didn't find us and was ordered to go to Babi Yar 5 along with many other Jews on 29th September 1941. Wwe heard about this after we returned to Kiev in the fall of 1944.

We didn't know where we were going. I remember the first bombing near Kharkov. The train stopped and we jumped off the train to hide. I saw a German plane flying very low and I thought that the German pilot also saw me. After the bombing we returned to the train. We saw another train at the station. It had been destroyed by the bombing and many dead bodies were lying around it.

Uncle Samuel and his family got off the train at Buzuluk station - his acquaintances were living there. We moved on. The train stopped at Magnitogorsk, Cheliabinsk region [2,500 km from Kiev]. We got off there. All evacuated people settled down in the barracks there. There were two families in each room. The so-called 'rooms' were separated by sheets that served as 'partials'. We lived with my father's co-worker, his wife and children. My father worked at the railway station in Magnitogorsk. At the beginning of 1942 he was recruited to the front. He wrote us a single letter from there. A few months later we received the notification of his death. It said that he perished close to the village of Malyie Krestsy, near Leningrad. Regretfully, I have never been to the place where he was buried.

My mother and I were starving and freezing because we didn't have any winter clothes with us. I stayed inside the room for the whole winter. My mother had to go out to get some food in exchange for ration cards. She had to stand in long lines for hours and hours. I remember her buying a small fur tree on 31st December 1942. Then she went to the store. She came back with a face white as chalk and put a bag of food on the table. She went to bed saying that she was going to stay there and get warm. She never left the bed again. A week later she died of pneumonia.

I was staying with our co-tenants. They took me to the morgue to say farewell to my mother. My mother was lying on a steel table and there was a layer of ice on her face. I could never forget this image. Even after finishing school, when I would have been admitted to Medical College without exams, I recalled my mother's face under ice and realized that I couldn't study there. I wasn't allowed to attend my mother's funeral. She was buried in a common grave. There was not even a sign with the names of those that were buried there.

My mother had asked our co-tenant to write to her brothers. At the beginning of January 1943 Uncle Samuel came to pick me up and take me to Buzuluk. His family became mine. I started school in Buzuluk in 1943. I have no memories about that school. I only remember that I wanted to sing in the choir, but I wasn't admitted because I was too short.

In September 1944 we returned to Kiev. My uncle's apartment was occupied by a 'politzai' [expression used for former fascist menials]. We stayed with one of his acquaintances. My uncle returned to his former job at the tailor shop. He soon managed to get back his apartment, and we moved in there. It was a two-bedroom apartment in a two-storied wooden building in the center of Kiev. It used to be a communal apartment, but later it was refurbished into a two-bedroom apartment. There was gas heating and running cold water. We had a kitchen that had served as a corridor before; it was long and narrow. I lived in this apartment until the house was pulled down a few years ago.

In Kiev I studied in the 2nd grade of a Russian secondary school. I became a Young Octobrist 6 and later a pioneer. I loved dancing and begged my uncle to send me to a ballet school, but one had to pay for it, and he didn't have money to pay for my studies. My uncle didn't adopt me. He was my guardian so I received monthly allowances for my father, who had perished at the front. . My uncle treated me very kindly and supported me with everything I needed.

I was a sociable girl and made friends with almost all my classmates. The teachers and pupils were sympathetic to me. There were quite a few schoolchildren that had lost one parent to the war, but there weren't many that had lost both parents. I had free meals at the school canteen and received clothing and stationery every now and then. Half the pupils in my class were Jewish. There were also Jews among our teachers. I never really faced anti-Semitism in my whole life. Only once did some boys shout 'zhydovka' [kike] at me on my way home from school. I was taken aback but pretended that I hadn't heard them.

My uncle and his wife Rosa celebrated Sabbath and other Jewish traditions. I don't think they managed to follow the kashrut at that time. There was no place to buy kosher products. They never kept meat and dairy products in the same spot though, and there was no pork in our house. I became familiar with Jewish traditions through them. My uncle's wife always wore a shawl or a kerchief, even at home. At Chanukkah children were always given some money, although the family was poor. Every Friday Rosa cooked enough food to last for two days. She always managed to get some fish at the market. She made gefilte fish and baked challah in the oven. We prayed on Friday evenings, then Rosa lit the candles, and we sat down at the table for a festive dinner. My uncle had a tallit and he always wore his little cap and Rosa always wore a shawl.

Saturday wasn't a day off at that time. My uncle went to work in the morning whereas Rosa stayed at home and tried not to do any work. She used to say that her husband had to go to work, but that she had an opportunity to follow God's covenants.

At Pesach my uncle bought matzah at the only operating synagogue in Podol 7. Matzah was expensive; besides, it was rather difficult to get it at Pesach, because there were so many people that wanted matzah for this holiday. There was no bread at home at Pesach. Besides matzah we ate corn porridge on this holiday. Rosa cooked gefilte fish, boiled chicken and chicken broth with corn dumplings. She also made sponge cakes. My uncle conducted the seder, said the prayers and read the Haggadah.

At Purim Rosa always made hamantashen. Uncle Samuel and Aunt Rosa went to the synagogue at Pesach, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. They also prayed at home and they fasted at Yom Kippur. My cousin and I didn't fast. We thought religious holidays to be a thing of the past, but we loved and enjoyed delicious food on holidays and always looked forward to such holidays. My aunt and uncle observed traditions but kept it a secret from their neighbors and acquaintances and told us to remain silent about it. They explained to us that my uncle might have problems at work if they found out about his religious conduct.

At school we celebrated Soviet holidays and the New Year. 1On 1st May and 7th November [October Revolution Day] 8 everyone at school went to the parades and afterwards we gave concerts at school. My uncle and his family didn't celebrate Soviet holidays, but they enjoyed being off work. My cousin and I celebrated Soviet holidays with our friends.

After finishing lower secondary school I had to learn some profession and earn money for my living. I entered the Library Faculty at the College of Culture and Education. There were only girls in my group. Many of them came from villages. Only two of us were Jewish: I and another girl called Tverskaya. She was nice and we became friends. I knew from my uncle that she was Jewish. There was no anti-Semitism as far as I noticed. I got along well with my co-students and had many friends. I studied in college for three years and finished it in 1954.

I became a Komsomol 9 member in college. I was eager to become a Komsomol member. I liked to go to the movies and all the pretty and successful girls in these movies were Komsomol members. I believed that being a Komsomol member would change my life for the better.

I was 17 when Stalin died. I was never interested in politics and felt quite indifferent about his death. Besides, I had an appendicitis surgery at the time that took all my attention.

After finishing college I got a job assignment in the village of Vysokoye, Zhitomir region [200 km from Kiev]. Graduates usually got assignments in distant locations. I became a librarian there, but I had a very small salary - 400 rubles. My mandatory job assignment was to last three years. [This was a standard requirement that was to be followed by all graduates from higher educational institutions]. I rented a room from an old woman and had hardly enough money to make a living. Every now and then my uncle and his wife sent me food parcels. I had to stay in this village for another half year until they found a replacement for me.

I returned to Kiev in 1957, but I couldn't find a job as a librarian there. I couldn't live at my uncle's expenses and thus went to work in a shoe factory. At first I was a laborer at the storage facility, and later I became a laborer at the shop of the factory. I liked my job. The majority of the employees at the factory were Jewish. The director and chief engineer of the factory were also Jews. Of course, there was no anti- Semitism at the factory.

I met my future husband, a Jew by the name of David Kargorodskiy when I returned to Kiev. David was born in Kiev in 1936. Aunt Rosa and David's mother were close friends. David finished the Communication Faculty of the Mining College and got a job assignment in the Ural where he stayed for three years. His mother wanted David to meet a Jewish girl. She met me during one of her visits to Rosa. She liked me and when her son came to Kiev on vacation she introduced us to one another. We began to see each other.

David's mother, Haya Kargorodskaya, was a pensioner when we met. She had worked as a secretary at a plant before. Her husband, Leib Kargorodskiy, worked at the same plant. David's father was a very religious man. He always read the Talmud and the Torah at home, even after the war. He went to the synagogue on holidays. David's mother wasn't quite so religious. They always celebrated Sabbath: David's mother cooked a festive dinner, and they lit candles at home. David's parents celebrated all traditional Jewish holidays: Pesach, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. They often talked in Yiddish, but David was far from being religious.

We got married in 1959. We had a civil wedding and a wedding party afterwards. There were many guests at the wedding. My Uncle Samuel, who was my guardian, received my monthly allowances for my father. He had been putting the money into my bank account, and my wedding was arranged from that money.

After our wedding David had to go back to the Ural where he was working. I quit my job and followed him. David was a communications supervisor. We got a room at the family hostel. I stayed there for a year after which I had to return to Kiev. I had to make sure that I kept my residence permit 10 in Kiev. A few times a year militia authorities sent their representatives to check whether tenants where residing in the apartments they were assigned to. My uncle sent me a telegram notifying me that I had to come back to Kiev in order to keep my permit to live in the apartment. Every member of the family living in one apartment had a stamp in his passport - parents had stamps in their passports for their children - and those stamps served as a residential permit. The authorities strictly checked that people were registered and resided where they were assigned to. So I went back to Kiev and my husband joined me after about a year's time, in 1960.

David's parents lived in one room in a communal apartment with many tenants. My husband and I moved in with my uncle. My cousin Bella was married by that time and lived with her husband. My husband and I were living in the room where my cousin and I had lived before. We got along well with my uncle and aunt. We were a family. Although we were atheists we celebrated both Soviet and Jewish holidays with them because we respected my uncle's religiosity.

My husband got a job at the Giprosviaz Communications Design Institute. More than half of the staff of the institute was Jewish. David had no problems getting this job. I worked at the library. My husband and I didn't feel Jewish. We spoke Russian. I didn't know Yiddish at all, and David could only remember a few words from his childhood. We were an ordinary Soviet family and we felt like Soviet people. We raised our children that way, too. Our daughter, Margarita, was born in 1961 and our son, Igor, followed in 1968. My mother-in-law was helping me to look after Margarita, but as soon as a kindergarten opened near our home I took her there. Igor also went to nursery school and to kindergarten, and I went to work soon after he was born.

My uncle Samuel died in 1962. He was the only member of our family that was buried according to Jewish tradition. Such was his will and we fulfilled it. We buried my uncle at the Jewish cemetery in Berkovtsy [a neighborhood in the outskirts of Kiev]. The former rabbi of the Podol synagogue conducted the funeral. He was also buried in this cemetery when he died. Rosa, who died 6 years after her husband, and David's parents were buried without any rituals.

My mother's brother Yankel visited us in Kiev several times after the war. We corresponded but later he stopped writing. I have no information about him or his wife and only a bit about their children. Yankel's son Naum lived in Kiev after the war. He died before he turned 50. Yankel's daughter Beba got married. She had two children: a daughter called Galina and a son called Edik. After Beba's husband died in 1991 she moved to Germany with her daughter's family. They live there now.

In the early 1970s many Jews were moving to Israel. I wanted to move, too, but my husband was strictly against it. He said he grew up here and wouldn't be able to adjust to life in a capitalist country. I believed that our children would gain a lot by living in Israel and mostly wanted to go for their sake. I tried to convince him but he stood his ground. So we stayed in the USSR.

Neither my husband nor I were members of the Communist Party. In 1973 my husband insisted that I got a job at the Giprosviaz Institute where he was working. I got a job as an assistant secretary there. I made copies, did the typing, purchased new books for the institute and performed other small errands.

Our daughter Margarita finished lower secondary school and entered a medical college. After finishing this college she got a job as a masseur at a clinic. She Margaret got married in 1987. Her husband was a Russian. David and I weren't against their marriage. We had nothing against her Russian husband. We wanted my daughter to be happy. My granddaughter Karina was born in 1991. Unfortunately, Margarita got divorced. Her ex-husband supports her and Karina a lot though. We live with my daughter and granddaughter now. I retired after my granddaughter was born. My husband also retired after working in the institute for 43 years.

My son Igor studied at trade school after finishing secondary school. He became a mechanic and got a job at a vehicle maintenance yard. He was recruited to the army from there in 1987 and returned in 1989 after his service was over. It was difficult for him to find a job when he returned. This was already during the perestroika and unemployment was high. My son married a Ukrainian girl when he returned from the army. Their daughter Natalia was born in 1991. My son had to support his family. He got a job as a laborer. I feel very sorry for him, but this was the only job that he could get. In 1995 Igor's son Sergey was born. My son lives with his wife's family. They have a nice three-bedroom apartment in a new neighborhood in Kiev.

In recent years, after Ukraine gained independence, the life of Jews has changed a lot. There are many Jewish organizations. We get much assistance from Hesed. My husband and I receive food packages. We appreciate this support a lot, especially when considering that we receive such small pensions. We also receive medication from Hesed and other medical services. We often attend lectures or other cultural activities. This is a great opportunity for us to communicate and socialize with others.

I have come closer to the Jewish identity of my family. I study the history of the Jewish people and take much interest in it. My Ukrainian friend took me to her church a few years ago. I've attended the Jewish messianic congregation for several years [the Jews for Jesus congregation]. Jews in our church are converted into Christians. Hesed doesn't acknowledge this community. We are viewed as renegades there.

It has become my road to God though. We don't study the Talmud there, we study the Bible instead. We have a very good pastor. There are over 1,000 people in this community. We often have visiting priests from abroad. I enjoy attending this community. We have services twice a week and I try to attend them all. There's a choir and a dance group. This group is called Glorification. We sing religious Christian and Jewish folk songs. Regretfully, my husband doesn't believe in God. I feel so sorry about it. But I accept and respect his views. Different opinions must not separate people in the family or in this world. I wish politicians would understand that. I start each day with the quotation of a song that we sing in the community: 'God has given us this day to rejoice!'

Glossary

1 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.

2 Russian Revolution of 1917

Revolution in which the tsarist regime was overthrown in the Russian Empire and, under Lenin, was replaced by the Bolshevik rule. The two phases of the Revolution were: February Revolution, which came about due to food and fuel shortages during 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.

3 Civil War (1918-1920)

The Civil War between the Reds (the Bolsheviks) and the Whites (the anti-Bolsheviks), which broke out in early 1918, ravaged Russia until 1920. The Whites represented all shades of anti- communist groups - Russian army units from World War I, led by anti- Bolshevik officers, by anti-Bolshevik volunteers and some Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. Several of their leaders favored setting up a military dictatorship, but few were outspoken tsarists. Atrocities were committed throughout the Civil War by both sides. The Civil War ended with Bolshevik military victory, thanks to the lack of cooperation among the various White commanders and to the reorganization of the Red forces after Trotsky became commissar for war. It was won, however, only at the price of immense sacrifice; by 1920 Russia was ruined and devastated. In 1920 industrial production was reduced to 14% and agriculture to 50% as compared to 1913.

4 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.

5 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.

6 Young Octobrist

In Russian Oktyabrenok, or 'pre-pioneer', designates Soviet children of seven years or over preparing for entry into the pioneer organization.

7 Podol

The lower section of Kiev. It has always been viewed as the Jewish region of Kiev. In tsarist Russia Jews were only allowed to live in Podol, which was the poorest part of the city. Before World War II 90% of the Jews of Kiev lived there.

8 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.

9 Komsomol

Communist youth political organization created in 1918. The task of the Komsomol was to spread of the ideas of communism and involve the worker and peasant youth in building the Soviet Union. The Komsomol also aimed at giving a communist upbringing by involving the worker youth in the political struggle, supplemented by theoretical education. The Komsomol was more popular than the Communist Party because with its aim of education people could accept uninitiated young proletarians, whereas party members had to have at least a minimal political qualification.

10 Residence permit

The Soviet authorities restricted freedom of travel within the USSR through the residence permit and kept everybody's whereabouts under control. Every individual in the USSR needed residential registration; this was a stamp in the passport giving the permanent address of the individual. It was impossible to find a job, or even to travel within the country, without such a stamp. In order to register at somebody else's apartment one had to be a close relative and if each resident of the apartment had at least 8 square meters to themselves.

-----------------------

Leontina Arditi

Leontina Arditi
[Leontina Samuilova Stoyanova]
Sofia
Bulgaria
Interviewer: Patricia Nikolova
Date of interview: May 2003-March 2004

Leontina Samuilova Stoyanova is known as an actress under her maiden name Leontina Arditi, which was also used in her biography. Leontina Arditi is a part of the history of Bulgarian theater. She was among the first to successfully introduce one-(wo)man performances, or the so called 'theater with one actor', as a separate art category in Bulgaria. A character actress of vast and flexible range, she has played dozens of brilliant comedy and drama roles. Her hard life path as an actress in the communist regime in Bulgaria prevented her from immigrating to Israel. The love of the Bulgarian culture and society induced her to become a stage- director. She has been teaching half-professional and amateur teams for several decades, coming to know the 'charm discreet' of the Bulgarian province. The international awards that followed proved that she had made the right choice. One of Leontina's unexpected talents turned out to be writing. Her autobiography 'Sahraneni broenitsi' ['Safe-kept Rosaries'], which concentrates on the period of the Holocaust, or to be more precisely the Law for the Protection of the Nation in Bulgaria, is written in the rarely found succinct and precise, schooled style of a writer. 'Safe-kept Rosaries' was translated into German and published in Austria under the title 'In meinem Ende steht mein Anfang' ['In my End is my Beginning']. The book attracted the interest of a broad public at its presentation in Vienna last year. Israel has also expressed interest in translating the story of an early Jewish childhood transposed over the prism of horrible historical events. Despite the poverty and humble style of living - a two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Sofia - Leontina's home is warm and hospitable, although it creates a bit of a sad impression. This is due to the fact that she lives alone, away from her daughter and her granddaughters, repatriated to Israel. They are the only thing that still makes her believe in life, apart from the Arts and Theater that she is still involved in as a stage-director.

Family background
Growing up
During the war
Post-war
Glossary

Family background

When the Spanish Queen Isabel and the Spanish King Fernandez expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, some of them went to Western Europe, others to Russia [Editor's note: there was no significant Sephardi settlement on Russian territory.] and the remaining part to the Orient [also see Expulsion of the Jews from Spain] 1. The Turkish people, for example, are thankful up to the present day that Jews have come to them, because they were doctors and as a whole people with intelligent professions. As far as my kin is concerned, they were a part of one group of Jews who got to Italy this way. They lived in the Ardennes, one of the borders of what was then Italy. [Editor's note: this is only a supposition of Leontina Arditi, since the Ardennes are actually in Belgium, Luxemburg and France.] That's where my name comes from - Arditi. Italians gave a gun, ten she-goats and two or three sheep to each family and told them to protect the borders. 'Arditi' - 'Ardennes' - that's the most probable etymology of my family name. At the beginning, in the 16th and 17th century, these Jews expelled from Spain lived in lairs dug by themselves in the caves. They were mere nomads. They were religious, I suppose. I don't know anything else about them.

My kin that came from Italy and settled in Ruse, northeastern Bulgaria, was my father's family. All of them had a strong sense of humor. They played the guitar, the mandolin; they used to sing Italian songs and speak Ladino. They were dark, emotional and swarthy like the Spanish. In Ruse the Arditi family had a very severe argument. I don't know the reason, but it was about money, I suppose. That's why one part of the family ran away as far as Pazardzhik, southwestern Bulgaria. I'm from the Pazardzhik branch of Arditi, while my relative, Elias Canetti 2, my father's cousin, is from the Ruse branch.

My maternal grandmother, granny Mazal [Uziel], almost always covered her head with a kerchief. She used to put something on my head, too, but I don't know what it was. She spoke Ladino. The whole Jewish neighborhood in Sofia, or Koniovitsa, Pernik Street, where my grandmother lived, spoke Ladino or the so-called Spaniol in Bulgarian. It was a very poor quarter. The way of living itself - with those huts, with those cortijos ['small gardens' in Ladino], and the fountains in the yards - all that was 'borrowed' from Spain. The Jews of the neighborhood used to speak Turkish too and some of them spoke Arabic as well. Their Bulgarian was very funny. [i.e. they spoke grammatically incorrect Bulgarian]. More refined Jews would definitely speak French. [Ottoman Jews traditionally enrolled in French language high schools instead of Turkish or Bulgarian ones in the late 19th century.] I don't know if they spoke Hebrew, but I have seen some books in the houses of both my grandmothers. I've never seen a Jewish woman wearing a wig in Bulgaria. I haven't seen a Jewish man wearing a kippah either, nor do I remember a Jew walking down the streets with a black hat. Kippot were worn only in the synagogue.

Granny Beya [Arditi, nee Tadzher], my father's mother, was married to a very rich Jew, the banker Aron Arav, in her second marriage. They owned several huge houses, each one with several floors. They had Persian carpets, wonderful expensive furniture and a piano. They also had many cats. They had a housemaid and a cook at their place. The cook's name was Berta and she felt pity for my father, because he wasn't allowed to live with his mother and his stepfather, and was treated like an orphan. He had been sent to live in the basement, so he grew up around Berta the cook. The family spoke French, which was considered an aristocratic language at the beginning of the 20th century. Even later my mother, who was of humble origin, used to feel humiliated because she didn't speak French and this language was spoken in her presence.

I know little about the military experiences of my relatives. I was told that my grandfather when he was a soldier, although wounded, saved a man. He dragged him 16 kilometers at the front during the Balkan War [see First Balkan War] 3. After the war this man showed his gratitude in a very bad way. I don't know anything about my grandparents' brothers and sisters. I've been told only about the brother of my paternal grandmother Beya - colonel Avram Tadzher. He was very clever and brave, a famous big shot with free access to the palace. He fought in the Bulgarian army in World War I [see Bulgaria in World War I] 4 and was awarded two military crosses for his bravery.

My father Samuil Moisey Arditi was a very intelligent and interesting, sweet-tempered man with a very rich inner life. I think he brought me up well. He taught me not to get dead set against anybody and anything. One of his major gestures towards me was that he sold his wedding-ring in order to buy me a violin. He felt I had an ear for music; I was only four then. The neighbors reproached him for this, because 'a musician can't make a living for a family', especially if the musician is a girl.

My father often used to read me books and acquainted me with the works of the authors of the world. Anatole France was his favorite writer. Under my father's influence I started to like Edmond Rostand and his play 'Cyrano de Bergerac'. [Editor's note: France, Anatole (pen name of Jacques Anatole Francois Thibault, 1844-1924): French novelist, poet and critic, most famous for his novel 'The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard'; awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1921. Rostand, Edmond (1868-1918): French playwright, 'Cyrano de Bergerac' being the most famous example of the poetic romantic drama he created.]

Although he originated from the Italian Jews, papa didn't have an ear for music. He was born in Belogradchik in 1902. After he got married, he lived in Sofia. My father specially showed me a paper issued by His Majesty King Boris III 5, which read: 'I hereby declare the Italian citizen Samuil Moisey Arditi a Bulgarian citizen - the same'. He needed this document so that he could marry in Bulgaria. So, he became a Bulgarian citizen before I was born. We used to celebrate Noce di Sabbath [Erev Sabbath] systematically in our family, mastika 6 would be drunk and the Jewish appetizers would be prepared under the Italian influence - with spaghetti: spaghetti with vinegar, since there were no lemons here, served cold and with pepper.

My father had suffered a lot in his life, but he was a man of great dignity. He was half an orphan: as I mentioned before, his mother - granny Beya - had a second marriage, to the banker Aron Arav, a fabulously rich man, who couldn't stand his stepson, that is my father. Thus, being in a huge and expensive house, my father was thrown to live in the basement, and the only person who used to take pity on him was Berta the cook, around whom he grew up. Despite his merciless fate, my father managed to set off legally for France but in a goods wagon. There he started working jointly with some gypsy tinsmiths. Then he was accepted to study juridical sciences in Montpelier or in Toulouse, I don't know where exactly. As a student he found a job in a cathedral: washing the windows, cleaning, sweeping. He had worked for quite a long time there when one fine day somebody told the priest that 'he is a Jew and desecrates the church'. They fired him. After that he was a door-keeper in some French bar.

I have to tell you a funny little anecdote in regard to this: My maternal grandmother didn't like much my other grandmother because she had abandoned her child. And when she was angry, she would always feel pity for my dad: 'This golden youth, who worked in a cabaret at the door and the cloak room, where there is always such a draught! ...' And my mother when in a row with my father always used to shout: 'Of course, how can I be your favorite woman! You have seen so many naked women in this cabaret...!' My father would always set himself right with her: 'I wasn't allowed in at all.' Papa always insisted on his being a Jew. But he would say: 'I'm a Bulgarian Jew first of all.'

My father wasn't in favor of the communists. He was an antifascist. He used to say that the communist idea was wonderful in that everybody wanted to live in fraternity and equality. That it all was amazing, but it was a utopia, because man is imperfect and pollutes the good. However, to a certain extent his views were leftist. When he came back from France in 1925, he was recommended for the position of a stenographer in the Parliament by Josif Herbst [famous journalist and publicist of Jewish origin, the first director of the state Bulgarian Telegraphic Agency (Press Bureau), who was killed during the events of 1925.] A little later Josif Herbst was killed. Somebody then noticed this recommendation and my father was entered in a list of people recommended by the Jew, the journalist with left views, Josif Herbst. And, as far as I know, my father was put in the Lovech forced labor camp which later was called 'Slanchev Briag' ['Sunny Beach'] [also see forced labor camps in Bulgaria] 7. This was a camp for Jewish antifascists, but I'm not quite sure of these facts.

My mother Mariika Samuil Arditi was born in 1906 in Sofia, but her father was from the village of Kalishte, Radomir region. She had only elementary education but was intelligent by nature. She insisted on calling herself a Jew and brought home to us that the Jewish people are clever and that I shouldn't make an exception to this rule. She was tolerant to all nations. She had a gypsy woman for a friend; our house was always crowded with kadin [Turkish for married women] and so on. That's why I think the Balkans are the midpoint of the greatest culture in this world and I am convinced that it is a fortune that so many ethnic communities live in one and the same place.

My mother was an extremely beautiful woman. She became a seller in a perfumery as early as the age of 14. Once a wagon with perfumes was arranged outside and my mother was set to sell them. My father passed by chance and bought a bar of soap for shaving. That's how he met her. That happened in 1927. It was raining one the day of their first date. He was waiting for her in front of the Halite trading center and my mother was speeding with the umbrella so much so that she fell over and tore her, as my father used to say, 'veiling' stockings. When they had a quarrel later she used to say: 'Don't think I am nuts on you!' and he would calmly reply: 'You don't say; you nearly died for me, remember the veiling stockings?' They got married the same year in Sofia's [Great] Synagogue. 8

I know very little about my parents' brothers and sisters. I am, however, most familiar with my maternal relatives, especially with my mother's sister - auntie Lisa. Her husband's name was Bentzion Bar David. He was from Kyustendil, where he worked as a tinsmith. It may sound strange, but his workshop in Kyustendil was named 'Silence'. Later they left for Israel and lived in Kfar Hanagid and had an orange tree garden there. In fact, their daughter, Zelma, first immigrated to Israel and settled in Rehovot, where she married a Polish Jew, but I don't remember his name. The names of my mother's brothers were Benjamin or uncle Buco, and Rahamim or uncle Raho. They immigrated to Israel, too. They lived in Haifa, working as stevedores at the port. Then they went to Jaffa working again as porters. After that they opened jointly a grocer's shop. When I first went to Israel - in 1964 - they had already bettered their position a lot. Each one had a grocer's of five square meters. They lived in Arabic houses, which were miserable, without fridges and without air conditioning.

Growing up

I was born in Sofia in 1929. I know my mother had difficulties having children. I was born in the seventh month and they suffered a lot because of that. They didn't have any children after me at all. They had wanted many children, because all the Jews had many children then. My parents used to dress fashionably for their time - European style, elegant and neat. I want to underline that the Jews in Bulgaria, even up to their ears in misery, were very clean people. Despite the poverty, their houses were shining, no matter if hens strolled in front of them.

The financial situation of my family was very bad. We lived in the so- called 'Slatinsky redoubt'; there my parents had built a house, having bought the plot beforehand with my mother's dowry and hired a gypsy - according to the superstition of the time - to bring them good luck. The plot was abound in clay. The gypsy and my parents made clay bricks, burnt them and built a house: a room, a kitchen and a foyer. Oh, at the beginning we used to walk over some planks and often fell into the basement because we didn't have a floor, but after that they bought some furniture and took some things from my grandmother, the rich one, my father's mother; we even had an upholstered armchair. We had running water and a toilet only in the yard. We had hens, rabbits and cats. My father dug a pit in the ground and filled it with water so that we could have ducks. We even had a dog but a car ran over it. We heated the house gathering fir-cones from the wood for kindling.

Once dad told my mother: 'Come to me on Sabbath all of you. I will take you to a restaurant.' He worked as a typist in the center of the town. And he added: 'But you will come by foot'. The restaurant was in fact a shed. We go there and he says: 'Today nobody came to me for me to write him an application, but don't worry.' We ate soup and kebapcheta [grilled oblong rissoles] and he said: 'Write it over there'. That is, we had our food on credit. That's what our financial situation was like. However, despite this absolute poverty, my parents regularly bought me children's books, because in our house we used to read a lot. Newspapers, books - all of them secular, no religious ones. Two thirds of them were in French, all bought by my father. I still have a 'Mister Pickwick' in French.

'Zora'[Dawn], 'Zaria'[Sunrise], 'Utro' [Morning] were the [leftwing] newspapers, which my father used to read. Mum didn't read newspapers. She loved the works of Anatole France, Balzac, Zola etc. [Editor's note: Zola, Emile (1840-1902): French writer and critic, leader of the naturalist school.]. Papa recommended me to read Jules Verne, Karl May and Stefan Zweig 9, and once he bought me Jack London's 'Martin Eden'. He registered me as a reader at two libraries of the capital - the municipal and the town library. My parents loved reading books aloud at home. This way they read Gustave Flaubert's 'Madame Bovary' for example. My mother felt pity for her. When we were to be interned [see Internment of Jews in Bulgaria] 10, my mother sold a lot of things but the books we brought to Professor Kamen Popdimitrov - uncle Kamen - my violin teacher. He put them away in the attic. And when we returned [from the internment], he gave them back to my father, who said: 'Well, now I know I'm happy.'

My parents weren't very religious, especially my father - he was an atheist. My mother used to prepare matzah and tarhanah [dough, turned into sheets of pastry which are left to dry out and then sliced to thin stripes resembling macaroni] for Pesach, but we used to eat pork at home and my parents always made fun of themselves when they ate pork. We always observed Rosh Hashanah. My father wouldn't go to work. We would put our new clothes on and pay visits to people. We didn't observe Sabbath in our family, but we used to go to my grandfather's, my mother's father, whom I hardly remember. We observed the religious holidays only as a tradition. We gathered with my maternal relatives at Purim and we, the children, wore masks. For example, [as a 'disguise'] I wore my father's coat turned inside out. I should say my father respected all religions. I remember him talking to me for hours about the Catholics, about Joan of Arc and the history of France.

I've never entered a synagogue in my life. Neither of my parents ever took me to one. Well, I recently went to Sofia's synagogue to see how they restored it, but that's it. I've never studied Ivrit, but my parents taught me morals with their behavior, and I'm thankful for that. I've never seen quarrels at home. Well, my father was very jealous, all the more so because a Russian guardsman once fell in love with my mother. All this passed quickly, but when in a certain moment I did something wrong with my life, my mother called me and said: 'Las judias son onoradas' [Ladino, meaning 'The Jewish women are honest.']

Papa regularly attended Jewish gatherings in Bet Am 11 and especially so after 1944. My mother didn't. I haven't seen them going there together. I remember my father coming back home and my mother saying: 'What's up, walkie, what's there in Betama [Bet Am]?' And dad would say: 'Jidios, jidios, jidios - munchos jidios' [Ladino, 'Jews, Jews, Jews - a lot of Jews.'] I want to underline that after 1944 my father sent me to Bet Am, where the great Bulgarian stage director, Boyan Danovsky, also of Jewish origin, gathered young Jews for his class in acting. There I played violin in Mario Menashe Brontsa's orchestra. We had a wonderful big symphony orchestra. My first theater recital was held at the library club of the Jewish Center years after that.

I was small then and I remember vaguely the famous manifestation of 24th May 1943 12 when the Jews marched to tell the King not to expel them. As a matter of fact 24th May 13, the day of the Slavic alphabet, as well as of the saint brothers Cyril and Methodius 14, who created it, was my favorite holiday. I was 14 years old then. I remember I had put on my red blouse. Suddenly the people who participated in the events started running because there was mounted police that scattered them. I was playing in the street; mum came, collected me, brought me home and said: 'Take off this red blouse! You have chosen a bad moment to wear it!' [red as a symbolic color of the communists] It was this day that I first heard of the word 'anti-Semites'. I heard: 'The anti-Semites battered to death the Jews!' I didn't know what it meant; I couldn't even pronounce it. We were six Jewish children, who studied in the Bulgarian school, but nobody bothered us, nobody maltreated us.

We, the Jewish children, were taken to a Jewish summer school. We were fed; our heads were cleaned from the lice, and we weren't in the streets - so that our mothers could be calm while working for a piece of bread. I used to play the violin at these summer schools; we gave performances and we were entertained with art and literature all day long. The persons in charge were boys and girls from Hashomer Hatzair 15, teenagers. One of them was the great Bulgarian writer-to-be, the fabulist Albert Dekalo. Then he was 19 and I was 11 or 12. This happened in 1943 well before our deportation.

I remember the prettiest holiday parade in my childhood. My mother used to take me with her every time. The whole Jewish neighborhood flocked there. We were together - Bulgarians and Jews - to celebrate 24th May. It was the loveliest thing to see: the kids with the fanfares singing 'Go, oh, nation, reawakened'. We danced and applauded and our parents bought us Bulgarian flags; and this flag was hanging for a year at home after that. I also remember the traditional military parade on 6th May [St. George Day] 16. We used to go there to see the handsome soldiers with their weapons.

As a child I didn't attend Hashomer Hatzair. But my mother's sister, auntie Lisa, had a daughter, Zelma, who participated in Hashomer Hatzair. She was one or two years younger than me. Suddenly Zelma set off for Israel by boat; this was before 9th September 1944 17 or maybe it was this very year. Their departure was arranged through Hashomer Hatzair, but I don't know anything else about it. Zelma lives in Rehovot up to the present day, where she retired as a teacher several years ago. Following her departure, her parents, who came from Kyustendil, went to Israel. They were accommodated in Kfar Hanagid, were they had an orange tree garden.

I have paid a visit to Zelma; she is what a Jew must be: religious and so on. Her husband is from Poland but I don't remember his name. His parents were gassed in a concentration camp and he was saved. His story is horrible. He was small when the Nazis found room for themselves in their house in Poland. Some good people hid him this way: there was a plank toilet in the yard, but another one was dug for the Nazis. Polish people who saved this child used to let him down to the bottom of this toilet every day and he had to go through everything in order to avoid the Germans' suspicion of his presence there. The neighbors took him out by night, washed him and let him down the other day again. That's how Zelma's husband survived the Holocaust as a child. He has passed away by now, but I think he wrote a book about his fate, if I'm not mistaken, and it was published in Israel.

I have lived between two classes. I remember that the Jews were on friendly terms with the Bulgarians as well as with the other nations. There were as many Jews at a Jewish celebration as were Bulgarians, Turks and even gypsies. As a whole, I've grown up in the surrounding of horses, carts, hens, gypsies, Turks, Wallachians, Russian guardsmen. I've grown up in a healthy atmosphere. We are talking about my childhood years in Mezdra. It was a small town with some 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants, where no other Jews lived except my family. And I never heard offenses.

I had a very happy childhood. I learnt how to walk in Dolni Dabnik, and began going to school in Mezdra. My father worked in a mill and my mother was a housewife but she managed to breed simultaneously two geese, twenty hens and God knows how many ducks. My mother used to stuff the geese with maize so that they would get fat. She had learnt that from her mother. My poor granny Mazal had a strange nickname: the Courtier. The history of her nickname was the following: She was close to a cook of King Boris III, who liked meals with goose very much. Once her friend the cook told my grandmother: 'Mazalika [diminutive from Mazal], if you can bring me four geese a month you will earn a lot of money'. She didn't earn much money, but she kept on taking four geese a month to the palace, stuffing them with maize the same way my mother showed me. The geese swell this way only for a month or two.

The most special occasion in Mezdra was when in the evening the women would take the men's arms, the children behind them, and go to the station. The train from Sofia passed through there and had a stop at Mezdra station. We weren't rich, so my mother used to take a slice of bread from home and used to buy me a kebapche from the station. I remember once I was taken ill with diphtheria and was crammed into a train to Sofia, where I was to be treated. After that I took pride of place among the children of Mezdra, who had never entered a train. As a child I never got in a car, of course, but I often took rides in a cart.

I met my first love when I was seven - Geshko Lishkov, a small gypsy. His father ran the roundabouts near the station. We decided to get married, Geshko and I. He would let me in to the roundabouts ... With the children in Mezdra, mainly gypsies, we played all day long.

When my family moved to live in Sofia I was growing up in the poor Jewish quarter Koniovitsa. We lived in the house of my maternal relatives and it looked very bad. It consisted of a primitive room with a small corridor, without running water and electricity, but still five or six people lived there. When we got interned we went to live for a while there again. Then we had to go to Dupnitsa.

During the war

One fine day my father came back from work at an unearthly hour bringing something in an envelope and some buttons scattered on the floor. And he put a piece of cardboard on the table. My mother and I asked: 'What are these yellow buttons?' And he answered: 'These are the stars and they have to be sewn on all clothes.' - 'And this cardboard, what is it?' - 'A Jewish house'. Mum put the sign 'A Jewish house' outside and there came the neighbor auntie Mika, a Bulgarian, to ask us for something - some salt or vinegar, it didn't matter. And she cried: 'My word, what's that? Oh, Gosh, take this bullshit out of here.'

Our deportation was very fearful. We were already in this den, the house of my mother's parents, which was situated on Pernik Street in Koniovitsa. We brought out all our belongings and started selling them. Dad was sent to a forced labor camp and my mother was cleaning the casks of some Jews, who intended to sell them. As a matter of fact, my father was sent to four Jewish forced labor camps. The first was in the village of Izvorche, Lovech region, the second in Shiroka Poliana, Batak region, the third in Dupnitsa, and I don't know were the fourth was. The last time my father came back from a forced labor camp his back was all in violet straps from beating. He never told us why he was beaten. I know he arrived by train at 3am, but he didn't call us until 6am. He stayed at the front door stairs in order not to wake us up. He was afraid he was infested with lice. Then mum undressed him in the yard, kindled a big fire and boiled all his clothes in a cauldron. After that she wrapped him in a bed sheet; it was snowing outside! Then she cleaned him from lice in the house.

My mother's encounter with the commissioner Belev 18 of the so-called Committee on Jewish Affairs 19 in 1943 was interesting. The Committee was formed after the arrival of the Germans in Bulgaria, that is after the Law for the Protection of the Nation 20 was passed. Mum herself insisted to meet him at the time when they intended to expel us from our house. Her meeting was organized by a friend of a friend of Julia de la Gnese, who was in turn my father's friend. She was a very decent woman; she taught me French for free. She fell in love with some German and we used her contact. Although pointless, this encounter was remembered. I accompanied my mother - Belev appeared to me tall and sinister, with a yellowy-white face, pale as a dead man. My mother entered and came out again immediately. And said: 'Impossible'. That meant, we had to leave our house; we weren't allowed to stay there. But I remember well the cleaning woman at the Committee, who was sweeping and in front of her some young Germans in uniforms were sitting and smoking. She cursed them in the face: 'Got smite them', she shouted, 'and me, to sweep their shits here! Who brought them here...' And so on. A man heard her and said, 'What the hell are you talking! They will hear you!' 'You don't say! They don't speak Bulgarian let alone Shopski dialect.' [Editor's note: the northwestern part of Bulgaria is popularly called Shopluk or Shopsko.]

As a matter of fact this Julia had a very tragic fate. When the Germans came to Bulgaria in 1943 she fell in love and got engaged to one of them. But he went to fight at the Eastern front. He got killed and she suffered a lot. She had even got pregnant from him and mum took her somewhere to procure an abortion. Julia was a teacher in Italian and French. After 9th September 1944 she suddenly disappeared. She was slandered for having been a Germans' slut and was put in a very severe forced labor camp. My father was off to look for her. My mother went to search for her. They were told she had died.

Before our departure I studied in a Bulgarian secular school. I hated geometry. And the hateful teacher was Miss Yankova, our maths teacher, of course. I was a poor student. When I received a satisfactory mark [3 out of 5] my mother would make a pudding for me. And she would give the women from the neighborhood a treat. My parents even hired a private teacher for me, but it was fruitless. I liked geography a lot and I loved literature and the Bulgarian language. I knew by heart half of the 'Epopee of the Forgotten' by Ivan Vazov 21. I loved my teacher in literature, Mrs. Kateva, and I remember her even now as if she was standing right in front of me.

Once people came to summon students for Brannik 22 in our school. And my classmates put their names down. We had a very stupid boy in our class, Haim, and I often had fights with him. He said: 'I also want to write my name down'. They told him: 'We don't accept Jews.' Some teasing was heard: you the Jews are such and such. Then Mrs. Kateva turned red and said: 'I won't tolerate such things in my class.'

I remember another interesting story of this period. Apart from my pointless private tuition in mathematics and the wonderful lessons in French with Julia I took up lessons in music for free. As I mentioned before, my violin teacher was uncle Kamen, the famous violinist Kamen Popdimitrov, my father's friend from his years in France. Well, when we were to be interned, in my third year in the junior high school, I had a final poor mark [2, that means failed] in geometry. Everybody graduated and I had to sit for a make-up exam. We set off for the province. We were first allocated to Haskovo, but I was summoned to the police for some verses I had written. Then they sent us to Dupnitsa, where I wasn't accepted to enroll in the high school, because I didn't have a diploma for the junior high school. They wanted at least some document stating that I had studied up to the third class of the previous level. Then mum wrote a letter to uncle Kamen. As a response he sent me a grade book for a completed 3rd class of the junior high school. My maths teacher, Mrs. Yankova, had been my nightmare; she used to give me only poor marks; I had wanted to suffocate her... And now we read that there are two good marks [4 out of 5] in the certificate for completed third class - one in geometry and one in maths. What had this man done? In which way had he spoken with Mrs. Yankova? What could he have said to her? I don't know, but this cruel woman for me became a saint, despite the fact that I wasn't accepted in the high school but in the business school. Never mind! What does this mean? It means that two Bulgarians had tried to give a blunt-witted Jewish child as best as they could, a chance to continue her studies.

I've had a lot of friends; I was an exceptionally friendly and sociable person in contrast to now. I had friends everywhere - in the villages where I grew up, at elementary school, at high school, at drama school, at the conservatory and in the theaters where I practiced as a beginning actress. These people were always tolerant towards me, so I didn't suffer from anti- Semitism. All the more, I remember in those hard days of our internment to Dupnitsa that the grandfather of my friend and classmate Lili, who was a miller, came to my mother. And he came from a village far away from Dupnitsa to say: 'If you need to escape, if you are to leave the country, I have men in the mountains, they can save you.' So I nearly became a partisan since the old man, who wanted to hide us, was obviously a supporter. And I don't even know his name.

In Dupnitsa we were rationed two or three cups of soup every noon. My father would also come to take his soup when he was back from the forced labor camps. As a matter of fact, soup was rationed then everywhere in the country. There was some talk that an officer in Haskovo was putting naphthalene in the soup for three consecutive days and the Jews couldn't have their meals. But one fine day - here we have an instance of anti- Semitism - one of my classmates in a Brannik uniform, Lida Zhadrovska from Dupnitsa, took my stove and began kicking it around, shouting: 'And we are going to feed these chifuti 23?' She tried to hit me. And I couldn't hit her because she was fat and two times as heavily built as me - a small Jewish fry.

I remember very clearly the bombardment of Dupnitsa in 1944. It was a terrible bombardment in a small town. The population was approximately 5,000 to 6,000 and 100 died because it was a market day. There were rumors that several Jews died in a house, but I don't know exactly how many. They gathered there on Friday, because Sunday was to be the wedding day of their children. And then a bomb fell.

I remember another event. It was a great occasion for me when King Boris III died, a king whom my family respected. He died on 28th August [1943] but the funeral was on 1st or 2nd September in Rila Monastery. The train, the cortège with his body was to pass through Dupnitsa. We, the kids of between eight and ten years of age, climbed a hill, which stood exactly over the tunnel where the train had to pass. We got on there and started waiting for it. And we saw it - an open wagon with the King's body and four guardsmen who were standing straight. The train was moving very slowly with the coffin, covered with a wine-red cloth. It passed slowly and then it was gone. I remember the little boys taking off their hats. An old woman brought us a loaf of bread and shared it between us saying: 'Even though from another religion, he was your king too, and a mortal man as he was.' I remember this scene very clearly.

After 9th September 1944, we moved from Dupnitsa, where we were interned, to Sofia to live in the small house built by my father, my mother and the gypsy. Then two Russian women-soldiers were accommodated with us, one of who turned out to be a Jew. Her name was Lida Kunkunina. The name of the other one was Mira. By night these girls disappeared somewhere and came back in the mornings. Then they would take off their clothes and walk topless to the tap to wash themselves before the critical eyes of the whole neighborhood. Of course people talked: 'These are sluts. By night they attend to the needs of the army and then they come back here to have a wash. Mariika, what an evil has entered your house!' One morning they didn't come back. Sergeant-major Derepchiisky who accommodated them with us and was also a Jew came home in tears. Their beds were taken away and it wasn't until then that we understood the two girls had been bombarding Belgrade every night. We were told they were killed. I came to love these unknown girls, who left us books and who left us guns. They had brought me a pair of boots, because I was walking barefoot then in the bitterest cold, muddy up to the ears. I didn't have anything to put on.

A little later my father and sergeant Derepchiisky went to the synagogue together. In fact the fate of this sergeant was also very tragic. He came from Vinitsa. His wife was also a Jew; they had a daughter, Ezdra. Derepchiisky always used to say: 'You will study with Ezdra'. His daughter played the violin. One night he got drunk; my father treated him to vodka. And he told us that when he had got back to Vinitsa during his leave in place of his house he had found only a pit filled with water. Neither his wife was alive, nor his daughter. And he showed us a photo which I remember very clearly: it was of his wife who was wearing a single plait.

Post-war

After 9th September 1944 I joined the UYW 24. I entered this left movement thankful I had survived. After that I joined the Communist Party with the thought it would offer me protection. I was given free education. At a certain point the arts became more important for me than everything else and I withdrew from the Party. In spite of that, up to the present day I still have left views.

The typical Jewish professions in Sofia these days were mainly those of small tradesmen and small craftsmen, for example cobblers. Some were kebapche makers; others were selling things at the market: needles, threads, vegetables arranged on a hand cart. There were no Jewish tavern- keepers, because Jews didn't drink and that was very important. But they had small grocer's shops. At a certain stage the Jewish quarter Koniovitsa was transformed into a ghetto. There was no electricity, no running water. From all the houses from three streets there was only one with a radio and we all used to go there to listen to it. Even now I can still smell the absolute poverty when I pass through there. But there was no anti-Semitism. I remember I was six or seven years old when a kid told me: 'You are Jewish', and I answered: 'What's that?'

The market of the past was fabulous - a diversity of colors and melodies from all languages. I used to steal fruits because I didn't have the money to buy them. A friend of the family, a Bulgarian policeman, often went to this market. His name was uncle Doncho. He used to say to my father: 'Today I'll fill my bag and I'll be in pocket from your Jews.' And he pursued those who hadn't paid their taxes or the fees for selling goods at the market. In the evening my father would say: 'What happened with my Jews?' And his friend, the policeman replied: 'I got hold of what I could. Here - I've brought three heads of cabbage, two kilos of waffles...' They gave him these things as a bribe for him not imposing fares on them. Would you call that anti-Semitism?

As I've already said, I started going in for the arts more seriously in my school years. Then I was in the 5th or in the 6th class of the business high school in Sofia. Simultaneously I was playing the violin in the symphony orchestra of the Jewish Center, conducted by the superb Mario Menashe Brontsa. At the same time I took up the drama course of the great Jewish stage director Boyan Danovsky, who formed a class in acting at the Jewish library club. The first he gave us to work on was: 'For lunch at Bear's Place', a well-known fable by Krylov. [Editor's note: Krylov, Ivan Andreyevich (1769-1844): Russian fabulist, playwright and journalist; famous for his short fables in verse. The best-known of his dramatic works are 'The Fashionable Shop' and 'A Lesson for Daughters'.] It must have been 1945-1946, because I was accepted at Sofia's Theater School as a full-time student in 1946-1947 and as an extra violin student at Sofia's Musical Academy.

I don't remember precisely the other students in Danovsky's drama course, but I remember an outstanding performance of poetic art from 1944, presented in Bet Am by the great director Grisha Ostrovsky, then an actor, the famous violinist Yosko Rozanov and Viza Kalcheva who drowned the following year. I was 15 years old then and this event definitely helped me in choosing the profession of an actress.

The Theater School, where I was accepted as a student in acting, offered a two-year course then. In 1947, following a decree of the National Assembly, it was transformed into DVTU [Public Higher School of Theater], which was known as VITIZ [Higher Institute of Theatrical Art] in the totalitarian period [Communist regime] and as NATFIZ [National Academy of Theater and Film Arts] after 10th November 1989 25. We, the students, had just finished our second year. We were told that one may graduate and have a lower educational degree or may choose to continue his studies for two more years completing his education in the newly formed Public Higher School of Theater. Some of us, including me, stayed in the school, others scattered to the theaters to perform there.

In my third and fourth year at DVTU I started making records for the radio. Then I experienced my first meeting with a great writer - the living classic Elin Pelin [Dimitar Stoyanov, famous under his literary pseudonym Elin Pelin (1877-1949): among the greatest masters of the short story in Bulgarian literature, a 'painter' of Bulgarian village life.] It must have been in my fourth year, in 1950. I partnered with the unique actor Konstantin Kisimov and I nearly lost consciousness with those two classics around me. We were recording 'Choheno kontoshche' ['choha' is the Turkish word for a silky thick cloth, while 'kontosh' is a Persian word for a short outer garment to the waist]. When we came out of the room, I was introduced to Elin Pelin and he asked me: 'Where have you mastered our dialect from?' I told him I had grown up in the country. Then he offered me to perform some other of his works. This gave me wings. I performed 'Pizho and Pend?' as a one-man show - my first performance - and it became part of the repertoire of the Army Theater in Sofia after its premiere. It was presented hundreds of times over several decades and is now in the golden fund of the National Radio. I was then being sent to different regions of Bulgaria to present it, especially to military audience, at garrisons, and in library clubs.

I graduated in acting in 1950. I had a one-year probationary period at the National Theater. Meanwhile the Army Theater organized a casting for its troupe; I applied and was accepted. The same year I got married. My first working day was the day of my wedding - 11th September 1951. Of course I didn't go to work; I went to marry my husband, Dilo Dikov Stoyanov, who was of Bulgarian origin. I was immediately assigned some roles by the theater, but I had already got pregnant. I gave birth to my daughter Tatyana in 1952. That's why I played my first role as late as 1952 - in 'Song for the Black Sea People' by Lavrenev.

The first person who gave a one-man recital in Bulgaria was the actress Slavka Slavova with 'You Can Endlessly Recount for Mothers' based on a piece by Maxim Gorky 26. Those days in Bulgaria such performances which represented the so-called 'theater with one actor' were a very rare occasion. The following were the actors Spas Dzhonev with 'Song of the Songs' and Tanya Masalitinova with 'Anna Karenina'. And I was the fourth person, namely with Lermontov's 27 'Daemon'. The dressed rehearsal with audience took place in the building of the Jewish library club.

More than ten of my performances were banned during the totalitarian period [communism]. The reasons: 'snobbism and unhealthy western influence', 'cosmopolitanism' and 'eclectics'. These were especially my performances of 'Vanity Fair' based on Thackeray, 'Crime and Punishment' based on Dostoevsky 28 and '24 Hours from the Life of a Woman' based on Zweig. Those three were banned en block for 'snobbism and unhealthy western influence'. 'The Researcher or Don Quixote Fighting' by Vadim Karastilev was stopped for political reasons. 'Earth, Wait' - same thing. They didn't even explain to me why 'In the Sun and in the Shade' was stopped. The commission just saw it and gave me a curt refusal. However, I think the reasons were neither political, nor anti-Semitic. In my opinion, it was due to the famous envy that colleagues in the theater harbor against each other.

I met my husband Dilo by chance. I was a student in the third year when I suddenly got paralysis nervi facialis - a disgusting distortion of the face caused by stiffened muscles. The reason was perhaps some kind of flu. It passed, but the doctor recommended me in any case to go to a brigade 28 so that I could have sunbaths. That's how I found myself in the students' camp at the Black Sea. There my husband-to-be was, suffering from some kind of illness on his legs; apart from that he was studying to become a hydro- engineer. There I was continuously playing the violin, because I was to have an exam at the Conservatory. He was often listening to me. And that's how we met.

Our daughter Tanya [short for Tatyana] had hard childhood years. She was a well cared for but very unhealthy child. She grew up in sanatoria. At the age of nine she had a serious cardiac malfunction. She had to study at the sanatoria, we often called her tutors home, because she wasn't allowed to go to school. Tanya wanted to become a painter. But she completed her education at HTI [Higher Institute of Chemical Technology] in 1975 or 1976. First she was a professor at HTI, but she worked as a painter, too. She had cardiac surgery when she was 27. The annual exhibition of the Union of Painters in Bulgaria was opened on the day of her operation and she received an award for the original puppets she had made. Then she became a member of this union and was sent as its representative to an international competition and puppet exhibition in Poland, wherefrom she returned with a gold medal. 59 countries took part. After that she received the award of the children audience at this competition. She and her two daughters, Leontina and Maria, immigrated to Israel in February 1996, where she is a well-known puppet designer and teacher, and a member of UNIMA - the international union of puppet makers [Union Internationale de la Marionette].

My granddaughters, the twins Leontina and Maria, were born on 13th October 1982. Maria is the elder - by four or five minutes. I helped with their bringing up until they turned 14. They had just finished the Jewish elementary school in Sofia and were accepted to elite schools: Leontina to NGDEK [National Lyceum for Ancient Languages and Cultures] and Maria to the Spanish High School. Several months after their acceptance they immigrated to Israel. In Tel Aviv Leontina graduated from the most prestigious local high school, in which Yitzhak Rabin had studied. Maria graduated from an art school. She is now professionally in coiffures and maquillage. Leontina graduated concurrently from a music school, directed by Russian teachers in Israel. When she graduated she was offered a chance to give a Mozart violin concert. But she didn't want to continue studying music, because in Israel the situation is like this: you can find a good violinist at every corner. She is of such nature that she chose a male profession to establish herself. She went to the hardest army in Israel - 'Kravi'. She became an officer there and 30 boys were entrusted to her care. Even now, Leontina continues serving at the hottest spots in Jerusalem.

I first went to Israel in 1964. The second time was shortly before 1989 - I was invited as a guest artist with the act '24 Hours of a Life of a Woman'. After 1997 I visited my daughter and granddaughters three or four times, and I am going to visit them this spring again. Although this is a very beautiful and intelligent country I have never felt cozy there, partly because of the Israeli way of thinking. Otherwise it is a very precious country to me.

I was happy on 10th November 1989, although I keep my left views. But I gradually got aware of the fact that we go from a certain lie to another. I am still sorry for the totalitarian period because one could do everything then, despite the immense difficulties that I encountered. And now one just has to have money and be an insolent lout in order to make one's way in life. Once there also were such kind of people, but the strong and the intelligent managed to make their way. The period that has come to our country is pernicious and corrupt, especially for the young people.

Glossary

1 Expulsion of the Jews from Spain

The Sephardi population of the Balkans originates from the Jews who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula, as a result of the 'Reconquista' in the late 15th century (Spain 1492, and Portugal 1495). The majority of the Sephardim subsequently settled in the territory of the Ottoman Empire, mainly in maritime cities (Salonika, Istanbul, Izmir, etc.) and also in the ones situated on significant overland trading routes to Central Europe (Bitola, Skopje, and Sarajevo) and to the Danube (Edirne, Plovdiv, Sofia, and Vidin).

2 Canetti, Elias (1905-1994)

Born to a family of Sephardi Jews in Bulgaria, Canetti immigrated to England with his family at the age of 6. After his father's death he moved to Vienna, lived and studied in Austria, Germany and Switzerland and earned his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Vienna in 1929. In 1938 he moved to France and later to England. His first and only novel was 'Die Blendung', published in 1935 (tr. Tower of Babel, 1947). In 1960 he completed the nonfiction masterwork 'Masse und Macht' (tr. Crowds and Power, 1962). Canetti's work defies national categorization, is original and extremely attentive to sounds and meanings of language. In 1981 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, the first Bulgarian to be so honored.

3 First Balkan War (1912-1913)

Started by an alliance made up of Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro against the Ottoman Empire. It was a response to the Turkish nationalistic policy maintained by the Young Turks in Istanbul. The Balkan League aimed at the liberation of the rest of the Balkans still under Ottoman rule. In October, 1912 the allies declared war on the Ottoman Empire and were soon successful: the Ottomans retreated to defend Istanbul and Albania, Epirus, Macedonia and Thrace fell into the hands of the allies. The war ended on the 30th May 1913 with the Treaty of London, which gave most of European Turkey to the allies and also created the Albanian state.

4 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).

5 King Boris III

The Third Bulgarian Kingdom was a constitutional monarchy with democratic constitution. Although pro-German, Bulgaria did not take part in World War II with its armed forces. King Boris III (who reigned from 1918-1943) joined the Axis to prevent an imminent German invasion in Bulgaria, but he refused to send Bulgarian troops to German aid on the Eastern front. He died suddenly after a meeting with Hitler and there have been speculations that he was actually poisoned by the Nazi dictator who wanted a more obedient Bulgaria. Most Bulgarian Jews saved from the Holocaust (over 50,000 people) regard King Boris III as their savior.

6 Mastika

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

7 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.

8 Great Synagogue

Located in the center of Sofia, it is the third largest synagogue in Europe after the ones in Budapest and Amsterdam; it can house more than 1,300 people. It was designed by Austrian architect Grunander in the Moor style. It was opened on 9th September 1909 in the presence of King Ferdinand and Queen Eleonora.

9 Zweig, Stefan (1881-1942)

Austrian biographer, novelist, essayist and playwright, best known for his humanistic view on European culture expressed in his essays and biographies of major literary and historical figures. Among his most famous fictional works are his only novel, 'Beware of Pity' and the novella 'The Royal Game'; his best-known drama is the biblical play 'Jeremias. Zweig left Austria in 1938, first for England then Brazil. In despair over the defeat of humanism in the Third Reich, Zweig and his wife committed suicide in 1942.

10 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.

11 Bet Am

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

12 24th May 1943

Protest by a group of members of parliament led by the deputy chairman of the National Assembly, Dimitar Peshev, as well as a large section of Bulgarian society. They protested against the deportation of the Jews, which culminated in a great demonstration on 24th May 1943. Thousands of people led by members of parliament, the Eastern Orthodox Church and political parties stood up against the deportation of Bulgarian Jews. Although there was no official law preventing deportation, Bulgarian Jews were saved, unlike those from Bulgarian occupied Aegean Thrace and Macedonia.

13 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.

14 St

Cyril and Methodius: Greek monks from Salonika, living in the 9th century. In order to convert the Slavs to Christianity the two brothers created the Slavic (Glagolitic) script, based on the Greek one, and translated many religious texts to Old Church Slavonic, which is the liturgical language of many of the Eastern Orthodox Churches up until today. After Bulgaria converted to Christianity under Boris in 865, his son and successor Simeon I supported the further development of Slavic liturgical works, which led to a refinement of the Slavic literary language and a simplification of the alphabet - The Cyrillic script, named in honor of St. Cyril. The Cyrillic alphabet today is used in Orthodox Slavic countries such as Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. It is also used by some non-Slavic countries previously part of the Soviet Union, as well as most linguistic minorities within Russia and also the country of Mongolia.

15 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.

16 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.

17 9th September 1944

The day of the communist takeover in Bulgaria. In September 1944 the Soviet Union unexpectedly 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. 12 Forced labor camps in Bulgaria: Established under the Council of Ministers' Act in 1941. All Jewish men between the age 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.

18 Belev, Alexandar (1900-1944)

The first commissar for Jewish affairs in Bulgaria (1942-43). He was one of the founders of the anti-Semitic organization Ratnik. He was sent to Germany in 1941 to study methods of enforcing anti-Jewish legislation and, in September 1942, he became head of the Commissariat for Jewish Affairs. Belev implemented the anti-Semitic 'Law for the Protection of the Nation'. He succeeded only in deporting the Jews from the Yugoslav (Macedonia) and Greek (Aegean Thrace) territories under Bulgarian military occupation.

19 Commissariat for Jewish Affairs

An institution set up in September 1942 at the Ministry of Interior and People's Health that was in charge of the execution of the Law for the Protection of the Nation. It was headed by Alexander Belev, a German-trained anti-Semite.

20 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.

21 Vazov, Ivan (1850-1921)

Bulgarian writer, who, following Bulgaria's liberation from Turkey in 1878 almost single-handedly filled the void of a national literature. He wrote in every genre and set a standard for subsequent literary developments in his homeland. He published several volumes of poetry and won international recognition with his novel 'Pod igoto' (Under the Yoke), published in 1893.

22 Brannik

Pro-fascist youth organization. It started functioning after the Law for the Protection of the Nation was passed in 1941 and the Bulgarian government forged its pro-German policy. The Branniks regularly maltreated Jews.

23 Chifuti

Derogatory nickname for Jews in Bulgarian.

24 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.

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

Russian writer, publicist and revolutionary.

27 Lermontov, Mikhail, (1814-1841)

Russian poet and novelist. His poetic reputation, second in Russia only to Pushkin's, rests upon the lyric and narrative works of his last five years. Lermontov, who had sought a position in fashionable society, became enormously critical of it. His novel, A Hero of Our Time (1840), is partly autobiographical. It consists of five tales about Pechorin, a disenchanted and bored nobleman. The novel is considered a classic of Russian psychological realism.

28 Dostoevsky, Fyodor (1821-1881)

Russian novelist, journalist and short- story writer whose psychological penetration into the human soul had a profound influence on the 20th century novel. His novels anticipated many of the ideas of Nietzsche and Freud. Dostoevsky's novels contain many autobiographical elements, but ultimately they deal with moral and philosophical issues. He presented interacting characters with contrasting views or ideas about freedom of choice, socialism, atheisms, good and evil, happiness and so forth.

29 Brigades

A form of socially useful labor, typical of communist times. Brigades were usually teams of young people who were assembled by the authorities to build new towns, roads, industrial plants, bridges, dams, etc. as well as for fruit-gathering, harvesting, etc. This labor, which would normally be classified as very hard, was unpaid. It was completely voluntary and, especially in the beginning, had a romantic ring for many young people. The town of Dimitrovgrad, named after Georgi Dimitrov - the leader of the Communist Party - was built entirely in this way.

Lubov Ratmanskaya

Lubov Ratmanskaya
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Yulia Smelianskaya
Date of interview: November 2001

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

I am Lubov Ratmanskaya. I know only about my grandfather and I know nothing about my great-grandfather. I was born when my grandfather died. His name was Leib Ramantsky. That's why all girls who were born to the Ratmansky family were named Lubov, and all the boys, Lev. Kiev was outside the Jewish Pale of Settlement 1, but my grandfather was allowed to live in Kiev as a craftsman. He was an ink maker - he made ink according to his own recipe. His sons were allowed to live in Kiev until they came of age, and his daughters, until they got married. His family lived in Podol 2.

Grandmother Etya-Hannah Zlotchenko was born in the town of Talnoye, Kiev region. I don't know much about my grandparents' life. They had a very good family. That's why their children turned out very well. They had seven children: Aro-Shloyme, Tsipa, Noah, Vera, my father Isay, aunt Manya and aunt Makhlya. All the children had some profession.

My grandparents were religious. Some of their children and grandchildren were religious, too, and some weren't. My father didn't tell me about the life of his family before the Revolution of 1917 3. Before 1917 they didn't hide their Jewish origin, but afterwards, somehow it didn't seem the right time to talk about it. I only know that the family was very poor.

My father's elder brother, Aron-Shloyme, moved to America. He invited his brother Noah to America - the brothers found jobs there. But I don't remember what their professions were. I think something to do with commerce. And later Noah invited his nephew Mikhail. Aron-Shloyme's children were committed communists. His son, Misha Ratmansky, was born in 1900. He was head of the Podol District Committee of the Komsomol 4 in Kiev. In 1919 he was the commissar of a unit made up of Komsomol members from Kiev who went to fight the ataman Zeleny. People say that a note was pinned on the doors of that district committee, which read, 'Committee closed. All gone to the front.' Misha died in July 1919. A street in Kiev was named in his honor.

Aunt Manya was a nurse, and during World War II she was at the front. In general she worked in different military hospitals. Aunt Vera and aunt Makhlya were tailors.

My father, Isay Ratmansky, was born in the 1870s. He went to cheder for a short time. While he lived with his parents, until he came of age, he studied embroidery - he worked on special embroidering machines. There are no such machines any more; they disappeared during the war. My father's teacher was Russian, and my father often stayed at his house. My father was very talented. He embroidered dresses, fabric. I had a coat made of astrakhan fur, and even though we were so poor that I couldn't get buttons for it, it was very nicely embroidered. Unfortunately, I have nothing left of his works; everything has been destroyed. There were many Russian embroiderers in Kiev. I remember Fedorov very well. I remember him because when Petliura 5 came to Kiev, he brought his banner to my father to embroider. My father refused. My mother begged him on her knees. It was very dangerous for him to refuse. Then I, a preschooler, was sent to Fedorov, who embroidered that banner and we gave it back to Petliura's soldiers.

My mother and father got married through embroidery. Traveling to different cities in search of a job, my father found himself in a workshop where my mother was sewing coats, and my father began to work there as an embroiderer.

My mother, Sofia Ratmanskaya [nee Smekhova] came from the town of Pogar, Belarus. She was born in 1886. Her father was a tin-maker. He also had seven children: Monya, Khaya, Etya, Sosha, my mother Sofia, Riva, and Yakov. There were two brothers (the elder one died of tuberculosis) and the rest were women. By the way, uncle Yakov was also a tin-maker. His son Ilya was a pilot during World War II, later he was a colonel and lived in Leningrad.

My mother and father got married in Pogar. It was a small town. My father was involved in some revolutionary group, so he was given a false passport under the name of Pasternak and he was illegally sent to Tsaritsyn. My mother went with him. My elder brother Abram was born in Tsaritsyn in 1908. I don't know any details of my father's revolutionary activities. He never talked about it. But my brother was Jewish, so he was circumcised in secret: father found a rabbi in Tsaritsyn and received a special certificate for Abram. Abram is Jewish, but his skin is very dark. Later, the group that helped my father sent him to Vladikavkaz. It was some time around 1909.

There was a good Jewish community in Vladikavkaz, but my father had a passport under the name Alexander Sokolov. [He was given this typical Russian name to hide his Jewish origin.] My sister Vera and I were born in Vladikavkaz. We weren't registered anywhere because my father was only able to register us later - that's why my passport says that I was born in 1911, whereas I was actually born in 1909. Vera was born in 1912. We were beautiful children.

Growing up

We lived in an underground flat, and my mother told me how scared she was every time the police came. The flat looked like a sewing workshop. My mother worked as a tailor and sewed dresses and some other things, pretending she had other sewers there, while my father embroidered. I remember when we already lived in Kiev and our house hadn't been bombed yet, I saw a postcard from some general's wife, saying 'Mrs. Sokolov, please prepare this and that for my arrival'. My mother was a fully-fledged member of the revolutionary organization.

My mother told me how once the police misunderstood the name of a person and for some reason came to our house to look for somebody called Shimon Sak. There may have been such a person in another organization. My mother showed them the documents for Alexander Sokolov, and the police left. Then my parents immediately decided to move from Vladikavkaz. It was in 1917. We left the town immediately after the February Revolution. I remember Vladikavkaz only a little.

At the end of 1917 we came to Kiev, to my father's parents. My grandfather had already died, but grandmother continued to live in the same house. My father's older sister Tsipa also lived there. The flat was big. I remember one very big room where all the Ratmanskys who lived in Kiev at the time came together once - I'm not sure why, maybe it was a holiday or someone's birthday. Aunt Tsipa and her husband had horses and a stable. Her husband drew horses very well. Every time we would come over, he would draw horses for us. Their son Pinya became an artist. His children still live in the same street that we lived in.

Later, because my father was an embroiderer and his work was in demand, my parents found a flat. It was a 5-storey building made of bricks. We lived on the first floor, but it was high. We had a separate flat. There was one small room, which my brother and I often entered through the window. It was hard to climb through that window, but my brother could do it. Then we had a big room and the third room opened from here, but it was right next to the toilet, so it was practically impossible to live in it. We lived there for a short time but then it became impossible - we hardly ever entered it. To get to the kitchen we had to go downstairs, to the end of the long corridor. The kitchen was small, but it was ours, separate from the neighbors.

After my sister Nadya was born, we four children, our parents and one of my father's relatives lived in this flat. My father's youngest sister Makhlya and her husband lived with us for a long time. Then Manya also lived with us for a while. Sometimes we rented that room out.

We lived very poorly. For instance, I can't even remember my bed. Our sister Vera was always very weak and neither Nadya, Abram nor I ever complained that she alone slept in a real bed. That bed stood in the small room where our parents slept, and Vera and later our youngest, Nadya, slept with them. In the beginning we children slept in the children's room, but later it was impossible to stay there. I remember we had scarlet fever there and we stayed in bed; naturally, we weren't allowed outside. So our friends - children from our backyard - jumped in front of our window and talked to us. Whilst I was suffering badly from the disease, Abram and Vera stood at the window and talked to them. Those children called to us, 'Come outside!' My brother answered, 'We can't we have scarlet fever!'

Our life was very hard because when the Reds, the Whites or the Poles came it was hard for my parents to decide whom they should embroider for and whom not. When the NEP 6 began life became better. We even had enough to eat: we had white bread, butter, and when mother went to the market, I usually went with her. But in general we were always thin and weak and never had proper clothes. Vera was sick almost all the time. We had one coat that our mother sewed for us from an overcoat, and we wore it in turns when we had to go to school.

We certainly had no new toys, but our relatives brought old ones sometimes. All the Ratmanskys treated each other very well. Most of the time we sewed dolls on our own.

But we always celebrated holidays. My father was religious and raised us the same way. So I knew everything from an early age. In spite of being an atheist later, I still know all about Jewish traditions. And this is due to my father. We had celebrated seder night. We always celebrated all holidays, even when we had to hide in order to celebrate.

On Chanukkah I remember that mother lit candles and we knew why she did that. For some time she also lit candles on Sabbath, but then she stopped because she was afraid and also because we didn't have any money. I also remember Purim, when mother made hamantashen, and we threw a lot of herbs for some reason.

Most of all I remember Passover. We had a table laid with matzah and other necessary stuff: a piece of meat, maror, etc. We even found the hidden afikoman, and then asked presents for it. We sang along with my father. He was a wonderful singer! All members of our family sang well. The grandson of my father's eldest brother graduated from a music college and won a lot of competitions. Vera is a wonderful musician. Her teacher was Henrich Neigauz [a very famous Russian pianist]. When he heard her he took her to Moscow right away. My brother Abram sang in the synagogue where my father took him. My father also sang in the synagogue. Abram sang well. And when the Opera wanted to have a children's choir, the leader of the choir took him to the Opera and Abram sang there as well. The Opera wasn't far from us and my brother ran home one evening, grabbed me by the hand and pulled me to the Opera. That's how I saw the first opera in my life. I also remember that my brother sang in Carmen. This gift for music came from our father. We sang a lot at home. My father didn't only sing Jewish songs: before I went to the music school I knew all the arias from the operas because my father sang them all. Sometimes he sang revolutionary songs. He would put Nadya, Vera, me or Abram on his lap and sing and embroider on his machine. And thus we remembered all the songs. I can still sing some things, but the songs I learned in the music school and the songs I learned from him are a little mixed up in my memory. But father sang many songs that we were never taught at the music school, for instance, some spiritual songs.

My parents had practically no education. I have some of their letters and I can see that they were not very well educated. But my father knew literature very well. Mother liked to read very much. During military communism we lived in a house in Proreznaya Street and when there were shootings we hid in the basement. There was no light in the basement, and my father would recite works by different writers by heart to all who hid with us. I should add that all the Ratmanskys were very talented; it was a wonderful family, where each member felt the need to learn always more and more.

My mother read Russian literature. She couldn't read in Yiddish. She spoke Yiddish very well and knew about Mendele Moykher Sforim 7 and Bialik 8. She told me that in our room in Proreznaya Street the portraits of her parents hang on one wall and the portrait of Mendele Moykher Sforim, on the opposite wall.

When my brother went to school I was very jealous and I insisted on going to school as well. I was 6 years old when I first went to school. I went to school at a young age and at first they didn't want to admit me. The school was Russian, but there were many Jewish children. I remember that the director treated me very nicely.

I also remember that we had to wear school uniforms: a brown dress and an apron, first white and then black. We didn't have money to buy the uniform, so my mother sewed me a uniform from two pieces of material. But when I - being very proud of my new uniform - came to school in it, my director told me, 'Don't wear it anymore. It's not supposed to look like that.' With tears in my eyes I came home and my mother said, 'Oh, right, I forgot.' There were several children who didn't wear uniforms.

The director was a good woman. I liked her. I only got very worried when she checked how clean we were. During those checks we had to take off our clothes and I was very ashamed of having old underwear, sewn from different pieces because there were other children with beautiful new underwear. I hated those checks. They took place three times a year and they brought me severe sufferings.

We had good old teachers there. One of them, Yekaterina Alexandrovna, organized balls at school and taught us to dance. Once my father came to watch the ball and danced mazurka with this teacher! Can you imagine? Neither he nor my mother ever learned how to dance but they could dance all the fashionable dances.

There were many interesting things for me at school. I wasn't very good at mathematics. I was the weakest student, probably because I was the youngest. But my teacher, Feofan Kondratyevich, drew the class' attention to how I asked questions and didn't pay much attention to how I solved mathematical problems. He treated me very well. He once even asked my parents to come to school (closer to my graduation) and told them that I should go to the theatrical college. But my parents were skeptical about it; moreover, I was already studying in the music school.

But I was very good at reciting poems. Once, the son of a watchmaker invited my friend, Sarah Shkurovich, who was from quite a rich Jewish family, to take part in a competition of reciting poems. She refused to go alone and said she would take her friends. So, she took Sonya Grif, me, and I took my sister Vera, and we all went to the competition. And all of us recited poems. And I won the first prize. I was awarded a book for this, but it remained in Kiev and was certainly destroyed during the war. My teacher of mathematics gathered children who could recite poems at school. And he invited me too. He gave me poems to learn and I recited them at different competitions.

We spent most of our free time in the yard. We had a wonderful yard. I even have pictures of my friends from my backyard. We had mostly Jewish friends. There was only one German girl, Kaufman, but she was older than us. There was also a shoemaker who lived under our flat. He was a drunkard but a very nice man. He had a daughter, Nastya, who visited him often, and I made friends with her, too. The rest of my friends were Jewish: Sonya Grif, Luba Grif, Sarah Shkurovich (they moved to America). We played different games, but our favorite one was hide-and-seek. We also liked to stage different plays in the yard. We played in the yard, our audience was made up of other children, and we came up with ideas for the plays. Most of the plays were about fairies and queens.

I don't remember any Jewish traditions in the yard, but my father took my brother and me to the synagogue - not often, on major holidays only. Once my friend Sonya invited me to the wedding of her aunt Tanya. There for the first time I saw a chuppah. There were also boys of our age who helped with the wedding. It was a rich family, they had a store where they melted figures for tombstones, made decorations and sculptures. It was right next to our house. They had a wonderful signboard, but the workshop was in the basement.

On the other side of this store was a store that sold furs. It belonged to Rozenberg who had a daughter called Khaya. They lived in our house on the fourth floor, if I'm not mistaken, and they were very rich. They had a dacha, and once their mother took me to the dacha with them but I didn't like it there, it was a very different atmosphere.

I heard about pogroms mostly at the music school. There were many children from families that suffered pogroms. I was told that the Russian and the Polish elite lived in our building in Proreznaya Street. During the Civil War 9, in the yard of No. 19 - it's a cinema or a club now, back then it was a headquarters - I saw dead bodies. But I can't tell you for sure that it was a Jewish pogrom. I only know that when the Germans came there were no dead bodies in that yard. I never thought much about my Jewish identity. Maybe because my whole environment was Jewish.

We got into the music school very simply. Abram sang in the choir of the Opera and the leader of the choir once asked him, 'Abram, do you have any brothers or sisters?' He said, 'Yes, I have sisters.' The teachers said, 'Why don't you bring them here?' So, we came and were tested and admitted. All of us, even Nadya who couldn't walk very well yet. I was her tutor. I always held her by the hand. We were taken by different teachers: Abram was taken by Rabinovich, Vera and I were taken by Zovitskaya, and Nadya was taken by Israilevich. But Nadya couldn't be taught music. She had a musical ear, just like Vera and Abram. And she never wanted to play from music. Everything she played, she played by ear. So, she finally ran away and didn't go to music school any more. She was a wonderful musician. Finally, she went to work as a sound technician at a film studio.

My ear was a little worse. As Abram's teacher Rabinovich said, if I had been alone, without Vera, Nadya and Abram, I would be outstanding. But I went to music school almost every day, because we didn't only have piano lessons - we also studied history and listened to music. We had wonderful teachers: Pelman, Razumovskaya, Yavorsky, Beregovsky. Yavorsky came to teach us occasionally, Balchevsky-Balch, Bertye. My teacher, Zovitskaya, was outstanding.

There were a lot of concerts. At the park where symphonic concerts were given tickets were very expensive. So, Steinberg, who was very kind and loved children, issued us a ticket for 20 people! He once met us when we came to the rehearsal, talked to us, saw that we understood and felt music; he also listened to some of us playing (the best ones, of course, not me). So, he saw that we lived with music and supported us. That's why he issued us a ticket for 20 people and said, 'Please, come, even though it's bad for you to walk late at night, still please come.'

Once my friends and I couldn't get in to a concert. But we still wanted to go very much. So, I climbed through some fences and dirt, but I was caught by the guards. I said, 'Steinberg invited me!' Of course they didn't believe me. But suddenly Steinberg was walking up to us. The guards said, 'Listen, this girl claims that you've invited her. Tell her to stop lying!' And he said, 'Oh, of course she's invited!' And I was allowed in to the concert. He liked everybody who loved music so much. Later I met him in Moscow. He lived in the dormitory of the Conservatory. He recognized me and invited me to visit him. He was a very, very good man.

At home we only spoke Russian. In the beginning we didn't know Yiddish at all. We heard it for the first time when we moved to Kiev. Sometimes father and mother spoke in Yiddish, and we would say, 'Oh, our parents are speaking 'kalya-malya-fe' again. Vera began to go to a Jewish school, so she could read and write in Yiddish a little bit. But that school was far away and it was hard to get there, whereas my school was very close, so Vera was transferred to the same school as me. So, we spoke Russian, while students of the Culture League spoke Yiddish. They laughed at us a little bit, but we taught everybody to speak Russian.

The school of the Culture League gave us everything. That's why I want to do so much in my life, to get everyone 'infected' with my school. Our school was wonderful and our teachers were wonderful. It was at the school of the Culture League that I first realized that I was Jewish. It was a real Jewish school. Before that I had no idea that people were different. But here we were given Jewish books and we had Itsik Fefer and David Gofstein come and teach us. Noah Lurye taught literature. He organized a literary club. He told us about Bialik, Mendele, Sholem Aleichem 10. He also told us about Russian poets and writers. I still remember poems from that school. We had a very good newspaper in Yiddish and Russian that we wrote. We also had some real poets visit us. We were always very impressed when it happened. They talked to us, recited their poems. Then we would recite poems to them.

It was a purely Jewish school. It was in this school that I learned to speak Yiddish; only Yiddish was spoken there. But we weren't only taught Jewish subjects. M. Beregovsky led our children's choir. We sang Jewish folk songs that he brought from his expeditions. One of the girls, Feigele Zelikovskaya, that finished our school became a popular singer. She had a wonderful voice and I still remember the song she sang in our choir. We also sang Mozart's Requiem and staged an opera in which children acted and sang. Then we decided to compose our own opera. We wrote a libretto, music (Vera did most of that) and staged it. It was called Fairy Tale about Fairies. I played a prince. He had different fairies come to him: fairy of freedom, fairy of beauty. And at the end we sang together. The opera was in Yiddish.

As pioneers we also staged some plays, but these plays were distinctly proletarian. They were about fighting and revolution. We knew very well that there were rich people and poor people. For instance, rich kids learned how to play musical scales first. At our music schools we never learned that. We learned to play real works of music from the very beginning. We always laughed at those rich kids who had to learn those special scales and exercises. We also had eurhythmics at school, and our teacher, Marya Petrovna Levitskaya (who was Jewish) always told us that eurhythmics was more important than ballet. But my friend Veta Feldman and I liked ballet more and we secretly took ballet classes.

We always walked around together with friends and our pioneer leader Vitya. We went to see many plays at the theater. It was all very spontaneous. We were silly. We couldn't even speak Yiddish or Russian correctly. Vitya Khanchin taught us to speak Russian properly. He then married an artist from our school, Riva Magid.

Most of the children in the school were 8 to 15-16 years old. Many were from the Jewish shelter, the orphanage. The orphanage was in the center of Kiev. It was a big flat on the fourth or fifth floor. One room was for the girls - for younger and older girls - but they didn't have many boys for some reason, so the boys had a small room to themselves. There were around 50 children, mostly from outside Kiev, from very needy families or families that suffered from Jewish pogroms. Food was good there: potatoes, cabbages, sometimes even meat. It was always enough. When we had nothing to eat at our home we were sent there for a while and we gained some weight. There were three teachers and a governess - Tsipa Ratmanskaya [Lubov Ratmanskaya's cousin]. The owner was both a teacher and the director. The children did everything with their own hands. The Fourth Printing House in Kreschatik Street [the main street of Kiev] helped this orphanage financially. We gave concerts at this orphanage and also in some clubs.

Our life was very hard, and, in 1926, I went to work. Everybody wanted to be a worker with a red scarf back then. I was sent to work in an office, and at first, I was horrified by this work. But I got a wonderful profession there. I worked in a bank in Kreschatik Street and soon became a bookkeeper. Then I entered the English department at university. Then I went to Moscow to the Institute of Foreign Languages. At that time it was called the Institute of New Languages. But this institute was merged with a technical institute and we were supposed to become engineers who knew a foreign language. Well, we learned neither technical things nor language. So, I transferred to the economics department. Finally, in 1932, I found myself in the Engineering and Economics Institute, which I finished in 1937. Part of my diploma project was in English.

I went to Moscow because my sister Vera went to study at the Moscow Conservatory because of Genrich Neigauz. We were afraid to leave her alone, so I went to Moscow. Vera was a very talented pianist. In the morning I'd go and feed her, and then I went to work and to study.

At my Institute I suddenly learned that two boys from our group were arrested. They were simple Russian boys. They disappeared. And other people disappeared as well. At the university we organized a registry office for those students who wanted to get married. We were afraid to live together without getting married. I got married then. My husband's name was Vanya. He was a Cossack. We registered at our students' registry office because we were of different nationalities. We lived together for 4 months, and then he was arrested. He was arrested because he studied at the French department where there were only two boys: my Vanya and a French Jew. They were good friends. So, the French Jew was arrested first, and then, Vanya. Once I sent him some money (10 rubles) when he was in prison, but when I came the next time I was not allowed to pass him money. There were many officers in the reception room, and one of them told me in whisper, 'Girl, don't ever come back here.'

During the war

I got married a second time in 1941. My husband's name was Izya Kogan, he was Jewish. I worked at a radio plant, and he, at the sound recording factory. He recorded the speeches of Stalin and others. On the first day of World War II, he went to join the propaganda unit. He came home twice and the last time he came he brought four kilos of chocolate. Four kilos, when nothing at all could be bought in the stores! I didn't work then. And he got this chocolate and brought it to me. Then he left and I never saw him again. We lived together for one-and-a-half months.

During the war I lived not far from the Red Square. I was left absolutely alone because many people evacuated. I was working at the State Department for Highway Control, whose chief was my friend's husband. I didn't have any documents (they went to evacuation) but he knew me well, so he hired me. I worked there till 1942, when I learned that my mother died in Tashkent.

This is how she and my sister Vera got to Tashkent: they were at a dacha in Svyatoshino in the summer of 1941. Usually, Vera's husband, Kayum Kayburov, a famous violin player, took her to a sanatorium in the summer, but that summer there was some cultural festival and he had to be in Kazan. He was highly evaluated as one of the few Kazakhs with a university education, and he was also a wonderful violin player. They met at the Conservatory. So, in the summer of 1941, my mother went with Vera instead of Kayum. The war broke out unexpectedly. What could they do? Nadya and her film studio [Dovzhenko] were evacuated to Tashkent, and she insisted that mother and Vera should also go there. When I learnt that my mother died, I went to Vera in Tashkent. I cried all the way because I knew that my mother had died but Vera was told that she hadn't died, but that she had lethargic sleep. I brought Vera to Moscow from Tashkent, but I couldn't save her. She died in 1943 of a heart attack.

Father stayed in Kiev. I still have his letters. He never asked for anything in his life, but this time he suddenly wrote me and asked for money because he had nothing to eat. I sent him the money and, miraculously, he got it! He wrote me that he went to the market and bought meat. And I wrote him to leave Kiev immediately, but he didn't want to. He remembered the behavior of the Germans during World War I, so he stayed. After the war, Vera was told that when everyone was told to gather their belongings and go to the square our father said, 'We will be led to death,' and didn't take anything. He was killed in Babi Yar in 1941 11. My brother Abram was also killed, just as his wife Musya Rudnik, and their children Gena and Lara, and Musya's mother, and father's sister Vera Lyakhovetskaya. We aren't sure whether she was shot in Babi Yar, or whether she just died. But she died.

My mother's family lost my cousin Anya Rodnyanskaya [the daughter of her sister Khaya Smekhova] and her little daughter, and Bella Frumkina. They were killed in Belarus.

We had very big family - about 80 people: 32 cousins, with children and grandsons, 10 aunts and uncles. Some left for Israel, some went to America. Some of them (father's nephews) stayed and still live in Kiev. My cousin Lev Gertsenshteyn is the leader of one of the Jewish communities in Moscow. We have always made an effort not to lose contact and wrote each other letters. Some came to my 90th birthday. In order to mention all of them I'd have to write a long book.

After the war

After the war I lived in Zubovsky Boulevard and worked at the housing department as the chief of the planning department. But then two departments merged and I was fired. Later I was asked to return to work because I was good at accountancy. But my boss, Puchkov, was an awful anti- Semite; he tried to make me sign some papers about the fulfillment of plans that had never been fulfilled. He yelled at me, tried to throw me out of his office. But I was bold. I told him, 'I didn't come to work for you, but for the Soviet power.'

It was at that time that I entered the Institute of Foreign Languages. But my boss wouldn't let me off work to take exams. He said to me: 'Who will let you go to university? You're Jewish!' But I still graduated from this institute. Then the campaign against cosmopolitans 12 began and I was fired because my boss found somebody else for my place. I was fired despite the following facts: I had two university degrees, Y. I. Pisareva only had secondary education. I had worked for 10 years and lived in Moscow since 1930. She had only worked for less than 2 years and lived in Moscow since 1950. I lived in an official flat (I lost my own during the war). She had her own flat and lived there with her husband. I was a member of the Communist Party, and she was not. I was Jewish and she was Russian.

I believe no commentary is needed. According to the first four items they had to keep me. But because of the item 5 13 I was fired. For a long time I couldn't find a job. My friend, a Russian, who had studied at the Institute of Foreign Languages with me, said to me, 'I don't believe that you can't find a job because of your nationality. Our department needs a person who speaks English. I'll talk to my chief about an interview. If you don't get this job, I'll believe that it's because of your nationality.' I went to the interview, interpreted some conversations on the phone in English, got answers to a number of questions, and made a written report to the chief. He was very pleased with me and wrote a note to the chief of the personnel department. The chief of the personnel department sent my documents to the personnel department of the Ministry. I didn't get this job. My friend said, 'You were right, it was only because of item 5. Then another friend suggested that I should go to another institute to ask for work. The chief of the information department there asked me to translate an article, then took me personally to the chief of the personnel department. The chief of the personnel department opened my passport and asked in astonishment, 'How dare you to ask for a job here!' When the chief of the information department learned about this he said, 'Well, the personnel department will probably start doing our work soon.'

I had five friends at that time, all Jewish, and we were like sisters. We often discussed dangerous topics and were very concerned about Israel. I am still concerned whether Israel will withstand everything or not, and this relates to the question of whether the Jews will survive or not. If only one [nuclear] bomb is thrown at Israel, she will be gone and with her, a great number of Jews, too. That is why we were against the creation of the State of Israel, just because it was dangerous and would make it possible to get rid of many Jews at once. We talked a lot about it. We knew very well where Golda Meir 14 lived and we often went to that street. We wanted to go and visit her some time, but we understood that we shouldn't.

When I was working at the sanitary-engineering company, the chief engineer there was a Jew. He once whispered to me, 'If I could, I would walk to Israel on foot.' And he had a Russian wife.

I had very good bosses at the sanitary-engineering company. At that time I met Lev Susovich. In the beginning I didn't think anything. I was 40 years old and I thought my life was over. Suddenly he invited me to the stadium. I said I was not interested in such things. He said, 'But what if I'm trying to court you!' I asked, 'Why would you?' and he said, 'What if I want to live my life with you?' He was very handsome, highly educated; I could talk with him about everything. But I told him that I wasn't interested in married men. He asked, 'Who told you I'm married?' (Before that he had told me something about his daughter). I asked, 'How come you're single and have a daughter?' And he said, 'Different things happen in this life.'

Lev came from Volnovakha. When he was a boy he ran to the front to fight in World War I. By the way, this saved his family. His father, a Jew, was a merchant of Guild I 15. And only because Lev had fought at the front were they allowed to sell their house and his father was not arrested. They moved to Donetsk. Lev studied there, but he didn't finish university because the authorities suddenly remembered that he was 'socially inappropriate'. He worked with Bulganin 16 in Moscow, then he was arrested with all of them, then he fought at the front during World War II. He worked at a company next to ours, and that's how we met.

Lev courted me for 2 years. We got married and lived together for 25 years until his death. He was always very caring and nice. He had a daughter, Natasha. Her daughter Katya is like a granddaughter to me. Katya is now married to Dima Shekhtman, who is a professor, physicist and mathematician. They live in France. But they come here twice a year. Katya's children, Masha and Sholom, are my great-grandchildren. They call me Luba.

I'm retired. I worked until 1989. I was 80 when I retired. And I retired only because our institute was closed down, otherwise, I would have kept working. I always want to learn new things. Right now I would gladly start learning about computers.

Regrettably, I have never been to Israel. I always wanted to visit it, but it didn't happen. At the time it wasn't possible. When I was young I wanted to leave for Israel forever, but even to think about this was dangerous before the 1980s. Afterwards, when they all started to leave, I was already over 70. But at such an age it's much more difficult to change from an accustomed lifestyle.

Glossary

1 Jewish Pale of Settlement

Certain provinces in the Russian Empire were designated for permanent Jewish residence and the Jewish population (apart from certain privileged families) was only allowed to live in these areas.

2 Podol

The lower section of Kiev. It has always been viewed as the Jewish region of Kiev. In tsarist Russia Jews were only allowed to live in Podol, which was the poorest part of the city. Before World War II 90% of the Jews of Kiev lived there.

3 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.

4 Komsomol

Communist youth political organization created in 1918. The task of the Komsomol was to spread of the ideas of communism and involve the worker and peasant youth in building the Soviet Union. The Komsomol also aimed at giving a communist upbringing by involving the worker youth in the political struggle, supplemented by theoretical education. The Komsomol was more popular than the Communist Party because with its aim of education people could accept uninitiated young proletarians, whereas party members had to have at least a minimal political qualification.

5 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.

6 NEP

The so-called New Economic Policy of the Soviet authorities was launched by Lenin in 1921. It meant that private business was allowed on a small scale in order to save the country ruined by the Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War. They allowed priority development of private capital and entrepreneurship. The NEP was gradually abandoned in the 1920s with the introduction of the planned economy.

7 Mendele Moykher Sforim (1835-1917)

Hebrew and Yiddish writer. He was born in Belarus and studied at various yeshivot in Lithuania. Mendele wrote literary and social criticism, works of popular science in Hebrew, and Hebrew and Yiddish fiction. In his writings on social and literary problems Mendele showed lively interest in the education and public life of Jews in Russia. He was preoccupied by the question of the role of Hebrew literature in molding the Jewish community. This explains why he tried to teach the sciences to the mass of Jews and to aid the people in obtaining secular education in the spirit of the Haskalah (Hebrew enlightenment). He was instrumental in the founding of modern literary Yiddish and the new realism in Hebrew style, and left his mark on the two literatures thematically as well as stylistically.

8 Bialik, Chaim Nachman

(1873-1934): One of the greatest Hebrew poets. He was also an essayist, writer, translator and editor. Born in Rady, Volhynia, Ukraine, he received a traditional education in cheder and yeshivah. His first collection of poetry appeared in 1901 in Warsaw. He established a Hebrew publishing house in Odessa, where he lived but after the Revolution of 1917 Bialik's activity for Hebrew culture was viewed by the communist authorities with suspicion and the publishing house was closed. In 1921 Bialik emigrated to Germany and in 1924 to Palestine where he became a celebrated literary figure. Bialik's poems occupy an important place in modern Israeli culture and education.

9 Civil War (1918-1920)

The Civil War between the Reds (the Bolsheviks) and the Whites (the anti-Bolsheviks), which broke out in early 1918, ravaged Russia until 1920. The Whites represented all shades of anti- communist groups - Russian army units from World War I, led by anti- Bolshevik officers, by anti-Bolshevik volunteers and some Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. Several of their leaders favored setting up a military dictatorship, but few were outspoken tsarists. Atrocities were committed throughout the Civil War by both sides. The Civil War ended with Bolshevik military victory, thanks to the lack of cooperation among the various White commanders and to the reorganization of the Red forces after Trotsky became commissar for war. It was won, however, only at the price of immense sacrifice; by 1920 Russia was ruined and devastated. In 1920 industrial production was reduced to 14% and agriculture to 50% as compared to 1913.

10 Sholem Aleichem (pen name of Shalom Rabinovich (1859-1916)

Yiddish author and humorist, a prolific writer of novels, stories, feuilletons, critical reviews, and poem in Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian. He also contributed regularly to Yiddish dailies and weeklies. In his writings he described the life of Jews in Russia, creating a gallery of bright characters. His creative work is an alloy of humor and lyricism, accurate psychological and details of everyday life. He founded a literary Yiddish annual called Di Yidishe Folksbibliotek (The Popular Jewish Library), with which he wanted to raise the despised Yiddish literature from its mean status and at the same time to fight authors of trash literature, who dragged Yiddish literature to the lowest popular level. The first volume was a turning point in the history of modern Yiddish literature. Sholem Aleichem died in New York in 1916. His popularity increased beyond the Yiddish-speaking public after his death. Some of his writings have been translated into most European languages and his plays and dramatic versions of his stories have been performed in many countries. The dramatic version of Tevye the Dairyman became an international hit as a musical (Fiddler on the Roof) in the 1960s.

11 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.

12 Campaign against 'cosmopolitans'

The campaign against 'cosmopolitans', i.e. Jews, was initiated in articles in the central organs of the Communist Party in 1949. The campaign was directed primarily at the Jewish intelligentsia and it was the first public attack on Soviet Jews as Jews. 'Cosmopolitans' writers were accused of hating the Russian people, of supporting Zionism, etc. Many Yiddish writers as well as the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested in November 1948 on charges that they maintained ties with Zionism and with American 'imperialism'. They were executed secretly in 1952. The antisemitic Doctors' Plot was launched in January 1953. A wave of anti-Semitism spread through the USSR. Jews were removed from their positions, and rumors of an imminent mass deportation of Jews to the eastern part of the USSR began to spread. Stalin's death in March 1953 put an end to the campaign against 'cosmopolitans'.

13 Item 5

This was the nationality factor, which was included on all job application forms, Jews, who were considered a separate nationality in the Soviet Union, were not favored in this respect from the end of World War WII until the late 1980s.

14 Golda Meir (1898-1978)

Born in Russia, she moved to Palestine and became a well-known and respected politician who fought for the rights of the Israeli people. In 1948, Meir was appointed Israel's Ambassador to the Soviet Union. From 1969 to 1974 she was Prime Minister of Israel. Despite the Labor Party's victory at the elections in 1974, she resigned in favor of Yitzhak Rabin. She was buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem in 1978.

15 Guild I

In tsarist Russia merchants belonged to Guild I, II or III. Merchants of Guild I were allowed to trade with foreign merchants, while the others were allowed to trade only within Russia.

16 Bulganin, Nikolai Aleksandrovich (1895-1975)

Soviet military and political leader. He held posts in industrial management, was mayor of Moscow and chairman of the state bank before World War II. He was made a full member of the politburo in 1948 and also defense minister under Stalin. He was premier from 1955 to 1958. Bulganin was accused of having sided with the 'antiparty faction' that opposed Khrushchev in 1957 and was expelled from the central committee of the party in 1958.

Ilona Seifert

Ilona Seifert
Budapest
Hungary
Interviewer: Dora Sardi and Eszter Andor

My grandfather, Bernáat Riemer was born in ÓObuda. He studied bakery as an apprentice and then became a baker's journeyman. He worked diligently, and later bought the bakery where he had worked. Next to the bakery there was a shop where different kinds of breads, baker's wares, and all kinds of other foodstuffs were sold. They made challah too. Besides this, grandfather had a soda-water workshop.

My grandmother Júulia Krausz was born in Vienna. Her mother tongue was
German, but she could speak perfect Hungarian. They had eight children:
three boys and five girls.

All the children finished middle school, but one of my uncles graduated
from secondary school because he loved studying. My grandfather taught all
his sons the bakery trade because he said it was a very good trade; because
no matter what the world came to, people would always need bread and water.
So, all of his sons became bakers.

The girls were brought up to work too, they had to learn to tend the
counter in the shop and they worked there until they got married. There
were four girls; two were always in the shop, in fact only family members
worked there. Grandmother also worked in the shop and usually sat at the
cash till. Apart from having to work, the girls were given everything:
they got the nicest clothes, the best education, they learnt languages,
played the piano, and went out with their mum. Grandfather and grandmother
put a lot of emphasis on taking the children to many balls in the winter.
The girls got beautiful ball gowns, and they didn't want for anything, but
they were in the shop all year long.

Among the workers of the bakery there were Jews and non-Jews as well, but
that didn't matter. Grandfather had such a good social sense, that
everybody who worked there and all members of the family ate lunch at the
same table at noon. This is what it was like: The apartment was almost next-
door to the shop, and there was a long table in it where about twenty-two
to twenty-four people sat every day. Everybody ate the same meal together,
as grandfather didn't distinguish between family and the workers, however
everybody had to be extremely punctual for lunch, because he was awfully
fussy about that.

At grandfather's place, a cook made the meals and there was also a maid to
care for the apartment, because it was quite large. There was a huge
bedroom, a huge dining hall where the forty-two of us sat at Seder night,
plus a parlor, and two or three bedrooms where the children slept. In the
dining room there was a great big dining-room side-board and another
smaller one, both packed with beautiful porcelain ware and glassware.
Granddad and grandma went to Karlsbad for three or four weeks every summer,
and they always brought back a lot of porcelain-ware, and, of course
souvenirs for the children and grandchildren. My parents and the other
children who were married at the time always got a porcelain set or a set
of drinking-glasses. And we, the younger children got silk underwear,
because there they could get this Milan underwear, which it was not
possible to get here in those days.

Every day, a barber came to the house to give my grandfather a shave. My
grandmothers (both paternal and maternal,) had hairdressers come every
morning to help them with their hair; At the time they wore their long hair
up, with a bun in the middle, and they couldn't comb it themselves.

At grandfather's they had several coaches, both open and closed ones, which
they went out in. They had horses and a stable, and carriages for the
bakery, because they delivered to other shops as well.

My grandparents were very religious; they were not orthodox, but they
observed all the holidays. They didn't work on the Sabbath and the bakery
and the shop was not open then, but they were on Sundays. At Pesach they
had to "sell" the whole bakery. It was a kind of mock-sale, as it was
always sold to one of the leading baker's journeymen.

At the holiday times, the family assembled. The children and grandchildren
came, though other relatives usually did not, with the exception of one
uncle, Miksa Riemer (my grandfather's brother) who was widowed. He was
always invited.

Grandfather died in 1927, and following his death, the bakery and the shop
closed down. None of his children took them over, because they all had
their businesses own already. Grandmother lived until about the end of the
1930's. When she couldn't be at home any more, she moved into a very, very
elegant nursing home somewhere in Zugliget. That was a strictly Jewish
kosher place and she received the best care.

My maternal grandfather Samu Wollner was born in Ozora, and my grandmother
in Szenc. They also had a bakery, and a bakery shop, too. But unlike the
one owned by my paternal grandparents, it was smaller (they only had about
8-10 workers) and the common lunch was never introduced there and so
everybody went and ate separately. The boys were taught the bakery trade,
but the two girls didn't work, I think. Grandmother was in the shop on her
own, and when it was a business was brisk, there was a helper in the
bakery.

The Wollner grandparents had an apartment with four rooms plus a hall,
which I can also remember. It was nicely furnished too, but they didn't
have as large a collection of porcelain as my other grandparents did,
because they didn't go to Karlsbad. There were very nice carved pieces of
furniture, a standing clock - which was fashionable then - and a lot of
silverware. I remember that the display case was always full of silver:
trays and tableware. They had only one coach, and they had a coachman for
it, too. They did not have financial problems either, although they were
not as rich as my other grandparents.

Although grandmother loved cooking, they had a cook for a while. And
later, when they were left alone with grandfather, then they didn't need a
cook. There was a general housemaid, one of the little village girls
grandmother liked to train. And there was the washerwoman, who did just one
great big wash every month, though this took about 2-3 days.

I spent much more time at these grandparents. They lived much closer than
the Riemer grandparents did, and grandmother allowed much more. For
example, if somebody bought a kilo of bread, I could take handle the money.
Or when, at the weekends, the cholent was brought in dishes and a number
had to be labelled onto each pot, and the owner of the pot got the same
number: I was allowed to cut the number off the block, stick it onto the
pot and place it in its owner's hands. So she was much more grandmotherly.
The other grandmother was rather distant and more spoiled - we had to kiss
her hands in the formal way. I visited them about once in a month with
daddy.

We liked being there (at our maternal grandparent's) a lot. Grandfather
taught me to play chess and we would play for hours. He had time for me
during the day, as he didn't have much to do then, although he was down in
the bakery at five in the morning. He always used to take a nap in the
afternoon, and then go to the baker's casino every day (my other
grandfather went there less frequently).

They were very strictly religious, but they were also not orthodox. My
grandmother was the most religious of my grandparents. She began to make
the kosher dishes for Pesach months early. They belonged to the Páava
street synagogue-district, and they donated money for the construction of
the synagogue.

My mommy had four siblings, three boys and a girl. The first one was Pali,
who died for his country in World War I. Then there was Oszkar who married
my daddy's younger sister, Iréenke. The third boy was Sáandor, who was a
baker too, and also had a shop next to the bakery. My mommy's sister was
Kláara. She married a man named Sáandor Beck and gave birth to a little
boy. They also had a bakery, and Kláara worked in the shop.

My father was born in Budapest in 1894. He also learned the bakery trade,
just like his brothers. My mother was born in 1897, also in Budapest. They
got married in 1917, and they bought this house then. It was a single story
house and they extended it by building more stories on top. We lived in it,
and it also housed daddy's mechanized bakery and soda-water workshop. My
father's bakery was the first one to use a steam oven for baking bread.
There were two additional floors above the bakery. On the first floor
potatoes were kept. People liked potato bread a lot at that time, and every
day many hundredweight of potatoes arrived; There were about forty women
who peeled the potatoes. Then they were boiled, and put in the potato
masher, and sent straight down to the ground floor where there was the
trough in which leaven was mixed with a mixing machine. On the second floor
were at least eight apartments for the permanent staff members. These
apartments had all modern conveniences, including kitchens.

We had a lot of workers, and carriages and horses, there were about 22
horses, if not more. The workshop was in the backyard along with a stable
for the horses and a carriage-house for the carriages. We already had an
automobile quite early in the beginning of the thirties. There was a live-
in chauffeur, who took us to school every day and then brought us back home
again later. Father also drove and mommy took the 'automobile driver's
examination' as well, but when they went out somewhere, the chauffeur
drove; That was chic.

There was a terrace rather than a roof, on top of the house and my parents
had a garden made for us there, with a child's sandbox, a flower garden and
beautiful garden furniture set. There were eight rooms in our apartment:
bedroom, children's room, parlor, dining room, drawing room, living room.
The parlor was beautiful. It had golden furniture in, including two large
standing mirrors with golden frames. Then there was a drawing room for
daddy - with a suite of furniture, bookshelf and a filing cabinet. The
living room was a great big room and we actually spent the whole day there.
We even dined there sometimes.

Then there was a huge dining hall. It was a special room with lovely
furniture and carpets, which had to be taken care of: you couldn't drop
crumbs or make them dirty every day. We used the dining room when we had
company at the house. There were plenty of guests in our house because at
the time social life was very fashionable. My parents usually invited
factory owners like themselves, wholesalers, merchants, district borough
members and suchlike. I loved the guests, and we were dressed nicely on
these occasions. I sang, and mommy played the piano. My sister did not
often come in, because she was shy. After supper the women usually went
into the parlor had a chat there, and the men stayed in the parlor or went
to the drawing room.

The children's room was furnished with white pieces of furniture. Our
'fraulein' slept there with us. There was one room just for the live-in
cook and another small room for the maid. Nobody slept in the kitchen.

Naturally there was a bathroom with running water and a tub connected to a
bathroom stove that had to be heated up. At that time people took a bath
only on Sundays, and if someone took a bath every day she was considered
kind of a bad girl. But we took a bath least every other day or so.

I was born in Budapest in 1921. I was named after one of my aunts. She had
died in 1918 during the Spanish flu epidemic, and my grandmother asked her
daughter-in-law that if her child was a girl, she should be named Ilona, in
her honor.

Not long after my birth a German 'fraulein' came to us from Graz, Austria.
Herta spent eight years with us, and our first language was German. We
spent the whole day with our 'fraulein': we spoke, sang and played with
dolls. We went for walks with her; 'Ferenc téer' was close to our home, and
I loved going, because there were always so many children there. There were
times when we went for a walk with mommy, and we would go to a
confectioner's and drink hot chocolate, or coffee with cream.

We observed all the religious holidays before the War. We were not
orthodox, but we took chicken to the shochet we bought meat in kosher
shops. We observed the Sabbath: there was no lighting, nor were the meals
heated-up. Later, after the war it was no longer that strict. In our house
the typical Friday night meal was gefillte fish, meat soup, and, I think,
breast or back of goose, mashed potato and pickles. I remember as it got
closer to Pesach, they began preparing the ovens for the holiday and there
were special Pesach dishes. Seder nights too, remain unforgettable. Every
other year the first Seder was always held at my maternal grandmother's
house and the second at the paternal grandmother's, and in the following
year, the situation was reversed. There were more children at my paternal
grandparents', so there were about 34-36 of us there, and 28 at the other
place. We children had small colored drinking glasses and we got a tiny
drop of wine, and we had fun together at the end of the table.

We spent every Sunday with our parents. We talked a lot and we also went to
the movies, when we were a little older. I remember we went to the Corvin
cinema every Sunday, where a ticket cost one pengo, and we always sat in
the same place. We were taken to theatrical plays that were held on Sunday
afternoons and on such occasions our 'fraulein' also came along with us. My
parents went to the theatre but not often. Sometimes when the weather was
nice, we went to Lake Balaton, but we never had our summer holidays there.

We went to Abbazia (Opatia, in Croatia today) and to Semmering (Austria)
for summer holidays from early childhood until quite late. We went to
Semmering supposedly to give us a better appetite, because we were so
skinny. Daddy came to Semmering only at the weekends. We spent a month at
both places. In Abbazia, he was with us for a few days, sometimes even for
two weeks, but we were there with mommy for a month (and in Semmering too).

The whole extended family went down to Abbazia at the same time. We went
there by train. Oh, that was a big journey, it took almost a whole day, and
we also had to change trains at Fiume (Rijeka today, in Croatia) with our
large amounts of luggage. We all lived in Breiner Hotel, which was a
strictly kosher hotel. I remember that the meat table and the meat section
were set with red covers, and the milk ones with nice blue tablecloth. You
could eat meat or milk-based meals, but the two parts were separated. This
one was the only kosher hotel in Abbazia, so all our Jewish acquaintances
also went there. The family all went together, my mother and the two of us
children, the two of us (and of course the fraulein - if she worked all
year, it was natural that we didn't leave her out and go on holiday without
her!) My mother's younger sister with her two sons went, as did the
grandparents, and I think, others as well. There were a lot of children in
Abbazia, acquaintances, lots of relatives and neighbors. Everybody knew
everybody. There was also always a rabbi, who spent his summer holiday
there, because the place was kosher enough that he could come. And he gave
a religious service every Sabbath, as there was a synagogue there too.

I went to elementary school in Mester street. That was a prole (working
class) neighborhood; children of workers went there and we, who came from
better-off houses, were told to bring double portions of elevenses (second
breakfast) so the children who didn't get it from home, could also have a
share. It was assigned who should bring two of what, and we gave it all to
the schoolmistress in the morning, so that no-one actually saw who got
whose elevenses, but the poorer children got the same thing as the children
of richer households. In the elementary school I didn't make many friends
among my classmates, because when we came out of school our fraulein was
always already waiting for us, and we went to Ferenc square and played
there, where we had friends who were Jewish too.

After the elementary we both my sister and me got into Veres Páalnée High
School. We had to wear uniforms at school. They were a dark-blue 'bocskai'
[Hungarian national dress] for weekdays, striped linen in the spring, and
for holidays, there was a white blouse. There were more Jews in the class
than non-Jews: There were about 42 in total and 24 of us were Jews. But
there was not a single Jew amongst the teachers, except the religious
studies teacher. However the Jews and the non-Jews got along perfectly well
with each other, so well that the class have been meeting almost every
three months or so since graduation right up until the present day. There
was only a single anti-Semitic statement by someone but she has since
protested a million times that it was a misunderstanding. When we wore
rosettes of the national colours on March 15 (national holiday of Hungary,
anniversary of the revolution in 1848) she said: " It's a good mask for you
Jews, that you wear it, too." Veres Páalnée was an excellent school. It was
the school of the National Woman's Training Association, and the first all-
girls high school in the whole of Budapest.

During high school years, from 1937-1938 there were so-called house-
parties. I remember that we had Jewish company and not many Christians were
there. From the parties we were not allowed to go home alone, and the
parents would come to fetch us. We went to the theatre too, but then as
well, the father or mother of one of us always came to collect us
afterwards, as we were not allowed to go alone in the evening. Later, when
we were about 16-17 years old, we were allowed to go on hikes and biking
too.

I was about 14-16 years old when I went to Gizi Utasi for a few years. She
had a school, where she taught stage dance and acrobatics. I always loved
gymnastics, and loved going there. At the end of the year, there always was
a performance in the operetta-theatre of the capital, in which the students
sang and danced. There were at least 10-12 of us. We learnt to play the
piano at home as the piano teacher always came to us and we learned
languages (French) at home too.

While I was still at high school I got accepted to the singing faculty of
the Academy of Music, because I had a very good voice, I went there for two
years, and then as a consequence of the anti-Jewish laws I did not have the
opportunity to study further.

In 1939 I graduated from high school and I went to work in my father's
workshop. I was in charge of the whole soda-water workshop, because my
father, who was the president of the trade - didn't have enough time for it
himself. He was awfully proud of me. I learnt a lot there, such as
determination, leadership skills, and it really determined my whole life.

(Mrs Seifert declined to talk of the Holocaust or of the family members she
lost)

I was neither in the Budapest ghetto, nor deported during the Holocaust; I
just went into hiding. My sister and I were hidden in many, many different
apartments and we were helped by very many non-Jews. Mommy was hiding too,
mostly with daddy. Some sort of instinct suggested not going anywhere where
many Jews were being gathered together. On the 15th of November 1944, I was
drafted into the national clothing collecting unit, which was situated in
the former Jewish school in Abonyi utca. The whole family went there and it
was from there that we were liberated.

In 1945 my parents reopened the soda-water workshop in place of the old
one, which had been looted. In the mornings I went to the district of Pava
utca. Out of the old believers only a very few came back and a couple of
the children were found. But there was nowhere to put the children, and the
adults could not work. So I proposed to building a nursery. I learnt that
the first delegation of Joint (American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee) had arrived in Budapest, and I went to them to ask them for
their help with the nursery. They offered to open not only a nursery but
also a day care home for older children. They also set up a kitchen, and
covered all its costs.

The nursery was ready in a very short time. Most of the leaders of the
Jewish community of Budapest came to the opening and people came from
abroad too. When the inauguration was over, the district ceremony's speaker
was asked to thank Miss Ili Riemer for the huge amount of work she had
done. I didn't know who was going to do this, but shortly I found out that
it was Dr. Geza Seifert, (attorney at law). His family lived there in the
district, and he attended the synagogue in Pava utca, too. When I first saw
him I said to myself: "I've dreamt about a man like him my entire life, and
he, and only he, could become my husband." And then I went along to the
synagogue with daddy on Friday nights, and after prayer daddy kindly lagged
behind and so my future husband always walked me home. A few months later
he asked me if I was willing to board a ship of which he was the commander.
I replied that it would be the most beautiful moment of my life. Our
wedding was in 1947 in the Dohany utca synagogue. Our daughter was born in
1948. (She now works as a graduate and has a son who has also graduated
from university.)

We kept a kosher house with my husband (it loosened up only after his
death). I had a cook who knew everything about the kosher household. She
said she had served only good houses and wouldn't have been employed if she
hadn't known so much about how to manage a kosher house. And she even said
that she wouldn't work for anyone but Jews, because she'd once been at a
non-Jewish family where the staff hadn't had the same meals the family ate,
and it had really hurt them. At Jewish households however, this was not he
case: what the family ate, was also eaten out in the kitchen and the meals
were not portioned, there was always plenty to go around. Then I had
somebody to look after the child, which was her only task the whole day,
but I was the only one to take her for walks.

From the time I got married, my husband didn't allow me to work. He said: I
earn enough that we can live very well, and what I like is that when I come
home my wife is there, so you shall just be my wife and our child's mother.
Until he closed his eyes forever, I had never had a job; I had only taken
part in Jewish matters, and helped him. But I was always busy doing
something.

My husband had his own attorney's office. It was a co-operative at the
time, but he asked for, and got, permission to work his office hours at
home, since the apartment was large enough. Two weeks after we were married
I went to learn typing and shorthand. He already had two secretaries and
two trainee lawyers in the office, but I adored him and I wanted to be at
his disposal in every way. So on Saturday nights and Sundays he dictated to
me. During the week I went to the court and I copied out the files of my
husbands client's in his criminal cases. My husband also entrusted me with
managing releases and such.

We received a car quite early on, the basis that my husband simultaneously
administered the duties of the deputy president of Jewish Community of
Budapest (Israelite Community of Budapest.) and his position at the lawyer
co-operative. Since he was first elected president then deputy president
and he was elected to be the vice-president of the National Representative
Board of Hungarian Israelites in 1966. (He performed this duty until 1976
when he closed his eyes.) So we got "the Moskvich". We used to be very
proud because when we went walking on Vaci utca after the office, whe'd
always return to the car to find 10-15 people around it: squatting, looking
underneath it. We would just watch them. Later better cars came along, but
none of the others attracted the same admiration as the Moskvich had.

I spent my entire life in service for Jews. Since I was a young girl, I had
worked in the youth group, which was under the auspices of the district
woman's group. Since there were poor families at that time too, (not
everybody was rich or wealthy) every boy and girl in the youth group was
allocated a family in great need. Naturally, we asked money from our
parents to support them, and they gladly gave, because they were happy that
we were learning about social Jewish life, and that giving to help others
is one of the most beautiful things. So we supported them. Izrael Klein was
my family, they had seven children. But I provided them with everything.

After 1945 I participated in rebuilding Jewish life as a member of the
youth group. Later I became a member of the Jewish community woman's group.
I began in Pava utca, then the central woman's section of BIH (Israelite
Community of Budapest) was formed and when the president died, I was
elected and went on to be the president of the woman's section for twenty-
something years.

When my husband was elected, first as deputy president, then as president,
he was invited abroad a lot for Jewish matters, owing to the leading role
he played in the Jewish world congress. I always went with him, as he
accepted these invitations only on the condition that he could take me
along. We went to almost all the cities of Europe.

After the death of my husband I was invited (by the State Office of
Religious Affairs) to be the general secretary of the Israelite Community.
I told them that I would take the position only after asking the orthodox
president and the chief rabbi, and they agreed to this. When I went and I
told them the offer I had been made, the chief rabbi said: " It doesn't say
in the Sulkhan Arukh that the general secretary of the BIH has to be a man,
so why can't a woman do that? But on one condition: that you walk the same
path your husband did". And then he said afterwards: "Let me the first one
to bless you" So, in 1976 I was elected to be general secretary, and I
filled this position for 15 years. Then I went to work for Joint. This is
how it happened.: The Joint came to Hungary in 1945, to help rebuilding
Jewish life here. When after the Six-Day War, the Israeli ambassador was
sent home, the Joint was also closed down. And when Jewish groups came here
from abroad, there was nobody to welcome them, and they always phoned me
from Joint to do it. This way I played a key role between the Jewish
community and the Joint and they knew me well.

When the 15 years as the general secretary of BIH was about to end, Joint
asked me how long I wanted to stay general secretary. I told them that I
would be resigning at the next election. To this they replied: "so, it may
be possible for you to come over to us?"

I said: "To be honest: it has been my dream and desire all my life, to work
for Joint, because there is no more beautiful work than helping people." So
the Joint came back, and they asked me to open the office on the first of
July 1990. Since then I have been a protocol chief, and with God's blessing
I managed office affairs and foreign relations.

Lydia Piovarcsyova

Lydia Piovarcsyova
Bratislava
Slovakia

Family background

Growing up

During the war

Post-war

Glossary

 

Family background">Family background

I was born on 2nd April 1933 in Bratislava into an urban Jewish family,
whose Bratislava roots date back to the first half of the 19th century. The
Steiner family came to Bratislava in the 18th century. One could say that
our prime began in 1846, when my great-grandfather established a second-
hand bookshop he named after himself, Steiner. Today the store is managed
by my cousin Selma and I'm proud to say that it is one of the most
important cultural centers of Bratislava. It is the heart of the old town,
and the front of the store looks like it did a hundred years ago.

On the Steiner side, I didn't know my great-grandparents. When I was born
they were already dead. My grandfather Sigmund Steiner was born in Kojetin,
then Austria-Hungary, in 1821. As far as I know he was an Orthodox Jew. He
was married to Josephine Steinerova, nee Bendinerova, my grandmother, who
was born in 1814 and died in 1891 in Bratislava. They had a big family; ten
children: Jozef, my father, who died in Auschwitz in 1942, and then my
aunts and uncles Nely, Wilhelm, Moritz, Siegfried, Esperance, Max, Margit,
Gustav and Josefine.

Three Steiner brothers fought as soldiers in World War I. For some military
achievements - I'm not sure what exactly - they were all awarded medals.
The oldest of the three was Doctor Siegfried Steiner, Zelma's father. The
second was Jozef, my father, and the third one was Max, who was later the
owner of the Steiner bookshop along with my father. All the Steiner
brothers and sisters lived in Bratislava, except for their sister Margit,
who is buried in the Orthodox cemetery in Bratislava, next to my
grandmother.

My mother Margita Steiner, nee Abrahamova, was born in Banovce nad
Bebravou. Her father Jakub Abraham was a watchmaker. He was born in Tarnov,
then Austria-Hungary in 1876, came to Slovakia as a businessman and settled
in Zabokreky nad Nitrou. He fell in love with my grandmother Ella, they got
married and lived in Banovce nad Bebravou on the village's beautiful
square. He and my grandmother were both very good-looking people. He was a
Nordic type, blonde with blue eyes. My grandmother was of Spanish origin.
Her family left Spain when the inquisition expelled the Jews; their Spanish
name was Aguilar. She had a typical Spanish appearance, black hair, big
dark eyes and pale skin. In a picture of her, taken when she was fifty, she
looked like Jose Careras. I think they must have had the same ancestors; in
the family there were many singers, even opera singers. Many intellectuals,
university professors, in Vienna and other places, were from that family.

When my grandmother got married they lived in Banovce. From Banovce they
moved to Kezmarok in 1942 to live near their daughter Irenka. They learned
that their son was again wanted by the police and the police wanted to
arrest them as hostages. So they left for Kezmarok to avoid this. Later my
grandmother went to Budapest with Irenka. My grandfather Jakub died during
an operation in 1948; the doctors didn't know that he had high blood
pressure. He is buried in the Orthodox cemetery in Kosice.

My grandparents had a shop and lived with the Weinberger family. There was
a long yard, on one side there was the watchmaker and jewelry shop of my
grandfather, and just opposite was the big grocery store of the
Weinberger's. They were a big family; their daughter was called Renka. All
of them died in the gas chambers in 1942.

My grandparents on my mother's side had three children. The eldest son was
called Viliam. He was an educated man, a pharmacist and a chemist as well.
He was an illegal activist during the war. [Editor's note: He was most
likely an illegal communist] He was hiding, then he was arrested in Ilava
and imprisoned in solitary confinement. He learned several languages there.
He spoke ten languages. When he was released he worked in Smolenice with a
Hungarian pharmaceutical family. He lived there until 1944. He invented a
medicine against chin cough. He gave it to poor children for free. When the
Germans found out, they asked him to give them the medicine. He refused, so
they took him away and deported him to a concentration camp. He died of
typhoid fever in Landsberg concentration camp. I don't know where is it, I
just know that he died there. [Editor's note: Landsberg concentration camp
was situated near munich, today Germany.]

My mother had a twin sister, Irenka, who got married to Mr. Winczer in
Kezmarok. They had a son called Palo. Her husband was killed in a
concentration camp, they threw him down the hill on a pile of stones in a
stone quarry. The boy stayed alone. He lived in Poland for several years
and when they learned he was of Slovak origin from Kezmarok, they contacted
the police and the boy came back to Slovakia. Irenka married for the second
time in Budapest, then she lived in Kosice and died in Bratislava in 1997.
She is buried in the Neolog 1 cemetery in Bratislava under the name
Galambosova. When we went to see Irenka, she needed a lot of nursing: to
iron, to tidy, to do some shopping. There was always very little time, we
were in a hurry and had no time to see the cemetery.

My father was born in 1895 in Bratislava, Slovakia, then Austria-Hungary.
He also ended his life in the Holocaust, in Auschwitz concentration camp in
1942.

Growing up">Growing up

I often stayed with my grandparents in Banovce nad Bebravou during
holidays. At home I had a nanny because my mother worked. I have to say
that I was never really close to my mother. She never had time for me, so I
don't know much about her.

I studied at an Orthodox Jewish school on Zochova Street in my first and
second years, and Vilma Lowyova was my teacher. I remember one girl from
school. She was an orphan; her name was Kaufmanova. She died in the
Holocaust. We weren't friends. The children played together in groups
according to their social status. Children from better-off families were
grouped together and didn't know the others.

My best friend was Sulamit Nagelova. Her father had an antique shop on
Kapucinska Street, but a library is there nowadays. Sulamit was a blonde
girl with blue eyes and I loved her very much. She also died in the
Holocaust. One girl survived; she was called Ullmanova. One of her
relatives was a journalist. She had wavy hair, was so beautiful and so self-
confident - even as a child. I cannot remember the other children because I
grew up in quite some isolation. I had a nanny and wasn't allowed to play
with other children. I always had to play alone.

On Saturdays we used to visit our family, so I knew my cousins, but I
couldn't play with other children; they couldn't come to see us and I
couldn't really go anywhere. I don't know why it was like this. I had to
speak English at home. I could speak English perfectly then because Zigi's
mother was an Englishwoman and she spoke to me in English only. But I was a
lazy girl and I forgot all my English.

During the war">During the war

During the war the Jewish Center was on Kozia Street, in the house where
Mrs. Alexandrova lives today. I have a photograph of my mother taken on
17th July 1941. She looks terribly worried in that picture. My mother was
very pretty, and they used to speak about her as the beauty of Bratislava.
But in this picture her worries are already visible in her features. My
mother died in Auschwitz in 1942.

She filled in the mandatory Jewish identity card with her own handwriting;
she had a very nice handwriting, inherited from her mother. I would like to
donate that photograph to an institution, because I think it has historical
value. I tried to make a copy of it, but the copy wasn't good. The yellow
color of the card must be seen because I think it's symbolical; the
photopaper simply must be yellow.

During the war my grandparents and aunt in Kezmarok took care of me. After
the Slovak National Uprising 2 started and after Slovakia's occupation by
the German army, I stayed in Bratislava. In 1945 I was imprisoned by the
Gestapo and taken to Theresienstadt 3, where I went through atrocities
and sufferings. Finally, after May 1945, I was able to return home.

Post-war">Post-war

After the Holocaust, I lived with my relatives in Kezmarok. I graduated
from high school in 1952. Later on I enrolled in Economic University in
Prague and graduated in 1957. A few years before that, in 1953, I married
my non-Jewish friend Karol Piovarcsy with whom I have been living until
now. My husband and I returned to Slovakia, to Poprad, where he was
employed by an industrial company. My father's hair was thick and wavy; my
son Karol, born in 1953, inherited it, it's just not as pitch-black as my
father's. And in fact, I inherited it, too. The Steiner family had mostly
wavy hair, a bit African, I suppose you could say. Who knows where we
really come from.

Some members of our family are buried in Kosice, in the Orthodox cemetery.
It's very sad that there is nobody taking care of this cemetery. I've never
been to Kosice since the war. And we've only visited my grandmother's grave
twice.

Not long after the war I visited Banovce with my husband. The house was in
its place, and they even let me see the apartment where my grandparents
used to live. Later, when I was there on a business trip, I was completely
shocked. Not only that the Jews were all gone - everybody perished in the
Holocaust - but they had also destroyed the town. I mean that literally;
even the beautiful square was demolished during the Communist rule. In
Bohemia they would have never demolished such a beautiful square with its
typical one-storied houses. All the shops were owned by Jews.

The Steiner children who survived the Holocaust, apart from me, because I
didn't live in Bratislava are: Cvi, Cipora, Natan, Shoshana, David, Chana,
Jehoshua. All of them live in Israel now, only Cipora died long ago in
Israel. She was married to an Israeli scientist and her daughter is an
artist.

I worked as a high school professor in Poprad. In 1972 we moved with our
two children Karol and Jana, born in 1958, to Bratislava. I worked there
until I retired three years ago. At present, I work at the Bratislava
Jewish Community Center.

Glossary">Glossary

1 Neolog Jewry

Following a Congress in 1868/69 in Budapest, where the
Jewish community was supposed to discuss several issues on which the
opinion of the traditionalists and the modernizers differed and which aimed
at uniting Hungarian Jews, Hungarian Jewry was officially split into two
(later three) communities, which all built up their own national community
network. The Neologs were the modernizers, who opposed the Orthodox on
various questions.

2 Slovak National Uprising

3 Terezin/Theresienstadt

A ghetto in the Czech Republic, run by the SS.
Jews were transferred from there to various extermination camps. It was
used to camouflage the extermination of European Jews by the Nazis, who
presented Theresienstadt as a 'model Jewish settlement'. Czech gendarmes
served as ghetto guards, and with their help the Jews were able to maintain
contact with the outside world. Although education was prohibited, regular
classes were held, clandestinely. Thanks to the large number of artists,
writers, and scholars in the ghetto, there was an intensive program of
cultural activities. At the end of 1943, when word spread of what was
happening in the Nazi camps, the Germans decided to allow an International
Red Cross investigation committee to visit Theresienstadt. In preparation,
more prisoners were deported to Auschwitz, in order to reduce congestion in
the ghetto. Dummy stores, a cafe, a bank, kindergartens, a school, and
flower gardens were put up to deceive the committee.

Yakov Driz

Yakov Driz
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya

My family background
Growing up
School years
During the war
Post-war
Anti-Semitism
Married life
Glossary

My family background

I was born in the town of Tomashpol, in the Vinnitsa region of
Ukraine, on 3 July 1937. I was given the name Shloima-Yankel, in honor of
both my grandfathers. The origin of our family name Driz is as follows: In
the 1700s my great grandfather was to enlist in a 25-year term of service
in the tsarist army. Such military service was very difficult, and so to
spare him this hardship, his family decided to hide him somewhere far away
from Tomashpol. Since he had no education and could barely write out
Gaisinskiy, his last name, they decided to give him a new last name. They
just made one up, and all his descendants were called by this new family
name - Driz.

Shloima Driz, my father's father, was born in 1860. All I know about
him is what my parents told me, as he died before I was born. My
grandfather was an educated man for his time. He could play the violin, he
loved music, and he read a lot. He owned a store that sold all kinds of
merchandise - from food products to fabrics and shoes. My father worked as
a clerk in my grandfather's store. From time to time my grandfather took
business trips abroad. He usually traveled to Poland, where he purchased
fabrics. In 1920 the Soviet power expropriated my grandfather's store. My
grandfather couldn't overcome this shock. He contracted tuberculosis and
died in 1921.

My grandmother Eheived (this was her real name, and she was also
called Eva), born Averbuch, was a modest, religious woman. The family lived
in Tomashpol, one of many Jewish towns in the Vinnitsa region. My
grandmother was born the same year as my grandfather. My grandmother
Eheived starved to death in 1933 during the famine in the Ukraine1. Like
my grandfather, she was buried at the Jewish cemetery in accordance with
all Jewish traditions. She gave birth to ten children, eight of which
survived. My father, Abram Driz, born in 1884, was the oldest. The youngest
was Boris (Borukh) Driz, born in 1904. The difference between their ages
was 20 years. I can't remember all of my father's brothers and sisters, but
I can tell briefly about those I knew. One of his brothers, Nuhim, was an
active revolutionary and a Komsomol activist2. In 1919 he was killed in
Kiev while trying to escape from prison. He may have been killed by a
Denikin gang3. Another brother, Shmul or Samuel, was a poet. He and two
sisters who were dentists moved to the United States of America in 1919 or
1920. My father was not able to move to America with his brother and his
sisters, because as the oldest of the children, he had to support his
family by working, and did not have the opportunity to continue his
education. My father had only a primary school religious education. There
were two other brothers - I can't remember their names. One of the brothers
lived in Odessa. I don't know what he did to earn a living. In 1941 he and
his family - his wife Rieva and his daughter Tsylia perished in the Odessa
ghetto. His second brother - I don't remember his name - lived in
Privokzalnaya Street in Vinnitsa. Like my father, he was uneducated, and
worked as loader and carrier at the market to support his wife and two
children. They were killed by the Germans in 1941. Boris, my father's
younger brother, served in the Soviet army and then resumed his
agricultural studies, graduating from Moscow's Academy of Agriculture. He
enjoyed farming. Later, he became director of the first vehicle and tractor
maintenance facility in the Ukraine, located in the Odessa region. When the
war began he went to the front. In 1945 he served in the Soviet army in
Eastern Prussia. From there he was transferred to the Japanese front.
Later, the Ministry of Agriculture requested his return, as he was an
experienced specialist. He became director of the selection facility for
grain crops. He became Chief Agriculture Specialist in the Ulianovsk
region. Boris spent his last years in Ulianovsk, where he died in the
1960s.

Yiddish was spoken in my father's family, which was religious. They
always celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays and strictly observed all
Jewish traditions. My grandmother, Eheived, followed the kashruth and often
went to the synagogue. My father told me that they had beautiful Pesach
dishes in the house.

My parents married in 1917. My mother's name was Tsypa; her family
name was Zeltser. She was born in the Jewish town of Miastkovka - now
Gorodovka - not far from Vinnitsa, in 1893. The only thing I know about my
mother's parents is that her father's name was Yankel. After their wedding
my parents moved to Tomashpol. My mother's parents died before I was born.
My mother often told me that she was a granddaughter of the Miastkovka
rabbi, even at that time when it was dangerous to mention such facts. They
had three daughters in the family. My mother was the youngest. Their oldest
daughter, Haika, born in 1890 moved to the village of Velikays Kostnitsa
near Bessarabia, in the Vinnitsa region, on the Dnestr River. My aunt's
husband worked at the local mill. They had no children. At the beginning of
the war Aunt Haika's husband went to the front. There, he fell in love
with a nurse and never returned to my aunt after the war. She moved to
Tomashpol and lived there with my parents until she died. The second sister
was born in 1892. I don't remember her name. She and her husband David
Krivoviaz died during some epidemic. They had a daughter named Manya. My
parents took Manya to live with us, and she stayed until she got married.
We spoke Yiddish in our family. The daughters were educated at home, and
didn't go to school, but had private teachers teach them to read and write,
as well as the rules of conduct in society, good manners and foreign
languages - German, French.

My mother was very well educated for her time, she could read, write,
and even knew Latin. She worked at the drugstore before she got married.
She had beautiful handwriting. My mother learned to play the guitar before
she got married. When I was small Mama liked to sing a certain song in
Yiddish, accompanying herself on her guitar. This song was played at her
wedding. I remember some rhymes from this song in Yiddish: "Der shnei ist
geyongen drai Teig der Hanond", which means "It snowed 3 days in a row...",
etc. Later this guitar lay broken in our attic, but my mother couldn't
bring herself to throw it away. My mother didn't have a perfect voice, but
she was very musical.

My parents met in a very typical manner for their time. My mother was
living in Miastkovka and my father lived in Tomashpol. At that time, there
were people called "shathen" in Yiddish, who were engaged in matching
couples. They told my father's parents about a girl from a good family who
was of age to get married. My parents were introduced to each other and
soon married. They had a traditional Jewish wedding with a huppah. My
father was a shy, hard-working man. My mother told me that she liked him at
once. After the wedding, my father worked at grandfather's store for some
time. Later, after the store was expropriated, he went to work as a laborer
at the Tomashpol sugar factory. My parents had no children for almost ten
years. I was born on 3 July 1927 when my father was 43. In two years' time,
on 25 June 1929, my sister Polia was born.

Growing up

I remember my town, Tomashpol, since about 1933, when I was six. My
grandmother died at this time and this was during the period of famine in
the Ukraine. I remember seeing in the streets people swollen from
starvation. Some were still alive, but couldn't get up, and others were
already dead. All corpses were put on a horse-driven cart and taken away.
We were very poor. I remember my mother going to the market on
Sundays. She used to buy one glass of sour cream. We spread it on slices of
bread in very thin layers. But that sour cream didn't last long, and too
quickly, my sister and I found ourselves looking forward to the next
Sunday. My father continued working at the sugar factory. I knew the way to
the factory, so almost every day, mother sent me out to bring lunch to my
father. With spades, father and the other laborers packaged sugar in bags,
sealed them and loaded them on racks. At night, to earn some extra money,
my father worked as a night watchman.

In 1932, to save the family from starving to death, my parents had to
move to a village in the Kryzhopol district. There they got a job at the
mill. Father was paid with grain and this saved our family from starvation.
My sister and I stayed behind with grandmother and grandfather in
Tomashpol. My grandfather left us a house. There were three rooms and a
cellar where we kept food products and wood. It was a solid, warm wooden
house. My grandfather also left us some furniture. I remember a huge
cupboard with bunches of grapes carved on the doors. There was a shed in
the yard. During the occupation, when we were moved to the ghetto, our
houses remained empty, and people from neighboring villages removed windows
and doors and everything that was left in the houses. Later, the remains of
our house were removed to serve as firewood for heating the German and
Rumanian commandant's offices. It turned out that they sent people from the
ghetto to do this work, and I was among those who were sent to remove our
house. We were to take the wood to the gendarmerie. Chopping this wood was
a very difficult job. The house was made of hard oak beams and we had only
blunt saws with which to chop the beams into firewood.

My parents were religious. They went to the synagogue once a week, on
Friday. I remember there were two synagogues in Tomashpol. The big one was
called "Bes midrash". When I was five or six years old the authorities
closed and then removed this synagogue. But people kept coming to this
place like to the Wailing Wall to pray. The other synagogue was smaller
and was near our house. It was a long, one-story building with a basement.
On holidays they took the Torah out of this basement. Children carried the
Torah on holidays. My father had a thales and a tefillin at home. When I
reached the age of thirteen, my parents arranged a Bar Mitzwvahu for me,
and the rabbi conducted the ritual. We had many people at home on this day
- many friends and relatives came to the party. My mother lit candles every
Friday to pray. My father also prayed.
We also had ceders, everything that a traditional Jewish family would
have. I asked my father four traditional questions. I remember them until
now.
We observed all Jewish holidays at home. I especially remember Pesach
and Hanukkah. Pesach was a very festive holiday. When we were small they
took special dishes from the attic for Pesah festivities and we always
looked forward to these days. We got used to our dishes in the course of
the year and it was so exciting to view patterns on our Pesah dishes. A few
days before Pesach my parents and I went to buy flour - one and a half
pounds (one pound - 16 kg). We took this flour to the house where they
baked Matzoh. Jewish women worked there. They made dough and baked Matzoh
in big ovens. We always looked forward to eating Matzoh. We took a big bag
of Matzoh from the bakery home. During Pesach we helped our mother to make
flourt from this Matzoh. Later, Mama made delicious biscuits, cookies, and
pancakes that were called latkes from this flour. My mother cooked
traditional Pesach dishes: stuffed fish, clear chicken soup with dumplings
made from Matzoh and eggs, chicken neck stuffed with liver, and strudels
with nuts and raisins. We also had seder dinners at Pesach, everything that
a traditional Jewish family would have. I asked my father the four
traditional questions4. I remember them even now.

I also remember Hanukkah - my sister and I got some change from our
relatives on this day. We could buy some ice cream or toys with this money.
We always looked forward to Hanukkah, because, as I said, we were poor. And
some small change to buy an ice cream or a ticket to the cinema was a quite
an amount for us.

About 80% of the population in Tomashpol was Jewish. There were
Ukrainian villages near Tomashpol: Tomashpilka and Beloye. We children
went to one and the same school. Many Ukrainian children from the
neighboring families and my classmates knew Yiddish. They often came to
our house and we talked in Yiddish. There were no Jews left in Tomashpol
after the Great Patriotic War. Many of them were killed, the rest of them
left, but many people living there still speak fluent Yiddish and remember
Yiddish songs. We cared not about the nationality in those years. I mean,
we were aware that we were Jews and they were Ukrainian Christians and
there were gypsies nearby, but we never focused on it.

School years

In 1934, when I was seven, I went to the Jewish school. Children were
supposed to start school at eight, but I was eager to study. My cousin
Manya decided to help me. Manya was older than I and she studied at school.
She took me to the director and said that my mother had typhoid and had
asked her to accept me into the first grade Of course, this was a lie but
Manya told me to keep silent about it. Manya said that I was eight years
old already, but that we couldn't bring my birth certificate as it was
under my mother's pillow. The director didn't want to see my birth
certificate after she heard that my mother had typhoid. So I went to
school. I was the youngest in my class, but I did well in all subjects. All
subjects were taught in Yiddish. We even read the books of Russian writers
translated into Yiddish. However, we didn't have any subjects related to
Jewish tradition or history. We studied all the typical subjects taught at
any other Soviet school. Our school was the best in the neighborhood.
Teachers paid much attention to our involvement in after-class activities.
We had three orchestras, a choir that had Jewish and Ukrainian songs in its
repertoire, and a theatrical studio. We had a club where we had concerts
and performances. There were two Ukrainian schools in Tomashpol - secondary
and primary. Schoolchildren from these schools often came to our club.
There was no national segregation.

I studied for four years in the Jewish school. Unfortunately, in 1937
my parents transferred me to the Ukrainian school. The majority of children
from our school went there, too. There were no schools where we could
continue our education in Yiddish. After finishing Jewish school one had to
enter a Ukrainian or Russian institution for higher education. At that time
we didn't quite realize that it was the policy of our state to destroy
nationalistic priorities. I was successful at my Ukrainian school as well.
All pupils from the Jewish school spoke fluent Yiddish and Ukrainian. We
had a benevolent reception at our new Ukrainian school. Half of the
schoolchildren in our class were Jewish and the rest of them were
Ukrainian, from Tomashpol and the surrounding villages. I had both Jewish
and Ukrainian boys as friends. I still have a Ukrainian friend from my
childhood - Tolya Pokynchereda, who now lives in Chernigov.

I was eager to become a Pioneer. I didn't become a Pioneer while
attending the Jewish school, but when I went to the Ukrainian school I put
on a red necktie and from then on I acted like a Pioneer.

My mother was a rabbi's granddaughter and she wanted me to become a
rabbi's pupil, to study Hebrew and prayers. Rabbi Yankl came to our house
two days at week to teach me. I knew Yiddish and there is some resemblance
between Yiddish and Hebrew. I learned to read and then the rabbi began to
teach me to translate. I was learning some prayers by heart. I still
remember them. It lasted until I bumped into an astronomy textbook for
senior students, where I learned more about the world, and where what I
learned didn't quite agree with what the rabbi was telling me. I believed
that God created the world in six days but I also knew that there were
other planets besides the Earth, and other galaxies. The rabbi wasn't
always happy with what I was learning, but he continued to visit us until
he grew too old. Thus, we terminated our classes in 1936.

In 1936 disaster came to our family. I mentioned already that we were
very poor. Once Mama said that they would be selling the cheapest black
cotton in our store. We were standing in line the whole night taking turns.
A few hours after the store opened my mother came home, bringing 10 meters
of this cotton, with which she intended to make some clothing for us. In a
month's time someone suggested that my mother should sell this cotton for
20 kopecks more per meter than she had bought it. We needed money, and so
she sold the cotton. But someone informed the local authorities, and my
mother was arrested and taken to court. It was an open court, to show
others what punishment people would be subject to. For selling 10 meters of
cotton, my mother was sentenced to five years at the camp in Kem in the
Kolskiy peninsula in the North of the Soviet Union. I was in the second
grade then. My sister Polya didn't go to school yet. Aunt Haika, my
mother's older sister, took Polya into her family. I stayed with my father
and my cousin Manya. Then a new judge was appointed. His name was Fedyuk.
Manya arranged an appointment with him and told him that my mother had been
sentenced for nothing, actually, and that my father was left alone to take
care of two children. My father could hardly earn enough money to feed us.
The judge came to our home to see how we lived. He asked me whether I could
write. I told him that I was in the second grade and could write. Then the
judge said that we should write a letter to Stalin. He dictated the letter,
and I wrote "Dear Mr. Stalin ...." I wrote that my mother was sentenced to
five years in prison for selling some fabric, and that our father was
raising two children, and told him how poor we were, etc. At the end of
this letter I was asking Stalin to release my mother. A few months passed
and my mother returned home. She had spent about nine months in the camp.
She was very thin and took to smoking. We were happy to have our mother
back. However, my sister was living with her Aunt, and liked it there, and
stayed. Until 1940 there were four of us: my father, my mother, Manya and
I. In 1940 Manya married a young Jewish man from Tomashpol and moved in
with him. Then before the war my sister Polya joined us at home.

We heard on the radio and read in newspapers that Hitler had come to
power in 1933. The Jewish population of Tomashpol, especially the
intellectuals -people who remembered pre-Revolutionary Germany - were
continuously saying that they didn't believe that Germans could kill people
and that they were cultured people. We leaned about what was happening in
Germany from radio programs and newspapers. Later we watched movies. I
remember "The Swamp Soldiers" and "Professor Mumlock". These movies
described Hitler coming to power, the attitude towards Jews in Germany, and
the pogroms. The radio mentioned the "Crystal night" in Germany and the
massive riots against Jews.

The year 1937 is known for the arrests and obliteration of the best
representatives of the intellectuals5. Some of our acquaintances were
repressed, too. Judge Fedyuk, the judge who helped me to write the letter
to Stalin was arrested. He was a very nice and kind person, and he helped
many people. I was in the 6th grade then, and I remember my classmates
crying at school in the morning because their fathers had been arrested the
previous night. We believed that their parents were enemies of the people
- that was what we were told to believe - so we didn't sympathize with our
classmates.

At school, I was fond of painting. I liked to paint portraits. I made
portraits of great physicists: Galileo, Ohm, Volt and others. I made
drawings because my parents couldn't afford to buy paints. Once in 1940 I
was awarded a prize for my drawings. My mother wanted me to study music but
we couldn't afford it as we were poor.

During the war

In 1939 the war with Finland began. I saw people who returned from the
war to our town Tomashpol. There were many Jews among them. Among them were
victims of frostbite, others that had been wounded, and some who had lost
legs or arms. I remember this war. I also remember our army "liberating"
the Western Ukraine and Byelorusse. Of course, the official version was
that we were liberating our land in Western Ukraine and Western Byelorusse.
The population was enthusiastic about it. There were posters everywhere
with our Soviet soldier in hardhat embracing a Western Ukrainian peasant.
When Germans occupied Poland, we had a feeling of the inevitability of war.
We felt it, but we couldn't quite imagine the upcoming war. We watched such
Soviet movies as "If there is a war tomorrow..." and others, and all of
them stated that if the enemy attacked us we would put an end to him
promptly and on his territory. We were convinced that we were strong and
that nobody could defeat us. I remember a song from this period "If there
is a war tomorrow and if we have to leave tomorrow - you must be prepared
today!" Then they executed a Non-Aggression Pact with Germany6.
Ribbentrop, Germany's Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited our country and
we read about it in the newspapers. We were all happy that there would be
no war and Germans would not advance further than Poland.

On 20 June 1941 I passed my last exam at school. I finished the 7th
grade and was 14 years old. 22 June7 was Sunday. Our house was near the
market and many people passed by our house. One of the passersby said, "Did
you hear on the radio the announcement about the war? The Germans bombed
Kiev and attacked the Soviet Union". It came as a complete surprise to us.
Then Molotov8 spoke on the radio at noon. However, nothing changed in
Tomashpol in the first days. Then we heard that they were going to evacuate
the sugar factory. The Party and administrative authorities were gradually
leaving town. However, in Tomashpol common and religious Jews were the
majority. We were waiting until our turn came to evacuate. The Germans were
advancing rapidly. After all the officials had left Tomashpol, we got horse-
driven carts and prepared to leave on them. Several families were supposed
to leave on each cart, so we couldn't take a lot luggage with us. This was
the middle of July. All these carts headed to the east in the direction of
Vinnitsa. We were about 15 km away when the bombing began. The planes
dropped two bombs. Nobody was injured. We moved on. We met a group of
military motorcyclists. They stopped and asked us where we were going.
Someone in the head cart replied that we were evacuating in the direction
of Vinnitsa. Then the man who had asked this question told him that
Vinnitsa was already occupied by the Germans. So we had to return to
Tomashpol. On 20 July 1941 Germans quietly entered Tomashpol. We saw their
troops on motorcycles, horses, cars and bicycles. They were the front
troops and they didn't touch the population. A German soldier came to our
house and asked my mother to give him some water. She did. He drank the
water and said to my mother that he wanted to give her a present. He took
his wallet out of his pocket and showed my mother a picture of a young
woman standing beside a rose bush. The German soldier told my mother that
this woman was his wife. Then he took out a dried rose wrapped in paper and
said that his wife gave him this rose for good luck and that he wanted to
give it to my mother. He also wrote down his address and invited us to
visit him after the war. His name was Alfred Klemmer. After he left, my
mother said that those people that warned that Germans would do us no harm
were probably right.

In 3 days Paraska Shpileiko, our Ukrainian acquaintance living in the
neighboring village came to see us. Her family were friends of my parent's.
She told us to hide because Germans were killing the Jews. It turned out
that the front troops were followed by other military troops that were
grabbing Jews in the streets and from their houses. They got over 120
people and chased them to the Jewish cemetery in the outskirts of
Tomashpol. They forced them to dig up a grave and shot them all. My
classmate Fira Shwartz, Tomashpol Shoihet and many others perished there.
In the 1980s a monument was installed at this location. There is an
engraving on the obelisk on the common grave, which reads, "To the citizens
of Tomashpol, brutally shot by fascist occupants on 4 August 1941". We
escaped, firstly, because our house was in the outskirts of town, and
secondly, because Paraska let us know in advance. We hid in the cellar,
locked up our house and stayed in our shelter for two days. The Germans
left in two days, and they appointed my classmate's father, Slobodianyuk,
to be a village warden.

At the end of July this warden came for my father. My father told us
later that he and several other men were sent to bury the corpses of the
Jews that were shot. The corpses decomposed during all this time so that
they were unrecognizable. My father smelled so much of putrefaction that it
was hard to wash that smell out.

The shops and the market were closed. We were able to get some food
from local peasants in exchange for some clothing. At the beginning of
August people elected the Jewish council that was responsible for sending
Jews to do work at the direction of the village warden. It consisted of
older people. Young people all went to the front.
After the Germans, the Rumanians came to the town. There were two
Germans left to give orders to the Rumanians. The Jews were ordered to wear
bands with David's hexagonal star. In two weeks they cancelled this order,
because the policemen also wore white armbands and it was unclear from some
distance whether one was a policeman or a Jew. With one day's notice, we
were then ordered to sew a yellow hexagonal star on the black background on
our clothes. We had some black fabric at home, but no yellow cloth. Our
neighbors had a yellow undershirt and they tore it to pieces and shared
them with all neighbors. Two weeks passed and we were ordered to move to
the ghetto. They fenced one street and all Jews from Tomashpol and the
surrounding villages were moving there. There were several families living
in each house. Our family got accommodation in the basement of a wooden
house. This basement was formerly used to store coal and wood. We moved
beds from our house and took apart wardrobes for wooden planks to install
on the ground floor. My parents, my sister Polia, a distant relative from
Yampol, Manya and I lived in this basement. There were over one thousand
people in the ghetto. Half of them starved to death or died from diseases.
On 19 May 1941 Manya gave birth to two twin girls: Polia and Dora. Manya's
husband and his two brothers went to the war where they perished. Manya and
her children lived in this ghetto for two years and eight months. We lived
behind the barbed wire fencing with no money or food. It was so hard to
raise these baby girls. Manya died in 2001 and her girls are still living.
Of course, the years they spent in the ghetto had an effect on them; they
are sickly, but they are still alive.

Before the war, I learned from our neighbor, a tinsmith, how to make
buckets and other tin goods. This helped us to survive in the ghetto. Every
day we went to work chopping wood or carrying water to the commandant's
office. In the evenings I made buckets and my mother and sister gave them
to peasants in exchange for food. Once a week they opened a gate to the
ghetto. Rumanians with guns and dogs and policemen were posted at the gate
to the ghetto. The inmates of the ghetto were allowed to go out to the
nearby market for one hour. We had only this one hour to buy or exchange
something and come back. We didn't need to be watched. We had yellow stars
on our clothing and couldn't run away. There was no place to run. We
thought of the ghetto as our last shelter. We tried to be back on time. If
somebody was late Rumanian gendarmes beat him or her with whips, as they
were not trusted enough to be given guns, at least, at that time. On our
way back we tried to get a potato or a beet, or to pick an apple to put in
our pocket. This supplemented our food supply. Tomashpol's Ukrainian
population sympathized with us. When the policemen turned away, the
Ukrainians tried to give us food. Paraska, the woman who told us to hide
when the Germans were approaching, came to the ghetto on Sunday and waited
for Mama and my sister to give them some food.

We did all kinds of work. We shoveled snow in winter. When Germans
occupied our town they ordered me to take off my boots. I was 14 years old
then. After I finished the 7th grade my mother had bought me new boots.
This was quite an occasion in our family. But that German ordered me to
take them off, so I did. I didn't have any shoes until our liberation in
March 1944. In summer I walked barefoot and in winter I wrapped my feet in
rags tying them with a rope or even with wire. I came back from work
starving and frozen. We didn't get any food while we were at work. I still
have rheumatic pains in my feet at night. I also got abscesses on my legs.
We had no medications to treat them. No iodine or bandages, and no medical
facility in the ghetto. However, there were doctors and nurses among the
inmates of the ghetto. We tried to hide our ailments from the
administration of the ghetto, especially when the diseases were infectious.
My former schoolmate Tolia Pokynchereda sent some iodine to me in the
ghetto.
I collected tin to make buckets near the houses. The tin was old and
rusted and this rust seeped into my sores when I was busy making the
buckets. Soon I couldn't walk at all. At that period they stopped sending
me to work. However, previously I was sent to work almost every day and we
had to work promptly. If somebody fell the supervisors beat him or her with
a whip. Often, my mother could not go to work. She was not young and often
felt ill. Women did all kinds of work: they peeled potatoes, washed the
floors, cleaned up, and carried wood. When I couldn't walk any more my
father replaced me at work. Rumanians rarely came to the ghetto. The
policemen and the Jewish council were in charge there. The Rumanians were
afraid to enter the ghetto due to the terrible sanitary conditions. They
were afraid of catching infection. Many people in the ghetto got ill and
died.

The policemen raped girls, but the girls' parents tried to hide this.
And every day somebody would say that he knew for sure that the next day we
would be all shot. So we were living with the fear that every day was to be
our last day. Members of the Jewish council often came to pick up some
valuables to bribe the Rumanian gendarmes.

We didn't hear any news from the outside world. Later, Boria
Slobodianyuk, my former schoolmate and the son of the Tomashpol warden
started sending me newspapers, and we could read about the war, but this
was towards the end of 1943.

There was a rabbi in the ghetto. Religious people got together in
secret to pray. My father also went to some house of prayers to pray. They
got together a minian9 of at least 10 people.

Young people were falling in love. Life was going on even under such
difficult conditions. We celebrated Pesach, although we couldn't have any
Matzoh.

In the fall of 1942 we learned that the administration was planning to
get all Jews between 16 and 55 yeas old. I was 15 and my father was 59, so
we were relatively calm about it. I was not on the list, but just in case,
I decided to hide in the attic of an empty house. My sister Polia knew
where I was hiding. The Jewish officials announced that people had to take
enough food to last for three days, and some warm clothes, although it was
still warm outside. On this day, policemen came to our basement to enquire
about my whereabouts. My parents said they didn't know where I was, and the
policemen beat them up with their whips. They threatened to shoot them if
they didn't inform them where I was. Polia ran to find me to tell me the
whole story and I went home. As soon as I entered, the policemen whipped me
so hard that I fainted. My mother got me some food to take with me: a few
apples, some bread, cereal and a bar of soap. And she gave me my jacket and
a hat to take along with me. My father gave me his old boots. They were
sewn up with wooden pegs that hurt when I put on the boots. Nobody knew
where we were heading from the ghetto. I was waiting for our departure when
all of a sudden a Rumanian soldier called me to the exit door. My father
was there and he took my bag from me and went in. I went home. The soldiers
put all the people onto a truck and drove away. At home they told me that
my parents asked some Jews from Bukovina who spoke Rumanian to talk to the
Rumanian soldiers about replacing me with my father. My parents were afraid
of what was awaiting me. Besides, I could make buckets and provide for the
family, but my father couldn't earn anything.
Half a year passed, and we didn't know where my father was, or whether
he was still alive. Then we heard a rumor that those that couldn't work any
more were coming back. And they did. They were in terrible condition.
Previously healthy men looked like old people, so exhausted were they. They
told us that they had been working in the Nikolaev region. Germans were
building a strategic bridge across the Bug and the construction itself was
performed by Jews and captives. The Jews lived on the bank of the Bug. They
dug holes in the ground and put in some hay to sleep on it. By the way, the
father of my sister Polia's future husband was also there with my father.
He died there because fleas ate away his eyes. My father told us later that
the hay was stirred up by fleas. My father said that they got potatoes that
were boiled, unwashed and dirty for meals. Many people were dying but my
father survived. Later a commission arrived to inspect the progress of the
construction. German engineers were in no hurry to complete the
construction. They felt more comfortable in the rear. When the commission
asked what the reason for the delays was, the engineers blamed the Jews,
saying that they were lazy and didn't want to work. The commission then
gave the order to hang ten people from each crew. All Jews were lined up
outside, and asked which of them wanted to go home. A few people stepped
forward. Soldiers took them away, and the following day carpenters
installed gallows in the square. Ten people were brought back in front of
the line of Jews. Jews from the crowd were to put nooses around the necks
of the sentenced and push the boxes they stood on out from under their
feet. If somebody refused he was hanged as well. If somebody approached the
barbed wire fencing, the Germans shot them, too, and their corpses were
hung on the wire for several days.

My father was also supposed to return home with the first group of
people, but he was not among them. We thought he must have died on the way.
But my father had gotten off the train to go to the toilet and fainted
there from exhaustion. Only on the following day did the cleaning women
find him. My father was sent to prison in the Balta Odessa region. He
shared a cell with a communist who was later hung. He gave my father his
leather belt and my father brought it home to me. He was getting some food
in prison and his condition improved. When he was released from prison, he
went home. He got on the train that headed for Yampol instead of Tomashpol.
The Rumanian commandant sent my father to the "Pechora" camp 2 km from
Tomashpol. This was a horrific death camp. About 10,000 people starved to
death there. This was already 1944. Kiev had been liberated, but we were
still under the occupation. The security guard in the camp was loosened and
people could go out at night to get something to eat in the surrounding
villages. In this way, my father survived.

I remember our army coming to the village. The Germans and Rumanians
were running away in retreat. We saw two tanks with young men sitting on
top of them. They asked us where the Germans and Rumanians were and
suggested that I go with them to show them the way. I grabbed a German
rifle - there were weapons all around - and charged it. I was showing them
the way. It was on 16 March 1944. The regular Soviet army was at the
Vapniarka station then. These tanks were an investigation group. They shot
at the retreating Germans. I also took a few shots. Later, our army and
partisans entered Tomashpol. One of the partisans was a young Jewish girl
riding a horse. I asked her, "Have you and the Soviet army come here
forever?" and she answered, "Yes". I felt sad because my father wasn't with
us and we thought that he had perished in the camp.

One particularly horrible event occurred during the liberation of
Tomashpol. A young man, one year older than I, a blacksmith's son and a
blacksmith himself, fell in love with a very pretty girl in the ghetto. She
loved him, too. When all of us came out to meet our armies, this young
couple was also out there. A cavalryman saw them together and cried out
"What?! You are strolling around when we are going to war?!" and he shot
the young man, who had survived all the horrors of the ghetto and
occupation, only to be killed by a Soviet soldier. I don't know what
happened to the young girl afterwards.

We temporarily settled down in an empty house. My mother asked the
military to sell her a pair of boots, as I had nothing to protect my feet.
And they gave me yellow American boots as a present. We were living all
together: my parents, my sister Polia, Manya and her twin daughters. A
little later my mother's sister Haika also moved in with us. In 1944 I went
to the army. Later my parents rented a room. They never had their own
apartment and lived a very poor life. They didn't have any furniture, just
some boxes they used as furniture.

My father returned home before I went into the army. Our neighbor's
daughter came to tell me that my father was coming home. I didn't believe
her, but went out anyway, and saw an old, old man, exhausted, in some gray
clothing, barefoot, though there was still snow on the ground, and carrying
a stick. It's difficult to express what I felt when I knew that the man was
my father. As I said his clothing looked gray, but it was gray from the
fleas that it was covered with. This was horrible. We took off all his
clothes and burnt them. My father was ill for a long time afterwards.

After Tomashpol was liberated, the mobilization of young people over
17 to the front began. Young people under 17 were mobilized to the so-
called fighter battalion. We had trophy rifles and bullets and were helping
the military to guard the captives or transport them. Once we even were
ordered to look for parachute forces in the woods.

I also went to school and studied in the 8th grade before I was
recruited to the army. We went to the military registration office in
Vinnitsa, from where I was sent to the Far East. This was in the winter of
1944. We traveled across Siberia for 43 days. In the Far East I was sent to
the Pacific Ocean Navy. I participated in the war with Japan.10 After the
war we stayed in Port Arthur in China. We were liberating China, Korea and
Manchuria from the Japanese. We stayed to serve there after the war. My
service lasted six years. Later, this Pacific Ocean fleet separated into
two fleets - number 5 and number 7. My service was in fleet number 5, which
spread from Vladivostok to Port Arthur. . Photo # 7 I had friends there and
still meet with them annually. They are Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars
and members of many other nationalities. Ivan Khometsky, a Ukrainian, was
my closest friend then. We spent time together talking about our plans for
the future and about our lives.

Post-war

Those were difficult years. I remember the famine of 1947. I was in
the service then and I didn't suffer hunger - we were getting our meals and
life was not as bad as it was for civilians. But I knew that my parents
were suffering a lot. My father's body swelled from starvation.
Fortunately, his younger brother Boris took him to Ulianovsk. My mother and
sister survived this famine of 1947. In 1948 I came home on vacation. As a
gift, I brought my parents half a pound of rice (8 kg) - this was all I
could get.

My father and mother were still religious after the war. But there was
no synagogue and minians got together in private prayer houses. My father
always went to pray. The rabbi died in the ghetto. One man who knew the
prayers well led the minians for many years. Old people got together in
this way and the authorities didn't persecute them.

The struggle against cosmopolites that started in 1948 had an impact
on our family. Ovsey Driz, the son of my father's cousin and a famous
Jewish poet, wrote his poems in Yiddish. They were translated into Russian
by the famous Russian poets Mikhalkov and Marshak. In the early 1930s when
Ovsey Driz was beginning to write, a very famous Jewish poet, Lev Kvitko,
was helping him. Many of Ovsey's books were published before the war. After
the war no books in Yiddish were published. Ovsey's Russian was excellent
but when I asked him why he didn't write his poems in Russian he said that
he could, but then they wouldn't be his poems. When the struggle against
the cosmopolites began Ovsey couldn't provide for his family. His books
were not published and he was about to be expelled from the Association of
Writers of the USSR. Ovsey turned to the Soviet poet Marshak for help, but
he couldn't do anything for him. When I went to Moscow I often stayed at
Ovsey's home and was the first to hear his poems. Ovsey died in 1971 .

By that time, my sister had married our neighbor Abram Gedrich, a Jew.
She studied for seven years at school and then took a course in accounting.
She worked as an accountant in the Tomashpol hospital until her departure
to Ber-Sheva in Israel in the early 1990s. In 1962 Elena, the daughter of
Polia and Abram, was born. Lena and Polia live in Israel now. Lena
graduated from a music school in Vinnitsa. She has a daughter Asia, born in
1984.

I demobilized from the army at the end of December 1950. They wanted
me to stay for an additional term and offered me an apartment in Port
Arthur. But I couldn't stay, as I knew that my parents were living in
poverty. In 1951 I passed my exams for ten years of secondary school. At
that time I worked as a lab assistant at the physics laboratory, as I just
had to be earning money. In 1951 I entered Kiev's mining college. I chose
this educational institution because, as a participant in the war, I could
enter this school without having to take entrance exams. They also paid the
stipend that enabled me to study and live. I also had 2-3 months training
sessions in Donbass, which enabled me to support my parents as well. I
worked as a miner and was paid well. In 1955 I finished my studies in the
electromechanical department of this college. At first I couldn't find a
job. My eyesight was poor as a result of my experiences in the ghetto, and
to get a job as a miner I had to go through a medical examination. The
medical commission didn't issue me a work permit. I had problems finding a
job.

Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism at that time was both on the state and everyday level. I
obtained my diploma without a mandatory for that time job assignment, and
returned to Kiev. I went through job announcements and found one for a
foreman in the electric shop at a certain plant. I arranged an interview
with the manager of the human resources department. We discussed the
vacancy and then he asked me to show him my documents. He took my passport
and saw that my nationality was a Jew. He immediately told me to call back
in 2-3 days. I came back in two days and he said they had no vacancy for
the position of foreman, only for an electrician in that same shop. He
didn't expect me to agree to take this job. But I thought it would only do
me good to go through all levels, from beginning to end, to gain
experience.

In 1957 I got a job as a foreman at a military plant. Later, I was
promoted to Deputy Manager of the electromechanical shop. In few years I
became Chief Engineer at the plant. I worked there for 24 years and had
excellent performance records. I received a two-room apartment. But still I
felt some discrimination towards me, especially during the last year. In
particular, when the manager of the maintenance shop went on an extended
business trip for two years and I was offered the chance to replace him.
But I also had to keep my job responsibilities. I agreed. After some time,
the assistant accountant asked me about my salary rate, which I didn't
know. But I hoped that it would at least be equal to that of the former
manager of the shop. I asked the director, and it turned out that besides
not being paid for doing two jobs, I had a lower salary than my
predecessor. The director had realized that I would have to accept and was
taking advantage of my situation. If I quit this job, it would be difficult
for me to find another due to my Jewish nationality. And I had to stay at
this plant. In 1978 I got a job offer from another plant and agreed to take
it at once. I was appointed manager of the electromechanical shop at this
plant and from there I retired in 1987. But I decided to continue working
and got a job as a communications specialist. I quit finally in 1999.

Stalin's death in 1953 was a shock for me. I didn't believe the
country could live without him. People were crying. I think, these were
sincere tears. Later we recovered and life went on. Our thinking was
changing gradually and denunciation of the cult of Stalin and the speech at
the Party Congress11 was kind of expected event.

Married life

I got married in 1956. My wife Tamara Batenko is Ukrainian. Tamara was
born in 1934 in the Fastov Kiev region. At the time we met, Tamara was a
student in the Economics Department of Kiev University. We met at a party
and fell in love. Contrary to my expectations, my parents had nothing
against my marrying a Ukrainian girl. They must have changed their attitude
to such mixed marriages, regardless of their religiosity. They liked Tamara
very much. My mother always called Tamara her little daughter. Tamara got a
job at the Institute of Public Economy after graduating from the
University. Later, she obtained a job at the Academy of Sciences. But,
unfortunately, she was very sickly and had to retire because of poor
health. In the fall of 2002 we shall celebrate the 46th anniversary of our
wedding. On 20 July 1957 our son Alexander was born. He was born into a
mixed family and got no religious education. He is an atheist and a
cosmopolite - a man of the world. He obtained his education at the Kiev
Communications College. He is a colonel now and works at the army
headquarters. as chief editor of military TV broadcasting. His wife
Tatiana, a Ukrainian, is a housewife. We have two granddaughters: Katyusha,
born in 1984, and baby Mashenka, born in 2002. Katia is finishing school
and is going to continue her studies. My son's family live separately, but
every single day they call us or drop by for a chat.

In 1963 my mother died. She was in poor health after the years she
spent in the camp and in the ghetto. My mother was buried in Tomashpol in
accordance with Jewish traditions. My wife and I decided to take my father
to Kiev. By that time he was almost blind - he had cataracts in both eyes.
He lived with us for almost 15 years. After two surgeries, he could see
again. My father admired everything that we had: the tap with running
water, the TV and telephone. My father put on his thales and prayed twice a
day: in the morning and in the evening. Only in the last years of his life
he couldn't do it: he was too old to remember the prayers. My father died
in 1979 at the age of 95. He was buried at the Jewish cemetery in Kiev.
There was no rabbi at his funeral and I said Kaddish, which I remembered
from childhood.
My sister Polia moved to Israel. Unfortunately, I didn't dare to go.
My wife isn't a Jew and I was afraid that she would go through prejudiced
attitudes in Israel similar to the ones I experienced in the Soviet Union.
I have been to Israel twice and I now realize that I was wrong. But we are
old people now and it is too late to change our life so dramatically. I
liked Israel, our country. I admired the blooming Israel - the country
where ancient history and modern life have entwined so organically. It's
hard to imagine all the hard effort involved in turning the desert into a
blooming oasis. I respect and feel grateful to the people of Israel. I
visited my sister Polia in Ber-Sheva. She and her family enjoy living in
their new Motherland.

Many things changed after Ukraine gained its independence. Of course,
it will take some time before life improves, but I can see big changes.
There is no or almost no anti-Semitism in the new Ukraine. There is none on
the state level, and if there is some remnant of it, it comes from older
people. Young people have different outlooks. Jewish people hold management
positions and nobody has anything to say against it. I am not a religious
person, and do not visit the synagogue. A Jewish way of life is also
restoring. We have Jewish newspapers and magazines in Yiddish and in
Russian. I receive "Jewish news" and it is free for me. There are Jewish
performances and concerts. Hesed does a lot to support us physically and
spiritually. I attend very interesting lectures about the history of the
Jewish religion and celebrations of Jewish holidays. This is just
wonderful.

I don't want you to think that the life of our generation is a chain
of calamities. We lived through a lot of terrible things: famines,
repression, war, struggle against cosmopolitism and suppression of the
Jews. Many members of our family perished. At that most difficult time we
used to say that if we survived - although we didn't believe we would - we
would only talk about what we had to go through for the rest of our life.
But the years went by and I came to understand that people forget the bad
things and remember the good ones for a long time. I would like to address
all those who are going to read my story to try and do everything we can to
prevent any repetition of the past.

Glossary

1 The artificially-created famine of the Stalinist period that killed
millions of people in the Ukraine

It was arranged by Stalin to suppress
protesting peasants who would not accept Soviet power and join collective
farms. 1930-1934 - the years of the dreadful, forced famine in the
Ukraine. The Soviet authorities took away the last food products from
farmers. People were dying in the streets, whole villages perished.

2 Komsomol - a Communist youth organization, created by the Communist
Party to enable the state to take control of the ideological upbringing and
spiritual development of Ukrainian youth almost up to the age of 30

3 The White Guards, a counter-revolutionary gang led by general Denikin


They were famous for their brigandage and their anti-Semitic actions all
over Russia; legends were told of their cruelty. Few Jews survived their
pogroms.

4 According to Jewish tradition every junior child must ask four
ritualistic questions related to the history of Pesah and its celebration


A senior member of the family leading the seder must answer them.

5 In the mid-1930s Stalin launched a major campaign of political terror


The purges, arrests, and deportations to labor camps touched virtually
every family. Untold numbers of party, industrial, and military leaders
disappeared during the "Great Terror". Indeed, between 1934 and 1938 two-
thirds of the members of the 1934 Central Committee were sentenced and
executed.

6 The nonagression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, known as the
Molotov-Ribentrop Pact

Engaged in a border war with Japan in the Far East
and fearing the German advance in the west, the Soviet government in 1939
began secret negotiations for a nonaggression pact with Germany, meanwhile
continuing negotiations, begun earlier, with France and Britain for an
alliance against Germany. In August 1939 it suddenly announced the
conclusion of a Soviet-German pact of friendship and nonaggression. This
pact contained a secret clause providing for the partition of Poland and
for Soviet and German spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.

7 22 June 1941 at 5 o'clock in the morning fascist Germany attacked the
Soviet Union without declaring war

On this day the Great Patriotic War
began.

8 Molotov (Skriabin), Viacheslav Mikhailovich (1890-1986) - a Soviet
political leader

During the October Revolution he was a member of the
Military Revolutionary Committee. He belonged to the closest politicians
surrounding Stalin, and was one of the most active organizers of repression
in the 1930s to early 1950s. In the early 1950s he spoke out against
criticism of the cult of Stalin.

9 According to Jewish tradition, in order to celebrate any holiday or
Sabbath a minian - a minimum of 10 religious males were to be present at
the synagogue or at a prayer house

A congregation including fewer than ten
males had no right to address God with their prayers.

10 In 1945

the war in Europe was over, but WWII continued. in the Far
East, where Japan was fighting against the countries of the anti-fascist
coalition and China. The Japanese army incurred great losses at the hands
of the USA and Great Britain in 1943-44. However, Japan was still strong.
The USSR declared war against Japan on 8 August 1945. Japan signed the act
of capitulation in September 1945.

11 At the %% Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 195,


Khruschev publicly debunked the cult of Stalin and lifted theer 1945.

12 At the ?? Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 195,


Khruschev publicly debunked the cult of Stalin and lifted the veil of
secrecy from what had happened in the USSR during Stalin's leadership.

Ivan Pasternak

Ivan Pasternak
Bratislava
Slovakia

My name is Ivan Pasternak, I'm from Bratislava, and I was born during the
Holocaust. My mother and me survived; my father died in Dachau. I was
hiding with my mother with the help of the Habel family from Devinska Nova
Ves near Bratislava. Grandmother Fanus Habel, Ludvicek, Ilonka, Jozinko and
children from Devinska Nova Ves helped us. The grandmother always knew in
advance about the fascist roundups. When it was announced for Devinska Nova
Ves, we had to move to Lamac to her relatives. And when the roundup was
expected in Lamac, we moved back to Devinska Nova Ves. The roundups
happened very often. They were looking for Jews. I wonder if it was due to
my mother's upbringing or if it was God's will, but I never cried on such
dangerous occasions. After the Holocaust we visited this family for the
first and unfortunately last time in 1947. The grandmother got ill; the
children moved to various places. We are still in correspondence with them.

 

Family background">Family background

My parents come from Presov. My mother's maiden name was Preisova. My
grandmother was Helena Preisova, nee Rotmanova. My grandfather was called
Eliezer Preis. We have a menorah at home with the engraving Eliezer Preis.
Their three daughters Katarina, Nely and my mother Marta attended school on
Konstantinova Street in Presov. My mother was born in August 1916. My
grandparents lived in a house with a nice verandah on Sabinovska Street.
The eldest daughter, Katarina, liked to sit there in a wicker-chair reading
novels. My mother used to tell her: Don't read so much, your eyes will get
bad. Now, that she is 80, she is partially blind.

The head teacher of my mother and her sisters was Ms. Bednarova, who was a
nun and a good friend of our family. The nuns were prosecuted later, in the
communist era, and they were forced to move from Presov to Bacs near
Dunajska Streda. I saw Ms. Bednarova when she was over 70 on the occasion
of the visit of my aunt Nely, who lived in Nairobi, Kenya. My uncle Sani
Gellert and Aunt Nely lived in Nairobi during World War II. They could save
their lives thanks to businessman Bata 1. He could see that the situation
in Central Europe wasn't good for Jews so he decided to send them to his
branch in Nairobi. My aunt and her daughter were cooking for the workers in
the Bata factory and this way earned money to survive the war. My uncle
Sani fought in the Czechoslovak Army in Egypt. All the family survived and
after the war a son, Andrew, was born, my cousin, who lives in London.

Our family has always been keen on sports. I have photos of both my
mother's sisters at a Presov swimming pool near the Torysa river. The
Jewish youth, members of the Maccabi 2 association, used to meet there.
Both sisters and their husbands liked to go for long walks. Both husbands
graduated from Charles University in Prague and then became doctors in
Zlin. They used to play tennis in Zlin.

During the war

Sad memories are connected with the early 1940s. The eldest sister,
Katarina, who lived in Kosino, which was part of Hungary then, came to
visit her parents. They didn't know that this was to be their last
encounter. My grandparents died in the Holocaust. They were deported in
1942 and perished in Auschwitz in 1945.

My father's family was called Pasternak. They were forwarding agents but
they were very keen on giving their children the best education possible.
My father's best friend was an English teacher. My grandmother was Rozalia
Pasternakova, nee Grossmanova; she died in 1944. My grandfather was called
Emanuel Pasternak. In June 1941 the whole family was still in Presov. They
lived on 14, Kovacska Street. I have a picture of the whole family in the
backyard of the house. My parents are sitting on the bench. My father's
younger brother Vojtech Pasternak is there with his wife Etela. At that
time he was a soldier with the Czechoslovak Army in Ruthenia [see
Subcarpathia] 3. I didn't know his brother Zoli; he died in the
Holocaust. William Pasternak, my father's other brother, was a high
military officer. He was a representative of the Jewish community in Presov
and a deputy of the Presov council. He had a son, Tomas, my cousin, who
died along with his father and my father in Dachau in 1945. Members of the
family, who escaped deportation for a certain while, had a special
exemption for 'economically important Jews'.

Presov was the first town where Jews had to be specially marked. They had
to wear white strips even before the rule about wearing yellow star came
into effect. I have a photo of my father that was taken for the
registration in police archives.

My parents Teodor Pasternak and Marta Pasternakova, nee Preisova, got
married on 1st January 1940. The wedding was held in a Neolog 4 synagogue
on Konstantinova Street in Presov. Their friends Edita and Pali Fraenkl got
married on 26th January 1941. The Fraenkl family survived the Holocaust by
escaping to Hungary. Once they were hiding in Gzongzos, when Horthy 5
groups were doing a roundup searching for Jews. The Fraenkls were hiding in
the loft and when the soldiers came to the fifth floor the whistles ordered
the soldiers to leave. More than 50 Jews were arrested and deported from
that house only. The Fraenkls had two children: Jancsi, who was born in
December 1945 and Elzi, who followed five years later. Their son Jancsi is
still a member of the Presov Jewish community.

My parents were very sociable people. The Jewish social life in Presov was
quite rich. The Jewish youth used to meet at a place where a swimming pool
was built later. They established a Jewish association called Fortuna. They
organized trips, social events and religious ceremonies in Presov.

The Maccabi association organized trips on the river Torysa, to the High
Tatras and also abroad. My father used to plan the trips. Already in 1926
Maccabi had over 50 members interested in tourism. They were mostly men,
but also about ten women. Most of my parents' friends, for example the
Gellert family, didn't survive the Holocaust.

My father was an eager football player. He played for Maccabi Presov. This
was a strong team; on 31st May 1924 the Maccabi football club won 2:1 over
Torokves in Presov. Torokves played in the National Football League,
whereas the Maccabi players were all amateurs. The football team was based
in a working class district nicknamed Mexico Platz [Mexico Square].

Post-war">Post-war

My mother and me survived and came back to Presov after the war. Our return
was a bit delayed because the trains only started running in June or July
twice a week from Bratislava to Zilina. In Zilina we had to wait for a day
for a train from Zilina to Kosice and from there we continued on a horse
carriage to Presov.

I graduated from university and stayed in Bratislava. I'm a teacher. My
mother lived here too; she died a while ago. I'm married, my wife's name is
Zuzka. She is a doctor and she is Jewish. We have two sons, Teodor and
Peter, who are both single.

Glossary">Glossary

1 Bata, Tomas (1876-1932)

Czech industrialist. From a small shoemaking
business, he built up the largest leather factory in Europe in 1928,
producing 75,000 pairs of shoes a day. His son took over the business after
his father's death in a plane crash in 1932, turned the village of Zlin,
where the factory was, into an industrial center and provided lots of
Czechs with jobs. He expanded the business to Canada in 1939, took a
hundred Czech workers along with him, and thus saved them from becoming
victims of the Nazi regime.

2 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.

3 Subcarpathia (also known as Ruthenia, Russian and Ukrainian name
Zakarpatie)

Region situated on the border of the Carpathian Mountains with
the Middle Danube lowland. The regional capitals are Uzhhorod, Berehovo,
Mukachevo, Khust. It belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy until World
War I; and the Saint-Germain convention declared its annexation to
Czechoslovakia in 1919. It is impossible to give exact historical
statistics of the language and ethnic groups living in this geographical
unit: the largest groups in the interwar period were Hungarians, Rusyns,
Russians, Ukrainians, Czech and Slovaks. In addition there was also a
considerable Jewish and Gypsy population. In accordance with the first
Vienna Decision of 1938, the area of Subcarpathia mainly inhabited by
Hungarians was ceded to Hungary. The rest of the region was proclaimed a
new state called Carpathian Ukraine in 1939, with Khust as its capital, but
it only existed for four and a half months, and was occupied by Hungary in
March 1939. Subcarpathia was taken over by Soviet troops and local
guerrillas in 1944. In 1945, Czechoslovakia ceded the area to the USSR and
it gained the name Carpatho-Ukraine. The region became part of the
Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1945. When Ukraine became
independent in 1991, the region became an administrative region under the
name of Transcarpathia.

4 Neolog Jewry

Following a Congress in 1868/69 in Budapest, where the
Jewish community was supposed to discuss several issues on which the
opinion of the traditionalists and the modernizers differed and which aimed
at uniting Hungarian Jews, Hungarian Jewry was officially split into two
(later three) communities, which all built up their own national community
network. The Neologs were the modernizers, who opposed the Orthodox on
various questions.

5 Horthy, Miklos (1868-1957)

Regent of Hungary from 1920 to 1944.
Relying on the conservative plutocrats and the great landowners and
Christian middle classes, he maintained a right-wing regime in interwar
Hungary. In foreign policy he tried to attain the revision of the Trianon
peace treaty - on the basis of which two thirds of Hungary's territory were
seceded after WWI - which led to Hungary entering WWII as an ally of
Germany and Italy. When the Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944, Horthy
was forced to appoint as Prime Minister the former ambassador of Hungary in
Berlin, who organized the deportations of Hungarian Jews. On 15th October
1944 Horthy announced on the radio that he would ask the Allied Powers for
truce. The leader of the extreme right-wing fascist Arrow Cross Party,
Ferenc Szalasi, supported by the German army, took over power. Horthy was
detained in Germany and was later liberated by American troops. He moved to
Portugal in 1949 and died there in 1957.

Matilda Hrabovecka

Matilda Hrabovecka
Bratislava
Slovakia

My family background
Growing up
During the war
Surviving Auschwitz
My return to Slovakia
Married life
Glossary

My family background

I was born into an Orthodox Jewish family, which had several rabbis, in
Presov region. My mother Dorota Friedmannova, nee Weil, was born in 1886
and came from Poland. My father Jozef Friedmann came from Stropkov and was
quite well off. He was born in 1884.

My maternal grandfather's surname was Weil. I don't know his first name. He
was born in Jaslo, Poland, and died before World War II, in the 1930s.

I would say our family was rather bohemian, although the men grew beards
and were religious. My father was also religious; he graduated from a
yeshivah, but I remember seeing him, when he thought nobody could, turn on
the radio on Saturday, although this was considered work.

Growing up

My parents had eight children, me being the youngest. My two older sisters
were Lujza and Anna or Anusa. Both worked and supported the family. Lujza
was the oldest. She was born in Presov in 1910. Before World War II she
finished an accounting course. She was deported to Auschwitz with the last
transport in 1942, along with her husband, Bela Wohlwert, and in December,
during the last selection, she was sent to the gas chambers. She spent
three months in the concentration camp. Her husband was also killed in
Auschwitz in 1942.

Anusa was born in 1912, also in Presov. She was good at music and played
the violin. She married Sandor Abrahamovic in 1937. He was born in Presov
in 1905. Before the war he worked as a shop-keeper. She was killed in
Lublin ghetto in 1942 at the age of 30. Anusa and Sandor had a son,
Herbert, who was born in Presov in 1938. He was deported to Treblinka,
where he died at the age of four. My youngest sister, Alzbeta, was born in
Presov in 1926. She was killed in Treblinka in 1942, only 18 years old.

My mother was the one who took care of the family, not only by keeping the
household, but also by trying to help financially, which wasn't really
common at that time. Our family wasn't very well-off because my father got
involved in a rather dubious business with gas stations and went bankrupt,
although one could argue that his bankruptcy was mainly the consequence of
his gambling habit; he liked to play cards. Despite their poverty my
parents tried really hard to provide education for all of us.

My oldest brother, Bernardt, left for France to stay with his uncle. My
younger brother, Henrich, became a locksmith, and the rest of us, girls,
attended a Neolog 1 school and later on a gymnasium. All the siblings
worked hard to support the family.

The Presov Neolog school was mainly attended by students from more well-to-
do families, thus I experienced the meaning of social differences in my
early years, which motivated me to join the Hashomer Hatzair 2 and later
the Communist Youth Organization.

Hashomer Hatzair was very important to everyone in our group of youngsters.
My youngest sister Alzbeta would go there with me, and the Kamenski
brothers, Pali and Lori, also came. Lori was really smart and quite
talented in school. He didn't survive the camps. Except for Rosenberg
Imrich, who was in Theresienstadt 3 during World War II, all the others
from our Hashomer Hatzair group were killed during the Holocaust.

I really loved going to school, mainly because we had wonderful teachers.
The headmaster's name was Svarc; we all loved him and referred to him as
,Svarc bacsi' [Uncle Svarc]. Then there was Mr. Reich, who was teaching
religion and Hebrew and then our class-teacher Mrs. Kleinova. She was the
mother of Professor Fischer, who taught in the physics department. It's a
sad thing to mention that from all the people I went to school with, only
about eleven survived. The others were killed during the Holocaust.

In 1939, when the first anti-Jewish legislation [see Anti-Jewish laws in
Hungary] 4 started to be introduced, I was learning to become a tailor.
Unfortunately, I never learned very much since they used to have me do all
sorts of odd jobs instead.

My sister Malvina, or Manci, was born in Presov in 1920. She graduated from
a high school, then we stopped going to school because of the anti-Jewish
measures. I went to work for a wood seller, who was Jewish and for whom my
sister was also supposed to work. But my father sent me without her and
Manci stayed home. He was always worried about her, since she was so
beautiful.

During the war

In 1942 they drafted me as the first member of my family and I was deported
in the first wave. One of my cousins fled to the Soviet Union. Later we
found out that he died in one of the Gulag 5 camps, so his escape from
the fascists didn't help him.

We left Presov for Poprad by train. It was my first trip on a train, and I
thought of the irony of life, whether this train trip was also to be my
last one. The people in Presov were horrified by what was happening to us,
Jews, but already in Poprad the atmosphere changed completely: Slovak
guards were beating us like crazy. They loaded us onto cattle cars and
transported us to Auschwitz.

My sister Manci went to the gas chamber along with my parents. It makes me
cry when I remember what a cute little thing she was, with those blue eyes
and dark hair. I really loved her. Sometimes I think of her, even today,
when I see her friend Katka Hexnerova, who lives in Kosice now.

Surviving Auschwitz

I spent three years in Auschwitz, full of suffering, selections and finally
a death march out of the camp. While I was in Auschwitz, I found out that
my friend from Hashomer Hatzair, Halmos Nusi, was there. Halmos came from a
rather wealthy family. Her parents had divorced years ago; she was an only
child, and, I would say, she was spoiled. She was sick as soon as she
arrived in this hell, and was taken to see a doctor because she was
complaining about a sore throat. Poor Halmos was dead even before they took
the rest of her group to Birkenau, but I don't know exactly what happened.

I could say that because of the horrors I witnessed, I developed my own
philosophy for staying alive in such a hell. To be frank, I find it painful
to say what that philosophy is today. The things I went through in
Auschwitz influenced my whole life: I always avoided standing in the back
of any group, or on the side. And I would never stand in the front, either,
so that I would never be seen as not being part of the crowd. And in
Auschwitz I survived, in fact, to the detriment of those who happened to be
standing on the sides. To put it bluntly, that means every survivor lives
on the grave of someone else, and I still find this hard to deal with.

From my entire family, my parents and sisters were all murdered along with
a number of relatives-even my four-year-old nephew Herbert. I survived
along with my sister Blanka and brother Bernardt. After I returned to
Slovakia, I realized at once how much my way of thinking and my values had
changed after three years spent in hell.

My return to Slovakia

It took me some time to come back. I took the last repatriation bus and
arrived in Neustvelica, near Neubrandenburg. I came back to Prague, but was
scared of the disappointments I knew were waiting for me at home. I didn't
know what to expect from those people and what freedom meant.

On the way, several Yugoslav women were trying to convince me to go home
with them, but I decided to go to Presov first and see if anybody had
survived. My sister was working as a clerk, and amazingly, she had somehow
managed to escape the concentration camp. I didn't blame her for that, but
she was nothing but a huge disappointment after keeping me waiting until
her lunch break! I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive her for failing
to understand what I had gone through.

I had too many ideals about the Slovak National Uprising 6 and everybody
who took part in it; everything seemed to be perfect to me. Suddenly, I
idealized the whole society and the situation that we were living in,
although I was worried about the future.

Then I enrolled in high school. I crammed four years into one year and
graduated in Kosice. But, it wasn't all so nice and easy. I was really
poor. I didn't even go to my own sister's wedding because I had nothing
nice, or even decent, to wear.

And, anti-Semitism wasn't exactly dead. Once I lined up for lunch tickets
at work. The line was long, and when people saw the number on my arm, they
said, 'Look at this Jewish woman. Hitler didn't manage to kill them all;
more of them came back than there were before!' I was horribly upset and
ran to the police to report it, hoping that this would be a solitary
incident. Evidently, my view of life was very distorted then, I'm sorry to
say.

Married life

I continued with my education and studied in Prague later on, where I met
and married a Jewish man from Presov, Mikulas Hrabovecky, who survived the
Holocaust in Slovakia. I married a Jewish man because I wanted to avoid
being called stinking kike when I became an old woman. If your spouse isn't
Jewish, you can never be sure that he won't call you names during some
crisis.

After school, my husband Mikulas and I moved to Bratislava, where I joined
the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia 7 and became a civil servant. My
status changed for the worse during the personality cult in the fifties,
when my brother, a convinced communist and party member, ended up being
imprisoned.

Nowadays, after my retirement, I take care of my granddaughters. I have two
wonderful daughters Katka and Viera, and they, along with their children
Zuzka, Nina, Jozef and Daniel, are the joy of my life. I'm also involved in
the Documentation Center of the Holocaust, which I helped establish. I
wrote a book of memoirs on my time in Auschwitz.

Glossary

1 Neolog Jewry

Following a Congress in 1868/69 in Budapest, where the
Jewish community was supposed to discuss several issues on which the
opinion of the traditionalists and the modernizers differed and which aimed
at uniting Hungarian Jews, Hungarian Jewry was officially split into two
(later three) communities, which all built up their own national community
network. The Neologs were the modernizers, who opposed the Orthodox on
various questions.

2 Hashomer Hatzair

'The Young Watchman'; A Zionist-socialist pioneering
movement founded in Eastern Europe, 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.

3 Terezin/Theresienstadt

A ghetto in the Czech Republic, run by the SS.
Jews were transferred from there to various extermination camps. It was
used to camouflage the extermination of European Jews by the Nazis, who
presented Theresienstadt as a 'model Jewish settlement'. Czech gendarmes
served as ghetto guards, and with their help the Jews were able to maintain
contact with the outside world. Although education was prohibited, regular
classes were held, clandestinely. Thanks to the large number of artists,
writers, and scholars in the ghetto, there was an intensive program of
cultural activities. At the end of 1943, when word spread of what was
happening in the Nazi camps, the Germans decided to allow an International
Red Cross investigation committee to visit Theresienstadt. In preparation,
more prisoners were deported to Auschwitz, in order to reduce congestion in
the ghetto. Dummy stores, a cafe, a bank, kindergartens, a school, and
flower gardens were put up to deceive the committee.

4 Anti-Jewish laws in Hungary

Following similar legislation in Nazi
Germany, Hungary enacted three Jewish laws in 1938, 1939 and 1941. The
first law restricted the number of Jews in industrial and commercial
enterprises, banks and in certain occupations, such as legal, medical and
engineering professions, and journalism to 20% of the total number. This
law defined Jews on the basis of their religion, so those who converted
before the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, as well as those
who fought in World War I, and their widows and orphans were exempted from
the law. The second Jewish law introduced further restrictions, limiting
the number of Jews in the above fields to 6%, prohibiting the employment of
Jews completely in certain professions such as high school and university
teaching, civil and municipal services, etc. It also forbade Jews to buy or
sell land and so forth. This law already defined Jews on more racial
grounds in that it regarded baptized children that had at least one non-
converted Jewish parent as Jewish. The third Jewish law prohibited
intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews, and defined anyone who had at
least one Jewish grandparent as Jewish.

5 Gulag

The Soviet system of forced labor camps in the remote regions of
Siberia and the Far North, which was first established in 1919. However, it
was not until the early 1930s that there was a significant number of
inmates in the camps. By 1934 the Gulag, or the Main Directorate for
Corrective Labor Camps, then under the Cheka's successor organization the
NKVD, had several million inmates. The prisoners included murderers,
thieves, and other common criminals, along with political and religious
dissenters. The Gulag camps made significant contributions to the Soviet
economy during the rule of Stalin. Conditions in the camps were extremely
harsh. After Stalin died in 1953, the population of the camps was reduced
significantly, and conditions for the inmates improved somewhat.

6 Slovak National Uprising or 1944 Uprising was an armed insurrection organized by the
Slovak resistance during World War II

Its aim was to overthrow the collaborationist
Slovak State of Jozef Tiso. The insurrection was defeated by Nazi Germany.  

7 Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSC)

Founded in 1921 following a
split from the Social Democratic Party, it was banned under the Nazi
occupation. It was only after Soviet Russia entered World War II that the
Party developed resistance activity in the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia; because of this, it gained a certain degree of popularity with the
general public after 1945. After the communist coup in 1948, the Party had
sole power in Czechoslovakia for over 40 years. The 1950s were marked by
party purges and a war against the 'enemy within'. A rift in the Party led
to a relaxing of control during the Prague Spring starting in 1967, which
came to an end with the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet and allied
troops in 1968 and was followed by a period of normalization. The communist
rule came to an end after the Velvet Revolution of November 1989.

Rahela Perisic

Rahela Perisic
Bosnia
Interviewer: Klara Azulaj

My name is Rahela Perisic (nee Albahari) and I was born in 1922 in Sanski Most. My father, David Albahari, was born in 1889 in Tesanj (Bosnia) and my mother, Luna Albahari (nee Levi), was born in 1899 in Kladanj (Bosnia).

We lived in Sanski Most in a one-story garden house. Upstairs in this house we had a three room apartment and on the ground floor my father and his brother had a dry goods store. Next door to us lived my father's brother Jakob. They also had a garden house but their garden was much nicer than ours. Jakob's wife, Rena, grew beautiful flowers and had an orchard. My sisters, brother and I liked to stay at their house and play with their children. My father and his brother Jakob, two brothers, married two sisters, my mother and her sister Rena. Thus we lived liked one family.

A great number of Jews lived in Sanski Most. They had many professions among them: merchants, craftspeople, pharmacists, lawyers, etc. All in all it was a beautiful Jewish community, one that knew how to get along and was always ready to jump in and help someone when it was needed. There was a temple. It was an old modest building where all the Jews of Sanski Most gathered and marked their holidays.

My father and uncle's business did not go well and they decided to leave Sanski Most. My family went 12 kilometers away from Sanski Most to a place called Lusci Palanka. My uncle and his family went to Sarajevo.

We were the only Jewish family in Lusci Palanka. My father, who was a very sociable man, made a lot of friends quickly. Soon after our arrival he also established the first library and reading room and a group of mandolin players. My mother was well received by the other women and she was always willing to help the other women especially when it came to advise about running a household and taking care of children.

In Lusci Palanka my sisters and I went to elementary school. Since Lusci Palanka did not have a temple we went to Sanski Most for Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot and sometimes for Pesach. While there we stayed with our relative Avram Atijas and his wife Mazalta. For us children Chanukah was the best. I loved to light the candles. I remember before Pesach my mother would take all the dishes to the garden where she cleaned each plate. She also had a special trunk with dishes only for Pesach. Regardless of the fact that there was no temple in Luka Palanka my family always washed before the Shabbat and wore nice clothes. My father wore a dress suit as if he had come back from temple. Then he would read a prayer and after dinner we would go for a walk.

We did not stay in Luka Palanka for long. My father had to move because his business was not going well. This was not an industrialized environment in fact it was exclusively an agricultural region. In 1930 we moved to Drvar. Drvar was an industrialized town rich in wood. There was a cellulose factory and a big sawmill. The Grmec mountain was exploited by the sawmill and many people were employed in this industry. Unfortunately, we found that we were once again the only Jewish family. My father found a very good space for our future shop and very quickly the seeds of his and my mother's work began to appear. As very social people, they quickly had a steady clientele and my father was able to buy many shares and we had a solid savings.

When we finished elementary school my sisters, Flora, Judita and I continued our schooling in Banja Luka because there was no secondary school in Drvar. We lived with our aunt Rena and her husband Jakob who had relocated from Sarajevo to Banja Luka. My uncle's business did not go well and his family lived very modestly. My father helped him a lot.

My sisters and I joined the Jewish youth group in Banja Luka. There was a big temple and next to it a space for Jewish youth activities called Ken. In Ken we learned Hebrew, songs and Jewish games and we organized trips out of Banja Luka. Older girls and boys always went with we younger ones and they paid strict attention to our behavior. When we passed through the town everyone knew that we were Jews because we were dressed in clean clothes, not luxuriously, but very neat, and we were always well behaved.

My mother's brother, Haim Levi, also lived in Banja Luka. He had a big hairdresser salon. Frequently, he told me stories about his parents, Haim and Flora Levi. Since they died before I was born I listened to his stories with great interest. The story of my great-grandfather, Salomon, my grandmother Flora Levi's father, was especially moving and interesting. My great-grandfather was a banker of sorts. He had a currency exchange. He would take foreign currency and go from Banja Luka to Prijedor to change the money from Turkish currency to Austro-Hungarian. (Editor's note: we assume she is speaking of pre-1878, when Banja Luka was still in Turkish hands). He traveled a lot for this work. Once, while he was in Prijedor, someone noticed that he had a big bag from which he took out foreign money and changed it. Thieves waited for and killed my great-grandfather and took the money. His horse and dog returned home by themselves. My great- grandmother Bikina organized a search party and with help from the horse and dog she found the place where the crime occurred. The killer was quickly found and taken to prison.

My grandfather Haim and his wife Flora had a small shop. They sold mostly leather good including: saddles, horse harnesses, leather bags and other household goods. They lived modestly and observed all the holidays and customs because they were very religious. When their daughter Rena married she had to go to the ritual bath. For this ritual bath all the girls discreetly accompanied her to a place on the Vrbas River and helped her with the bath. Her hair was very long and they put some fragrant grass in her hair and on the way they sang. My mother told me about how wonderful these songs were. After the bath the bride was decorated and adorned until the morning. My grandmother Flora knew how to make the nicest tukada. A tukada is a hat which is placed on the bride and made from pearls and brocade. These were real pieces of art work. The young couple married under a traditional Jewish canopy and it was an event which all the young people of Banja Luka took part in. Six children were born from this marriage: Rena, Haim, Sarina, Luna, Leon and Matilda. Unfortunately, Matilda died very young. My mother's brother, Leon, was seriously injured during WWI. He never recovered from the injuries and died in 1923. His wife, Sida, died very quickly after him and the care of their three children: Zlata, Flora and Haim, was taken over by the remaining family members.

My paternal grandmother, Rahela Albahari (nee Atijas), was born in 1855 in Travnik.

She lived in a big family and had a lot of brothers and sisters. She was born while Bosnia and Hercegovina was under Turkish control. In Travnik there were a lot of Jewish families, more Sephards than Ashkenazis. There were rich and poor families. My great-grandfather was a small merchant and lived very modestly with his family. The male children learned a trade and female children did not go to school. My grandmother Rahela was very adroit, hardworking and curious about everything. She and her brothers learned Hebrew script and read religious books. Since the prayer books had Ladino (a medieval Spanish dialect written with Hebrew characters; Ladino, or Judeo-Espanol, was to Spanish what Yiddish was to German), she was able to use the Ladino to learn Hebrew. She spoke Ladino, Turkish, Hebrew and Serbian. She went to temple regularly, which was rare for female children at the time. She married Moshe Albahari when she was 17 years old. My grandfather Moshe's family lived in Travnik, and later moved to Tesanj, a small place in Bosnia. Moshe and Rahela lived in Tesanj and had a small shop. Rahela gave birth to 7 children: Salamon-Buhor, Jakob, Sabetaj, Leon, Gedalja, Ester and David. The children all left the house early; they learned a trade with friends or relatives in Travnik, Zenica and Sarajevo. When they finished their schooling, they got married, started their own families and lived in different places in Bosnia and Hercegovnia. Grandfather Moshe was sickly and he died of pneumonia around 1910. Since the children had moved away and she was left alone, Rahela decided to fulfill her longstanding wish to move to Israel and to die in the Holy Land. Her son Gedalja accompanied her to the ship, which sailed from Split.

When she arrived in Israel she educated Jewish children since she new Jewish history and how to read and write Hebrew quite well. She was in Israel when WWI broke out. Nostalgia and sadness overcame her. She was worried about her children. Unfortunately, she only managed to return to Bosnia in 1918. She died in Sarajevo in 1930. Before her death my father, my mother and my two sisters and I went to visit her. That is the first and last time I saw her. My father, David, was her youngest son and she was very close to him. I remember when we kissed her hand, first my father, then my mother and then the children and she kept repeating: "David, my sweet child."

Sometime around 1934, one could feel that bad times were coming. Fascism could already be felt in the air. After the unification of the Third Reich in 1938 (editor's note: this is how the respondent refers to the German takeover of Austria), many Jews arrived in Banja Luka from Austria. My uncle Salomon Levi took in one of these families. They left all of their property behind in Vienna. I was still too young to fully understand their situation. But, unfortunately, the hard times soon befell me too. For the 1940-41 school year I was enrolled in Prijedor. During this school year I started to have problems because my history professor was a fascist sympathizer and he always humiliated and insulted me in front of the whole grade. I cried after almost every class with him. My three school friends: Sveta Popovic, Joca Stefanovic and Milan Markovic were a great consolation to me. They would tell me: "Don't give in to him, hold your head up high, proudly, high, you are not going to let one fascist make you suffer." I listened to them. Numerus Klausus, a law which restricted the number of Jewish children who were able to go to school, had already been enacted. They carried this out especially rigorously with those boys and girls who were supposed to enroll in the higher grades of the gymnasium. At the teacher's meeting the director of my school insisted that I be thrown out, but I was lucky and my physics, geography and literature professors lobbied for me to stay. Their argument was that it would be better to dismiss a younger student who had time to transfer to some trade school rather than me. In the end they did not throw me out. I learned about this incident during the war when I met one my professors.

War broke out in 1941 and a German unit entered Drvar. Not much time passed before my father, mother and younger sister Judita, and my younger brother Moric, who was eleven, were taken to what was called a reception camp in Bosanski Petrovac by the Ustashe [Before and during WWII Ustashe were an extreme right wing political and military organization of Croatian nationalists on the German's side. They ruled Croatia from 1941-1945]. When this happened I was at my aunt's house. The Ustashe told her that she must send me to the camp but I did not go and I ran away instead. I hid in surrounding villages, however in the end I fell into the hands of the Ustashe and I suffered terribly when they took me to prison. But something happened to save me. Serbs, who were also mistreated by the Ustashe, attacked Drvar. I was liberated at that time. I immediately registered to help at the Drvar hospital. Salomon Levi, who I knew from before, worked there as a doctor. I contacted him and told him that I wanted to help in the hospital since before the war I had learned first aid in school. From that day I became a fighter against fascism. From then until 1945 I held a variety of different responsibilities and positions. Once the enemy attacked liberated territory and the people began to flee. Many mothers fled with weak children. Many children ran around like mad, fell in flames and disappeared. At the time I was in the 10th Krajiski brigade. I gathered these children, saved them from a sure death and took them back to a safe place. They were put up in a children's dormitory in Lika, which was established during the war. In honor of my effort to save as many children as possible, I was decorated with a medal of courage.

In the meantime, my parents along with Judita and Moric were supposed to be transferred from the reception camp to Jasenovac. However, my father was clever and while they were in the cattle cars waiting for the train tracks at the Prijedor station to be fixed he told my brother and sister to ask to the officers if they could use the toilet. Since there was not a normal toilet, they went a little behind the wagon and they managed to cross over the narrow-gauge railroad tracks. Shortly afterwards my parents managed to escape unnoticed and caught up with them. All four of them got on a train for Sanski Most. In Sanski Most they hid for some time; they wanted to reach Drvar because the Italians were there and they did not practice the same abuse the Germans did. With a lot of hardship they finally reached Drvar. I was ordered to stay in Drvar from the time the Italians took over to do illegal work. My father and mother spent the entire war running from place to place as liberated territories changed. My sister and brother were in the partisans.

In 1944 I caught pneumonia. The war efforts, hunger, walking, exhausted me terribly. My unit decided to transfer me to liberated territory from the medical facility. As soon as I got a little better I began to work in the youth organization in the liberated territory. This was in Bosanski Petrovac in Grahovo, in Jajce and in Travnik. At that time I was selected to be part of the top leadership for Bosnia and Hercegovina in the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Youth. My work was a great help to our army. I organized youth to help carry the wounded, to plow, dig, sow since all the food was sent to the front lines. We started a literacy course, we taught the youth many useful things and skills. For this work I was also awarded. I received a lot of recognition. I received awards for serving Bosnia and Hercegovina, for contributing to the fight, and after the war for my work with children. I was in Bugojno until 1945 when I heard that Belgrade was liberated. Naturally we were overjoyed, however all of Yugoslavia was still not liberated. Fortunately that too happened.

The members of my family and I were reunited in Sarajevo in 1945. We all came to the family house. My father was very happy that all of his children had survived and said: "Children, do not worry as long as your head is on your shoulders, we will start over and there will be everything."

After the war we children continued our schooling, we went to so-called courses for one year and finished two grades. We all finished gymnasium. School was hard, there was no paper to be used and we were all greatly impoverished, but we were all ecstatic to be liberated. The Jewish community in Sarajevo received aid from different organizations like the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, so that we Jews had clothing and we received eggs, powdered milk, rice, etc. My father was very active in the Jewish community. Later he got work as the head of a shop and while at this job he found himself. He worked with such enthusiasm in this store. Frequently he told me how he wanted to teach young people that commerce could be an honest trade. Not to steal and lie. My mother Luna devoted herself to the house. She met each of us and picked each of us up. In this time of poverty and lack of food she managed to make all sort of things out of nothing. Everyone loved her. In our family house in Sarajevo she waited for each of our surviving relatives. They slept on the floors until they found something. She had to clean, do laundry and cook and she never complained, she was so happy to have her children around her.

My parents were proud of each of their children because they all finished some form of higher education. My sister Judita finished agronomy and lived in Sarajevo. She married and had a daughter Tanja. My brother Moric finished forestry faculty and at the same time went to pilot school. He married a Jewish woman named Rahela Maestro. My father was very happy that there would be at least one heir. Rahela and Moric had a son who they named after our father. My sister Flora finished a commercial academy.

In 1946, I participated in the building of the Brcko-Banovici railroad line. After finishing the work I met a wonderful young man, my current husband, Ilija Perisic. He was active in aviation. Very soon after we met we married, in 1950.My two sisters and myself all married Serbs. My father wanted Jewish son-in-laws, but nonetheless he respected our choices. My father died in 1973.

My husband went to an advanced military school and finished a degree in political science. He is very responsible; he worked hard in the air force war division. He retired as a general lieutenant colonel.

My mother was in Sarajevo during the summers because we, her children, came there on our holidays. Those were wonderful days when the family gathered together. During the winters my mother would visit the three of us in Belgrade. She died in 1993.

My husband was a pilot, an officer in the Yugoslav national army and was transferred from Sarajevo to Belgrade. In the meantime, I managed to enroll in a two year teachers' college and right when I graduated my husband was transferred to Nis. My first teaching position was in Nis. We lived in Nis seven years and at one time I worked in the Museum of National Liberation Battles.

In the meantime we had three children. While the children were small they went to stay with my parents in Sarajevo for the school holidays. My parents celebrated all the Jewish holidays, so that from a young age my children knew everything about the holidays. Since Jewish holidays in essence mark historical events of the Jewish nation, their grandfather and grandmother explained to them the importance of all the holidays. My husband and I are atheists and in our house we celebrated neither Jewish nor Serbian holidays. My children are from a mixed marriage and feel like both Jews and Serbs. My eldest son Simo, finished the construction faculty and currently works for Energoprojekt as a deputy director. He is married and his wife works as an editor at the daily newspaper Politika. They have three children: Ana, a university student studying political science, Maya a fourth grader in middle school and Djordje a high school student in the II grade. My middle son, Predrag, finished the technological faculty and has a master's degree. He is married and has two sons Nenad and Mladen both of whom are students. My youngest son, Miljenko, finished the construction faculty and works. He has a daughter, Darja, who is in the V grade of elementary school. All of my sons and their families are members of the Jewish community. Sometimes my grandchildren go with the rest of the Jewish children to the (Joint Distribution Committee/Lauder Foundation) summer camp in Hungary.

We were once again transferred to Belgrade in 1959. I became employed at the Institute for History of the Workers' Movement. I worked there processing documents from the National liberation battles until my retirement in 1969.

I get much satisfaction and joy from grandchildren. They are my greatest treasure.  

Evgenia Ershova

Evgenia Ershova
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: July 2002

My family background
Growing up
During the war
Post-war
Glossary

My family background

My father's father, Ioyl Gutianskiy, was born in the town of Krasnoye, in Vinnitsa province, Ukraine around 1870. The town of Krasnoye was a typical provincial little town with a Jewish and Ukrainian population. The Jews were traditionally craftsmen and the Ukrainians were farmers. They were good neighbors and didn't have any conflicts. I don't know the name of my father's grandfather, but I know that he was a cabinetmaker and his son, my grandfather Ioyl, followed in his footsteps. My grandfather attended cheder, like all the other Jewish boys, and this was all the education he received. My grandfather had brothers and sisters, but I don't know anything about them. I don't even know their names. His family was very poor and my grandfather Ioyl left his home when he was around 14 to look for work. He traveled from town to town looking for work. He stayed in a town long enough to do any repair work he could find, and upon finishing it he moved on. He sometimes came home to bring the money that he had earned, and stayed home for a while. He stayed in the town of Ladyzhin longer than in the others. He liked the daughter of a shoemaker for whom he was working. Her name was Buzia. Buzia also fell in love with the young cabinetmaker and they soon married. Buzia's father, the shoemaker, wasn't a wealthy man, and Ioyl's parents weren't either, but their children had a traditional Jewish wedding. The bride and bridegroom stood under the huppah and the orchestra played traditional music. They had guests from Ladyzhin and from the town of Krasnoye from where the bridegroom's family came. After the wedding the young couple settled down in Buzia's father's house. Ioyl opened a carpenter's shop in Ladyzhin. Buzia's younger brothers helped him in the shop.

Ladyzhin was a real Jewish town. Its inhabitants were shoemakers, tailors, hat makers, roofers and merchants who owned several stores. There was a synagogue in the town. My grandfather went there on Saturdays. They followed the laws of kashrut, honored the Sabbath and celebrated Jewish holidays. But they were not very religious. They paid tribute to the cultural traditions rather than to religion. They raised their children as Jews. The boys were circumcised and went to cheder. At age 13 the boys had their bar mitzvah and at age 12 their daughter had her bat mitzvah, in accordance with the Jewish rituals for the coming of age of boys and girls. I need to say here that my grandparents' children were not at all religious. They observed Jewish traditions while living with their parents, but they forgot about the traditions and holidays after leaving their parents' home.

All of them except for Grisha, the middle son, had high expectations that the Revolution would improve their lives. I don't know anything about the Jewish pogroms in Ladyzhin; at least, we never discussed this subject in our family. My grandfather Ioyl died from a lung disease around 1915. Their children went to bigger towns looking for work after the Revolution. My grandmother Buzia stayed on in Ladyzhin, and spent the last years of her life with her daughter Fania in Kiev. Fania, my grandmother and our family were in the evacuation together. I remember very little of her. She was very old and stayed in bed all the time. She died in Sverdlovsk in 1943.

Their oldest son, Boris, was born in 1894. He graduated from a Jewish elementary school and went to Kiev after the Revolution. Many schools were opened for young people from poor families in Kiev, Kharkov and a number of bigger towns. Young people from the smaller Jewish towns moved to the bigger towns to get an education. Boris took a course in teaching practices and then studied at the Pedagogical Institute. Boris worked at the orphanage for retarded children for many years. He was a wonderful teacher. He didn't have any children of his own. Boris and his wife Olga were in the evacuation during the war. After the war they returned to Kiev. Boris died in the early 1950s.

Grigory, or Gershl, born in 1895, was their next son. In 1918 he moved to the USA. He disliked the idea of building communism. He lived in Philadelphia and got married there. His daughter was born 1927. He opened a stationery store in the early 1920s. His business was successful and Grigory became a wealthy man. During the famine 1 in Ukraine in 1933 he sent my father parcels and money and my parents could buy food in the Torgsin store 2. I don't know whether any member of our family had problems related to Grigory's departure to the USA. I don't think there were any problems, and I don't know anyone who suffered from keeping in touch with relatives abroad. Grigory also sent us parcels after the war. He died in the mid-1980s.

My father's sister Fania, born in 1897, was the closest to our family. She went to elementary school for a few years and then studied at home. She passed entrance exams to the 6th grade of Odessa grammar school and graduated with the diploma of primary school teacher. After the Revolution Fania graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics of Odessa University. Fania got married. She lived in the town of Beshad with her husband. In the early 1930s she divorced her husband and came to Kiev with her son Victor. Victor went to the front during the first days of the war and perished at the very beginning of the war. After the evacuation Fania returned to Kiev. She died in 1964.

My father's younger brother Veniamin Gutianskiy, born around 1907, graduated from the Faculty of Literature in Moscow and became a Jewish children's writer. He wrote poems and short stories for children in Yiddish and in Russian. He lived in Kiev. In the mid-1930s a few books of his poems and stories for children in Yiddish were published. During World War II Veniamin and his wife Bertha were in the evacuation. Veniamin wasn't recruited to the army due to a lung disease. Their daughter Luba was born while they were in evacuation. After the war Bertha worked at the Institute of Literature in Kiev and Veniamin continued his writing. However, he wasn't published then. He was arrested in 1949, during the outburst of anti- Semitism, on charges of Zionistic propaganda. His wife Bertha was also arrested on a fabricated accusation. Their youngest daughter, Maria, was born in jail. Some time later they were exiled to Semipalatinsk, in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. Bertha's mother and Luba went there too. Veniamin didn't live long. In jail he fell ill with tuberculosis and died in Semipalatinsk in 1953. In 1956 Bertha and her children returned to Kiev. They had received documents of rehabilitation for herself and her husband Veniamin. Bertha and her children lived with us for some time, because they had lost their previous apartment. In 1957 Bertha received a small two-room apartment. Bertha died in 1972. Her daughters live in the USA.

My father, Leiba Gutianskiy, was born in Ladyzhin on September 27, 1901. He changed his name to Lev during the Soviet era. He finished cheder and then the Jewish elementary school, like all the other boys in the family. Later, my father became a laborer at the sugar factory not far from Ladyzhin. Subsequently, he became a clerk at this same factory. After the Revolution he finished a course in accounting and continued to work as an accountant at this same factory.

I know very little about my mother's parents. My mother was a very withdrawn person and told me more about my father's parents rather than about her own. My mother came from the town of Sobolevka in the Vinnitsa province of Ukraine. My grandfather's name was Motel Trahtenberg and my grandmother's name was Genia. I was named after her. I don't know what my grandfather did for a living. I believe he was a craftsman like my grandfather Ioyl. Motel and Genia were born around 1860. From what my mother told me, I believe their family was rather religious. My mother used to say, 'they were like everybody else in the town.' This means that they went to synagogue once a week, followed the laws of kashrut, honored the Sabbath and celebrated all Jewish holidays. They lived a rather modest life, like my father's parents. My grandfather Motel died before the Revolution of 1917. My mother said it was a good thing that he didn't live to see what was happening in the town during the Revolution and the Civil War [1918-1921]: gangs 3, murder and Jewish pogroms. My mother and her sisters often hid in fields, sheds or haystacks waiting for the bandits to leave the town. My grandmother Genia wept and worried while hiding in town. She didn't know whether she would ever see her daughters again. She died in 1919.

My mother's oldest sister, Luba, was born in 1885. Luba, her husband and daughters Manya and Fira lived in Gaisin, Vinnitsa region. I don't know her husband's name. He died before the war. Because the Vinnitsa region was occupied from the first days of the war, Luba and her daughters couldn't go to the evacuation and had to stay in Gaisin, in the ghetto. During the war the Romanians were the masters of the Vinnitsa region, but they were very hard on Jews, demanding money and gold from them in exchange for their lives. Luba and Manya survived in the ghetto until the Soviet troops liberated them, but Fira died at the end of 1943, some time before liberation. Luba didn't live long after the war. She died in 1948. Manya and her family left for Israel in the early 1970s. I have no information about her present whereabouts.

My mother's younger sister Hontsia, born in 1905, finished elementary school in Sobolevka. Around 1930 she went to Moscow and entered the Pedagogical Institute. In Moscow she married a Russian man from Yaroslavl and moved to Yaroslavl with him. Her parents respected her choice and didn't have anything against this marriage. Hontsia was a primary school teacher. Her son Arkadiy lives in Yaroslavl. Hontsia died in the mid-1980s.

My mother had another sister, named Zlata. I don't know whether she was my mother's younger or older sister. We have a photograph of my mother with Hontsia and Zlata. I know that after she got married Zlata lived somewhere in the Vinnitsa region. During the war she and her children, along with other Jews of their town, were shot by the fascists. My mother was a reserved and tight-lipped woman. She never told me about them. It was probably emotionally too hard for her to talk about her sister. My mother also had a brother. His name was Iosif and he perished during the Civil War.

My mother was born in 1903. She finished her studies at the four-year Jewish elementary school and then probably studied with private teachers. My mother didn't have any certificates or diplomas, but she wrote very well in Russian and read a lot. I don't think my grandparents had other books besides religious ones at home. I guess my mother must have borrowed books from her friends or from the library.

Growing up

My parents met in Sobolevka around 1925 while my father was there on a business trip. There were quite a few sugar factories in Vinnitsa. Almost every town or village had one, and my father often visited there on business. There was also a sugar factory in Sobolevka. I don't know any details of my parents' meeting each other, but I know that they married in 1928. They had written letters to each other for three years and saw each other quite often. My father traveled to Sobolevka almost every month. They had a civil registration ceremony in Sobolevka. They didn't have a wedding party. The three of them just had dinner: my mother, father and Hontsia. There were no other relatives in Sobolevka left. My father had quit his job by then and they left for Kiev. They decided to begin a new life in a big city.

My parents rented two rooms in a house in Demeyevka [neighborhood in Kiev]. My father got a job as an accountant at the Krasny Rezinschik rubber plant. He worked there until the war began. In 1929 my older sister Eleonora (Ella) was born. My mother stayed at home in the first years of her marriage. She did the housework and looked after my sister. Ella was a weak and sickly child. In the early 1930s my father's sister Fania, her son and my grandmother Buzia came to live with us. By that time my father had purchased this apartment from his landlords. My parents and Ella lived in a smaller room and the bigger one was occupied by Fania and her son and my grandmother. Aunt Fania told me that they lived as a big family. The rooms were small and poorly furnished, and the family was not very wealthy. Only my father and Fania worked. There was a flower and kitchen garden near the house. My mother grew flowers and vegetables. Sometimes my father's brothers Boris and Veniamin visited us. Sometimes we visited them. We celebrated family holidays together, birthdays and anniversaries, and we celebrated state holidays like the 1st of May and October Revolution Day 4. These revolutionary holidays were days off and we had the table covered with a fancy tablecloth and there were lace coverlets on the armchairs. It made the atmosphere very bright and festive. My grandmother Buzia did complain that the family didn't celebrate Jewish holidays, but my parents held firmly against this and didn't give in. They even spoke Russian at home, and not their mother tongue, Yiddish. However, they respected my grandmother Buzia and her faith. She tried to keep traditions at home: she lit Sabbath candles in her room, celebrated Pesach and the main Jewish holidays and fasted at Yom Kippur. She didn't try to teach us Jewish traditions against our parents' will. We were young and didn't understand what she was doing; we even laughed at her sometimes.

I was born on August 20, 1937. My sister Ella went to school that same year. My Aunt Fania told me that I was born in a bad year. It was 1937, the year of arrests 5 and repression of innocent people. A few people were arrested at the factory where my father worked and he expected his own arrest every day. Fortunately, he survived the ordeal. I remember very little of my prewar childhood. I don't remember how the war began. My father wasn't recruited into the army. He had a white chit for his poor eyesight.

During the war

I have memories of the evacuation. We were in a long railroad car where there was no room to move. We evacuated in the summer of 1941 with the Krasny Rezinschik plant where my father worked. It was very hot. We were thirsty all the time. My mother and father took turns getting off the train at the stations to fetch us water. I fell ill with measles on the way. My mother was afraid that we would be ordered to get off the train due to this infectious disease, and she hid me behind the suitcases. Our trip lasted a long time. As we were crossing the Volga River on a barge my sister Ella fell into the water. She couldn't swim, but she managed to stay afloat on the surface until the sailors from the barge came to her rescue. She got pneumonia afterwards and didn't go to school for a year.

Our destination was Sverdlovsk. The employees of the plant and their families were accommodated in the barracks. My father, mother, my sister, Fania, grandmother and I shared one room. My father was an accountant at the plant. In 1942 he volunteered to go to the front. He had a very hard job. There were thefts at the plant and he was given forged papers for his signature. He didn't sign them. He began to be persecuted at work and one day he said to my mother: 'Rather than work with those swindlers I'll go to the front to defend my children.' In 1942 all men were recruited regardless of their health conditions. My father was shortsighted, but he was made a machine gun man. He wrote us several letters, but then no letters came in 1943 and at the end of the year we received notification of his death. I remember my mother, my grandmother and my sister crying. I didn't understand why they were crying. I couldn't understand the words 'perished' or 'died' at that time. This was the first death in my life, and I was just 6 years old.

Our life during the evacuation was very hard. After my father perished my mother went to work at the Krasny rezinschik plant. She worked at the shop where they made boots for the army. My sister went to school. After classes she worked at the plant packing shells into boxes. She received a worker's card for 400 grams of bread for her work. There was nothing Jewish in our life at that time. We were an ordinary Soviet family suffering from the horrors of war. I went to kindergarten. I stayed there six days a week and on Saturdays I was taken to stay overnight at home and was taken back to kindergarten on Sunday evenings. We had good meals there and I even looked plump, but I remember feeling constant hunger. I woke up hungry in the morning and I went to bed hungry in the evening. When my mother was coming back from work she passed my kindergarten. Sometimes mother managed to exchange some food at the plant's canteen for the boot blanks that she brought to me. Most often it was a whole bucket of vermicelli and something like butter in it. I was waiting for her with a spoon. I remember standing there looking for my mother. She came and sat me on the windowsill and I ate vermicelli from the bucket. It seemed so delicious to me.

In 1943, almost immediately after we received notification of my father's death, my grandmother died. I wasn't at the funeral and didn't see how she was buried. I don't think there was somebody to read the Jewish mourning prayer on her grave.

I remember Victory Day, May 9, 1945. My mother came to the kindergarten. She was kissing me, crying and laughing. I didn't understand why she was crying when she ought to have been merry and happy. We returned home with the plant in December 1945. We went back by freight train. Many families were returning to Kiev, but others stayed in Sverdlovsk. Kiev was in ruins. Many people had no place to live. Many houses were destroyed and many apartments were occupied by other people. Our apartment in Demeyevka was also occupied. Fania, whose son Victor had perished during the war, lived at my uncle Boris' apartment. We settled down in the hostel of the Krasny Rezinschik. We shared a 12 square meter room with another family, a woman and her two daughters. After the war my uncle Grigory sent us parcels from America containing incredible kapron stockings, shoes and coats for Ella and me. It often happened that our neighbors took away all the clothes while my mother was at work and Ella and I were at school. My mother sold some of the clothes. It was a big help for us. At that time a loaf of brown bread cost 100 rubles at the market.

Post-war

My sister wanted to get our apartment back. She submitted her appeal to the judge and she even wrote to Kaganovich 6. As a result, within two days we received one room of the two that we had before the war. The family of Kashmelyuks that had occupied our apartment continued to live in the other room. They lived there until they finished the construction of a small house not far from where we lived. We got along with this family. We all suffered from the war. Kashmelyuk's son was shot during the war. He was a partisan messenger and he was shot at Babi Yar. 7 After exterminating the Jewish population, the Germans shot communists, prisoners-of-war, partisans, etc., at Babi Yar.

My mother continued working at the plant, but fell ill with cancer in 1963. She died in 1964. My sister Ella entered the Faculty of Philology at Kiev State University in 1948. This was the last year that Jews were admitted to higher educational institutions. Upon graduation my sister went to work in the town of Kuzmina Greblia in the Cherkassy region. She worked there for many years as a teacher of Russian language and literature at the secondary school. She organized a folk choir and an amateur theater. She returned to Kiev in 1970. Eleonora wasn't married and had no children. She died from cancer in 1994.

After the war I studied at the Russian secondary school. I was a Soviet child, went to the May Day parades, collected paper wastes (this was a popular pioneer activity) and was a Komsomol 8 member. It wasn't that I liked it extremely, but it was the only life we knew, and we couldn't imagine a different life. Life around us was poor and miserable and there was no opportunity to change anything. We were assured that life was going to improve and that we only had to be patient. We didn't know that our leaders, their families and their children had a very different lifestyle with the abundance of everything one could dream of. In summer I went to pioneer camps near Kiev. I liked it there. We had lots of fun despite the strict discipline and lining up twice a day. We marched singing patriotic songs. In the first years at school we Jewish children didn't feel any prejudicial attitudes towards us. We were all children of war. Many of us lost our fathers to the war and many children lost their parents in Babi Yar. Our teachers sympathized with us. In the early 1950s during the outburst of anti-Semitic campaigns and during the period of the Doctors' Plot 9 my Uncle Veniamin was arrested and sent into exile. At this time, my history teacher's attitude towards me became abusive. He gave me lower marks and asked me questions that were beyond our school program to give me a '2'[this is almost the lowest grade]. I guess he knew that my uncle had been arrested and this explains his attitude towards me.

In 1953 Stalin died and people wept at the news. The director of our school came to our class with a mourning band on her arm. Classes were cancelled and all the children went outside wearing black armbands. Veniamin's sister Fania did not cry. She always believed Stalin to be guilty for the arrest and death of her brother.

After finishing school in 1954 I went to work as a laborer at the glass factory. I didn't even consider going to university. It was almost impossible for a Jew to enter the university. Besides, I wasn't very successful at school with my studies. In addition, we were very poor and I understood that I had to go to work to earn money. Later, I finished a course for radio operators and got a job at the military unit. I met Valeriy Ershov there. He was a sergeant, a Russian, a very nice and kind man. We fell in love and got married in 1961. Neither my parents nor Valeriy's relatives were opposed to our marrying. We loved each other and this was important to our families. We didn't have a wedding ceremony. We didn't even have wedding rings. In 1963 Aunt Fania, who was very ill, had a premonition of her approaching death and gave us some tsarist golden coins and we had wedding rings made from them. Valeriy came from Gorky. He was an only son. His father Sergey had perished at the front. His mother lived in Gorky. She was a nice, quiet woman. I got along well with her. We visited her several times and she came to see us. She died in Gorky in 1974. After finishing school Valeriy served in the army in Kiev and remained in the military after his term of service was over. He worked as an electrician at Kievenergo. We worked for over 25 years at this plant until it was closed in the 1990s. There was no financing and people were not paid for their work. We retired in 1992.

We have two sons. Yuri was born in 1963 and Sergey was born in 1967. Both of my sons had Russian as their nationality in their passports. It was the only possible way for them to have no obstacles in entering university. They both studied at the Ship-Building College and then enrolled in the Institute of Water Transport in Leningrad. They studied there by correspondence. They didn't finish their studies at the Institute. It was difficult to study by correspondence and they quit. Yuri works at the security guard company. He installs security alarm systems. Sergey is manager at a commercial company. Both of my sons married Russian girls. Yuri married Alyona and Sergey married Oksana. Yuri divorced Alyona a few years ago. They have two children: Andrei, born in 1985 and Valentin, born in 1986. Sergey Egor was born in 1995.

We didn't celebrate Jewish holidays in our family before or after the war. Neither did we have any discussions about our Jewish roots. We never had matzah at home - we were growing up as Soviet children. Therefore, I'm pleasantly surprised that my children, who grew up in mixed families, identify themselves as Jews, although their nationality is written as Russian. Yuri and Sergey both go to synagogue. One day in the 1990s they told us that they had an urge to come back to their Jewish roots. I don't know how they came to this decision. Perhaps, some of their friends practiced religion and influenced them, or perhaps they came to it by themselves. They contribute money to the poor and celebrate Jewish holidays. They are not religious people, but they are trying to restore Jewish traditions in their homes. My older grandson Andrei studied in Israel. His mother insisted on his return recently. She was terrified for her child to stay in a country where terrorist attacks have become routine and where innocent children are targeted for death. Our sons insisted that our family obtain all the necessary documents for emigration to Israel. We did that. But we have delayed our departure for that country, which is actually in a state of war. However, our children do not give up their hope to move to Israel one day. They study Hebrew and attend classes in the Sochnut. We hope that we shall be able to go to Israel soon. We hope that peace will descend upon that country and that we shall be able to move there and not be afraid for our lives and the lives of our children. My husband and I would prefer not to have to emigrate, but as we can't imagine a life far away from our children and grandchildren, whatever our children decide to do, we shall stay with them.

My husband and I are now retired. We are often ill and stay at home. We look after our grandchildren. Sometimes our friends visit us for a cup of tea. We receive a very small pension. Our children and Hesed help us financially. We also receive food packages from Hesed which are very sufficient support for us.

Glossary

1 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.

2 Torgsin stores

These shops were created in the 1920s to support commerce with foreigners. One could buy good quality food products and clothing in exchange for gold and antiquities in such shops.

3 Gangs

During the civil war in 1918-1920 there were all kinds of gangs in the Ukraine. Their members came from all the classes of former Russia, but most of them were peasants. Their leaders used political slogans to dress their criminal acts. These gangs were anti-Soviet and anti-Semitic. They killed Jews and burnt their houses, they robbed their houses, raped women and killed children.

4 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.

5 Arrests in the 1930s

In the mid-1930s Stalin launched a major campaign of political terror. The purges, arrests, and deportations to labor camps affected virtually every family. Untold numbers of party, industrial, and military leaders disappeared during the "Great Terror". Indeed, between 1934 and 1938, two-thirds of the members of the 1934 Central Committee were sentenced and executed.

6 Kaganovich, Lazar (1893-1991)

Soviet Communist leader. A Jewish shoemaker and labor organizer, he joined the Communist Party in 1911. He rose quickly through the party ranks and by 1930 he had become Moscow party secretary-general and a member of the Politburo. He was an influential proponent of forced collectivization and played a role in the purges of 1936-38. He was known for his ruthless and merciless personality. He became commissar for transportation (1935) and after the purges was responsible for heavy industrial policy in the Soviet Union. In 1957, he joined in an unsuccessful attempt to oust Khrushchev and was stripped of all his posts.

7 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, in Kiev. During three years of occupation (1941-1943) fascists were killing thousands of people at Babi Yar every day: communists, partisans, and prisoners of war. They were people of different nationalities.

8 Komsomol

Communist youth organization created by the Communist Party to make sure that the state would be in control of the ideological upbringing and spiritual development of young people until they were almost 30.

9 Doctors' Plot

The so-called Doctors' Plot was a set of accusations deliberately forged by Stalin's government and the KGB against Jewish doctors in the Kremlin hospital charging them with the murder of outstanding Bolsheviks. The Plot was started in 1952, but was never finished because Stalin died in 1953.

Janina Duda

Interviewer: Marta Cobel–Tokarska
Date of interview: September 2004 – January 2005

Ms. Duda lives alone, in a large apartment in Mokotow, an elegant district of Warsaw. She is a very energetic person, but quite reserved. When I met with her several times, I had a feeling she was not being completely open with me. She did not want to talk about some of the facts in her life, while she described others in a very vague manner. Although Ms. Duda has an excellent memory (especially for names), her story is sometimes unclear, her sentences are unfinished.

My grandfather, my mother’s father, Noter Lapidus, was a well known person in Bialystok [200 km east of Warsaw]. He lived on Fabryczna Street 5. His apartment was quite large. He worked in the Tryling company. It’s a textile company. I don’t know what he did exactly, but until the end of his life he received 5 zloty a month. The owners of this Tryling company were probably Grandfather’s distant family. And they took on this obligation to send him money. It wasn’t very much. Practically nothing. Before the war, for example, a teacher or a policeman used to make about 180 zloty a month. And this was 5 zloty a month… It was nothing.

The Lapidus family was a very well known family in Bialystok, a bourgeois-intelligentsia family. Many physicians, members of free professions [that is, they graduated, had higher education]. There were no special signs of piety at Grandfather’s house. I only remember a large portrait, or rather a collection of photographs: Grandfather and all his children. And a portrait, you could have hung it in some nobleman’s house, it would have fit there perfectly. They observed traditions, the basic religious forms, but there were no visible signs. They all dressed normally.

Grandfather was married to a woman from the Kanel family. I remember the early 1920s when, as a little child, I was sitting on my father’s shoulders and I witnessed the death of my grandmother, whom I don’t remember, I don’t even know what her name was. But I do remember that Grandmother was a malicious old woman, she hated my mother, like a typical mother-in-law. And what was my mother to do? She simply hated Grandmother.

I didn’t know Grandfather’s siblings, but I did know Grandmother’s. She had a brother, who was a wealthy man, he operated a textile company, textile warehouses. This was in downtown Bialystok; on the corner of Sienkiewicza Street next to Bialka [Biala river]. And this was the only brother. I don’t remember what his name was. Grandmother’s brother’s son was a pediatrician, his wife was an optometrist, and they had a daughter named Natasza.

Natasza’s brother-in-law survived the war, he lives in Warsaw until this day… I mean he used to live there, because I doubt he’s still alive. I have his name, Zlatin Szymanski. We met in Warsaw once, he visited me, we talked. I asked him how he managed to survive and he said that he left the ghetto in Bialystok 1 and went to the countryside and survived, just like that. He spoke perfect Polish, he didn’t wear sidelocks, he was a completely secular person. However, his entire family died.

In 1933 when I was in Bialystok – Grandfather was still alive – I always had to drink some vodka with him. He died several years later, before the war. He lived to be 94 years. A fantastic guy. He said he married Grandmother, because the match had been made, but he was in love with a different woman, he liked the other one more, but then the kids were born… Grandpa was such a great guy!

My other grandmother, Father’s mother, was Sara Perelmut. Her maiden name was Bortner. I remember Grandmother wore a wig. She wrote beautifully in Russian. [Editor’s note: On lands under Russian partition 2 the local residents used, depending on their nationality, Polish, Yiddish and Ukrainian; knowledge of Russian was also common.] These Jewish families paid a lot of attention to education. It’s a Jewish trait, after all. When you talk about Jews, you say they’re clever, talented, intelligent – it is so, but, after all, that’s two thousand years of learning. A habit of learning. And you can see that pays off, from generation to generation. I didn’t know Grandfather Perelmut. I know nothing about him. Not even his first name…

One part of the Bortner family lived in Warsaw and the second part in Lodz [130 km south west of Warsaw]. One of these Bortner cousins from Warsaw was in the Red Army, he fought in the Stalingrad battle 3; he later returned home [to Poland] as an officer. He changed his last name to Tagori. He was a lieutenant colonel and got married in Lublin to a Polish woman, Zosia, a very pretty girl. In 1948 he left for Israel with his wife, as part of Haganah 3, ‘the fight for Israel.’ These are interesting things, how people’s fates become twisted. He took part in the battle for Haifa. He sent me, in Hebrew, of course, so I can’t read it, a story about his heroic deeds [published in 1954 in the newspaper ’Ha-Mekaped’ in Israel].

They later left Israel and broke up. He went to Paris. Although he was a musician, a saxophonist, a composer, in the military, there he switched to construction work, renovations, because that was very profitable. And he made it. He bought a castle near Nice and the title of baron. He married a French woman, Denise. They had two children. But he’s dead by now.  

Father’s name was Lejb, Lejb Perelmut. I don’t know when he was born. And the same with Mother, I don’t know. You can see what Father looked like in the photographs: mustache, blond hair, he was an ordinary man, he dressed normally.

My first childhood memories are of Fabryczna 35 in Bialystok, the four-room apartment on the 1st floor. It was a detached house, but one room was taken up by a large weaving loom, where Father worked at home. My toys were rags from that weaving loom. Later, Father became an accountant. How this happened, I don’t know. He wrote beautifully, he kept books normally. Anyway, the tax police would go around and check if you weren’t cheating in your accounting. I remember Father got busted once and had to give a bribe.

I remember that, as a child, when I was being naughty, Father wanted to beat me with a towel. And in Bialystok there was this garden in front of the house, with flowers and lilacs. There was a Persian lilac, very dark, it was a tree. When my Father chased me, I’d climb up on that tree. There was a seat there, so I’d sit, dangle my legs and just wave at Father. Or I’d hide under the bed, so he wouldn’t be able to catch me. And I remember this one time, I must have been very small then, when Father carried me home from Grandfather’s house. I remember that. I sat on his shoulders and he carried me. Oh, God, Father was such a good man as well.

Mother’s first name was Estera, her maiden name was Lapidus. Estera, but at home, among family, she was called Esfir, from Russian 5. Mother stayed at home, she was a housewife. She was a very intelligent, wise woman. When I remember my adolescence and my behavior and Mother’s calmness among all this, she never reproached me, I’m at a loss for words about her wisdom. Because I know what I did and how I stirred things up. She was very tolerant. I don’t know how she could have been so tolerant to me. I wouldn’t have been able to be like that.

In some ways I resemble my mother, my nose, hair color – Mother was also a dark blonde. Father was almost white, he had very fair hair and I don’t know how it was that my sister Dina was red haired. Mother attended a Russian gymnasium [lyceum], I don’t know if she ever graduated. And she was a bit involved in political activity in her youth. Once she told me how she even transported guns from Warsaw to Bialystok in her youth. [Editor’s note: the sister of Mrs. Duda’s mother, Bluma, was involved in a Russian revolutionary group, it is possible that Mrs. Duda’s mother helped her.]

Yes, mother was a bit different from the rest of the family. She was also very considerate to Father. Once, this was already in Lublin [in the 1930s], Father was nervous, he had lost his job, there were bankruptcies and he’d sometimes raise his voice at Mother… And I remember I’d say to her, ‘Mommy, why don’t you talk back to Father?’ And she’d say, ‘And who is this poor Jew supposed to talk to?’ So – I am the wife, I have to understand him and help him in this situation. Father and Mother died in Bialystok – during the Holocaust. I don’t know if they died of hunger, or how else. 

Mother had many siblings. First her sister Bluma, whom, of course, I never knew. I was named Bluma after her. [Editor’s note: One of the most common practices is to name a child to honor a relative. Sephardic Jews name their children freely after both living and deceased relatives. However, Ashkenazim rarely name children after living relatives.] In 1905, after the revolution 6 she was dragged out of her home, Grandfather’s apartment, Fabryczna 5. And they shot her in front of the house.

One brother studied painting in Petersburg. I don’t know what his name was. There was one more Lapidus brother. He was married to a widow of a Siberian [a man deported by authorities to Siberia], he was the father of a son named Moszek and he had a stepson, whose last name was Lubnicki. This Lubnicki later became a professor and taught philosophy at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin.

Then there were also the sisters, Berta [Jewish name] or Basia [Russian name] and Emma Domeradzka, and then Anna Wolfson. That’s the one at whose house I stayed in Bialystok [in 1935] and who helped me. And one more sister: Zlata [Russian name] or Zina [Jewish name]. Her last name, after she got married, was Mroczkowska. Those were all the sisters.

Father’s family came from Brest [200 km east of Warsaw]. They were more of a working class family. They all worked in the textile industry. In 1920, when there was a revolutionary committee in Bialystok [cf. Polish-Soviet War (1919-21)] 7 the three of them, two of Father’s sisters and the youngest brother left for Russia with the Red Army [in 1920]. This youngest brother’s name was Filip. He died in the battle of Kursk 8 in 1941. His son Aron lived in Minsk, in Belarus.

My aunts, father’s sisters were Genowefa, Fela, Ania and Mania. Mania married Naum Pinski. Ania’s husband was Natan Lapidus. Natan also fought the Germans, as a senior lieutenant. He fought like the entire family did. None of them are alive. I met them in 1941, when Belarus was under Russian [Soviet] occupation. That was when Father went to see his family, whom he hadn’t seen for so many years. He was the oldest. And I also went there, to Russia [the Soviet Union], right before the war. And that was when I met one aunt, the second one, both are dead now, and my uncle Filip, who was in love with the Soviet Union. They all worked.

There were no losses in the family, because of Stalin’s regime [nobody died during the Holocaust]. And he explained to me that he had a job, that he appreciated how they cared for workers, how they cared for people. When I got there, the first thing he did was show me Lenin, there in that mausoleum [Red Square, Moscow, the present stone mausoleum was built in 1929-1930, architect: A.V.Shchusev], then we went to see the Soviet officer’s house, which was a very beautiful building [Editor’s note: probably this building is a simple lodging house for state officers]. And he showed me Moscow.

The oldest of Father’s sisters, Genowefa, whom my father married off, gave her a dowry, well, Genowefa and her husband died in the Holocaust.

And Father had one more sister. That was yet another branch of our family in Lublin. This sister’s name was Fela. Fela married a Goldberg. And my father had the brother in Bialystok, who was a weaver, he was very poor. But I wasn’t in touch with them: with Aunt Fela or this uncle from Bialystok. I was simply young, full of myself, and so on. I was closer to Mother’s family, because of the age of the children, my cousins. But all the family of my Mother died. I don’t know, I guess they didn’t have any support of friends from Polish families.

After the war, in the 1990s, a meeting was organized on the occasion of the anniversary of the creation of the Bialystok ghetto and I went there. And I have to admit that most of the Jews present there survived thanks to the help of Polish peasants, among whom they practically used to live and were only moved by the Germans during the occupation to the ghetto in Bialystok. And when it came to life or death, they chose to run away back to those villages and they managed to survive there. But I didn’t meet any natives of Bialystok. They simply didn’t have any contacts with the countryside.

I don’t remember Father ever going somewhere to pray in Bialystok. Perhaps he did… sometimes he used to pray at home, he’d put on a white tallit and he’d put on teffilin. And in Lublin, because we lived in a house where there were many Jews, sometimes there’d be prayer meetings in our apartment. Some ten men would get together and pray together. Father felt very honored when this prayer meeting took place in his apartment. That was when we, the kids, were put in the kitchen and, to spite the adults, we’d buy ourselves pieces of sausage [pork] on Yom Kippur, as a sign of protest, because young people are always rebelling. And if Father used to go to a synagogue, if he had a tefillin or whether he just carried something else under his arm, I don’t know, I simply didn’t pay much attention to those things then.

The first time I saw a synagogue was in Warsaw, the reconstructed Nozyk synagogue 9. I simply never went to synagogues before that time. Perhaps because less attention was paid to the religious education of women. [Editor’s note: it is improbable that lack of Mrs. Duda’s religious education was due to generally less attention paid to the religious education of women. Mostly it depended on Mrs. Duda’s family’s decision, but it is also possible that she simply doesn’t remember well.] It was enough for a woman to behave appropriately, be a good wife, mother, and that was it, wasn’t it? But in that family circle there was complete separation of religion, religious behavior from normal [everyday] life.

And Mother’s family was also, in a sense, assimilated. All the sisters, although they had Jewish names, used different names in everyday life. They were very Russified. Perhaps because they attended Russian schools. This community was different from those Hasidim 10, with sidelocks, deep in prayer, dancing etc. Those were secular people, who abided by the rules of their religion, but other than that, it has to be said, they assimilated.

But I do have to say that candles were lit on Friday, mother prayed over the candles. I remember it as if it was today, I have an excellent visual memory: the table, a white tablecloth, candlesticks, candles. Easter [Pesach] holidays were the same. There was seder, so I said, ‘Ba ladem alisztama halajla haze’ [‘Mah nishtana ha-lailah ha-zeh mi-kol ha-leilot?’: ‘Why is this night  different from other nights?’, first question at seder], because there were three girls in our family and the youngest one was too small. [Editor’s note: the four questions are traditionally asked by the youngest child.] Mother made cake for the holidays and I licked the bowls clean. This was in the period when Father worked, there was money at home, so Mother baked cakes for holidays… Yes, all holidays. We celebrated all of them at home.

I was Mother’s oldest child. I was born in 1918, in Bialystok. But I was really the middle child at home because Father was a widower. His first wife died during childbirth. So I had an older stepsister, Fania. I didn’t know about this for a long time, until I was seventeen, because Mother didn’t tell us that Fania wasn’t her daughter. Fania was eight years older than I, so she was born in 1910. And Dina, the youngest, was born in 1926. I was there when she was born, I handed the towel to the doctor. She was born at home. Doctor Sokolowski attended the birth; he was my mother’s cousin, from the Kanel family. 

My sister Fania graduated from gymnasium, she passed her final exam at Szperowa’s in Lublin. And Dina – we called her Dinka – attended Druskin’s gymnasium in Bialystok. Then Fania got married. Her sweetheart, Gorzyczanski, left somewhere and she married his friend – Mosze Rojtman. She had a daughter. When my parents left for Bialystok in 1937, she and her husband moved into their apartment in Lublin. Later, I got them to come to Bialystok. They all died, like the entire family, in Bialystok, in the ghetto.

Bialystok was a half-Jewish town. Industry was mostly in Jewish hands, although I have to say that Mr. Komorowski [Mrs. Duda actually means Ryszard Kaczorowski (born 1919): Polish politician, after WWII emigrated to Great Britain. 1986-1989 minister of national affairs in the Polish government in exile; 1989-1991 President of the Republic of Poland in exile; cf. president-in-exile 11] was a former accountant in one of the factories in Bialystok. I knew many Jewish workers, I remember these Bialystok factories, the rags would stink so you could smell it from a long distance… because since the middle of the 19th century Bialystok specialized in the production of materials from rags, from wastes. There were piles of waste in front of the factories, the workers sorted them and then they would be processed. These products were later sent to Far East markets, Manchuria, so even to China.

Our apartment on Fabryczna Street 35 was close to Grandfather Lapidus’s apartment. Some Germans, the Schmidts and the Stebbes, lived nearby. There was this boy, Hans Schmidt, we all played together. My parents told me that during World War I, Germans gave the Schmidts flour for baking bread and the Schmidts gave that flour to their neighbors, it didn’t matter to them if they were Jewish or Polish, they gave it to everyone. There were Russian children there, Polish and Tatar children, a real hotchpotch. Grandma Sara Perelmut, father’s mother, lived on Ciepla Street, in a kind of garret. And a Tatar family lived on the first floor. So they celebrated Friday, because the holy day of the Muslims is Friday. And Grandmother, of course, celebrated Saturday. So, in one word, there was this conglomerate of faiths, cultures, but it didn’t matter for the kids. All the kids played together and I really didn’t feel strange in that crowd of kids. 

I’d like to say a few good words about the owners of the house where we lived in Bialystok. They were from the local gentry of Podlasie, the Rozycki family. I remember how once, when I was sick with measles or some other childhood illness, this Mr. Rozycki took some apples from the garden and gave them to Mother, so I’d have something to eat when I was sick. My parents told me that when Haller came to Bialystok with his army 12 and they were looking for Jews, this Rozycki hid all his Jewish tenants in his basement and hung crosses in their apartments. He saved them from disgrace, because you can’t say what would have happened, death or disgrace.

And the neighbors, I remember, later on there was the Cukier family... They left for Italy [before the war]. They lived on the second floor. And right next door there was a Polish family, the family of a Latin teacher, who was also, I think, an employee of the political police. And there was this girl there, Wanda Strzelecka. I visited all these local manors with her [relatives of the Strzelecki family, who lived in the countryside], because we played together and grew up together.

When we moved to Lublin with my parents it was 1928 or 1929. We moved, because Father got a job there. They gave him a store to run in Lublin with textiles from Bialystok. He’d share this with another man, his name was Brawerman. So my parents packed us and took us to Lublin.

In Lublin we lived in a very poor area, Jewish-Polish, no, Polish-Jewish, next to the Castle. [Editor’s note: The block of streets at the base of the castle hill, which before 1939 was the center of the Jewish district, was pulled down by the Germans after the liquidation of the Lublin ghetto in 1942. In the castle a prison was located until 1954.] There were many Poles in the house where I lived. Policemen, with whom I was great friends; when they arrested me [in 1937], then my neighbor would bring me apples and rolls, hiding them under his coat.

We lived in Szif’s [the owner of the tenement house, a Jew] house, the address was Lubartowska 61, corner of Unicka, on the 3rd floor. We had a nice apartment, two rooms and a kitchen, arranged one behind another. I remember, there was a cupboard there. An antique, early 19th century cupboard, with these twisted little pillars, but the woodworms would eat it up. When Mother was getting married she got it from her grandparents, as part of her dowry. It was my job to varnish it for the Easter [Pesach] holidays and clog up those holes from the woodworms, to save the cupboard. The caretaker, who sometimes came round, used to say to my mother, ‘Mrs. Perelmut, this cupboard is just like at Pilsudski’s 13!’

And in that house there was just one privy in the backyard. It was something horrible. In the winter, when everything was frozen up, you could stand it, but in the summertime it was just horrid. Another thing, there were lots of cockroaches there. In our kitchen there was a chest, where the servant would have slept in normal [wealthier] houses. And in these other houses, like ours, we stored potatoes for the winter in these chests.

Wood was used for cooking in the kitchen, because it was a wood stove, not some electric or gas stove, a normal stove for wood and coal, which I had to carry from the basement very often. And from time to time, each week, a huge pot of water would be boiled to blanch everything because of the insects. It was difficult to avoid them, because it was a large house, so when the bugs survived in one apartment, they would pass through some holes in the walls. These houses were made of bricks and there were also many [bugs] in those bricks. When it came to bedbugs, they could somehow be combated, it was easier, but I remember that in the kitchen it was just horrid. And we got used to it. You’d blanch with boiling water, sweep the bugs, burn them and that was it.

Lublin was a whole different world. In Bialystok you wouldn’t feel the pressure of religion, there was freedom. But Lublin had a different atmosphere, one I wasn’t used to. It was there that I saw for the first time these, as they are called in Poland, ‘chalats’ [Hasidim]. I walked around in my high school cap, with a large visor and they pointed at me in the street. Pointed at me with their fingers, because I was wearing that cap. A girl? With such a visor? I didn’t see that at all in Bialystok. All the rules were observed in Bialystok, it was kosher, there was boiling, blanching, different pots [for dairy and for meat], everything was observed. But they wouldn’t overdo it. And in Lublin it was different.

I started going to school when I was six years old. The school was Gutman’s gymnasium [lyceum] in Bialystok. I even remember how we exercised standing on the desks. And one girl peed on that desk, she couldn’t stand it, we were laughing so hard. This school system looked like this then [in the 1920s]: a sub-elementary level, then elementary, then eight grades of gymnasium and the 8th one was the one when you took final exams. So there were ten years of schooling in total before the final exams. Then, in the 1930s, this system was changed, but it’s hard for me to say what it looked like later. So when we came to Lublin there was this issue of what to do with my education. I was then ten or eleven years old. It was in the middle of the school year, so probably I’d have to repeat a grade, I don’t remember which one, 2nd or 3rd grade of gymnasium. 

Well, and you’d have to pay for that. So it was decided that I’d go to a public school. And I went to a school, whose principal was Mrs. Mandelkernowa. It was a very good school, on Lubartowska Street. When I graduated from this school I went to a humanities gymnasium in Lublin. It was also a gymnasium, where nothing was taught about Jewry. There were public gymnasia in Lublin, government officials, officers sent their children there. Wealthier people, who could afford to pay, rather wealthy. Jews also attended these gymnasia, but there were very few. These were also private gymnasia, Polish ones, and many Jews attended them, for example Czarniecka’s gymnasium or Arciszowa’s gymnasium for girls, Staszic for boys. And there were two Jewish gymnasia [in Lublin]: Szperowa’s, where my sister went, and the humanities gymnasium which was operated by some Jewish association, it wasn’t a private school, so it was less expensive.

I studied a lot of Latin then, a lot of history, the standards were indeed quite high. I also took French then. It was an obligatory foreign language and, I have to say, these basics which I learned at school were very solid, I can still speak French fluently. But I didn’t get my diploma then. Father was unemployed, you then had to pay for tutors, to be well prepared for the finals. So I decided: I can’t take the finals, because I don’t have enough money. I told Mother and Father. Especially Father was very saddened. He used to say, ‘My children, my daughters, what can I leave you but an education.’ At that time you wouldn’t say ‘Dad’, but ‘Papa’. So I would answer, ‘Papa, but all I do is sit on the other side of the door [the pupil that could not participate in the lessons without paying tuition sat in the hallway, on the other side of the classroom door, where she could at least hear the lessons], you have to pay for everything and you don’t have the money for that.’ And I explained, ‘I will still have time to study if I want to.’ And I did go to university after the war, without any problems.

But then, instead of taking the finals, I went to Bialystok, to my aunt Anna Wolfson. I stayed with Grandfather, my aunt paid for my schooling, 300 zloty [probably for a semester; 300 zloty was in this time the rent for a good three bedroom apartment in Lodz] I learned corsetry. I’d come back after work, I was maybe 15 then, and my aunt would serve me dinner. There was a white napkin, a white plate, knife, fork, all very nice. And then I went back to Lublin.

And at the same time [when Mrs. Duda was still attending gymnasium] Father sent me to the neighbor’s to study Hebrew. Why? Father wasn’t a Hasid, he wasn’t Orthodox, he was a normal secular person and he thought that a girl should primarily study. And you could only study in a normal [secular] school. But he wanted me to know some Hebrew, so he sent me to these lessons. This family really influenced my fate, and my sister’s too. This was the Gorzyczanski family; he wore a ‘chalat,’ but he was a teacher; a very delicate, cultured man. Well, I took Hebrew lessons for about two years.

Unfortunately, all that I still have in my head are the first words [letters] of the alphabet. Some words I remember, because I spoke Yiddish at home. There are many Hebrew words in this German dialect [Yiddish] which I learned and I remember them very well. But when I was in Israel, I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, so I am full of respect for all my friends who left and taught themselves [Hebrew]. But later, when I was learning German, I had to cut myself off from this dialect [Yiddish], because otherwise I would have never been able to learn German.

Since the very beginning, since I was a little girl, I was very interested in sports. Perhaps I had a lot of energy and needed an outlet? There was no way to let this energy out at home, in those two rooms, so I joined the Ha-Koach sports club in Lublin. This club was a part of Maccabi 14, a large Jewish sports organization. I played volleyball, basketball, did some discus throwing, shot put, but I was too short for that, I was only 1 meter 60 tall. I mean then, at that time, I was somewhat in the middle, now I’d be a midget compared to girls like Otylia [Otylia Jedrzejczak, Polish Olympic champion in swimming in 2004], who is 1 meter 85. Anyway, nowadays sport has a different character. Then, it was purely amateur. I played ping-pong. I would sometimes leave for practice, get half a loaf of bread from somewhere and a bag of apples, eat that from morning until night and spend the entire day on the field… In 1936 I went to a sports camp organized by Maccabi.

This period meant a lot to me. I had an outlet for my energy; secondly, I had fun, I liked sports, I liked games. We’d meet on the Unia playing field in Lublin. It was a sports club. There was also the Strzelec sports club. I remember a volleyball match with the Unia girls. And the boys, Poles from Unia, threw us high up in the air, because they were so glad we showed those girls who were so stuck up. There were no differences then [between Jewish and Polish youth]. I had an admirer, he belonged to a corporation [Corporations] 15 – at KUL [Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski, ‘Catholic University of Lublin’]. He had two friends; all three of them wore corporation caps. When I went out with one of them, then my friends would be amazed – how could I? With a boy from a corporation?

And this corporation boy came to Ha-Koach with me, played ping-pong with me, we went dancing at the Jewish students’ club on Lubartowska Street in Lublin. So these divisions [contemporary separation of the pre-war Jewish and Polish worlds] that some people want to create now artificially, didn’t really exist. Although there was anti-Semitism, without a doubt – but how should I put it, I didn’t even feel it. We’d often go swimming in the Wieprz [river near Lublin]. There was Maniek Wojcicki, he was a boxer, also a buddy of mine; he died in Majdanek 16. I remember how he once jumped into a very muddy pond to bring me some lilies… There was another friend, Zygmunt Krolak, he went off to serve in the military, in the navy, and he died, in the navy. This corporation boy, Henryk Zajaczkowski, he also died in Majdanek. Yes, these are all memories of my youth, really very… beautiful.

I also had a fiancé, an official one, because his father and my father had already arranged our wedding, but it was love. He was one of the handsomest, most beautiful Jewish boys in Lublin, Wiktor Szwed. His mother wasn’t very keen on me becoming her daughter-in-law, because I was a poor girl. But his daddy thought that I could earn money, work, and he liked me.

Wiktor practiced sports at Ha-Koach as well and I remember this funny story. Our friend, his last name was Wojcik, had a weaving loom at home. And he made some textiles. And we ordered bathing suits from him. He made them for us on his weaving machine. The swimming pool on Czechowskie lake was opened in Lublin at that time. When we jumped into the water, his underwear, excuse my language, stretched all the way down to his knees, because it was made from some poor yarn…

In the summer we would not go on vacation together. Father would send Mother and my little sister near Lublin, in the direction of Lubartow, there was a large village called Niemce there. And I stayed at home. I couldn’t even cook potatoes. This boyfriend of mine, Wiktor, used to cook potatoes for me. I didn’t know if I was supposed to add salt or sugar. But it so happened that in 1937 I had to break off the engagement, because I ended up in jail myself and I didn’t know what would happen later. His parents really wanted him to marry rich, because they had a glove workshop and they weren’t doing very well. I understood the situation and, through Mother, I passed the news to him that he was free.

And how did it happen that I ended up in jail? Long story. When I was twelve, in Lublin, I was influenced by others to join this Zionist organization Hashomer Haleumi 17. It was supposedly a religious organization, but I didn’t feel it. But the family of this Hebrew teacher, Gorzyczanski, they influenced me, especially their daughter Malka. So I dropped out of Hashomer Haleumi and I became involved with communist youth. Why? Mother made some food and took me with her to Ruska Street, to some old, sick people who lived there, sleeping in holes in the ground. This shocked me. So I thought: these dreams of our own state, kibbutzim, that’s a beautiful thing. But who will help these people from day to day? This system has to be changed.

This was a basic problem: should we look for a future for the [Jewish] nation in Palestine, even though there was no talk then of getting land there to form this state. Even as young people we knew this was necessary, but there were no possibilities, it was a utopia then. So I liked the fact that here we could all change our fate. And that was what attracted me, not some Marx. [Marx, Karl (1818-1883), German philosopher, economist and revolutionary. The system of beliefs he created was the basis of the ideology of socialist and communist parties.] All I knew about Marx was that he had a beard. Really, you do have to be a complete idiot to convince young, 17 or 18-year-olds that they’re Marxists. It’s just some idea of social justice. The fact that I went to school hungry, that I sat on the other side of the door, because my tuition wasn’t paid… All that influenced me. This is why I became involved with communist youth and then with socialist youth in Lublin, with TUR [Towarzystwo Uniwersytetu Robotniczego] 18. And these last few years before the war, between 1935 and 1937, I was very active in TUR. When they told me to distribute leaflets, that’s what I did and… nothing more.

I met fantastic, young working class people in TUR, especially from 1 Maja Street. A group of students from KUL directed TUR at that time. There was Feliks Baranowski, later the ambassador of Poland in Germany, in the GDR, the minister of education, Jozef Kwiecinski, who was in Anders’ Army 19, sailed on a battleship and drowned when he was leaving Iran for England. There was Stanislaw Krzykala, after the war a professor of history at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University. Is it strange that there were students from a Catholic university in a leftist organization? Well, but there was only one university in Lublin – the Catholic University of Lublin.

There were different student groups there. There were student corporations influenced both by Sanacja 20 and ‘endecja’ [Endeks] 21 and socialist groups. TUR was a group of socialist students, mostly sons and daughters of railroad workers from Lublin. When we organized some events, for example ‘no more war,’ we were afraid that police agents would spy on us. So the mothers of these students made sure strangers wouldn’t come up to us.

Communist youth and TUR were very close in Lublin. They took advantage of the fact that TUR was legal. I remember the pavement-makers’ strike. The trade union of pavement-makers had a place, where they had a ping-pong table. Felek [short for Feliks] Baranowski and I played ping-pong there, but I used to go there with a pan of food for the pavement-makers. We brought food for those who were on strike. I also remember how, during 1st May demonstrations, students from the most radical corporation waited for us, for the TUR demonstration, with clubs, ready to beat us. So we brought clubs as well, to fight back. There were many Jews in TUR. There weren’t any problems. We were all Polish citizens. That’s how it was in TUR in Lublin.

And I was accused in the trial of TUR in Lublin. Accused of communism. They were playing a bigger game, the supervisor of the school district Mr. Lewicki and the Polish authorities, which were becoming pro-fascist after 1935. He was connected with the supporters of Pilsudski, with Sanacja and also had PPS 22 roots. So his daughter, Wanda Lewicka, was accused of communism. So what this was all about, speaking in plain terms, harassing this Lewicki and his family. 

When TUR was dissolved, PPS protested – you have no right! So TUR was reopened, but the entire board was put in jail, including some of the young people who could be accused of communism. And this is how I ended up in the so-called ‘Trial of 40’ in Lublin [one of the numerous so-called show trials]. To make this trial more communist, they dragged in from Bereza Kartuska [presently in Belarus, 300 km east of Warsaw] where in 1934 the Polish government created an isolation camp for prisoners, primarily political, Franciszek Jozwiak, pseudonym Witold, who was the chief of staff of the AL 23 during the war and later the commander of militia.

I have to say that this entire indictment, at least to the extent that it concerned me, was not true. All the accusations were fictitious. They just took three boys, Okonowski, Durakiewicz and one more guy and they signed a declaration; they signed everything that the police gave them. This is how the indictment was drafted and there wasn’t a word of truth in it. And there were sentences. I finally got four years, just like others from TUR. [Mrs. Duda was in jail from 1937 until the day of the commencement of WWII, 1st September 1939.]

Before they put me in jail, there was a trial. I have one funny story to tell that describes what it looked like. Right before my arrest there was supposed to be a sports competition in Lodz. And I was sent out there. All I had with me was a blouse, two pairs of shorts and tennis shoes. I think it was a volleyball match. So I got to Lodz, went to my aunt’s and it turned out there was no match. Suddenly, my aunt received a letter that the police were looking for me. And I didn’t have anything more to do there, so I went to Bialystok although my family lived in Lublin. And that’s where they arrested me.

A childhood friend, Kola [short for Mikolaj], was an undercover cop. When he saw me he said, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ At the trial one of the charges was that I ran away in a hurry, because I only took some underwear and a blouse. That’s what it was like. Now people say that the UBP 24 did this or that – well, there has never been a police force that would have clean hands and would be able to say ‘we are all right.’

God, there was also a charge in the indictment that in 1936, when they announced an amnesty for political prisoners, I organized a party for those who were freed. I, an 18-year-old girl. At my neighbor’s. This man committed suicide! Because he was a White Guard 25 supporter and he didn’t have a passport. But because there was this charge that something had happened at his place, he was afraid for his family and he killed himself.

When I was arrested my parents were devastated. But I think they knew it could happen. I was too disobedient, too free-spirited and this leftist atmosphere among working class and lower bourgeoisie young people, this bond between Poles and Jews in Lublin had to bring some effects. I think Father started working then, in 1937. Because it was cold in jail, he bought me some warm shoes for railroad workers, felt with leather. They brought them to me, so I’d be warm and wouldn’t get ill. I really cried then, because I was so moved.

Father didn’t want to have anything to do with communism. He would have preferred for me to join a Zionist group…  Anyway, I had an admirer at that time; his name was Josl Laks. And in 1935 he left for Israel. At that time a lot of Zionist youth left for Israel [then Palestine]. There is a Russian song ‘khodit parim na zakadye vozlye doma moyevo,’ – ‘a boy walks around my house at sunset.’ And he walked around my house. I didn’t want him. Because I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t feel a bond with all that [with Jewry]. I left Jewry and joined TUR and that was my community. After the war, when I was in Israel, my friend Estera Klawir and her husband Lang Lejben told me that this boy came back to Poland in 1939 looking for me, he wanted to convince me to leave with him. He died in Lublin, in Majdanek, together with his parents.

I was in one cell with Maryska Wozniak and with Birowna, who was a very well known leftist activist, a legal clerk, her father had a law firm. Anyway, how can you talk about politics when, in that cell, we organized a contest for who had the best legs. Birowna won and I got second place. Or, when I led exercises for everyone, the guards would peep to see how the girls are exercising…

That’s how it was in the prison in Lublin. And in 1938 they took us to Fordon, near Bydgoszcz [420 km north west of Lublin]. That was the Central Women’s Prison. In 1939 the Ukrainian nationalists were taken out of there, further into Poland, and the communists and some of the criminals stayed in Fordon. When the war broke out 26, they didn’t open the door, the staff ran away… And they wanted to hand us over to the Germans. [Editor’s note: the area of Bydgoszcz was annexed by Germany, separated from the remaining Polish lands and Germanized.] Consciously or not, I can’t say, I don’t know for sure. On 1st September, it was a Friday, a bomb fell on the prison. The girls who were on the 4th floor panicked.

We asked Zdankowska, who was the chief of the prison, to move them downstairs and the woman told us, ‘When they drop bombs, then it’s going to be worse upstairs, but if there’s gas, then you’re going to have it worse downstairs.’ I was in the basement. One of the guards opened the door for us, we helped others and that’s how we got out. They had a cell for minors there, 15-17 years of age, so-called communists. They knew about as much about communism as I did, they were just fighting for a Ukrainian or Belarusian school. Or for land that they took away from them, in Volhynia, in Podolye [in 1921 Poland gained western Volhynia, eastern Volhynia and eastern Podolye belonged to Soviet Ukraine.] And there was a door with metal fixtures there, so we had to move some bricks. When we got out, a bomb fell and the wall collapsed.

People from the military units suggested that we should join them. But the Germans were close by. And we, with our stupid biographies… and stupid people who would have turned us in to the Germans at once… There were twelve girls in our group; the oldest one was Maria Kaminska, who became the president of Samopomoc Chlopska 27 after the war. So she was our leader, but I was the one who had to take care of all the outside contacts. Because I had a good appearance, Aryan, I spoke Polish perfectly and all the others were either Jews or Ukrainians, who didn’t know Polish. So there I was. And that’s how ‘Janina’ was born. And that’s how it stayed.

This year, 1939, was a horrible one. As you traveled from west to east – dead horses, human bodies, mooing cows that hadn’t been milked, destroyed houses, fallen trees, crying people and us, in the middle of everything, without food, in prison ‘kabats’ [‘jacket’, word of Hungarian origin]. When we reached a country estate and asked for milk, bread, potatoes, they gave it all to us. The squire gave it to us. But he separated us from his people, the farm-hands. And what were we in for? We said – for strikes. Well, what were we to say, for communism? He separated us immediately anyway.

On 15th September [1939] I reached Warsaw, via Bielany. There was heavy gunfire. We found attorney Duracz, Maria must have had his address. [Duracz, Teodor Franciszek (1883-1943): attorney, communist activist, member of PPS and KPP, until 1938 he defended people accused in famous political trials, co-founder of PPR, murdered by the Germans.] And they housed us at his legal clerk’s apartment and we slept on the floor. There was this Stefania Sempolowska and she gave us 2 zloty each, so we’d have some money. [Sempolowska, Stefania (1870-1944): social activist, publicist, pedagogue, writer. One of the leading figures of Polish intelligentsia, activist of the leftist teachers’ movement, editor of magazines, author of many books.]

I started looking for my family, the Bortners. So I went to Tlomackie Street and there was a note on the door, which said to look for them on Nowolipki. And I went there. It was the 4th floor, an old woman and a young one. They didn’t know anything, perhaps I misread the address, but they said, ‘please stay,’ because they were afraid to be alone. They gave me a coat, they gave me some shoes. Well, it was mid-September. And two more weeks of bombings and you had to eat something.

It’s good that someone gave me a piece of horse meat, cut out of a horse that was shot on the street and these ladies gave me some bread… You can’t even imagine what Warsaw was like during those bombings. I was walking down Miodowa Street to get some water from the Vistula River and everything was burning all around me, the [Royal] Castle was burning, fires everywhere.

The last night before the surrender, we were sitting in a basement, bombs were falling everywhere, non stop, this house was shaking non stop and what you were dreaming of was that, if you’re supposed to die, then it should happen quickly, so you don’t suffer. And then, the next morning, it all died down, the surrender of Warsaw [28th September 1939]. I left the city to go to Bialystok. A friend of mine, his name was Szwarc, or Weiser, walked with me… because he said, ‘You know, it will be easier for me to be on the road and more difficult for a girl.’

So I finally made it home. My parents were back in Bialystok, on Kupiecka 7. This was a house almost next to the gate of the ghetto, from the side of Lipowa Avenue. I stayed with my parent and my younger sister, Dina. My older sister Fania, who got married, was living in Lublin, in our old apartment on Lubartowska 61.

In 1939, when the Russian army came in [cf. Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact] 28, it is said that the Jews were happy 29. This was understandable. Why? Because everyone has dignity. And no one wants to feel worse than others. If the Germans had entered then, if the Germans had taken over Bialystok, the fate of those Jews would have been shortened by two years. [The ghetto in Bialystok was closed on 1st August 1941]. That’s one thing. And people knew about it. Second thing. The Russians didn’t persecute Jews because they were Jews. Of course, there are many Jews, stupid Jews, who evaluate those deportations, jails, like that. This is nonsense. If there were so many nations, different tribes, people weren’t arrested because they were Jews or something else, they were arrested because they were enemies and couldn’t be trusted. So this wasn’t from a nationalistic perspective, but because of class animosity, distrust of people. With regards to Jews, they were treated like everyone else. For example, I, when I started working in Bialystok in 1939, I started feeling human.  

I worked in sports. I have the fondest memories of this sports period. I was the vice-president of the Bialystok branch of the Spartak club. I was deeply involved in sports, because I was a competitor. I competed in bicycle racing, I was even the runner-up regional champion. I was practically the regional champion, because the winner was a girl from Leningrad or Moscow. That’s youth and young people; it’s hard to talk about politics. I organized clubs in the region, we used to go to Hrodna [100 km north east of Bialystok, today Belarus] to start clubs there. And that was where I met my first husband. I always had his photographs with me when I was in the partisan troops. He was the best soccer player, left striker, Janek, that is Jankiel Baran.

He was a very well known athlete – he was one of the best soccer players in all of Belarus. I only lived with him for a month. I didn’t want to have a rabbinical wedding, so I only had a civil wedding and I announced it to my parents. Father was outraged, but I only said that, Father can believe whatever he wants to believe, but he can’t force me to do it. I explained that a married couple is a social unit, that this has nothing to do with faith. But my family somehow got involved, somehow they arranged it and organized a wedding for me. And this was a month before the war [the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, which broke out on June 22nd 1941] 30.

Because I had been convicted in the past, I could argue with the authorities about why my father couldn’t get a job. He was an accountant. And Father was over 50 years old then. I went, I think, to the secretary [of the committee – part of the Soviet authorities in Bialystok] and I said, ‘Why in the hell can’t Father get a job?’ ‘Because, you know, older people…’ And I said, ‘What, are they supposed to die? He’s a professional.’ And I won. He got a job.

In addition to being vice-president, I was also a gymnastics instructor. Spartak was a club formed and subsidized by a cooperative and I had lots of these artisans’ workshops, small factories, where I went and led gymnastics exercises for 15 minutes, during a break at work. And then they told me to go to the Komsomol 31 to work. First, I was in charge of culture and education. I worked in a tile factory in Antoniuk [a district of Bialystok]. Cultural issues, newspapers and other things, some meetings, field trips, all in all, that kind of work. And then they told me to work in the regional committee, this was the Committee of the Bialystok region, Molotov’s region. This was mostly work with children, we even organized some dancing, performances at my sister Dina’s school. What is said now about ideological indoctrination… as far as I remember, what we did was interest these young people in field trips, drama, reading etc. 

We didn’t expect the war. Several boys and girls went to Lublin across the border and brought my sister Fania with her husband and child back to me. And they stayed with us. It was a very difficult period, because the winter was hard, there was nothing we could use for heating the house. It was a three-room apartment, two large rooms and one small one you had to pass through to get to the other ones. My room was above the entrance to the house, it wasn’t heated. Father worked as an accountant. Mother stayed at home, my younger sister was at school and the older sister and brother-in-law worked.

And then there was the night when the first bombs fell on Bialystok. Because I had survived 1939 walking from Bydgoszcz to Warsaw and then to Bialystok I immediately understood this was no drill, no lightning, but bombs. So I quickly gathered all the tenants on the 1st floor. I took my bicycle, because I rode like mad then, I had an excellent bicycle, semi-racing bicycle that I competed on, wooden rims… I went to the party secretary. He was sitting up there, he lived in the attic of a wooden house. I shouted to him, ‘War!’ and he replied, ‘Are you crazy?’ But I was right, it turned out it was a war.

And then I had to go to this ‘rajkom’ [regional committee] to pack all the documents [probably documents of the Soviet authorities, which could not fall into the hands of Germans]. All this is lost now, all my data is in that office. I was there with a friend, Lida Kowalewska. And the Germans were close by. They told me to go east. I offered to my entire family to get on the trucks and go. Father and mother said: ‘We are old and we won’t move anymore.’ So I took my sister Fania with her family, my sister Dina, I put them all on a truck with other Belarusians and I chased after them on my bicycle. 

The road was clogged up with cannons, tanks, people and I managed to ride for some 15-20 kilometers on that bike and I didn’t have the strength to go any further. I threw the bike on the road, I saw some soldier pick it up, and I also got on that truck, but they were bombing the road, so we had to get off. At some point the truck left and I was in some small wood next to the road with all of them. My sister was holding the baby, 18 months old; there was my brother-in-law and my little sister. I didn’t have the courage to tell them, ‘We are walking east.’ Because how could you walk with such a crowd of people and a baby? How could I take on responsibility for someone’s life? After all, we weren’t expecting the Holocaust then. We were expecting the worst, but not the Holocaust. That’s why I decided to walk them home.

We returned. Meanwhile, Fania’s husband, who was near-sighted, lost his glasses somewhere, he got lost and died. We were told that he died, because the Germans caught him and shot him, because we never saw him again. I walked Fania, the baby and my little sister home. The road wasn’t easy, not easy. The Germans didn’t come to Bialystok for another week. Meanwhile, people were robbing stores, taking blankets, materials from factory warehouses, everything that the textile industry in Bialystok produced. My husband and his brother were taken for military training, as conscripts, because there were two military training grounds near Bialystok. One day his brother came back and my husband didn’t. He told me, ‘Don’t wait, he’s dead.’ And that’s how I was left alone.

I moved in with my in-laws. One day when I was just going there, the Germans entered Bialystok. They came in on the main street, Sienkiewicza, and I was on a side street where my in-laws lived. And I only looked, I stood there, hid myself. They drove in on motorcycles, shooting, they had machine guns on the handlebars and they were shooting from the motorcycles. I quickly jumped into the house, went upstairs. Biala Street or Zamenhoffa, because that’s where Zamenhoff 32 was born once, that’s where their house was, a wooden one, I still remember it. The Gestapo headquarters was nearby. Then a huge cloud of smoke and the Germans quickly rushed into the Jewish district, they knew where to go.

They locked up over 1,000 Jews in the synagogue and burned them alive. [Editor’s note: On June 27th 1941 the Germans burned alive 2,000 Jews from Bialystok in the Great Synagogue on Boznicza Street 14]. And they burned the houses, which were there. Father’s brother lived there, he was a bit off the norm [that is, mentally disturbed]. His son was a weaver, his children, they all worked in the textile industry in Bialystok. And after they lost their house they came to us.

I have to say a few words about my father-in-law, old Baran. His daughter, so my sister-in-law, a beautiful blonde, worked as a waitress in ‘Soldatenheim’ [German: ‘Soldiers’ club’], or in the canteen. Every day she brought back a pot of soup. And I can say one thing, my father-in-law never ate a spoon of soup until I had had some of it. And I remember one day Mother came, her lips were purple with hunger, and she got food. He wouldn’t eat himself, he gave food to Mother… 

The Gestapo, or Wehrmacht 33, barged in once and took my brother-in law, who had returned from the army. Mother came and said, ‘Listen, the Germans want ransom and then they’ll let these people go.’ There were 2,000 young Jews there. ‘Should I – I have one gold chain, only one – should I give that?’ So I said, ‘Mom, I can’t say, at home you’ve got Father, sisters, granddaughter, the family of this brother-in-law, Chaim and children, decide, I can’t.’ As it turned out, the Germans put everything they got in their pockets and shot the Jews. This was the first week, or the first ten days of this war.

When the Germans entered the city, I recalled an event from childhood: I was playing hopscotch in the backyard and someone came and asked about the owners, the Rozycki family. And I showed them and told them. Mr. Rozycki then told this to my parents and said that they noticed the little girl, so outgoing and asked about her. ‘And she’s Jewish?’ They were surprised! Because I’m not very Jewish in my appearance. Really.

So once, already after the Germans had come, I met some buddies of mine who worked in that tile factory in Antoniuk, Wacek Dziejma, Marian Wolniewicz and some others, on the street. And Marian told me, ‘Listen Janina, you’re still having doubts, run off to the countryside, you’ll wait out the war and that’s it, look at yourself, don’t stay in Bialystok.’ So I thought that perhaps I really should leave the town. With my past I’d be the first one to go to the Gestapo and the family would suffer. And how much help could I be anyway? Just one more mouth to feed and there was no food in the house.

Meanwhile, a friend of my sister Dina, Grzegorz Lewi, was looking for me. He was graduating from gymnasium at that time, he was several years younger than I. We had a deal that we would leave Bialystok together. Grzegorz came looking for me, because he wanted to go. He only had a mother, his father was dead. My parents didn’t want to tell him where I was, but Dina knew him, so she said, ‘Listen Grzegorz, Janina is there and there.’ So that’s when we [with Grzegorz] decided to go. I had a piece of sausage and bread, butter that I was supposed to take to my husband, because it was a Sunday and it was left over in the house. And in the house, apart from what I was supposed to take to Janek, there was just this one bag with buckwheat groats. There was nothing more. We left, Mother even gave me her sweater, and we went east. 

We got to Bielsk [Podlaski] [150 km east of Warsaw], where my husband’s family lived, they gave us some food, but we had to go on. We both decided to change names in Bielsk. Grzegorz found some Soviet identification card of a Ukrainian, he corrected the date of birth, put in his photograph, this was amateur work, but somehow during the war it was enough. So he became Ivan Carycynski, born in Stanislavyv.

In Bielsk Podlaski we spent the night at a woman’s house, the notary’s wife. Her husband wasn’t home. She gave us a room, some straw, a sheet. There was a large orchard there. And because it was summertime we filled up on fruit. And, what’s interesting, I went to the mayor of the city, he was a senator [that is, the officials working there addressed him as ‘Mr. Senator’]. Erdman, I remember this name. So I asked him for an identity card and hid my Soviet one. He asked for my name, I gave my chosen last name, Zurek, and he asked them to put on my identity card ‘born in Vawkavysk’ [300 km east of Warsaw, today Belarus].

Why in Vawkavysk? Because they had no identity cards there. What I mean is that in 1939 Soviet officials issued identity cards, but only to people who were born in a given town. But they wouldn’t issue identity cards to refugees from central or western Poland. That was because they claimed they didn’t know them and they would have to be checked. If they wanted to live in the interior of Russia, they could do so, but they were afraid to have them near the border. They thought they might be spies or something. So if I said I was from Bialystok, they would say, ‘Dear child, but where’s your passport?’

And so I said Vawkavysk, because Vawkavysk was burned down during the first military activities… I listed an area where there was no [documentation] and they could control me however long they wanted to and they still wouldn’t find anything. You have to be clever, when your life’s at stake. I said we were going to Stanislavyv, to my fiancé’s family and it’s very difficult to get anywhere without an identity card in wartime. The official didn’t want to issue anything, but Erdman told him to. So I now honor the ashes of those people who were so wise and decent then.

So this is how we ended up, after a long march, in Polyeskaya Nizina [about 400 km south east of Warsaw, today Ukraine]. Then we reached this small town in – Vysotsk [Rivne, Ukraine]. There was a fully Ukrainian government there, not Soviet. [Editor’s note: After 22nd June Ukraine was also taken over by the Germans, who were supported by Ukrainian nationalists, hoping for help in forming an independent state.]

We went there, because they told us there was fighting near Malin. We were hoping to find a military unit, because, quite simply – we just wanted to fight. And we found this Vysotsk. Grzegorz was very courageous. He was a tall boy, dark blond, his hair was parted, he had a mustache, he was a very aristocratic child. Yes, it was easy to trust him, he was very confident, brave and I owe my life to him.

We found the mayor of this city, or rather the district chief, who was also the pope, I mean the Eastern or Greek-Orthodox priest. We later killed him. Well, it wasn’t us, but some others [partisans]. The Germans installed him as the district chief of this region in Vysotsk. And why was he killed? Well, he was all in all a kind person, but this kindness was directed more at Germans than at local people. What was he good at? He tried to solve conflicts, he tried to create the best possible conditions for people, but at he same time he didn’t tell us that they were killing Jews. He allowed the Ukrainian police to come at night with the Germans and liquidate the entire ghetto. And the partisans couldn’t forgive him that. I say about him – weak man.

His name was Thorevsky. When he looked at this document, which said that Grzegorz was Ukrainian, he employed us in a grain warehouse. He gave us housing with some Jews, a nice room, a bed, everything. And it was so funny, because they wanted to find out if we, by chance, weren’t Jewish. They kept talking and talking, and we – nothing. After the war someone once asked me if I had been an actress. And yes, at that time I was playing a role. We made friends there with a group of Ukrainians, communists, very decent people. They brought the previous manager of the grain warehouse to us, a peasant from the village, and he taught us how to run this warehouse. Everything was going well.  

It was funny, these Jews had a cow. The Germans ordered them to give it away. This cow was signed over to us, so I once took this cow to the bull, but the bull didn’t want her, so I had to take her there again, but then she didn’t want him… Oh, such strange things.

As a grain warehouse manager I used to visit this administrator, a German, who was always very elegant to me, very sophisticated, he almost kissed my hand. I laugh now, really… it would have been different if he had known that I was Jewish. But not all Germans were like that then. There was one German man from the group of military policemen, older people, and he would come to these Jewish people, because he could communicate with them. Someone reported on him and he was transferred to the front, to a punitive battalion.

Once, in December 1941, one of my friends, Polahovich [a Ukrainian], who was working in the city government, told me, ‘Listen, there is a mass for capturing Moscow, you’re a German government employee, because you work in the grain warehouse. You have to go…’ He told me I had to go, because all the local government employees were going. But why did the government employees have to go? Because the role of the church is to keep a check on people and here the pope was the district chief. And there was also confession, so they could count on finding something out. So I went to the Orthodox church, but because I didn’t know what the liturgy looked like, I watched the president of the cooperative, Mr. Dunchych, who was walking in front of me. He had a Jewish lover; he managed to save her, but the child had to die… And I watched how he made the sign of the cross three times in front of each icon. I did the same as he did, confession as well, I went through everything, just like I was expected to.

And a ghetto was created in Vysotsk. We moved out from our Jews and lived maybe 100 meters from that ghetto. When 1942 came, the liquidation of the ghetto started. One night, dogs barking, noise, shouting, shots. They surrounded the ghetto. Someone watched this happening and told me: there were pits dug in the ground, they all stood naked on the edge of these pits, because their belongings would be sent to the Reich and then one physician shouted to the Germans – ‘you will be held responsible for this and so will your descendants.’ They shot them all anyway.

I mean, a few people were saved because many men had their women in the countryside, Ukrainians. They had children with them and these women would come to their husbands hiding in the grain warehouse and bring them food. I also know that a woman from a very rich Jewish family from Lodz, Eiger, survived. I never met her again. I don’t know if she was later in the partisan forces. I don’t know, I can’t say.

And we were looking for partisans; there were already rumors in the area that we really wanted to join them. I have never told anyone about this period, this is really new. The chief of police was there, from the White Guard. Once, when we were going to the second warehouse in the woods near Svaritsevichi, we were hoping to find the partisans along the way. And this chief of police invited us for vodka and some food and he says, ‘So, are we going to meet with partisans?’ That’s what it looked like.

So we finally decided to give it all up, our situation was unstable and we wanted to join the partisan troops. So we decided to go into the woods, to go east. And this peasant, his last name was Shchur, who was once the manager of the warehouse, took me to a woman from the village of Ozery, who had a Jewish husband or friend. I stayed with her for one night and she went to get Grzegorz herself and walked him to that place. I had some baked chickens which my friend, Pogorzewiczowa, made for me. We were helped the most by the researchers of the Holy Scriptures – some sect [probably Jehovah’s Witnesses]. They were deeply religious people, whose faith obligates them to help others. They led us from one village to another. 

The Gestapo looked for us in the first house, because we burned all the documents from the warehouse and all the grain, with Shchur’s help, was taken by the peasants. This Shchur was later tortured by the Germans, beaten, but he didn’t tell them anything. The peasants, when they got their grain, didn’t say anything of course. The Germans never got the grain and all the documents were burned. Such an act of sabotage was death for us. So they were looking for us. They sent out arrest warrants and the Gestapo.

We were in the barn and the peasant was in the house. The peasant slipped out and he led us through mud to another village. These villages were so-called ‘chutory’ [old Polish word], settlements where each house is surrounded by an entire estate. This was all in Palyeskaya Nizina. But nobody knew we were Jewish. They only knew that the Gestapo was looking for us for sabotage, for the grain warehouse. Perhaps they suspected it, I don’t know. We had these backpacks with all our things: the Jews with whom we had stayed in Vysotsk gave us some rags, sheets, such things. We had a deal that if they survived, we would give everything back to them. This Jewess told me that if her child ran away to me, I would manage to somehow save him. I wanted to tell her – the blind leading the blind. But there were such situations.  

And so, selling these things along the way, we reached a Polish village. We entered a house, the name of the peasant was Bronislaw Kotwicki, and we wanted to sell him something. ‘Where are you from?’ ‘From Rokytne, from the glassworks.’ He replied, ‘No, you’re Jews, but I will help you, I won’t hand you over to the Germans.’ So I thought, all or nothing, and said – ‘Yes, we are Jewish.’ And he said, ‘But I will help you.’ He gave us food, allowed us to wash ourselves and led us to the woods, where he had a hut, that was well hidden. He had 80 log hives [natural bee hive in the trunk of a tree, the shelter of wild bees] with honey. He brought us water, milk, honey and bread for three weeks. That’s true. A man, who had never before seen us in his life, kept us in his hut in the woods for three weeks; he brought us bread and honey, because he didn’t have anything else. As long as he could. How could I say a bad word about Poles as a nation?

After three weeks, he wasn’t there. We didn’t have a drop of water for three days, because I couldn’t drink from the canal, I vomited. Hunger. We didn’t know what was happening, we had to get out, because we would have died of hunger. And so we went back to the village, to him. And we asked, why? ‘Mister, those were Lithuanian szaulis [from the Lithuanian word ‘šaulis’, meaning ‘shooter’ – Lithuanian soldier serving the Nazi occupants between 1940-1945], they were combing the forests, looking for partisans and runaways. They didn’t find you, but I can’t keep you any longer. I don’t have anything.’

We went to another peasant, we sold some of these things, we washed, spent the night and then walked on. I told him, ‘If the partisans show up, please let us know.’ He said, ‘There were several of them here, but I don’t believe them. They’d kill the boy, have their way with you and then kill you, I don’t believe them.’ That’s what this peasant told us, a man who possibly could not read or write; a Pole from the Polish village of Kupel, in the area of Rokytne, north of Sarny.

We kept walking, we found a forester’s hut. A Pole, Marian Surowiec, with his wife Gienia and a small boy, six or seven years old, was inside. We didn’t tell him we were Jewish. It turned out he didn’t love Jews very much, but he let us stay. He knew the Gestapo was looking for us, but he didn’t know we were Jewish. We stayed with him for several weeks. First of all, we bribed the ‘soltys’ [elected chair of a village council]. We had some Jewish coverlets hidden, we got them from those Jews in Vysotsk, we gave them to the ‘soltys.’ He just said, ‘Live here if you want to’ and that was it. The first night we were there several partisans came round. They said they were going on a mission, so they couldn’t take us with them but they said they would come to get us on their way back. They didn’t come. 

When we were staying at the forester’s hut, we started to make a living by sewing. We’d make pants from plain peasants’ cloth. This had to be done with a thick round needle and a linen thread. Grzegorz taught himself to tan leather and oak bark and we had our hands full. Marian and I would sew on the floor, because he had some old army pants, we laid them down on the floor and cut the fabric like that.

Meanwhile, after several weeks, this was the end of October 1942, a Ukrainian peasant came in the morning, driving a cart, and shouted, ‘The Red Army is coming!’ it turned out that large partisan forces had come from the interior of Ukraine, moving to western Ukraine. Of course, we went to the command straight away and asked to join. And they accepted us.

[Editor’s note: Mrs. Duda refused to talk about her wartime fate after joining the Red Army. Her friend, Grzegorz Lewi, died on 9th February 1943 in Khrapun.]

I described the period of the war when I was a civilian and the partisan forces that’s... I was in a partisan unit, I was sent to a unit in the village of Kupel [50 km north of Rivne, about 400 km south east of Warsaw, today Ukraine]. The war ended in this area in 1944. I joined the army and I was transferred to Poland, dropped with a parachute.

And after the war? Well, different things happened, but mostly I worked. I kept moving around Poland, following my husband, Teodor Duda.

Some people can be quite mad when it comes to the ministry of security. I am walking with a woman, a Jew from Lublin, who was saved by my friends from TUR and she says, ‘You know, this hospital is ubecki.’ [Editor’s note: Ubecki: Polish, adjective formed from the abbreviation UB – Ministry of Security, slang name for the Security Office (UB) – the secret police] And after all, excuse my language, her butt was saved. I worked in the ministry of security, so many people were helped. I worked in that police. But does that mean my conscience isn’t clear?

At this moment, a friend of mine [from the ministry of security], a Pole, has a case in court; and he’s eighty years old. After the war, Jews were returning from Russia and they caught them there in the Rzeszow district [300 km south east of Warsaw] and murdered some of them. And he wanted to save them [the Jews], so he punched one of those assailants in the face. He’s got a court case now, because it doesn’t expire, that he harassed veterans. And are they veterans because they were murdering Jews?

I attended university after the war, I became a civilian again, I worked for many years in foreign commerce, which was the profession I was educated for, because I graduated from School of Foreign Service. And later, because I was receiving a pension for the years I spent in the army, I became a contract employee in the tourism industry, I only stopped working as a tour guide in 1990. Because I passed exams in three languages – German, French and Russian; and that’s it.

After the war I didn’t find anyone from my close family. I searched at the Jewish Historical Institute 34 and I came upon the name of a cousin who had been to a camp [probably in evacuation] in Russia, in Komi. But when he came back, he didn’t suspect that anyone from the family was alive, so he didn’t look for us. He later went to the States [USA], where he had some family, but because the name Goldberg is so popular in the United States it would be difficult to find them. I didn’t have any precise data. He was the son of Fela, my father’s sister, I’ve already talked about her. Before the war their family lived in Dratowo near Lublin. Their last name was Goldberg and they had a lake there. Perhaps this will reach someone there, won’t it?

Later, I found some family from Father’s side in Moscow, two aunts [Mania and Ania] and an uncle [Natan Pinski]. But they’re dead now. However, Aron, Uncle Filip’s son, lived in Minsk, in Belarus. He changed his name to Arkadij after the war; he went to law school and was sent off to Minsk to the army. After he retired, because he was born in 1922, he also worked as a legal advisor. There is a niece in Canada, a daughter of that cousin; I also had some distant cousins in Israel. I don’t know if that cousin [Arkadij’s daughter] is still alive, she became a bit strange after her husband died.

And one of those Bortners, I’ve talked about him as well, also survived [the one who changed his name to Tagori]. His son from his first marriage, Maciek, also got married to a Polish woman and lives in Paris. Lech Walesa 35 was the godfather of his child. Maciek’s mother, Zofia, remarried. Her second husband was a man who was active in Solidarnosc 36 and personally knew Lech Walesa. Ms. Funny stories, aren’t they? And my closest cousin lives in Lodz, but she married a Pole, like all of us did, and her family is completely Polish. Her son even got married in a church… that’s the end, as they put it, that’s complete assimilation, quite simply.

I had an exceptional husband, Teodor, who was completely free from any kind of nationalism. In 1968 [Anti-Zionist campaign in Poland] 37 he suggested to me – let’s leave. I told him, ‘No, my place is here.’ And in 1968, in the office, in the company where I was working, in international commerce, one of the men had just returned from the Far East when the Israeli war [Six-Day-War] 38 was going on and he talked about what was happening there. They threw him out of the party [Polish United Workers’ Party] and they told me, ‘You have to repeat what he said.’ I really didn’t remember and, even if I did, I wouldn’t have said it.

I hate informers, although I understand that sometimes you need to use them, but not in this case. I voted against his expulsion from the party. So I was reprimanded. It was only a reprimand, because I had been a partisan and the chief of my district was Korczynski, so they were scared to do anything more. But they later asked me in the district party headquarters if I felt I had been harmed. So I just told them one thing, ‘You know what, I worked in the ministry of security, I understand they have to use informers there, but you in the party structures?’ That really is what I told them. So I didn’t leave and wasn’t planning on leaving. Just like that.

I would like to say a few words about my second husband. My husband, Teodor Duda, was from a village called Czesniki [250 km south east of Warsaw] near Zamosc, from a large family of the Eastern Orthodox faith. He was born in 1914, on 25th November. He himself couldn’t say if he was Polish or Ukrainian. Because there was no [national] consciousness in the countryside yet. He studied, he attended elementary school. They were very poor, because 2 hectares of land for eleven people is not much. There was one pair of shoes for several boys, so they would take turns going to school. The oldest brother, Mieczyslaw, who served in the Polish Army, married rich and he helped my husband very much, so that he could study. Mieczyslaw lived in Komorow, a village near Zamosc.

When he was 17, Teodor got involved with the Communist Union of Polish Youth 39, he was sentenced to three years in jail. And he spent those three years in jail. When he came back, he was, as it was said – a professional communist activist. He was sent to prison again, this time for eight years and he got out during the war, in 1939. He went to the Soviet Union and he happily approached the border patrol, telling them that he, a communist, was going to his, how would you put it, spiritual homeland. So they sent him to a labor camp for three years. He was somewhere up in the Ural, then they settled him in Kazakhstan, he found his way to the army from there, but not to Anders, to Berling [cf. The 1st Kosciuszko Infantry Division] 40.

So this is how we met in the Polish partisan headquarters, I had been in the Soviet partisan forces, I was staff officer of the Grunwald brigade, which was supposed to cross the River Bug. And this is how the two of us got together. After the war, he was an officer, a senior officer of the ministry of defense. We got married officially in 1946. What do I think of him? I have to say that when I look at the people around us, I think – God, if there were only more idealistic people like him, then all changes would happen differently. Apart from his ideology, he was a very decent man, very kind and that was probably the greatest luck I had in life. We spent 42 years together.

My husband wasn’t nationalistic at all. For him, everyone was a human being first. I even have to say that at first he would brag to his friends about having a Jewish wife. I told him: ‘Fiedia – this is how we called him in Russian – stop it, you never know who you’re dealing with.’ I simply pointed it out to him that he shouldn’t trust everyone like that. Anyway, I think I couldn’t have had it better than with him. Such was my happiness. But we didn’t have children. I was pregnant, but I had to terminate: it wasn’t a time for having babies [in 1941]. I walked from Vysotsk to Stolin, had the procedure and went back on foot, 30 kilometers. I fell ill and somehow… I couldn’t have children later.

I went to Israel after the war, several times. Here [in Poland] Jews, especially those who survived the occupation, have an inferiority complex, because you just can’t not have it, you can’t. The fact that Toeplitz [Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz, contemporary writer and journalist] now published ‘The Saga of the Toeplitz Family’ [Saga rodziny Toeplitzów], this also proves the existence of the inferiority complex. Or so I think. There, people don’t have that. They are the masters of their own country. The issues of Palestine, Arabs, those were also political games of all these Arab sheikhs. When this territory was being divided, the Arabs could have created their own country then, but they didn’t let them. Because they were being used in these games with Israel, England, etc.

But I can say one thing: what they turned this desert into, it is just amazing. I stayed with my friend, whom I used to work with, in Bat Yam, a city south of Tel Aviv. The seashore there is very high, precipitous; when I was there the first time they were putting dirt there, planting plants and putting in these tubes. Every 25 cm, that’s what I calculated, there was a hole, they would pour water in that hole and it went straight to the root [patented Israeli irrigation system]. I was there several years later and the entire seashore was blooming, lush vegetation, lots of flowers, the entire area was nicely developed. That’s just something you don’t see anywhere else.

I also visited a kibbutz. It is true that the people who set these up were very ideological, but these kibbutzim were not communes. Yes, people worked together, but they had everything they needed and they studied, whoever wanted to leave, could leave, etc.

Apart from that, it’s a country like any other, people like everywhere, except there is a difference between European Jews and African, Asian Jews, difference between Sephardi 41 and Ashkenazi Jews. And there are lots of them there. When I was once staying with this friend of mine, it was the Easter [Pesach] holidays. And she says, ‘Come, I’ll show you a synagogue of Abyssinian [Ethiopian] Jews.’ And there was this woman walking there, an Abyssinian – what a beauty she was! European features, because they don’t have African features, but black as tar, such a beautiful face, full figure; it turned out she had four or five children, she was walking to meet her husband, who was a curator in the museum. And the clothing of these Abyssinian Jews…

When it comes to politics, there is a large difference with regards to their attitude to political issues. Firstly, social-democrats and socialists there are mostly Europeans and these most backward ones, the religious ones, are the African and Asian Jews. It was said here all the time that you can communicate in Polish in Israel. But that’s not true, not true. When I was taking a tram or bus and I asked something in Polish, no one answered, in German – no one, in French – yes; there were many Jews from Morocco and they understood French.

When someone mentions szmalcownicy 42, criminals from Jedwabne 43 or others, I understand that, I know, but you can’t look at any nation from the point of view of perversions, which exist in every society. Myself, I am very critical of the role of Jewish militia in ghettoes [cf. Jewish police] 44. I understand it was necessary to maintain some order, but these people betrayed others to save themselves and their families. Why am I supposed to evaluate them differently than people who for 1,500 years were under the pressure of the anti-Semitic activity of the church?

I respect Golda Tencer very much [actress of the Jewish Theater, singer, president of the Shalom Foundation]; intelligent woman, energetic. I respect Szurmiej [Szymon Szurmiej, director, actor and president of the Jewish Theater since 1969], he is someone. There were some disagreements and other issues there in the meantime; also they are more into Yiddish and I have distanced myself from that, I can’t go back and throw away decades of my life. I say this, because there were different kinds of Jewish people. Traditional Jews were a whole different world for me. I couldn’t understand that world. Because I was in circles where you read Russian and Polish literature; my generation went to Polish schools, gymnasia. There were no lectures, no study of Jewish religion, culture or tradition.

Did I want to break away from Jewishness? No. When I came to the partisan unit, I gave them my name, last name, everything. But my current name, the one I have since 1939, is mine, because I chose it. And this is how it stayed my entire life. I don’t have anything more to say about Jewishness.

Glossary:

1 Bialystok ghetto

It was set up following the German invasion of the city (26th July 1941), also for Jews from surrounding towns, some 40,000 people in total. In February 1943, during the first liquidation campaign, when around 10,000 people were sent to Treblinka, an attempt at resistance was undertaken. On 16th August 1943, during the final liquidation of the ghetto, an uprising broke out, led by M. Tenenbaum and D. Moszkowicz (who both committed suicide following the failure of the uprising). Within 5 days all the inhabitants of the ghetto were taken away, some to Treblinka and some to Majdanek.

2 Partitions of Poland (1772-1795)

Three divisions of the Polish lands, in 1772, 1793 and 1795 by the neighboring powers: Russia, Austria and Prussia. Under the first partition Russia occupied the lands east of the Dzwina, Drua and Dnieper, a total of 92,000 km2 and a population of 1.3 million. Austria took the southern part of the Cracow and Sandomierz provinces, the Oswiecim and Zator principalities, the Ruthenian province (except for the Chelm lands) and part of the Belz province, a total of 83,000 km2 and a population of 2.6 million. Prussia annexed Warmia, the Pomerania, Malbork and Chelmno provinces (except for Gdansk and Torun) and the lands along the Notec river and Goplo lake, altogether 36,000 km2 and 580,000 souls. The second partition was carried out by Prussia and Russia. Prussia occupied the Poznan, Kalisz, Gniezno, Sieradz, Leczyca, Inowroclaw, Brzesc Kujawski and Plock provinces, the Dobrzyn lands, parts of the Rawa and Masovia provinces, and Torun and Gdansk, a total of 58,000 km2 and over a million inhabitants. Russia took the Ukrainian and Belarus lands east of the Druja-Pinsk-Zbrucz line, altogether 280,000 km2 and 3 million inhabitants. Under the third partition Russia obtained the rest of the Lithuanian, Belarus and Ukrainian lands east of the Bug and the Nemirov-Grodno line, a total area of 120,000 km2 and 1.2 million inhabitants. The Prussians took the remainder of Podlasie and Mazovia, Warsaw, and parts of Samogitia and Malopolska, 55,000 km2 and a population of 1 million. Austria annexed Cracow and the part of Malopolska between the Pilica, Vistula and Bug, and part of Podlasie and Masovia, a total surface area of 47,000 km2 and a population of 1.2 million.

3 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.

4 Haganah (Hebrew

‘Defense’): Jewish armed organization formed in 1920 in Palestine and grew rapidly during the Arab uprisings (1936-39). Haganah also organized illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine. In 1941 illegal stormtroops were created, which after World War II fought against the army and the British Police in Palestine. In 1948-1949 Haganah soldiers were trained in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

5 Common name

Russified or Russian first names used by Jews in everyday life and adopted in official documents. The Russification of first names was one of the manifestations of the assimilation of Russian Jews at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. In some cases only the spelling and pronunciation of Jewish names was russified (e.g. Isaac instead of Yitskhak; Boris instead of Borukh), while in other cases traditional Jewish names were replaced by similarly sounding Russian names (e.g. Eugenia instead of Ghita; Yury instead of Yuda). When state anti-Semitism intensified in the USSR at the end of the 1940s, most Jewish parents stopped giving their children traditional Jewish names to avoid discrimination.

6 1905 Russian Revolution

Erupted during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, and was sparked off by a massacre of St. Petersburg workers taking their petitions to the Tsar (Bloody Sunday). The massacre provoked disgust and protest strikes throughout the country: between January and March 1905 over 800,000 people participated in them. Following Russia's defeat in its war with Japan, armed insurrections broke out in the army and the navy (the most publicized in June 1905 aboard the battleship Potemkin). In 1906 a wave of pogroms swept through Russia, directed against Jews and Armenians. The main unrest in 1906 (involving over a million people in the cities, some 2,600 villages and virtually the entire Baltic fleet and some of the land army) was incited by the dissolution of the First State Duma in July. The dissolution of the Second State Duma in June 1907 is considered the definitive end to the revolution.

7 Polish-Soviet War (1919-21)

Between Poland and Soviet Russia. It began with the Red Army marching on Belarus and Lithuania; in December 1918 it took Minsk, and on 5th January 1919 it drove divisions of the Lithuanian and Belarusian defense armies out of Vilnius. The Soviets' aim was to install revolutionary governments in these lands, while the Polish side had two territorial programs for them: incorporative (the annexation of Belarus and part of Ukraine to Poland) and federating (the creation of a system of nation states sympathetic to Poland). The war was waged on the territory of what is today Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Poland (west to the Vistula). Armed combat ceased on 18th October 1920 and the peace treaty was signed on 18th March 1921 in Riga. The outcome of the 1919-1920 war was the incorporation into Poland of Lithuania's Vilnius region, Belarus' Grodno region, and Western Ukraine.

8 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.

9 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 prayer house today. The Nozyk Synagogue is near Grzybowskiego Square, where the majority of Warsaw’s Jewish organizations and institutions are situated.

10 Hasid

Follower of the Hasidic movement, a Jewish mystic movement founded in the 18th century that reacted against Talmudic learning and maintained that God's presence was in all of one's surroundings and that one should serve God in one's every deed and word. The movement provided spiritual hope and uplifted the common people. There were large branches of Hasidic movements and schools throughout Eastern Europe before World War II, each following the teachings of famous scholars and thinkers. Most had their own customs, rituals and life styles. Today there are substantial Hasidic communities in New York, London, Israel and Antwerp.

11 President of the Republic of Poland in exile

The office of the President of the Polish state was transferred abroad on 17th September 1939, during German and Soviet occupation of the country. Until July 1945 the president in exile was officially recognized by most ally countries and other states. The seats of the government were: Paris, Angers (after November 1939), and London (after June 1940). The office of president was held by: I. Moscicki, W. Raczkiewicz, A. Zalewski, S. Ostrowski, E. Raczynski, K. Sabbat, R. Kaczorowski. In December 1990 Kaczorowski handed over the insignia of power to the newly elected president of the Republic of Poland, Lech Walesa.

12 Jozef Haller’s troops

During World War I Jozef Haller fought in Pilsudski's legions. In 1916 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the 2nd Brigade of Polish Legions, which in February 1918 broke through the Austro-Russian front and joined up with the II Polish Corpus in Ukraine. In August 1918 Haller went to Paris. The Polish National Committee operating in France appointed him commander-in-chief of the Polish Army in France (the 'Blue Army'). In April 1919 Gen. Haller led his troops back to Poland to take part in the fight for Poland's sovereignty and independence. He commanded first the Galician front, then the south-western front and finally the Pomeranian front. During the Polish-Bolshevik War, in 1920, he became a member of the National Defense Council and Inspector General of the Volunteer Army and commander-in-chief of the North-Eastern front. After the war he was nominated General Inspector of Artillery. During the chaos that ensued after Poland regained its independence and in the battles over the borders in 1918-1921, the soldiers of Haller's army were responsible for many campaigns directed against the Jews. They incited pogroms and persecution in the towns and villages they entered.

13 Pilsudski, Jozef (1867-1935)

Polish activist in the independence cause, politician, statesman, marshal. With regard to the cause of Polish independence he represented the pro-Austrian current, which believed that the Polish state would be reconstructed with the assistance of Austria-Hungary. When Poland regained its independence in January 1919, he was elected Head of State by the Legislative Sejm. In March 1920 he was nominated marshal, and until December 1922 he held the positions of Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army. After the murder of the president, Gabriel Narutowicz, he resigned from all his posts and withdrew from politics. He returned in 1926 in a political coup. He refused the presidency offered to him, and in the new government held the posts of war minister and general inspector of the armed forces. He was prime minister twice, from 1926-1928 and in 1930. He worked to create a system of national security by concluding bilateral non-aggression pacts with the USSR (1932) and Germany (1934). He sought opportunities to conclude firm alliances with France and Britain. In 1932, owing to his deteriorating health, Pilsudski resigned from his functions. He was buried in the Crypt of Honor in the Wawel Cathedral of the Royal Castle in Cracow.

14 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.

15 Corporations

Elite student organizations stemming from Germany [similar to fraternities].The first Polish corporation was founded in 1828.They became popular in the 1920s and 1930s, when over 100 were set up. In the 1930s over 2,000 students were members, or 7% of ethnic Polish male students. Jews and women were not admitted. The aim of the corporations was to play an educational, self-developmental role, to foster patriotism, and to teach the principles of honor and friendship. Meetings included readings and lectures, and the corporations played sport. The professed apoliticism of the corporations was a fiction. Several players fought for influence in the Polish Union of Academic Corporations - the Union of Pan-Polish Youth (Zwiazek Mlodziezy Wszechpolskiej), the Nationalist-Radical Camp (Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny), and the Camp for a Great Poland (Oboz Wielkiej Polski). Before the war most corporations were of an extreme right-wing ilk. This also included anti-Semitic attitudes. Students in corporate colors participated in anti-government campaigns and hit squads, resorted to physical violence against Jews, and supported the "lecture-theater ghettos" at universities and the idea of the numerus nullus, a ban on Jews studying.

16 Majdanek concentration camp

Situated five kilometers from the city center of Lublin, Poland, originally established as a labor camp in October 1941. It was officially called Prisoner of War Camp of the Waffen-SS Lublin until 16th February 1943, when the name was changed to Concentration Camp of the Waffen-SS Lublin. Unlike most other Nazi death camps, Majdanek, located in a completely open field, was not hidden from view. About 130,000 Jews were deported there during 1942-43 as part of the 'Final Solution.'. Initially there were two gas chambers housed in a wooden building, which were later replaced by gas chambers in a brick building. The estimated number of deaths is 360,000, including Jews, Soviets POWs and Poles. The camp was liquidated in July 1944, but by the time the Red Army arrived the camp was only partially destroyed. Although approximately 1,000 inmates were executed on a death march, the Red Army found thousand of prisoners still in the camp, an evidence of the mass murder that had occurred in Majdanek.

17 Hashomer Haleumi

Rightist Zionist scout organization. The first Hashomer Haleumi troop was established in Warsaw in 1927, and others were subsequently founded in Pinsk, Cracow, Lwow and other towns.

18 Workers' University Society Youth Movement (OMTUR)

Socialist youth organization linked to the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). Established in 1926, it organized cultural and sporting events, and acted against clericalism and anti-Semitism. It brought together young people from all walks of life. In 1932 it had some 6,500 members in 85 towns and cities. In the 1930s OMTUR activists underwent political radicalization and began cooperating with a radical peasant communist movement. Reactivated in 1944, in 1948 it numbered around 100,000 members. After the war it ran clubs, libraries and sports clubs. In July 1948 OMTUR was incorporated into the Union of Polish Youth (ZMP).

19 Anders’ Army

The Polish Armed Forces in the USSR, subsequently the Polish Army in the East, known as Anders' Army: an operations unit of the Polish Armed Forces formed pursuant to the Polish-Soviet Pact of 30th July 1941 and the military agreement of 14th July 1941. It comprised Polish citizens who had been deported into the heart of the USSR: soldiers imprisoned in 1939-41 and civilians amnestied in 1941 (some 1.25-1.6m people, including a recruitment base of 100,000-150,000). The commander-in-chief of the Polish Armed Forces in the USSR was General Wladyslaw Anders. The army never reached its full quota (in February 1942 it numbered 48,000, and in March 1942 around 66,000). In terms of operations it was answerable to the Supreme Command of the Red Army, and in terms of organization and personnel to the Supreme Commander, General Wladyslaw Sikorski and the Polish government in exile. In March-April 1942 part of the Army (with Stalin's consent) was sent to Iran (33,000 soldiers and approx. 10,000 civilians). The final evacuation took place in August-September 1942 pursuant to Soviet-British agreements concluded in July 1942 (it was the aim of General Anders and the British powers to withdraw Polish forces from the USSR); some 114,000 people, including 25,000 civilians (over 13,000 children) left the Soviet Union. The units that had been evacuated were merged with the Polish Army in the Middle East to form the Polish Army in the East, commanded by Anders.

20 Sanacja

Sanacja was a coalition political movement in Poland in the interwar years. It was created in 1926 by Józef Pilsudski. It was a wide movement created to support 'moral sanitation' of the society and the politics in Poland prior to and after the May coup d'état of 1926. Named after the Latin word for sanitation (sanatio), the movement was formed primarily by former military officers disgusted with the corrupt nature of Polish politics. It represented a coalition of members from the right, the left, and centrists. Its main focus was to eliminate corruption within Poland and to minimize inflation.

21 Endeks

Name formed from the initials of a right-wing party active in Poland during the inter-war period (ND - 'en-de'). Narodowa Demokracja [National Democracy] was founded by Roman Dmowski. Its members and supporters, known as 'Endeks,' often held anti-Semitic views.

22 Polish Socialist Party (PPS)

Founded in 1892, its reach extended throughout the Kingdom of Poland and abroad, and it proclaimed slogans advocating the reclamation by Poland of its sovereignty. It was a party that comprised many currents and had room for activists of varied views and from a range of social backgrounds. During the revolutionary period in 1905-07 it was one of the key political forces; it directed strikes, organized labor unions, and conducted armed campaigns. It was also during this period that it developed into a party of mass reach (towards the end of 1906 it had some 55,000 members). After 1918 the PPS came out in support of the parliamentary system, and advocated the need to ensure that Poland guaranteed freedom and civil rights, division of the churches (religious communities) and the state, and territorial and cultural autonomy for ethnic minorities; and it defended the rights of hired laborers. The PPS supported the policy of the head of state, Jozef Pilsudski. It had seats in the first government of the Republic, but from 1921 was in opposition. In 1918-30 the main opponents of the PPS were the National Democrats [ND] and the communist movement. In the 1930s the state authorities' repression of PPS activists and the reduced activity of working-class and intellectual political circles eroded the power of the PPS (in 1933 it numbered barely 15,000 members) and caused the radicalization of some of its leaders and party members. During World War II the PPS was formally dissolved, and some of its leaders created the Polish Socialist Party - Liberty, Equality, Independence (PPS-WRN), which was a member of the coalition supporting the Polish government in exile and the institutions of the Polish Underground State. In 1946-48 many members of PPS-WRN left the country or were arrested and sentenced in political trials. In December 1948 PPS activists collaborating with the PPR consented to the two parties merging on the PPR's terms. In 1987 the PPS resumed its activities. The party currently numbers a few thousand members.

23 People’s Army (Armia Ludowa, AL)

Polish military organization with a left-wing political bent, founded on 1st January 1944 by renaming the People's Guard (set up in 1942). It was the armed wing of the PPR (Polish Workers' Party), and acted against the German forces and was pro-Soviet. At the beginning of 1944 it numbered 6,000-8,000 people and by July 1944 some 30,000. By comparison the partisan forces numbered 6,000 in July 1944. The People's Army directed the brunt of its efforts towards destroying German lines of communication, in particular behind the German-Soviet front. Divisions of the People's Army also participated in the Warsaw Uprising. In July 1944 the Polish Armed Forces (WP, Wojsko Polskie) were created from the People's Army and the Polish Army in the USSR.

24 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.

25 White Guards

A counter-revolutionary gang led by General Denikin, famous for their brigandry and anti-Semitic acts all over Russia; legends were told of their cruelty. Few survived their pogroms.

26 German Invasion of Poland

The German attack of Poland on 1st September 1939 is widely considered the date in the West for the start of World War II. After having gained both Austria and the Bohemian and Moravian parts of Czechoslovakia, Hitler was confident that he could acquire Poland without having to fight Britain and France. (To eliminate the possibility of the Soviet Union fighting if Poland were attacked, Hitler made a pact with the Soviet Union, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.) On the morning of 1st September 1939, German troops entered Poland. The German air attack hit so quickly that most of Poland's air force was destroyed while still on the ground. To hinder Polish mobilization, the Germans bombed bridges and roads. Groups of marching soldiers were machine-gunned from the air, and they also aimed at civilians. On 1st September, the beginning of the attack, Great Britain and France sent Hitler an ultimatum - withdraw German forces from Poland or Great Britain and France would go to war against Germany. On 3rd September, with Germany's forces penetrating deeper into Poland, Great Britain and France both declared war on Germany.

27 CZS Samopomoc Chlopska

Central Union of Cooperatives - Peasant Mutual Aid, rural cooperative organization founded in 1948, bringing together voivodship and district unions and local cooperatives. An institution connected with the centrally planned economic system. It was disbanded in 1990.

28 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, which became known under the name of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Engaged in a border war with Japan in the Far East and fearing the German advance in the west, the Soviet government began secret negotiations for a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939. In August 1939 it suddenly announced the conclusion of a Soviet-German agreement of friendship and non-aggression. The Pact contained a secret clause providing for the partition of Poland and for Soviet and German spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.

29 Jews welcoming the Red Army

Poles often accuse the Jews of enthusiastically welcoming the Soviet occupiers, treating it as treason against the Polish state. In reality welcoming committees were formed not only by Jews, but also by Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. Some Jews active in left-wing organizations took literally the slogans promising that Soviet rule would bring equality, liberty and justice. Of course not all Jews were uncritical with regard to Soviet promises. Older people remembered the Russian pogroms of the Tsarist period (before the 1917 revolution), the wealthy feared for their property, and religious people were afraid of repression. But information relayed back by those who had fled to central and western provinces of the ruthless treatment of the Jews by the Germans made the Jews pleased at the halt of the German advance eastward.

30 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.

31 Komsomol

Communist youth political organization created in 1918. The task of the Komsomol was to spread of the ideas of communism and involve the worker and peasant youth in building the Soviet Union. The Komsomol also aimed at giving a communist upbringing by involving the worker youth in the political struggle, supplemented by theoretical education. The Komsomol was more popular than the Communist Party because with its aim of education people could accept uninitiated young proletarians, whereas party members had to have at least a minimal political qualification.

32 Zamenhoff Ludwik (1859–1917)

The creator of Esperanto, the most successful of the artificial languages. Born in Bialystok, an oculist by profession, a devoted Zionist, and a polyglot himself he started working on the international language as a high school student and completed it by 1878. The aim of his Esperantist movement was to foster fraternity among the nations. His aspirations grew to create the universal world religion as well that he would call Hillelism, in honor of Rabbi Hillel, the great rabbi of the 1st century. The Esperantist movement has proven to be successful, people have learned and widely used his language, both spoken and written, in great number ever since.

33 Wehrmacht (German Armed Forces)

Between 1935 and 1945, Wehrmacht was the official name of the German Army, which consisted of land, naval and air forces. Apart from the soldiers of the Wehrmacht, the members of the Waffen-SS also participated in actions during WWII. The Waffen-SS grew out of the paramilitary SS (Schutzstaffel = 'protective echelon') established by Hitler as a personal bodyguard in 1925. Placed under the Wehrmacht, however, the Waffen-SS participated in battles from 1939. Its elite units committed massacres at Oradour, Malmedy, Le Paradis and elsewhere.

34 The Jewish Historical Institute [Zydowski Instytut Historyczny (ZIH)]

Warsaw-based academic institution devoted to researching the history and culture of Polish Jews. Founded in 1947 from the Central Jewish Historical Committee, an arm of the Central Committee for Polish Jews. ZIH houses an archive center and library whose stocks include the books salvaged from the libraries of the Templum Synagogue and the Institute of Judaistica, and the documents comprising the Ringelblum Archive. ZIH also has exhibition rooms where its collection of liturgical items and Jewish painting are on display, and an exhibition dedicated to the Warsaw ghetto. Initially the institute devoted its research activities solely to the Holocaust, but over the last dozen or so years it has broadened the scope of its historical and cultural work. In 1993 ZIH was brought under the auspices of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. It publishes the Jewish Historical Institute Quarterly.

35 Walesa, Lech (b

1943): Leader of the Solidarity movement, politician, Nobel-prize winner. Originally he was an electrician in the Gdansk shipyard and became a main organizer of strikes there that gradually grew to be nation-wide and greatly influenced Polish politics in the 1980s. Co-founder of the Solidarity (Solidarnost) trade union in 1980, representing the workers (and later much of the Polish society) against the communist nomenclature. He was one of the promoters of the thorough reconstruction of the Polish political and economic system, the creation of a sovereign democratic state with a market economy. In 1983 he received the Nobel Peace Prize. From 1990-1995 he was president of the Republic of Poland.

36 'Solidarnosc' Production Co-operatives

An association established in 1946 to co-ordinate the work of production plants run by legally functioning Jewish parties. It also provided re-qualification and training for employees, including repatriates. In 1949 there were 200 Jewish co-operatives operating within the 'Solidarnosc' organization in Poland. They operated until 1968 (with a break from 1950-1956).

37 Anti-Zionist campaign in Poland

From 1962-1967 a campaign got underway to sack Jews employed in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the army and the central administration. The background to this anti-Semitic campaign was the involvement of the Socialist Bloc countries on the Arab side in the Middle East conflict, in connection with which Moscow ordered purges in state institutions. On 19th June 1967 at a trade union congress the then First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party [PZPR], Wladyslaw Gomulka, accused the Jews of a lack of loyalty to the state and of publicly demonstrating their enthusiasm for Israel's victory in the Six-Day-War. This address marked the start of purges among journalists and creative professions. Poland also severed diplomatic relations with Israel. On 8th March 1968 there was a protest at Warsaw University. The Ministry of Internal Affairs responded by launching a press campaign and organizing mass demonstrations in factories and workplaces during which 'Zionists' and 'trouble-makers' were indicted and anti-Semitic and anti-intelligentsia slogans shouted. After the events of March, purges were also staged in all state institutions, from factories to universities, on criteria of nationality and race. 'Family liability' was also introduced (e.g. with respect to people whose spouses were Jewish). Jews were forced to emigrate. From 1968-1971 15,000-30,000 people left Poland. They were stripped of their citizenship and right of return.

38 Six-Day-War

(Hebrew: Milhemet Sheshet Hayamim), also known as the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Six Days War, or June War, was fought between Israel and its Arab neighbors Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. It began when Israel launched a preemptive war on its Arab neighbors; by its end Israel controlled the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. The results of the war affect the geopolitics of the region to this day.

39 Communist Union of Polish Youth (KZMP)

Until 1930 the Union of Communist Youth in Poland. Founded in March 1922 as a branch of the Communist Youth International. From the end of 1923 its structure included also the Communist Youth Union of Western Belarus and the Communist Youth Union of Western Ukraine (as autonomous regional organizations). Its activities included politics, culture and education, and sport. In 1936 it initiated the publication of a declaration of the rights of the young generation in Poland (whose postulates included an equal start in life for all, democratic rights, and the guarantee of work, peace and universal education). The salient activists in the organization included B. Berman, A. Kowalski, A. Lampe, A. Lipski. In 1933 the organization had some 15,000 members, many of whom were Jews and peasants. The KZMP was disbanded in 1938.

40 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.

41 Sephardi Jewry

(Hebrew for 'Spanish') Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origin. Their ancestors settled down in North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, South America, Italy and the Netherlands after they had been driven out from the Iberian peninsula at the end of the 15th century. About 250,000 Jews left Spain and Portugal on this occasion. A distant group among Sephardi refugees were the Crypto-Jews (Marranos), who converted to Christianity under the pressure of the Inquisition but at the first occasion reassumed their Jewish identity. Sephardi preserved their community identity; they speak Ladino language in their communities up until today. The Jewish nation is formed by two main groups: the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi group which differ in habits, liturgy their relation toward Kabala, pronunciation as well in their philosophy.

42 Szmalcownik

Polish slang word from the period of the German occupation (derived from the German word 'Schmalz', meaning lard), referring to a person blackmailing and denouncing Jews in hiding. Szmalcowniks operated in all larger cities, in particular following the liquidation of the ghettos, when Jews who had evaded deportation attempted to survive in hiding. In Warsaw they often formed organized groups that prowled around the ghetto exists. They picked out their victims by subtle signs (e.g. lowered, frightened eyes, timid behavior), eccentric clothing (e.g. the lack of the fur collar so widespread at the time, or wearing winter clothes in summer), way of speaking, etc. Victims so selected were threatened with denunciation to the Germans; blackmail could be an isolated event or be repeated until the victim's financial resources ran out. The Polish underground attempted to combat the szmalcowniks but in vain. To this day the crimes of the szmalcowniks are not entirely investigated and accounted for.

43 Jedwabne

Town in north-eastern Poland. On 10th July 1941 900 Jews were burned alive there. Until recently the official historiography maintained that the Germans were the perpetrators of this act. In 2000, however, Tomasz Gross published a book called 'Neighbors,' in which he indicted Poles as the perpetrators of the Jedwabne massacre. This book sparked off a discussion that embroiled academics, politicians and the media alike. The case was also investigated by the Institute for National Remembrance. This was the second such serious debate on Polish involvement in the extermination of the Jews. The Jedwabne debate attempted to establish the number of Jews murdered, to define the nature of the incident (pogrom or Holocaust), and to point out the direct perpetrators and initiators of the crime.

44 Jewish police

Carrying out their will the German authorities appointed a Jewish police in the ghettos. Besides maintaining order in general in the territory of the ghetto the Jewish police was also responsible for guarding the ghetto gates. During liquidation campaigns most of them collaborated with the Nazis; in the Warsaw ghetto each policeman had to supply at least five people to the Umschlagplatz every day. The reason for joining the Jewish police, first of all, was based on the false promises of the Germans that policemen and their families would be saved. In the Warsaw ghetto the Jewish police was headed by Jakub Szerynski; during the 'Grossaktion' (the main liquidation campaign in the summer of 1942), the Jewish Fighting Organization issued a death warrant on him, and he was to be executed on 20th August 1942 by Izrael Kanal. The attack failed, Szerynski was only wounded, and in January 1943 he committed suicide.
 
  • loading ...