Travel

Klara-Zenta Kanevskaya
St. Petersburg
Russia
Interviewer: Olga Egudina
Date of interview: July 2005

I met Klara-Zenta Iosefovna Kanevskaya in her small cozy apartment in one of the new districts of St. Petersburg. 

From the first minutes of our dialogue Zenta Iosefovna – this is the way she asks me to call her – really enchants her interlocutor. 

Her affability, brilliant sense of humor, sincere interest in life can leave nobody indifferent. 

Looking at her beautiful face, you understand the correctness of the following statement: 
worthy people become wonderfully improved in their appearance with age. 

Listening to the story of her life, one remembers the words of Tutchev: 
‘Blessed is he who visits this life at its fateful moments of strife… 
’ [Fedor Ivanovich Tutchev (1803-1873) was one of the greatest Russian poets. 

The lines quoted here are from his poem ‘Cicero.’] She witnessed almost all the terrible events of the last century. She had to go through the time of the rise of Fascism in Germany, 
the period of Great Terror in the USSR 1, and the blockade of Leningrad 2. 

Sometimes her story may appear taciturn and insufficiently emotional: 
we understand that she does her best to overcome the horror of her painful recollections not to excite pity in her companion. 

• My family background
• During the war
• Growing up

• After the war
• Glossary

• My family background

Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about my distant ancestors. You see, I’m already so old that it is strange that I remember anything at all. But the reason is not my forgetfulness: my parents told me nothing about them.

Never mind my distant ancestors; I know very little even about my grandmothers and grandfathers. I can only guess their names on the basis of my parents’ patronymics. My paternal grandfather’s name was Abram Elenevich, and my maternal grandfather’s name was Lev Kesselman. I can give you only approximate dates of their lives. My maternal grandfather lived to about 77 years and died in 1916, having outlived his wife by many years: my maternal grandmother died at the age of 33. And my fathers’ parents died approximately at the same age: they both were 75-80 years old. It happened during World War I.

My mom’s parents lived in Lvov. It was in Western Galicia 3, therefore my Mom spoke excellent German, and it was of good service to her later. My father’s parents lived in what today is Poland. There was a small town called Lomzha near Grodno. At some point my father’s parents lived in Irkutsk on trade business, and my father [Iosef Elenevich] was born there. Unfortunately I don’t know the details. Later they returned to Lomzha.

Both my grandfathers were engaged in trade. It was natural for the grandmothers not to work: they stayed at home, giving birth to children and keeping the house. Members of both families spoke Yiddish at home. My father’s parents also spoke Polish, and my mother’s parents spoke German. I don’t know the way my grandmothers and grandfathers dressed, but I do know that my grandmothers didn’t wear wigs.

I can tell you almost nothing about their family life. I heard stories that the parents of my mom had a garden, which always gave them a rich harvest of cherries and apples. I don’t remember, whether they kept domestic animals, it seems to me that they kept poultry. And my father’s parents kept goats.

Neither the family of my father’s parents, nor the family of my mother’s parents had helpers at home: they had not enough success in life for that.

My grandmothers and grandfathers were religious, but not fanatic [Zenta means: not that zealous]. They went to the synagogue, celebrated holidays, kept the fast on Yom Kippur.

I know nothing about the political views of my grandfathers. Unfortunately I also know nothing about their relations with their neighbors. I know for sure that they never left their places for vacations. 

I was born in Berlin. A little bit later I’ll tell you about the way my parents ended up there. We all are well aware of what Berlin looked like at the beginning of the 20th century. Here I’d like to speak about the Jewish Berlin. These facts are less known, and besides due to well known reasons this Berlin has disappeared without leaving a trace. A lot of Jews lived in Berlin. The Jewish community of Berlin was not only very large – the largest in Germany – but also very influential. Suffice it to say that when we lived in Berlin, there were 18 community synagogues and besides that about 20 private ones. There were also Hasidic 4 synagogues, Reform and Sephardic 5 ones. Naturally, in the city there were many rabbis and cantors. Certainly there were shochetim, but our family never used their services: you see, everywhere around there were shops, where they sold kosher meat.

At synagogues and meeting-houses there were mikves. In Berlin there were various Jewish educational institutions, for example my sister and I studied at a Jewish school. There were both cheders and yeshivot. In general it is possible to say that alongside the German Berlin there existed and flourished a Jewish Berlin. The whole Jewish residential area was situated in the city center, not far from our place. There was a choral synagogue there. Sometimes Daddy took us there, because it was famous for its cantors.

In 1938 it was burnt to ashes. By now its building has been restored, and it houses a museum and community center. On the territory of the school where we studied, there was a whole complex: a girls’ school, an orphanage for girls, a cooking school, a polyclinic, a boarding house for teachers. I know this boarding house well. The thing is that I had a serious speech impediment. I had special lessons with a speech therapist at the polyclinic. As I lived rather far from my school, my teacher arranged for me to stay and have dinner at that boarding house on certain days, when I had my speech therapy lessons. It was there where I learned my table manners: to use a napkin, a support for knives and forks, etc. – you see, when parents teach their children to do something the right way, the children often pay no attention to them. In this complex there also was an old people’s home, and the Nazis killed all its inmates.

In Berlin there was no specially separated district where Jews had to live. To tell the truth, a Jewish residential area did exist. Poor Jews lived there, that area was very dirty. But nobody forced people to live there. For example, we didn’t live there; we lived in the city center.

Jews had no typical occupation. They were engaged in different businesses. As usual, there was a significant number of Jews-handicraftsmen. A lot of Jews were engaged in trade, there were many lawyers, bankers, doctors. Most Jewish emigrants from Russia were educated people.

I remember not a single house in Berlin without water and electricity supply.

My father was thoroughly versed in politics. He always kept abreast of it. I was a child, and he already taught me to read newspapers. At that time in Germany mainly Social Democrats stroke the keynote of policy, and my father sympathized with Communists. My father not only made no secret of his views, but even put them on show out of bravado. He received by post the newspaper ‘Rote Fahne.’ [‘Die rote Fahne’ (Red Flag) was a German newspaper (1918-1939), since 31st December 1918 it belonged to the Communist Party of Germany. In Germany its publication was suppressed in 1933, and till 1939 it was issued in Prague and later in Brussels.] He was a subscriber and used to read it openly in the street, when it was already better not to do it.

Communists never won elections; they usually had the second or third place. Mom was always absolutely nonpolitical. I’d like to say that nostalgia was not an empty phrase for my father, he always wanted to return to Russia or, rather, already to the Soviet Union. To tell the truth, he knew nothing about what was going on in the USSR. You see, the October revolution 6 happened, when he was in captivity.

Until 1933 I came across no expressions of anti-Semitism. And here I’d like to tell you in detail about the first time I confronted this phenomenon. It happened when not only our family, but the whole mankind faced anti-Semitism. It was the beginning of one of the most terrible tragedies of the 20th century.

In January 1933 both my brother and I got ill with scarlet fever. At that time scarlet fever was considered to be a serious disease, and we were taken to a hospital. We were placed in the isolation ward situated on the ground floor of the hospital, so that visitors could communicate with children through the window. Our parents came to visit us three times a week. One day Daddy came and told me the following: ‘You see, don’t feel hurt if possibly we won’t come to see you so often: at present it is very uneasy in the city – Hitler has come to power, and it means Fascism.’

I had already heard about Fascism. Together with my sister we spent vacations in a children’s rest home in 1932 and saw the ‘brownshirts’ [SA men were often called “brownshirts,” for the color of their uniforms] marching and singing the ‘Horst-Wessel-Lied’ [the “Horst Wessel Song” also known as “Die Fahne hoch’” (“The flag on high,” from its opening line), was the anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930 to 1945.

From 1933 to 1945 it was also part of Germany’s national anthem.] and ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über alles.’ [Das Lied der Deutschen (“The Song of the Germans,” also known as “Das Deutschlandlied”, “The Song of Germany”) has been used wholly or partially as the national anthem of Germany since 1922. Outside Germany, the hymn is sometimes informally known by the opening words and refrain of the first stanza, “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,” but this was never the title of the original work. The music was written by Joseph Haydn, the lyrics by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben. Information for these editor’s notes culled from: http://en.wikipedia.org/] Merely by intuition I understood that it was something terrible and very bad. I felt strong aggression in it. You know, children understand much more than adults usually think.

My brother was the first to be discharged from the hospital. My case caused kidney complication, and I was kept in the hospital longer. By the way all the doctors in the hospital were Jews. Later I also returned home, and it seemed that our life returned to normal, but it was nothing like that.

• During the war

On the evening of 31st March – it was Friday – 15 men entered our apartment by force and started beating my father. Mom seized my sister’s hand and ran to the police station for help. But the police already were on the side of these bandits. Our neighbor, a widow – a very stout woman – took my brother, who was one and a half years old. She put him on her stomach, and he was hidden from view. They went on beating my father in my presence. Suddenly another neighbor, a wife of a Nazi – SS soldier – entered. [SS: abbreviation of “Schutzstaffel,” German for “Protective Squadron”– a privileged military organization of the Nazi Party in Germany.]

She shouted at the pogrom-makers: ‘What are you doing? Have these people done anything wrong to you?’ She took me to her place. You see, she didn’t care a bit about her husband’s views on life, if it was necessary to rescue a child. In their family there was a boy, an awful hooligan, one year younger than me. Right at the time, when we stayed in the hospital, he fell down from a scaffolding and broke his arms and legs. So that hooligan, having not recovered yet after his injuries, approached me, wiped away my tears and said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Zenta, everything will be OK.’ As for me, I already knew how OK it would be! The neighbor gave me strong sweet tea to drink, and also some tranquilizer drops. Later she saw me to the door of our apartment.

And meanwhile Father’s torturers took him away to a neighboring pub. They were going to go on beating him, but already in the presence of the pub customers. But at that time two underground members of the Communist Party were present there. They knew my father very well: it happened in our district, where people knew each other. They asked: ‘What are you beating him for?’ – ‘He called Hitler an Austrian.’ – ‘Who heard it?’ – ‘My wife.’ – ‘Well, your wife can’t be a witness.’

At that time Fascism only started gathering strength, and their interference was enough to stop the tormenting of my father. He was brought home covered in blood. As it turned out later, he had concussion of the brain. All the rest of his life he suffered from severe headaches. My parents immediately decided to leave for the USSR. Especially because the day after my father was beaten up, they arranged a Jewish Boycott in Berlin. It was the day, when nobody was allowed to buy from Jewish shops. They gave people the opportunity to enter a Jewish shop, and beat them at the exit.

I don’t remember any patriotic holidays, but I remember well political mass-meetings under the leadership of Thälmann. It happened in 1931 or 1932. [Thälmann, Ernst (1886-1944): the leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Th%C3%A4lmann]

One day Daddy took both my sister and me to one such political mass-meeting. It took place in the square, where the Headquarters of the Communist Party Central Committee was situated. During Thälmann’s speech a desultory fire started. It was the police action intended to disperse the meeting participants that way. Daddy seized us; we ran away and took cover behind a street-door nearby. When we returned home, Mom started a scandal, whereas normally she never used gross terms. She said to my father, ‘Next time go by yourself where you want, but don’t touch the children.’ And we weren’t frightened. Nothing was frightening when we were with Daddy.

I don’t remember us singing any patriotic songs. Songs that we heard in Germany didn’t inspire us. Later, in the USSR we also tried not to sing Soviet songs.

When I try to recall a market day, nothing comes to my mind. It seems that in such a large city as Berlin, there was no such thing called a market day. In any case, in spite of the fact that we lived very close to the market, I don’t remember anything special to be arranged there on certain days. We visited the market very rarely. Year by year we went to the same shops. Meat and sausage we bought at the butcher’s in a Jewish shop. Black and white bread and Viennese muffins were delivered at our door every morning. I still remember the smell and taste of those muffins, for ever and aye it means for me the smell of a happy childhood. We didn’t buy milk in a Jewish shop. And the owners of the shop for colonial produce were Jewish. We, the children, were sent to the shops very often, but our parents didn’t entrust us with money. The shop owners scored up the bought goods, and our parents paid for them later. We went to the market only to buy fresh fish. My mom was a real cordon bleu.

I already told you about the political mass-meetings under the leadership of Thälmann and about the situation after Hitler came to power. I guess it is all I remember about the political events of that time. A good few in fine!

Now I’d like to tell you about my parents. By now nobody in the world except me is able to do it. My mom [Berta Kesselman] was a mild tempered person, a gentle mother, a devoted wife and a houseproud woman. As far as I remember she raised her voice only three times. The first time it happened, when they were beating Daddy in her presence. The second time it happened already in Leningrad [today St. Petersburg]. Shortly after Daddy was arrested, the house manager came to us and said that it was necessary to change our apartment papers, because the number of our family members had decreased. [House managers usually were in close contact with the NKVD 7] My Mom bawled at him in the full sense of the word. You see, he talked to us supposing that my father would never get back. Mom couldn’t reconcile herself to it - and she appeared to be right, though the return home of my father was a real miracle. I’ll tell about it later.

And for the third time she shouted already at me, but again in connection with Daddy. When Daddy was arrested, we went to Kresty prison, trying to find out something about his destiny. [Kresty (‘crosses’ in Russian) was a prison in St. Petersburg. Its buildings form a cross, thus the name. In the 1930s this prison was overcrowded with victims of Stalin’s mass repressions.] Mom went there alone more often. One day when I was there, I saw a man who came up to a lady standing in line – probably he was an NKVD officer – and took her with him somewhere. I never saw that woman again. I told Mom that I wouldn’t let her go to the prison alone, and I would go there myself. And Mom shouted at me, and I rolled on the floor in a crying fit. You see, I was afraid to lose my mother, as I had already lost my father.

From my story it is evident that Mom raised her voice only on extraordinary occasions. She had a gentle sense of humor. My father was absolutely different. He was kind, but always ready with sarcasm. He was able to give us, the children, a dab. He wasn’t angry, but very effusive. He managed to hurt the feelings of many people. I am his daughter, but my nature is gentler, probably because I am a woman.

My father, Iosef Abramovich Elenevich, was born on 7th June 1888 in Irkutsk. Daddy finished cheder, and then studied in Germany in an educational institution for specialists in weaving, where he became a good expert in textile fabrics. He died on 23rd December 1941 in besieged Leningrad.

My mother Berta Lvovna – according to her documents her name was Bredle Abramovna, and she had no idea where that name came from, because her father was called Lev – Kesselman was born on 17th March 1888 in Lvov. Mom studied only in an elementary school. Their mother tongue was Yiddish. But they also spoke Polish, German and Russian. She died on 6th March 1942 in besieged Leningrad.

Now I’d like to tell you, how my parents turned up in Berlin. In 1912 my father was conscripted. He served in Siberia. And in 1914, when he was about to be demobilized, World War I broke out. He was sent to the front line, and at the end of 1915 he was taken prisoner. While he was held captive, his parents died. Father knew that nobody waited for him at home. And in Berlin there lived his sister [Hava] and her family. To my regret I know nothing about her, I remember only – my parents told me – that she was a real beauty. Father went to Berlin having not a shot in the locker. In Berlin, in a cafe or a pub, he joined a company to play cards. And he was lucky: he won 14 marks. It was the last time in his life he played cards for stakes. He wasn’t a reckless player: that chance gain of 14 marks was a necessity want for him. So he started his new life in the new country from this insignificant sum.

At that time in Germany there was sustained inflation. My father traveled about the country, from village to village, bought potatoes there and later sold them in the city. At that time he could do nothing else, because he had no profession. Later he became a good expert in fabrics and even devolved his knowledge to me. Until now I show discrimination in fabrics. At first Daddy set up a little shop in Berlin together with one of his acquaintances. I don’t remember what they sold. Later my father’s partner married an ugly, but very rich girl and became a great merchant. Their paths parted. And my father set up a little drapery store and besides he was often invited to give consultations.

My mom left home in 1905. She had a bad-tempered stepmother; all my grandfather’s children of the first bed left home. My Mom went to Berlin. At first she got a job as a cook in a Jewish restaurant, later she became a head-cook there. In Berlin she met my Daddy. They got married in 1922. Of course, having become a married woman, my Mom immediately gave up her work.

I don’t know their love story in detail; I only remember that according to them, they were especially introduced to each other by someone. Of course they got married in a synagogue under a chuppah, according to all the rules. After their marriage in the synagogue they forgot to get registered in the state institution, it caused problems when I was already born. Several weeks after my birth I had my mother’s family name, Kesselman. Then they got registered and I was given my father’s surname.

Our family was of moderate means. My parents had three children, and always only Father worked. Everyone was satisfied with food, provided with shoes and clothes; the children studied. But we never lived in luxury. After we moved to the USSR, the level of our well-being didn’t change: we remained on the average level. But unfortunately the average level in the USSR was – and unfortunately is – much lower than that in Germany.

In Germany we lived in an ordinary three-room apartment. How rich it was in comparison with our next dwellings! There we had a nursery, our parents’ bedroom and a dining-room. The furniture was ordinary for that time. Certainly we had a water supply, but no central heating. There was stove heating. There was a gas stove, but when it was necessary to cook a lot, Mom burnt wood in another stove. At home we had no pets. Of course we had no garden.

Nobody ever helped Mom about the house, though many times Daddy offered her to hire a day servant at least. She always refused: she didn’t want to see an outsider at home. We had a lot of books at home. All of us liked to read, especially Daddy. But he had almost no time for reading. When we lived in Germany, all our books were in German, except religious ones, which were in Hebrew.

As far as religious books are concerned, Daddy had a twelve-volume edition of religious texts, and Mom had the same one, but issued for women – of a smaller format. We didn’t visit libraries, Daddy subscribed to newspapers – mainly Communist ones.

My parents weren’t very religious people. Until 1941 our family members celebrated all Jewish holidays. We went to the synagogue, especially in Germany. To tell the truth, my parents dressed as secular people. My father was a fine singer. This skill helped him to find his place in the Jewish community: he was the man who sang hymns at the end of Sabbath, after dark. I’ve forgotten the words, but I remember the melody until now.

While we lived in Germany, my father sympathized with Communists. But when we arrived in the USSR, he said almost at once: ‘Terrific! Where have I brought my family!’ My parents weren’t members of any Party.

My father did his military service in the tsarist army, and later he participated in World War I. He was awarded two St. George Crosses 8 for personal bravery.

Our neighbors were mainly Germans, because we didn’t live in a Jewish residential area. We always were on good terms with them. I already told you about our neighbors who saved us when my father was attacked. There was one more family: they had two adult sons. The pogrom-makers invited those guys to beat my father with them. They refused: ‘We are brought up differently, these people did us no harm.’ Since then I never identified all German people with Fascists. Later, in the USSR the meaning of the word neighbor changed. There appeared a new type of neighbors – communal flat-mates. I’ll talk about them a little bit later.

We had no relatives in Berlin, only friends and acquaintances – of my father, mainly. I had my schoolmates. Obviously my parents paid attention to the nationality of their friends and acquaintances: almost all of them were Jews. While we lived in Germany, my parents never left Berlin for vacations.

I remember almost nothing about the relatives of my parents. Mom had brothers; they sometimes came to visit us in Berlin. I remember only their names: Yakov and Leo. I remember my father’s sister Hava. At first she lived in Berlin, then left for Poland, for Lomzha wherefrom she sometimes came to visit us in Berlin. She was a housewife, married to a lawyer.

• Growing up

I was born on 11th April 1923 in Berlin. Until I was four I stayed at home with Mom, then I was sent to a Jewish kindergarten, and at the age of six I already went to school. We had neither a nurse, nor a governess. My mother tongue was German. I don’t remember what I occupied myself with at home. I never felt bored. When I was one, my sister was already born. This small age difference allowed us to play together.

In 1928 I was sent to a Jewish girls’ school. All subjects, except Hebrew and Bible [Old Testament] were taught in German. It was an eight-year school, but I studied there only five years, because in 1933 we left Germany. I’d like to tell you about it a little bit later. At school I was interested only in humanitarian subjects. I liked German language and Hebrew very much, and hated mathematics. We had only one teacher for all subjects – Fräulein [Miss] Fanye Bergas, she taught us all subjects but singing and PT. By the way, at the singing lessons we studied the flute. Unfortunately, I didn’t succeed. At our school there was no anti-Semitism, and of course it couldn’t exist there. Besides this basic school, I attended a Sunday school, where we studied Hebrew more intensively than at my school. There we also studied the history of the Jewish people.

I made friends basically with girls from my class. Certainly all of them were Jewish. One of them lived in the same street as us, and most often I communicated with her. Twice a week I went to lessons with a speech therapist at the polyclinic, therefore I had little free time. I didn’t take a great interest in anything. I never liked to do sports. We spent almost all our free time, days off and vacations with our parents. We liked to go for long walks. Most often we went for a walk around the city, but sometimes to the suburbs. Not far from our house there was a very beautiful park, and it was our favorite place. Daddy took us to side-shows in the park. Once a year, the school administration took all of us out of the city for a picnic and overnight stay. It was unforgettable.

Unfortunately, we spent the night not in tents, but in houses, but nevertheless all of us were very enthusiastic about it. Several times during our summer holidays my sister and I were sent to the Baltic Sea with members of the Russian-Jewish Emigrant Society. Daddy was acquainted with an employee of that society, his surname was Ox – by the way, later he left for Palestine. Under his patronage – because we weren’t emigrants – we went to the Baltic Sea and to Thuringia [Germany]. We used to spend one and a half months there. And in Thuringia we used to live in the Catholic rest house, a part of which they granted on lease to that society. 

When we had to go somewhere within the city limits, we went by bus. Only on extraordinary occasions we went by automobile. I remember, when my sister injured her arm, Mom took her to the doctor by car together with me – not to leave me home alone. It was approximately in 1930. So, a ride in a car was a real event. And a local train ride was the ordinary way for us to go out of the city.

We never went to restaurants. Why should we go to a restaurant, if our Mom was a chef-cook? My parents had three children. I’ll tell you about my sister and brother, though unfortunately the story about my brother will be extremely short, like an inscription on a grave stone.

My sister was born on 18th May 1924 in Berlin. Her name was Margotte. She was very beautiful, in contrast to me. She attended the same Jewish school as me. Later, already in Leningrad, before the war broke out, she managed to finish nine grades. After the end of the war she entered a Pharmaceutical Technical School. She finished it and worked as a pharmacist all her life: at first in Priozersk of Leningrad region, later in Leningrad, and then in Israel. My sister was married twice. Her first husband was a camera-man. He was at the front line during the war. His name was Vladimir Alexandrovich Galperovich. He shot films about the Leningrad region and traveled much around it. Once, having arrived in Priozersk he met my sister and fell in love with her: she was a real beauty. Soon they got married, and moved to Leningrad. They lived in her husband’s apartment. Unfortunately Vladimir Alexandrovich died of a heart attack when he was only 57 years old.

In 1974 my sister got married for the second time. Her second husband was 13 years older. He was a hairdresser. His name was Abram Supyan. He died at the age of 90. In 1976 they immigrated to Israel. There in 1996 my sister died during an open heart surgery. The operation lasted seven hours and a half, and she didn’t regain consciousness after it.

My brother was born on 23rd November 1931. He died on 24th April 1942 in besieged Leningrad. His name was Leo.

We observed all Jewish traditions until 1941 both in Germany and in Russia. We observed Sabbath only in Germany; in the USSR we couldn’t manage to do it: everyone was busy at work, we all came home at different times, and it was impossible to consider the celebration of Sabbath to be a valid reason for absence from duty. My parents went to the synagogue for sure. They also taught their children: I knew a lot of prayers. I remember very well the ceremony of circumcision arranged for my brother. He cried so piteously, the poor boy!

I loved all Jewish holidays and till now I consider them to be very good for uniting family members. At home we always kept Pesach kitchenware, and I remember that joyful feeling, when my parents got it out of the cupboard before Pesach.

We usually celebrated holidays in the bosom of our family; we had only one visitor – a widow, our acquaintance. Sometimes we also made visits, but preferred to spend holidays at home.

Now I’ll tell you about our return to the USSR. All his life my father sympathized with Communists, and he would have returned to the USSR with pleasure, even if in Germany there had been no pogroms. But Mom wouldn’t hear of it. The reason was that she was really religious, and the way they behaved towards religious people in the USSR was already well known 9. But after Hitler came to power, it became clear that we had no choice. After the events I have described above, we immediately addressed the Soviet Consulate and left Germany in June 1933.

It was easy for us to obtain sanction for departure and admission into the USSR because we were Soviet citizens. The point was that when my father stayed in Germany – after he had been delivered from captivity, he didn’t ask for German citizenship. And when the first ambassador of the Soviet state appeared in Berlin, Daddy applied for Soviet citizenship and was granted it. Mom – as his wife – and his children also became Soviet citizens automatically.

From Berlin we went to Hamburg and then on by steamship Hertzen 10. It wasn’t a passenger boat, and the conditions were so-so. Our furniture we sent from Berlin to the USSR by container traffic a week before our departure. We sewed many warm cloths, because we were going to be confronted by intense cold. We sailed three day, and landed at the Leningrad seaport. There we found out that nobody was waiting for us. And several Englishmen and an American who sailed on board the same ship were met in the port. We understood that the reason was that we were Soviet citizens. Where to go, where to sleep, what to eat – we knew nothing. Someone said that it was necessary to go to Smolny. [Smolny monastery is a monument of architecture in St. Petersburg. Under the Communists its building housed municipal governing bodies.] So we went to Smolny to see the Chairman of the Leningrad Executive Committee 11. Daddy left us in the street near Smolny with our luggage and entered the building. It was night time, but at that time of year Leningrad nights were white. [St. Petersburg’s position below the Arctic Circle causes twilight to last all night in May, June and July. This phenomenon is known as the “white nights.”] We were waiting for Daddy for a rather long time. The situation was frightening. Then he came out and said that they sent us to the Severnaya hotel. We lived there for several days. And it is necessary to mention here that at that time we didn’t have a penny.

Then they sent us to the Jewish Agricultural Society, which was situated on Nekrassova Street. [The Jewish Agricultural Society was created in 1924 to provide financial, medical, educational and cultural assistance to Jews, who were going to be engaged in farm-work.] We were lodged in the accounts department. The employees of that department had to crowd together in one room, leaving the second one to us. There we lived for two or three months. We went to Smolny to have dinner. There we had a meal free-of-charge, but only dinner. Mom sold our things at the market. Daddy started working as a work-master at a cotton mill.

My sister and I were sent to the German school on Krukov channel embankment. You see, we couldn’t speak a word of Russian. At the school the first shift started in the morning and was German, the second one started in the afternoon and was Russian. I went to the 3rd grade, and my sister – to the 2nd. The school was remarkably good! All subjects except Russian language were taught in German. Till now I remember our teacher of Russian language, Anna Iosefovna Pinsker. She was over 80 years of age, lived in the suburb of the city, and each day went to work by train. I know the Russian language thanks to her. That school – as well as other national schools in Leningrad – was closed in 1938. [In 1918 Soviet authorities permitted national minorities to teach their children at schools in their mother tongue. But in 1938 they issued an edict ordering to teach all schoolchildren in Russian.]

And in the meantime we still lived in the accounts department. But you know: we were children. Children are fine everywhere: they will be fed, washed, and put to sleep for sure. And it was hard for my poor mom. She was not accustomed to uncomfortable life as Soviet women were. She was long used to a gas-stove, and here she had to master a primus heater [a portable kerosene burner used for cooking.] They bought a primus heater and put it in the corridor. Soon Mom learned how to clean it using a needle.

When Daddy asked the local authorities to put a living space at our disposal, they said the following: ‘You were born in Irkutsk, so go there.’ Daddy went to the synagogue: he realized that only there he could get some kind of advice. And they told him: ‘If you get even a room in a basement here, it is better than a very good apartment in Irkutsk. In Irkutsk you will play the devil with your family. In the USSR it is possible to live only in Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev and Kharkov. In all other cities people starve.’ Daddy made an appointment with Kodatsky, who was the Chairman of the City Executive Committee at that time. [Kodatsky, Ivan (1893-1937) was a Communist Party leader and a Soviet politician.] When my father entered his study, Kodatsky was drinking tea and eating cake. But it was not for nothing that my father was a St. George chevalier: he was afraid of nothing and nobody. Having seen Kodatsky, who was brassily leaning back in an easy chair and even didn’t offer him to sit, Daddy banged his fist on the table so loudly that the tea glass, the plate and cakes flew every which way. After that, Father immediately got orders for four different rooms to choose from.

My parents chose two rooms – of ten and twelve square meters – in a communal apartment 12 on Vassilyevsky Island. Before the Revolution that apartment was occupied by a princess, who emigrated abroad. In the apartment there lived the family of her former housekeeper Darya Nikolaevna; they occupied the best rooms. Darya Nikolaevna appeared to be a very worthy woman, we made friends. And the other neighbors also were very decent people, except the Jewish family. They – parents and three children – lived in a room of 18 square meters. They came from Zhlobin, their father was a shoemaker. Having arrived in Leningrad, they immediately became atheists, and laughed in our faces, because we didn’t eat pork.

And my parents went on observing traditions, tried to buy kosher meat, regularly went to the synagogue. Certainly, they couldn’t celebrate Sabbath. But the Pesach kitchenware brought from Germany was kept in a special box and once a year it was ceremoniously unwrapped. We never celebrated Christmas or Easter: it didn’t occur to us to do it.

Soon Mom also had to get a job, because Father couldn’t support the family alone – we were not in Germany! She managed to find a job of a check-room attendant in a hairdressing saloon. We moved to another apartment, where we had only one room, but it was large and sunny.

Daddy made friends basically with his coworkers. My sister and I also had many friends – one of my schoolmates is still alive. We often went for a walk around the city, visited museums, theaters. I remember that once my sister and I went to Kirovsky Theater [Mariinsky opera and ballet theater was erected in 1793 in St. Petersburg, in 1935 it was named after Kirov, the well-known Soviet Communist leader] to see the Swan Lake ballet [Swan Lake is a world-famous work by Tchaikovsky, it was premiered in Moscow in 1877], but didn’t manage to buy tickets, because that performance always drew capacity audiences. It was a pity to go home and we went to watch the Gershele Ostropoler performance [Gershele Ostropoler is a comedy by Gershenson] of Mikhoels 13 theater [the interviewee means Mikhoels Theater – the Soviet State Jewish theater founded in 1919] at the Palace of Culture situated near the Kirovsky Theater. [Palaces of Culture in the USSR arranged different exhibitions, dancing-parties, meetings with famous people; they also invited different touring drama groups]. The performance was very funny, we laughed ourselves to death, laughed all the way home recollecting the episodes, and even at home we bothered our sleepy family members.

My sister and I spent our summer vacations in pioneer camps 14. And my brother left for summer dacha 15 with his kindergarten. Daddy had rest in a sanatorium twice [sanatoriums arranged conditions for rest and medical treatment of people, usually they were situated in places with climate congenial to health]: his organization gave him a paid authorization. [An enterprise usually sent its employees to have rest in a sanatorium or a rest house at a reduced price.] Mom went to a recreation house 16. We never rented a dacha for summer vacation.

As I already mentioned, our school was closed in 1938. All schoolchildren were moved to schools, situated in their districts. By that time I knew Russian very well, and my sister a little bit worse. My compositions on Russian literature were the best; I was always pointed at as an example of what other pupils should do.

By 1937 some sort of vacuum started forming around us. A lot of people around us were arrested. But still life went on. In the summer of 1938 my brother left for summer dacha with his kindergarten, and my sister and I went to a pioneer camp in Siverskaya [Leningrad suburb] for the whole summer. We returned home pleased and happy. And two days after our return our father was arrested. They came to take him at night – as usual – made a search and turned the house upside down. For some reason they took my father’s homeopathic medicine. Of course we had understood earlier that Father would be arrested: in the country, where people were arrested each and all, a man of such destiny as my father couldn’t survive. I was 15 years old, but I understood everything very well.

They put him into the Kresty prison, and we started our long ordeal. Every ten days I went there. Every ten days it was the turn of ‘our letter E.’ It was impossible for me to meet Akhmatova 17 there: she came on the days of letter G, and I on the days of letter Е. [Here the interviewee refers to the fact that in the same period of time Anna Akhmatova went to the Kresty prison to give a parcel to her arrested son – Lev Gumilev.] I used to come to prison by the first tram, and many people had been waiting there since the previous evening. We spent long hours standing in line; I remember well that I was reading ‘Les Misérables’ by Victor Hugo to while away the time. At last I approached the small window and had to say: ‘Elenevich, Iosef Abramovich, born in 1888 in Irkutsk.’ Then I gave them money. If they took the money, it meant that Father was alive and not moved anywhere. One day they refused to take money from me. I was told the following: ‘He is not here.’ – ‘And where is he?’ – ‘Next, please!’ I was a very brave girl and went to Ivanov, the warden. May that Ivanov rest in peace! He listened to me, left for somewhere, came back and said: ‘Your father was sent to the Far East for ten years without the right to be in correspondence with anybody.’ Many years later we got to know that such a verdict meant execution. At that time I didn’t know it, but nevertheless I fainted. They brought me to life, I returned home, and told everything to Mom. Next time she went there herself, and unexpectedly they took money from her.

Later we got to know that right that day, when they told me that my father had been sent away, four hundred prisoners, including him, were taken out to the railway station and put in cars. Suddenly my father was taken off the train and brought back to Kresty. All this he told us after his discharge. And before that a man, a lawyer, visited us at home. He was kept in the same ward as my father. Later he was discharged, and somehow he got to know that my father’s case would be taken up through the legal proceedings [it was something unprecedented for that time]. He informed us about the place and time of hearing of the case. Mom and my sister went to that court. They didn’t let them in, but Father was discharged right in the courtroom – they dismissed his charge. He had been imprisoned for one year. I don’t dare to say only one year, knowing how much he suffered in prison, and how much we suffered at liberty at that time. But in comparison with terms in prison, usual for that time in our country [10-20 years], his term was certainly very short. Possibly the fact that I wrote dozens of letters with a request to discharge my father while he was in prison, had no small part in it. I wrote letters to Stalin, Beriya 18, Molotov 19. I’d like to think that it was my letters that helped Daddy.

When Daddy got imprisoned, it became clear to us that Mom alone wasn’t able to support three children. So, first of all I changed my school for an evening one. [Evening schools gave adult working people an opportunity to get high school education.] Red-haired Vanya Vassilyev was one of my classmates. He worked as a cook at a mechanized canteen. [In the USSR mechanized canteens were large integrated plants which did everything from food processing to cooking meals.] It was he who helped me get my first job. I was hired as an assistant to an accountant at their accounts department. The head of the department was very nice. Her younger sister also worked there, and we made friends.

I had to go round to the canteen sections, collecting different documents. And in each section employees wanted to give me something to eat: a roll, curdled milk, an ice-cream. I felt embarrassed, but I understood that everyone wished me well. After that I worked at the Krasny Oktyabr factory. It was a well known enterprise manufacturing pianos. I worked there as an accountant. Later I worked in a technical school, which prepared projectionists. [Technical schools in the USSR prepared sub-professionals for agricultural, transport and other key industries.] There I got acquainted with very interesting people. You see, I was a young girl, everything was amazing to me, and people who played some part in the film industry seemed to me the real people of art. I left that job, when I entered the 10th grade, aiming to become well prepared and enter a college. At that time I never came across any manifestations of anti-Semitism. Probably I was very lucky with the people around me and places I worked at. As is well known, before the war there were no anti-Semitic witch-hunts, conducted by state authorities, and I never faced the so-called ‘everyday’ anti-Semitism.

Indeed, the only serious incident in my life connected with anti-Semitism was that beating of my father by fascist-minded thugs in 1933 in Berlin. Later my life in the USSR went on in the ordinary way. In the USSR they arrested people without distinction; starvation also killed people of different nationalities.

I finished school with good marks and entered the 1st Medical College. It was in 1941. But I didn’t study there for long. Before the beginning of the academic year my sister and I were sent to dig trenches. [In the first months of war all citizens of Leningrad able to work were mobilized to build field fortifications around the city.] We spent two months there. In fall the college was evacuated, but I couldn’t leave: all members of my family were lying motionless dying of starvation. I finished training courses for nurses and worked in a hospital for some time. By that time I also grew weak and very soon had to give up my work.

• After the war

By spring 1942 my parents and my brother died. My sister and I survived, but she couldn’t get up any more. I managed to find a job as an unskilled worker at the Vpered factory. That machine-building factory was situated not far from our house and I managed to get there with my last bit of strength. Having worked at the factory for a very short period, I lost my pass. During the war time all factories were considered to be military units, therefore the loss of pass could cause serious troubles. I went to the director, and at that moment a secretary of the Communist Party organization of the factory was present in his study. [The secretary of the factory Communist Party organization was nominally the leader of employees – Communist Party members, but de facto he was in the same position as the director.] They gave me a kind reception and asked a lot of questions about my family. I looked awful, more dead than alive, and they decided to send me to the soup-kitchen for a high-calorie diet. They called for the factory doctor. The doctor said: ‘Don’t you see that she is not able to reach the soup-kitchen, we should take her to the hospital immediately!’ Together with my sister – who was in an even worse state – I was sent to a military hospital, which had allocated 800 beds for citizens of Leningrad, who were suffering from dystrophy. It was in May 1942, trams were already in operation and we took a tram, otherwise it would have been impossible for us to reach the hospital. I’ll never forget the friendly reception they gave us. We had a wash and changed our clothes for new and clean ones. In the large ward there were about 50 patients. We spent two months there. We had three meals and 600 grams of bread a day. We hadn’t seen so much bread for a long time.

On 22nd July 1942 we were evacuated. We left for Siberia. At all large railway stations they arranged meals for citizens of Leningrad. In Vologda, when I came back to our car with dinner, I didn’t find my sister. It turned out that she was taken off the train by hospital attendants: she was sleeping and they counted her for dead. Here take into consideration that they counted her for dead after two months of her stay in hospital. So you can imagine what she had looked like in May! I ran to the hospital and saw my sister lying in bed: by that time they had made sure that she was alive. I hardly managed to jump into the car and continued my way alone. Two months later my sister came to me: Siberia, Novosibirsk region, Maslyanino village [150 km north-west of Novosibirsk]. All evacuated people were gathered at the school, where the village inhabitants came to choose lodgers.

I don’t want to speak about evacuation, though it was the evacuation that saved our lives. I’d like to mention only the following: there I learned how to chop firewood, how to burn wood in a stove and to grow vegetables.

We returned to Leningrad in October 1945. I won’t describe the city: much was written about it. We were absolutely alone: no relatives remained alive. Even all our neighbors died. Nobody waited for us, nobody was happy to see us. We couldn’t return to our room, because it was occupied by a returned front-line soldier: such people had priority of lodging. And people, who survived the blockade, were considered not to be war victims for a long time. I think that it is one of the crimes committed by the Communist State.

Nevertheless we called for some things of ours. I took down our chandelier, took plates and dishes and also our beds. We went to live with a person we got acquainted with in evacuation. Later I found my prewar friend, and we moved in with her.

It was necessary to begin life anew. I was the elder and felt responsible for my sister. My first post-war work was in the Pharmaceutical College. The director of the college offered me to enter the college, but I had to earn money for myself and my sister. And my sister entered the Pharmaceutical Technical School. She was housed in a hostel. After the end of her education she left for Priozersk to work. There she got a room. As for me, I had no place of my own for 14 years. I got my first room in a communal apartment in 1959. And in my present apartment I’ve lived since 1976. It is the second self-contained apartment in my life – the first one was in Berlin.

Sometimes I try to remember my political views of that time. I remember for sure that I created no illusions for myself regarding the Soviet regime. I never was a Communist Party member. It seems to me that at that time my life was so hard that I had neither the time, nor the strength to think about something of no relation to my everyday troubles. You see, we were poor and homeless. I remember neither anybody’s departure to the West or to Israel, nor conversations on such themes.

In 1948 I started work at the Krasnogvardeets factory, manufacturing medical devices. There I worked till 1980, when I retired. And again I was lucky with people. You know, after the end of the war, anti-Semitic campaigns 20 were launched by state authorities, and a lot of people suffered from it. But at the Krasnoarmeets factory Georgy Moudanov was the director. He was Armenian and employed Jews, when already nobody did it. He also refused to fire employees because of their nationality. One day they summoned him to the regional Communist Party Committee and said that at his factory the percentage of Jews among the employees was too high. [The regional Communist Party Committee held the key of the Communist Party activities in the region] The director answered that he would prefer to be thrown out of the Party rather than fulfill their requirements. Among the citizens his factory had the reputation of an institution where they gave jobs.

In 1955 I entered the Financial and Economic College – by correspondence – and graduated from it in 1959. That year was very remarkable for me: I got both a room and a higher education diploma.

At my work I never came into conflicts on the ground of my Jewish origin. When entering the college, I also faced no discrimination. Most probably it happened because I wanted only to become a correspondence course student. And one more thing: the College of Finance and Economic, which at present has a very high rating, was not in popular demand at that time.

Fortunately I was never forced to condemn Israel or the USA publicly. At first I worked as a bookkeeper, then as a senior bookkeeper, and later as an economist. I was not a person in a high position and never aimed at it. I was considered to be a good specialist, and always had a good reputation. I always worked honestly and with pleasure, but retired on a pension easily. If I’d wanted I could have continued working, nobody turned me out. But my second husband had a house in Frunze, and it was hard for him to sell it. [Frunze – present-day Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan] And it took almost three days and nights to get there by train – while it was too expensive to go by airplane. So we lived in two cities: Aron Semenovich [Leveter] used to live at my place in winter, and I lived at his in summer. While I worked, I had to take leave at my own expense, and when I became a pensioner I depended on nobody and lived at his for half a year. In 1982 he sold his house at last and moved to my place.

I was never interested in the nationality of my friends; it was of no importance to me. Regarding the percentage of Jews among my friends I not only can say nothing, but also consider it impossible to make this sort of calculation from an ethical point of view. Look, is it worthy to apply mathematical formula to people, who were dear to me and for the most part are not alive at present? Of course not!

But it was only possible for me to marry a Jew. My father used to say: ‘Be sure that all members of our family are of the same nationality. Friends – that’s a horse of a different color, but the family should be Jewish. Otherwise you would live with him for 20 years, and then he would apply to you the rude epithet: dirty Jew.’

I was married twice. My first husband, Anatoliy Borisovich Kanevsky, was born in 1920 in Petrograd [today St. Petersburg]. He was an interpreter – English and German languages. We got acquainted in a recreation house and lived together for four years. It appeared that we were very different, but we parted as friends. We didn’t keep in touch afterwards. He died in 1992.

My second husband was Aron Semenovich Leveter. He was born on 23rd February 1915 in Riga [today capital of Latvia] and died on 20th March 2003 in St. Petersburg. His father was a Bolshevik 21 and perished during the Civil War 22. My husband didn’t remember him. In their family there were two children: my husband and his elder sister Riva. His mother moved to Velizh of Smolensk region together with her children. It happened in 1917 or 1918. His mother started working at a siccative factory, where they dried vegetables and fruit. In the Russian provinces there were a lot of such factories.

The director of the factory felt sorry for the poor widow with two children and did his best to help her, basically with production of his enterprise. They lived in real poverty. Their life became a little bit better, when Aron finished a technical school and started working as an operator at a factory. Unfortunately I can remember neither the exact name of the technical school, nor the factory. He told me that he was very much afraid of fire: the factory building and most of the equipment were wooden. He was even more afraid to be accused of sabotage. [According to the Soviet criminal law, sabotage was considered to be an especially dangerous crime which aimed to do much harm to the state.

During the years of Stalin terror false and absurd accusations of sabotage were common.] Because of this reason and also because operators had crummy salaries, Aron changed his profession to that of a driver.

I was the second wife of Aron Semenovich. Before the war broke out he was married to Maria Berova. She gave birth to their daughter. Aron went to the front immediately after the war broke out. When the Germans approached Velizh, my husband’s mother, his sister and his first wife with their little daughter in her arms left their native town on foot. But the mother returned, she said she would be waiting for her son at home. But she didn’t manage to meet her son there: together with other Jews of Velizh she was put into a shed and burnt alive on 29th January 1942.

I’d like to tell you the story of what happened to my husband and his first wife. When you read something of this kind in a published novel, you think that the author’s imagination ran away with him. But everything I am going to tell now, did indeed happen.

Maria and Riva – Aron’s sister – found themselves in evacuation in different places. Maria was in Frunze, and Riva in Kazan. Aron’s wife received his two death certificates. The authorities fixed a pension for their child. Aron also searched for her, but he hadn’t the remotest chance of success to find her alive: he knew that their native town was razed to the ground. Aron got demobilized only in 1946 after the end of the war with Japan 23. Then he went to Kazan to see his only sister. She tried to persuade her brother to stay in Kazan. But he didn’t like it there, and he left for Riga. Soon he took his sister to Riga too. He started working as a driver. His sister taught English language at the Academy of Civil Aviation.

Everybody around him urged Aron to marry: you see, after the end of the war there were so many lonely women. But something constantly kept him from it. One day he went to a cinema together with Riva. Before the performance they showed a news-reel. The credit titles contained an inscription ‘The camera-man М. Berov, Minsk.’ And Berov was the surname of the brother of my future husband’s first wife. Aron went to Minsk. He got to know the address of Mikhail Semenovich, went to his place and found all his family there. They said: ‘Your Maria is alive and your daughter will go to school this year.’ Aron returned to Riga, and they sent a telegram to Frunze to inform them about their arrival. He went to Frunze together with his sister.

At that very moment, when they entered the apartment, a postman brought the pension, which the girl received for her lost father. The first words Aron said to his newfound family were the following: ‘No money, I am alive.’ His wife refused to return to Riga. She remembered the horrors of war forever and thought that a new war could come again from the west. Aron remained in Frunze and worked as a driver as best as he could: he wanted to earn money for the construction of a house. Later he changed his work and became a mechanic. He always read very much and was an educated person. Maria died in 1974.

I got acquainted with Aron Semenovich in 1977. We both were lonely; it was my friend who introduced us to each other. We got married in 1979. I had children neither of the first bed, nor of the second.

Aron Semenovich was at the front during the war. He was a driver of a Katyusha rocket launcher. [Katyusha was an informal name of the Soviet rocket launchers which played a very important role during military operations in 1941-1945.] The tragedy in Velizh, when all Jews there were burnt alive, happened in his absence. And in Velizh there were a lot of Jews, you could say Velizh was a Jewish shtetl.

On the place of that tragedy a standard obelisk was erected. In connection with it I’d like to tell you about a remarkable person: Alexander Grigoryevich Bourdukov. He was born in Velizh and at present works there as a teacher of history. During the war he was a boy and lost his hand, having set off a mine. The Fascists committed atrocities practically before his eyes. I consider him to be a near saint. He did his best to preserve the memory of Jews tormented to death in his native land during the war, it was his lifework. You see, under the Communists, the Soviet authorities didn’t speak about the Holocaust loudly. It was considered a demonstration of dissidence. And for many years Alexander Grigoryevich collected pieces of information about those who’d perished or survived, about the history of the ghetto.

We got acquainted with him in 1987, when I came to Velizh. One large room in his house was filled with card files. It was his diligence that helped to erect a new good monument at the spot, where Jews were burnt alive. There is also a museum, where a photo of my husband with all his war decorations hangs, among others. They especially asked my husband to have his photo taken with all his orders and medals – not medal ribbons.

I didn’t manage to bury my husband at the Jewish cemetery. I am the last one in our family, there are no descendants... I had to cremate my husband’s body and place the cinerary urn in the columbarium to minimize someone’s efforts in keeping the place of his repose in order. I hope that nobody will take a grave view of my behavior. It seems to me that the most important thing was that we agreed on it while he was alive. The regional military registration and enlistment office helped me very much to arrange everything for his funeral.

I don’t know where my parents and my brother were buried, but I’m sure that it wasn’t at a Jewish cemetery.

After the end of the war we didn’t observe traditions, didn’t celebrate Jewish holidays. Sometimes my sister and I went to the synagogue, but it happened extremely rarely.

Among my friends there always were both Jews and Russians. And I always could speak to my friends about what I pleased. Naturally we spoke both about Israel and Judaism. Do you really need to have friends, if you can’t speak to them about your worries and interests?

I can cook very well: it’s my mother’s training in me. Until now I am able to make every dish of the Jewish cuisine. Unfortunately at present I have nobody to do my best for.

I was on a guided tour in Czechoslovakia and Hungary and in the German Democratic Republic at the invitation of my acquaintance. The first time when I was going to visit Germany, in 1986, it was denied to me. I broke china in the local Visa Department. [Visa Departments in the USSR were responsible for visa processing, but most often they refused to give authorization to Soviet people to go abroad.] I shouted at them: ‘You permit yourselves to go to your native villages and embrace your beloved birches, and why is it denied to me to visit the place, where I spent my childhood?’ Certainly they didn’t change their mind, but I enjoyed every minute of our talk.

Israel’s victories in the wars of 1967 24 and 1973 25 were of great importance to me. All my life I was interested in the history of Jewish people and always wished Jews to have their own state. I had friends who lived in Palestine in the period when Israel as a State was far from existence. Later they moved to the USSR. So they told us that the Arabs permanently attacked peaceful Jewish agricultural settlements. Therefore my sympathies were with Jews not only because of the call of my Jewish heart. We were happy when Israel gained its great victories. At the factory there was my coworker who was called up for active service and participated in the war of 1967 on the side of the Arabs. He told me: ‘Zenta Iosefovna, our war equipment was damaged, scrapped. We have to learn to fight war from Jews.’

I didn’t visit Israel till 1989, but regularly corresponded with my sister’s family and it was no trouble to me 26. We had no relatives in western countries. I also had no problems at work because of my nationality. But I’d like to emphasize that I was lucky. The anti-Semitic campaign triggered off by the state authorities was in great force.

I was very much pleased about the fall of the Berlin Wall. [The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 to separate Western and Eastern parts of Berlin in Germany. It was demolished in 1989.] You will agree with me that it was clearly wrong, that a far-fetched idea divided a country and its people. And I was always indifferent to Germany and German people. I already told you that I never equaled Fascists with Germans.

When perestroika 27 was initiated in this country, we felt hopeful for the future. Now I think that it answered our expectations in many respects. And in spite of the fact that much in our life pains me today, the possible revival of Fascism frightens me most of all. I don’t want to have the past returned. Lord forbid!

I always identified myself as a Jewess. I was always interested in everything connected with Jewry. Before now we had to grope about for such information. Certainly at present there are more printed papers, more newspapers. All this pleases me very much.

I am connected to the activities of the St. Petersburg Jewish community through the Hesed Welfare Center 28. Once a fortnight they bring me from my home to the Hesed Daytime Center by car. [The Daytime Center is one of the programs of Hesed.] I spend all the day there. We have breakfast and dinner, but the most important thing is that we mix with each other. They arrange for us lectures and concerts in Hesed, we also go on very interesting excursions: we saw the Amber Chamber [The Amber Chamber is famous for its amber decorations. During World War II it was stolen by the Fascists and disappeared without a trace. In 1979 in St. Petersburg they started its reconstruction, and in 2003 the Amber Room was opened for visitors] in Catherine Palace in Pushkin [erected by the architect Rastrelli 29 in 1752-1756], soon they will take us to the recently opened exhibition of Chagall paintings 30. He was banned in the USSR. Earlier I received large food packages, and now it happens extremely rarely, and the number of enclosed items has decreased. One day they gave me a package with the most necessary medicines. I got financial assistance neither from Germany, nor from Switzerland.

I remember the day of Stalin’s death very well [5th May 1953]. At work they forced everybody to come to a meeting. Guys – idiots! – were crying! I spent some time watching them and then marched off in disgust. I can’t say that I was glad: you could always anticipate aggravation of the situation, but I didn’t feel pity for him at all.

When they organized the Doctors’ Plot 31 we were filled with horror. Once I went somewhere by bus, and a man there damned Jews using such dirty words! It was really terrible! The situation smelled of pogrom. As far as events in Hungary 32, Czechoslovakia 33, and later in Afghanistan 34 are concerned, I never trusted any word of Soviet propaganda.

After the loss of Aron Semenovich my life became very lonely. I take refuge from it in reading: I read very much. My visits to the Hesed Center also help me. Now I don’t understand the word vacation. Where can I go alone? When my husband was alive we often went to different resorts, most often to Baltic Republics.

• Glossary:

Iyah Dziekovskaya

Interviewer: Natalia Fomina
Date of interview: December 2003

Iyah Dziekovskaya is a short sweet-looking woman with her hair cut short.  Iyah Vladimirovna looks and conduct tell about her extraordinary tactfulness.  She speaks quietly and has melodious voice. Her story about her dear ones is full of her love of them. Iyah Vladimirovna lives with her second husband Emil Abramovich in a cozy three-bedroom apartment furnished with old-fashioned well-preserved furniture. The feeling of coziness emerges mostly from friendly and hospitable demeanor of the host and hostess.  At the end of our discussion a neighbor rings at the door: Iyah Vladimirovna has to go and give medications to her 80-year-old mother who only accepts medications from her hands.   

I will start the story of my family from my great grandfather Isaac Varshavskiy, born to the family of rabbi Zelman Varshavskiy in Odessa in 1832. My great grandfather was a Jewish writer, linguist and public activist. [Editor’s note: Isaac Varshavskiy is the author of many books, scientific works and manuals in the Jewish, German and Russian languages.  He promoted secular education of Jews in Odessa].  My mother lived in the family of her grandfather and grandmother until she turned 6 years of age. She loved them dearly and remembered well.  My grandfather studied languages, particularly ancient languages. According to my mother my grandfather knew over twenty languages that he learned on his own. Only after he turned fifty he invited a teacher to study another ancient language. Besides his literary and scientific activities my grandfather was doing charity. He was either chairman or a member of the Odessa Jewish Charity Fund.  His family lived in the house in 3, Malaya Arnautskaya Street, where poor Jewish families resided on charity. My mother said that my great grandfather was infinitely humble.  He even died somehow quietly. He usually lied down after having the first course waiting for the second. So he died between the first and the second courses. Quietly and calmly, nobody even knew. They came into the room – and he was there, lying. My great grandfather was buried in the second Jewish cemetery that was ruined in the 1960s.

Besides my great grandfather’s daughter Ethel Varshavskaya, my mother’s mother, Robert, the son of my great grandfather’s friends from England who died in a shipwreck, lived in his family for quite a long time. When Robert grew up he went to his homeland and became a literary worker, but I don’t know his surname.  He wrote much about Odessa, Jews in Odessa and about my great grandfather’s family, of course. He wrote about my great grandmother that she was grouchy, but was a kind and sympathetic person. The family teased my great grandmother about it, but she took it easy knowing that Robert’s memoirs were warm and full of love. My grandmother Ethel Varshavskaya was born in 1866. She finished a grammar school in Odessa. Shortly afterward somebody told my great grandfather that there were going to be political arrests in Odessa and this may affect my grandmother. My great grandfather rushed into his daughter’s room. She was sleeping quietly and there were some forbidden books by her bed. And here my great grandfather, a humble and unpractical man, showed steel will. He grabbed my grandmother by her hand; they took a cab and went to the seaport. My great grandfather was making arrangements with some officials there for few hours holding his daughter’s hand. On that same day she was sailing to Marseilles. In France my grandmother Ethel entered the Medical Faculty of Paris University and finished it brilliantly. Rector of the university wrote a greeting letter to grandfather in Odessa. Odessa newspapers wrote that she graduated from Paris University. However, my grandmother’s doctor’s career was not easy. Foreign diplomas had to be certified in Russia, and she had to take exams for that. My grandmother got refusals for several years since there were no women doctors at that time in Russia. My grandmother wrote a request addressed to His Royalty and Alexandr III [Russian Emperor in 1881-1894], (his letter was lost during the Great Patriotic War 1) wrote in his own handwriting: ‘We don’t need women doctors’. Only few years later, during the reign of Nikolay II  [Russian Emperor in 1894-1917], when my grandmother lost any hope, suddenly permission was received. My grandmother went to Kharkov University on the following day. She passed her exams successfully and was awarded the title of a woman doctor. She also received a doctor’s license to practice medicine.  By that time my grandmother Ethel was married to Doctor of Medicine Yefim El’bert. 

My maternal grandfather Yefim El’bert was born in Yelisavetgrad (present Kirovograd) in 1863. I know little about his family. All I know is that my grandfather had a brother named Moisey.  Moisey’s grandson Leonid Solomonovich El’bert is director of the Jewish museum in Kirovograd now. Grandfather Yefim studied at the Medical Faculty of Moscow University, but was expelled for taking part in students’ riots. He graduated from Derpt University and then defended a doctor’s dissertation in Munich. On 18 May 1992 my grandfather was warded the title of ‘doctor of medicine, surgery and obstetrics’. I think my grandmother and grandfather met and got married in Odessa. My mother and her older sister Vera were born in Odessa.  

Approximately in the early 1900s, probably for their ties with revolutionaries, my grandmother and grandfather were directed to move to Belaya Tserkov near Kiev, where they were watched by police. My grandmother had to invite a gendarme to her home to obtain his permission to visit her dressmaker in Kiev. They were good doctors and friendly people. They believed that a doctor did not only have to cure his patients, but also, provide assistance to them. They issued recipes for poor patients to get free medications from their pharmacist. My grandmother and grandfather paid for these medications. They also supported their patients materially.  My grandfather was chief doctor of the town hospital and had private practice. He often visited countess Branitskaya living in a nearby mansion and often patients from Kiev came to see him. My grandmother was an obstetrician.  She told me that when poor villagers called for her help she even took warm women’s underwear to them. To teach them to wear warm underwear. My grandmother and grandfather were very decent with their colleagues. In the past doctors provided free medical services to their colleagues. My mother said that once a young man from Kiev visited my grandfather. He consulted my grandfather and left him the fee. Later somebody told my grandfather that he was a medical student. My grandfather went to Kiev, found this student, gave him his money back and even rebuked him.

My grandmother and grandfather had two daughters. My mother’s older sister Vera was born  in Odessa in 1891. Vera was growing up surrounded by governesses and housemaids and hated physical work. A room maid used to do her hair, when she was quite a mature young girl.  After finishing a grammar school Vera studied in the Historical/Philological faculty of Kharkov University.  Instead of standard four years she studied there for seven years. She was a so-called ‘eternal student’. Grandmother Ethel got so tired of this that she borrowed books from the library and wrote a diploma in two weeks.  Vera defended it brilliantly.  After the October revolution 2 aunt Vera lived in Moscow and worked in the library named after Lenin.  She got married shortly before the Great Patriotic War and even didn’t have time to introduce her husband to her mother. Vera got lost during evacuation. She probably perished.  My mother tried to find my sister after the war. She got a letter from the library where they informed that Vera El’bert evacuated from Moscow and this was all information they had about her.  

My mother Nadezhda El’bert was born in 1896 and lived in Odessa till the age of 6. After my great grandfather Isaac died my great grandmother brought her to her parents in Belaya Tserkov. My mother told me a lot about her childhood. My grandmother and grandfather had a two-storied house with a big garden. They let the first floor and resided on the second floor. The family had eight rooms: my grandfather’s study, a living room, bedrooms, my mother and her sister had their own rooms, and their Swiss governess, whom my grandmother brought from France, had a room.  This governess stayed to live in the family when the sisters grew up. She became a member of the family. My grandmother worked a lot as a doctor. There was a cook, two room maids and a laundress to do the housework. When room maids were cleaning my grandmother’s room when she was at home, she rushed them: ‘That’s enough, everything is clean, go’.  So they tried to do her room, when grandmother was not at home.  

As for my mother, and she told me about it proudly, she did her room herself.  She also cleaned thee window in her room and liked gardening. When she was a child she couldn’t wait till flower beds opened: she used to ‘upflower’  them opening their buds. My mother said there was a spirit of freedom in the family: nobody lectured to her or made comments.  They even didn’t scold her for some things that required some comments.  My mother, for example, was often late to her grammar school. There was a grammar school for girls and another one for boys in Belaya Tserkov. They were located in a big square.  There was also a student who was often late in the grammar school for boys. If they met in the square they  looked at each other silently and then turned away to go home. They knew that if they had met that meant that they were hopelessly late. At home everybody exclaimed happily: ‘Naden’ka is back!’ There were no comments or notices. However, my mother studied well and received an award of praise every year. : She was a very graceful miniature brunette and spoke impeccable French and was called ‘French’ in her grammar school. 

The El’berts had many acquaintances and there were often guests in the house. There was a custom to play cards at such receptions. My grandmother didn’t like it. My mother told me that my grandmother always dropped cards when sitting at the card table. Grandfather Yefim was chairman of a local club. Once the wife of one of his doctors asked my grandfather to talk to her husband who was not good in his family.  My grandfather tried to talk to him when they were playing billiards. That man got angry: ‘Do you think you can issue orders in this club as if it were a hospital? This is not your business!’  My grandfather was very kind, but quick-tempered. He threw a billiard ball onto the floor with such strength that it cracked. Later some students who were on training in my grandfather’s hospital, brought this ball to my mother and told her the story. Everybody laughed. That man came to apologize to my grandfather later. Grandfather Yefim loved my mother. Every now and then he called her home saying: ‘My joy, the treasure of my life’.  When my mother grew into a young girl, other students began to do the same. They called and said parroting my grandfather: ‘My joy, the treasure of my life’. By that time there were frequent gatherings of young people at home: my grandfather liked the company of the young.  He liked to teat them to something to eat. He used to say jokingly: ‘Cavalry, welcome to sweet treatments!’ My grandfather had health problems and traveled to Baden-Baden to get water treatment every year. My mother went with him several times. My grandfather died at the age of 56 shortly after the October revolution.

For my mother the choice of profession was a decided matter since her childhood. She used to go on calls with my grandfather. She recalled that he had an extremely large fur coat and assured that she could fit in a sleeve of this fur coat.  Before the revolution of 1917 my mother entered the medical faculty of Kharkiv University. During the Civil War 3, after my grandfather died, she came home and saw the cold and empty apartment, two beds in one of the rooms, grandmother Ethel lying on one bed and the governess – on another. There was a bucket with freezing water in the middle of the room and the two ladies were at the point of freezing. Of course, my mother stayed with them, or my grandmother would have died.  

Shortly afterward Denikin troops 4 and Western Ukrainian units [editor’s note: at the beginning of WWI, in summer 1914 in Lvov (Austro-Hungary then) the Ukrainian Legion later called ‘Ukrainian Sich Riflemen’ was formed from Ukrainian volunteers. Members of Ukrainian organizations for young people and students constituted a big part of this unit.] occupied Belaya Tserkov. These two armies united to struggle against Bolsheviks. Somebody reported to them that my mother was a revolutionary and a Bolshevik. Two officers came to our house: one was a young officer of the Western Ukrainian army, student of the Vienna University, and a Denikin officer.  My mother remembered this Denikin officer very well: he lounged with his leg crossed and look very hostile.  My mother would have been arrested. The Ukrainian officer called my mother’s sister Vera and said: ‘Bring a Ukrainian man to guarantee that your sister would stay at home and I will take him away for an hour. You will disappear during this time, or he would never let your sister go’.  Vera rushed to Vladimir Dziekovskiy, my future father, who worked with her.  He ran to the house and signed his guarantee that my mother would stay.  The Ukrainian officer took the Denikin officer away and my father took my mother, grandmother and my mother’s sister to an acquaintance of his who had returned from the czar’s exile for being a Ukrainian nationalist. And this stranger of a man gave shelter to my mother, grandmother and my mother’s sister.  They stayed there for over a week while Denikin troops were in Belaya Tserkov. He saved their lives. 

I know little about my father’s parents. My paternal grandfather Matvey Dziekovskiy was Ukrainian and worked as inspector of public vocational schools in Mogilyov-Podolskiy and then in Belaya Tserkov.  My grandfather died shortly before the revolution. My grandmother Ksenia Dziekovskaya, nee Belskaya, was a teacher. She died at 36, when my father was still a child. There were three children in the family.  

My father’s younger sister, I think her name was Natalia, died, when she was small. She contracted diphtheria from my father. When he recovered and his parents told him that his little sister had passed away, he fainted. He loved her dearly. My father’s younger brother Georgiy Dziekovskiy, whom we called Zhorzh, was born in 1900. He finished grammar  school with a gold medal and entered the Medical Faculty  of the university, but he never finished his studies: the revolution and Civil War broke his plans. Uncle Zhorzh  worked as chief accountant in medical institutions.  He lived in Toksovo near Leningrad before the war. His wife Ludmila was a lawyer. She worked as a judge.  In 1937  uncle Zhorzh was arrested 5 [Great Terror]. When his wife wrote us that uncle Zhorzh had been arrested, my mother prepared a pile of underwear for my father who also might be arrested for being a close relative. I remember this pile very well. However, uncle Zhorzh was released a short time later.  He said that he got lucky: during interrogation one prisoner hit the investigation officer on his head with the stool and this officer died. All prisoners whose cases this officer pleaded were released.  Uncle Zhorzh visited us and said to my father: ‘I apologize, but I signed everything they demanded, even what there was against you’. My father replied: ‘Try to forget this nightmare as soon as you can. I understand very well’.  Uncle Zhorzh was at the front during the great patriotic War. After the war he returned to Toksovo. He visited us for the last time in Odessa in 1974. shortly before my mother died.  Uncle Zhorzh died in the 1980s.

My father Vladimir Dziekovskiy was born in Sevastianovka village of Kamenets-Podolskiy district Podolsk province (present Khmelnitskiy region) in 1891. My father finished a grammar school and entered the Law Faculty of Kiev University. Upon graduation from the university my father lived in Belaya Tserkov where he worked as a lawyer in an office.  At the time when my mother, grandmother and my mother’s sister were hiding from Denikin troops there was a Jewish pogrom in Belaya Tserkov.  My father was a strong and brave man, but he turned pale when telling me about this pogrom. He said there was nothing more terrifying in his life.  My father gave shelter to Jews in an outhouse in his yard. I don’t know how they heard about it, but Jews from all over the town were running to hide there. There were so many people in this house that they could only stand close to one another. Little children were pressing their hands to their mouths to keep silent. This was so horrifying that my father couldn’t speak. He came into the yard showing them where to go. My father recalled that all of a sudden it became very quiet and my father saw children running to him dragging a paralyzed old man with a white beard and his hand was hitting against the pavement. The sound of this hitting imprinted on his memory for the rest of his life. However, it worked all right: it never occurred to anybody to look for Jews at my father’s home.  He rescued many of them. After these memorable events my parents never parted. My grandmother had nothing against their marriage. She as a broad-minded person and respected and loved my father ultimately. 

When the Civil War was over, my mother went to continue her studies in Kiev. My father followed her and also entered the Medical Faculty having legal education. However, my mother was soon expelled from university for her, so to say, bourgeois origin. It was this way then: workers, peasants and bourgeoisie, there were no other categories. My mother’s acquaintance from Belaya Tserkov expelled my mother. He was as store owner and before the revolution he took every effort to belong to the circle of my mother’s family acquaintances. When Bolsheviks came to power he became a Bolshevik immediately.  Grandmother Ethel went to Kharkov that was the capital of Ukraine at that period [1918-1934], to see Petrovskiy [Petrovskiy, Grigoriy Ivanovich (1878-1958) – Soviet state and Party official], who was head of the Ukrainian government. They were not acquainted, but probably Petrovskiy heard about my grandmother. His office was on the 4th floor. Seeing my grandmother off, Petrovskiy escorted her downstairs and said: ‘Don’t worry, your daughter will be resumed before you reach Kiev’. It was true, my mother resumed her studies in the university.

Upon graduation in 1929 my parents and a group of their friends got assignments to Azarichi village Mogilyov district in Byelorussia. There was miserable poverty and wild ignorance in the village. The only ‘medication’ these villagers used was ‘cognac’, as they called horse urine.  Many villagers had syphilis. My mother recalled a lovely 3-year-old boy who had congenital syphilis. Fie young doctors started to organize a hospital there. They lived like a commune: Borschik (Boris), Solomonchik (Solomon), Doda (Adolf), and my mother and father. Borschik and Solomonchik were Jews and Doda was half-Polish, half German.  There was a lot of work to do in the hospital, of course. My mother was pregnant, but she was so busy that she failed even to go to the district polyclinic on time and there was no obstetrics department in Azarichi.   On the way to the clinic she started labor and returned home. My father and his friends assisted her at the delivery.  So my older sister Inna was born in 1930.

After Inna was born my parents moved to Dnepropetrovsk and grandmother Ethel followed them.  She worked a little during the Soviet regime, and Soviet authorities gave her a miserable pension of 6 or 9 rubles.  My mother and father insisted that she wrote a letter of refusal from this pension. I, Iyah Dziekovskaya, was born in December 1931. My mother told me that when she was bearing me her pregnancy wasn’t seen till the last day. Again my mother failed to get to a maternity hospital.  When she started labor at night, my father ran to their neighbor who was an obstetrician: ‘Nadezha is in labor!’ She didn’t believe him: ‘Vladimir, what kind of joking is this in the middle of the night?’ My mother gave birth instantly. 

We had two rooms in a communal apartment 6. My grandmother and father slept in one room. There was a large carpet from my grandmother’s home, miraculously preserved, on the wall over my father’s sofa. It was so big that it covered the sofa and fell on the floor.  There was a gray wolf’s skin over my grandmother’s sofa.  There were canvas covers on the sofas. My mother and the children slept in another room. I remember that we had a wood stoked boiler for water heating.  My father bathed Inna and me. After the bath he wrapped us in a sheet and carried to the room. I still have pleasant memories about it.  My grandmother and father got along very well. Once my mother told me that once she was in another room and heard my father telling my grandmother Ethel how he loved and respected her.  One couldn’t help loving her. She was a wonderful person, kind, tactful and very intelligent.  My grandmother inherited love of literature from her father who was a linguist. I remember grandmother telling fairy tales to me and my sister.  She could recite poems in Russian and sometimes in Hebrew for hours. My grandmother was very fond of Zhukovskiy’s ballads.  

My grandmother wasn’t religious and didn’t observe Jewish traditions, but I remember an incident. Once my mother fell ill. Grandmother Ethel, who didn’t even know to boil semolina, decided to go to the market for the first time in her life.  She bought us a doll, a postman or a monkey – we never found out. Somebody convinced her to buy it, you know. She also brought a living hen. My grandmother probably knew that it as not allowed to buy chickens slaughtered by God knows whom. A shochet had to slaughter chickens. However, nobody in our family could slaughter it. My mother told me once that she heard terrible noise in the kitchen. She went to the kitchen however ill she was feeling. She saw my father and grandmother sticking to a corner, and a neighbor was throwing logs into the chicken trying to kill it. In the end they gave this chicken away.  My family got along well with neighbors. An obstetrician and her husband lived in one room. There was also an old woman with her daughter and son-in-law. This old woman was a widow of the general governor of Tbilisi. She lived through a terrible tragedy. Her daughter’s husband was arrested in 1937. Her daughter took poison and her son-in-law was released few days later.

Grandmother Ethel looked after my sister and me. We often played in the yard where there were many other children. I remember the Bazilevich family having seven children. They were rather poor and my parents were helping them with food.  They had big stomachs and their pants were always hanging down. The oldest Kostia was chief in our group. We played hide-and-seek, kazaki-razboiniki (similar to hide-and-seek, only the sides had name of kazaki and razboiniki) and girls played with skipping-ropes. In summer my mother took my sister and me and other children to swim in the Dnieper. She looked young and when we took a tram people were surprised that there was ‘such a young mother having so many children’. Another childhood memory: I was invited to a birthday party. It was winter and it snowed. My sister and her friend ‘got harnessed’ in the sledges and rode me to the party.  My mother liked to recall when one of our neighbors was taking few children from our yard for a walk. They also called my sister: ‘Iyah, come with us, but take Iyah home. She is too small and it will be too hard for her’.  Inna was eager to join them, but she didn’t want to leave me behind.  My mother was watching this scene through the window thinking: ‘So what’s going to happen?’ Inna was firmly holding my hand sobbing loudly, but stayed with me.  This describes very clearly the nature of our relationships. We were devoted to one another, which didn’t stop us from having arguments once in a while.  

My parents were not communists and never attended parades on Soviet holidays. My favorite We always had high New Year trees reaching the ceiling. There were high ceilings. My mother, grandmother and we used to make chains and decorations from color paper. We emptied eggs and painted faces on egg shells, put a cap from silver paper on top and it made a clown.  Once on a New Year eve my mother was working in the medical office at a plant and this plant gave tangerines to their employees. We were going home by tram carrying a big bag of tangerines. They smelled unbelievably. My mother gave one to a boy and then all other children in the tram came to us to get a tangerine. When we came home, there was not one left. I can still remember the smell of tangerines.

Inna and I studied music with a tutor at home before we went to school. I cannot remember her name, but I remember her hands very well. They were not delicate like most of musician’s hands, but fattish with bright red nails. She was an excellent pianist. We got along so well that she stayed to play for us after classes. Our family got together to listen to her.  This teacher was a Jew and Germans shot her in 1941. She got into the first party of Jews, whom Germans exterminated in Dnepropetrovsk. We also had a German teacher. Her name was Gertruda  Eduardovna. She must have been a good teacher since even now those German words that we studied with her emerge from my memory. But when the Great Patriotic War began, the first thing Inna and I did was that we refused to study German.  

I went to school before I turned 8 in 1939. My first teacher Grigoriy Abramovich Kalashnikov was a very good person, tough as all of them of old generation were.  He was a real pedagog and knew how to win the children’s favor. Considering his patronymic he was a Jew.  Poor thing, he didn’t evacuate. Seeing what was happening around him in occupation he hanged himself. I boasted a little of knowing German at school. At times I wrote words in Latin letters: ‘Oh, I’ve got it all mixed and wrote this word in German’, but in general, I wasn’t a braggart.  Was very shy when a child and even had tears in my eyes when talking to strangers.  I got along well with my classmates, but I only remember Lenochka Belokopytova, my friend, she had black curly hair. Nobody else, I guess.

My mother and father worked a lot. My father worked as a forensic medical expert combining his two diplomas.  My mother worked as a therapist in hospital. During the Finnish War 7 my mother worked as a surgeon in hospital and stayed there for weeks. My mother always wore shoes and never slippers at work.  Her feet got so swollen that when she came home she even couldn’t take off her shoes. Inna and I missed mother a lot and often went to see her in her hospital. Every time we bought her bug brooches: they seemed so nice to us. My mother had many of these and I remember that her friend Lora Rutskaya got terrified seeing them on her dressing table: ‘Lord, how awful!’ 

In March 1940 grandmother Ethel died from pneumonia, a common cause of death with old people.  She was 74. Here I would like to mention something that caused our emotional shock.  Before the revolution a girl who wanted to become a doctor asked my grandmother to help her. She came from a rich and conservative family. Her parents thought that women of her circles could not do any work.  к My grandmother supported her during the course of her studies. They kept in touch, but after the revolution they lost track of one another. When my grandmother was dying, my mother called an ambulance and the doctor who arrived on call was that woman. She recognized my grandmother the moment she stepped into the room.  My mother said later that it wasn’t just an ordinary coincidence.  This woman lived in Dnepropetrovsk in the same street 11 years, but they didn’t meet once. She couldn’t even come to my grandmother’s funeral feeling ill.  My grandmother was buried in the Jewish cemetery, but I don’t remember the ritual. 

The war began when I was under 10 years of age. On 22 June 1941 we woke up in the morning and co-tenants said: ‘You know, it’s a war’. On the first days of the war e, children, captured a ‘spy’. The man carrying a cabbage in an avoska bag [avoska: a Russian string bag, avoska literally means ‘just in case’] seemed suspicious to us. We captured him and led by our chief Kostia Bazilevich took him to a militia office. He kept telling us: ‘I went out to buy cabbage. What are you doing?’ Of course, the militia sent us out of there. Bombings began. My father snored in his sleep and during intervals between bombings we could clearly hear his snoring. Later I realized that he was doing this on purpose to calm us down. There were pits made in our yard, but my father never went out during air raids. He thought it was humiliating.  My father’s generation had their own idea of dignity.

In August our family decided to evacuate and we went to the railway station. It w as unbelievable what it was all like there! My parents were not go-getting people. They stood there looking – and returned home. We were unpacking when our neighbor rushed in: ‘There is an empty train. Nobody knows about it yet’. My mother only grabbed some documents, they were probably prepared in advance. Our neighbor grabbed some luggage that turned out to be absolutely unnecessary later. Another bombing began and we had to go. Our train was the last one to cross the railroad bridge across the Dnieper. It was destroyed by bombs and nobody could leave the town after us.

I have fragmentary memories about the evacuation. I remember that we were in a freight carriage and I felt very sleepy. There was a man sitting beside me and my head was falling on his shoulder. It made him uncomfortable and he was trying to move away and I was murmuring in my sleep: ‘Why fidgeting? Sit quiet!’ We reached Cherkessk in the Caucasus.  I studied in the 2nd form there and I remember that I became a pioneer in Cherkessk. My father got an invitation to go to work as a forensic doctor, a morbid anatomist, in Turkmenia. We went to Makhachkala and from there took a boat to Krasnovodsk across the Caspian Sea. Terrible boat. I remember a very handsome Jewish man standing on deck with us. He was thoroughly removing some specks of dust from his jacket and my mother said: ‘David Solomonovich, is it worth paying attention to this now?’  He replied: ‘These are lice’. He was throwing them down into the sea. When our boat arrived at Krasnovodsk I remember that we all felt awfully cold.  There was a girl walking in the street wearing some light clothes. So it wasn’t probably that cold. We were probably starved.  I also remember finding three onions in the ground near the harbor. We enjoyed eating them even without bread – they were not bitter at all.  From Krasnovodsk we went to Ashgabat where we stayed few days with chief forensic expert of Turkmenia.  This was a nice Russian family. From Ashgabat we went to Charjou [2 750 km from Dnepropetrovsk] where my father was to take u0p his job. It was a small town. Most of its residents lived in small cottages. We rented a room in one house. There was a long corridor leading to the room. The militia office gave my father a vehicle to get there. The landlady was horrified to see that we came with militia escort. She decided they were going to force her to accept us as permanent residents. Ewe lived in this room until 1944.

I studied in the 3rd, 4th and 5th forms in Charjou. It was a good school. There were many children in evacuation and many Jews among them.  I remember a boy with extraordinary red hair and a long nose. I don’t remember any demonstrations of anti-Semitism. I don’t think there was any in Charjou. I had a Jewish friend. She sand very beautifully, but she strongly burred the ‘r’ sound. . I wanted her to sing at a pioneer meeting, but my mother said they would laugh at her hearing her burring.  However, this was only my mother’s assumption. Once an aged woman stopped my mother and me in the street addressing my mother friendly: ‘Are you a Jewish child?’ My mother replied: ‘Yes, I am Jewish’. They talked about something. I remembered this ‘Jewish child’. It was something new to me: my mother was called ‘a child’ when for me she was always an adult, a big person. 

When my sister Inna was in the 7th form, senior children were taken to pick cotton. One of the girls fell ill with enteric fever and Inna contracted it from her. That girl died in hospital.  As for Inna, my mother didn’t let her go to hospital. We were always at home when we were ill. My mother managed to bring Inna to recovery and nobody contracted the disease in the family. My mother disinfected everything thoroughly and always washed her hands in chlorine. I remember her hands, red and swollen.  My mother worked in a hospital in Charjou. My classmates and I ran there to see her. We tried to help patients as much as we could.  We gave them medications and wrote their letters that they dictated to us. I even started cigarettes for them.  Before going to the front patients came to my mother’s office to say ‘good bye’. Once a tall young man and his friend came to say ‘good bye’ to my mother. They sat there recalling Jewish words.  In the evening my mother lectured at the courses of medical nurses. There were eighteen-twenty-year old girls at the courses. The first graduates of the courses perished. Their train got under bombing when moving to the front. Only one survived: she lost her legs. My mother couldn’t help tears when thinking about them.

My father requested to be sent to the front, but they didn’t let him go. There were few cases of dangerous infection in Charjou: either cholera or plague.  My father worked with autopsies.  He felt reluctant to come home after autopsies fearing that he could bring infection home. My father stayed in hospital at such times. My mother, Inna and I came to his hospital. My mother said that if we were destined to die then we would die together. Mother said we would no leave the hospital without him and my father returned home with us. Shortly afterward my father fell seriously ill. He had cirrhosis of liver.  My mother often had to replace him at work. When my father couldn’t come to an autopsy she even brought home the insides for him to identify the cause of death.  Gradually my mother gathered sufficient experience to work as forensic doctor.

In 1944 we returned to Dnepropetrovsk, but it didn’t look like home: our house was ruined, and Germans razed the Jewish cemetery where my grandmother was buried to the ground.  We walked across this abandoned ground and couldn’t find the spot where my grandmother’s grave used to be. My father was appointed regional forensic expert in Izmail. [Bessarabia] 8. Our family moved there by a military train. In Izmail my father left us at the railway station and went to the town health department. He came back with a cab and a bag with a boiled chicken and dried figs. We loaded our small luggage onto the cab and followed it walking. Inna and I were eating chicken and dried figs on the way: our parents allowed us to eat since we were starved. My mother was walking in my father old coat that was hanging on her like a tent since my father was bigger and taller than her. So the procession of us entered Izmail. We were temporarily accommodated in a small room in the policlinic.

Izmail of this period was ideally clean. There were few snow-white churches with their bells tolling.  I don’t think there was a synagogue in Izmail, or it didn’t operate anyway. There were magnificent roses growing near a cathedral in the center of the town. . There were cabs riding the streets. This all disappeared within a couple of years. Some churches were turned into storage facilities. Roses also disappeared somehow. People in evacuation were called Soviet in Izmail.  Vendors at the market called my mother ‘madam’ and kissed her hands. This made my mother feel uncomfortable and she kissed them on the forehead to somehow sooth down the situation. .

My father received a cottage. He accommodated a part of it for his forensic medicine office and our family could live in another part of the house.  My father went to take a look at this house. There were few families whose men perished at the front living in the house. They began to scream: ‘Where are we to go? We won’t get a place to live!’ One of them gave my father a package of American soup to bribe him: this was probably the most valuable thing she had. My father found this pack later. I don’t even remember what we did with it. My father was so shocked that he refused from this house. For acting in this manner my father couldn’t receive an apartment for a long time. We lived in the polyclinic and used a common toilet in the yard where all patients also went. 

My sister and I studied in school #2 for girls. There were different teachers: some were very intelligent and others were not. This was in 1944, when the war was still on. I remember very well, when the war was over. We were living in the polyclinic. My father having cirrhosis of his liver was sleeping on the only bed and we slept on the floor. On the night of 9 May there was shooting in the town and my sister joked: ‘These must be German landing troops’. In the morning we got to know that the war was over. There was rejoicing. There was only one man in our school, teacher of mathematic Pavel Romanovich, a Jew.  He was at the front and was wounded. A small shy man.  On Victory Day all schoolgirls began to chair him. We directed all our admiration to him.  He felt very shy, poor thing. There was a sad accident after the war: some bandits killed a young officer, almost a boy.  His mother visited us later. He was a Jew, I remember this well.

Shortly afterward we received an apartment in a long one-storied building in Dunayskaya Street. There were two big rooms and one very small room, a storeroom and a big kitchen.  There was plain furniture. My father was always against carpets saying that they accumulate a lot of dust. He also said that wiping dishes with towels didn’t comply with hygienic requirements. There were no dish drying stands and we stored our dishes in a big dish to dry up. There was an old beautiful tiled stove in the dining room and there was a silk orange lampshade.  It was so cozy to sit there with the whole family for dinner. We had late dinners when my father returned from work. Then he lied down to rest and then worked at night.  Whenever I woke up there was light in the next-door room where my father was working sitting at his desk.  He usually had few jobs at a time. My father worked in Izmail 17 years without vacations: there was no replacement for him. My father gave his one salary for housekeeping and my mother’s salary was also spent for living. My father saved his salary from another job to buy books. My father always came from work with a couple of books. First he took out one book looking at my mother. My mother laughed: ‘Come on, show what else you’ve bought’.  I inherited my parents’ collection of books: ‘books on history, history of art, medical books and many fiction books. 

There were many intelligent people in Izmail. We met one of them, Lawyer Burdin in Charjou where he evacuated.  He was a nice and friendly man, always looking well with some European luster. His wife, a young teacher, was also our friend. Burdin invited his barber to shave him at home. Once he said to this barber: ‘In the old times I could pay you more than I can now’.  This barber reported on him.  Burdin was arrested and exiled to the north. When he returned 7 years later and visited us, my mother, who was alone at home, didn’t recognize him: he was an elderly man. He walked shuffling. However, he said: ‘It’s all right, it’s all right.  I was all right there releasing parcels’. He probably signed a non-disclosure obligation.  After his exile he got into hospital. The Jewish community of Izmail supported him. Jews brought him food to the hospital. Perhaps, the community didn’t exist officially at that time, but when something happened, they showed up. Burdin died a short time later. As for the community, I remember another proof:  when my friend Emma Haham’s father had a stroke, a strange Jewish man, whom they didn’t know, came to their house every week and put an envelope with money under her father’s pillow and left. Somebody was responsible for collecting this money, I guess.

There were many doctors among our acquaintances, decent and nice people, Jewish by origin.  Doctor Motniak, wonderful doctor, graduated from the University in Paris.  Pinskiy, chief doctor of the town polyclinic, received medical education in Rome. Pinskiy was also arrested. It seems, it happened before the campaign of struggle against cosmopolitism 9.  My father was called to the NKVD office 10 to witness against him. Of course, my father didn’t say anything, and they kept him there three days. They sent a nice smiling young man to tell us that my father had left on business. He often traveled on business and we didn’t worry.  My father returned few days later. During the sadly known period of the ‘doctors’ plot’ 11 in 1952 none of our acquaintances suffered.

All of my classmates were my friends, but my closest friend was Emma Haham. She was two forms my junior and lived nearby.  Now I understand that Emma’s family was more traditional than ours, but I didn’t take any interest in it then and I don’t know any details. All I remember is that in 1948 Emma’s aunt and we discussed the establishment of Israel. We were happy about it. I cannot say there was anti-Semitism in Izmail, but here is what happened to Emma once: she was walking along a street and there was a unit of soldiers marching by.  They pronounced all together: ‘Sarrochka!’ [the main characters in Russian anti-Semitic anecdotes were Abram and Sarrah]. His was so abusive that Emma remembered it all her life. She recalled this when leaving for America in 1977. She lives with her family in Los Angeles and we call each other.

I joined Komsomol 12 in Izmail. My classmates elected me a Komsomol organizer of my the class. There was an incident when I was in the 10th form. Our teacher of mathematic was Akulina Trofimovna. Everybody called her Akula (‘shark’ in Russian). Once my classmate Lida Levitskaya (she lives in Israel now) was late. When the teacher asked her what happened, Lida began her story with ‘Akula sent me to…’ She never finished her story. The teacher began to yell: ‘’How can you call a teacher with this name!’  There was a scandal:  they were going to expel Lida from Komsomol and there was an issue posed whether she deserved to be allowed to finish school.  I spoke in her defense at a meeting. I said there were always nicknames given to teachers and to pupils and there was nothing bad about it. Then the district Komsomol committee called Lida to come see them. They asked whether she and I were related.  So, I got a reprimand. We both finished school without problems.  

My sister Inna entered the History faculty of Odessa University, but soon she married Vladimir Sorokin, Russian, captain of a long voyage boat , and quit the university.  However, my parents insisted that she got at least some education and she finished the school of cultural education in Odessa and then the Librarian College in Leningrad. In 1953 Inna gave birth to her son Alexandr. Inna was a bright and generous person. She looked like father: tall and fair haired. Inna adored dogs. Once, when she and I were in Leningrad she saw a beautiful Newfoundland dog in Nevskiy Prospect. She couldn’t sleep at night and the following day we ran to this yard where the dog went. This turned out to be a female dog and there were puppies to be few months later.  Inna made arrangements with our friend in Leningrad and few months later he brought her a puppy to Odessa. This was the first Newfoundland in Odessa after the war. They named her Lotta. Inna became chairman of the Newfoundland breed in the dog breeding club in Odessa.  Later Lotta’s grand puppy Darling lived in the house.  

My family had no doubts about me: I was to be a doctor. I even went to the autopsy office of my father. My father wanted to know whether I could stand it. I managed.  Well, during exams in the 10th form I bumped into a popular scientific book ‘Human Being and Elements’ by Iliin about meteorologists and I decided to enter Odessa Meteorological College. At  first my mother and father were unhappy about it, but they never forced me to do things and I went to study in this college. There were three boys in my group and the rest of us were girls. I was elected the Komsomol leader again, but this time my Komsomol career flopped.  We had a choir rehearsal, but my friend Dina Mikheyeva had a date, besides, she had a poor voice.  I allowed her to miss the rehearsal: ‘This is more important than singing in the choir with your voice’.  He others blamed me that I was shielding my friends. They even drew a caricature of me in our wallpaper where I was depicted as a sitting hen and my friend was looking out of a wing.  Without giving it much of a thought, I pulled down this newspaper. I thought this was unfair.  They said I didn’t acknowledge criticism and didn’t elect me Komsomol leader for the fifth year. 

When Stalin died, I was agitator at the election to the Supreme Soviet and visited voters at a small plant in Kanatnaya Street. I worked with their Komsomol leader, a young and merry guy.  When Stalin died, I went there to check the lists of voters. I couldn’t recognize him: his face was swollen from tears and his hands were trembling. And then it occurred to me that this was unnatural. This wasn’t his father who died. Then I developed somewhat skeptical attitude to this ‘nation-wide’ grief. I also remember that we were very sorry for our co-student who had birthday on 5 March [Stalin died on this date]. We thought this would become a day of mourning for many years to come and she would not be able to celebrate her birthday.
  
In my 4th year in college I had training in Baku where I met my husband to be Boris Sizov. He was Russian. Boris was born in Kuibyshev. He finished the Baku Industrial College named after Beriya 13. Boris worked at the plant of the Paris Commune.  I married him when I was the 5th-year student and after finishing my college I joined him in Baku.  My husband and I lived in the room that he received from his plant. I worked in the Weather Bureau of the department of hydrometeorological service of the Azerbaijan SSR. Baku is a multinational and multi-language town with oriental features. There was no anti-Semitism there. It’s a very beautiful town, with magnificent Primorskiy Boulevard along the Caspian seashore.  It was wonderfully pleasant to walk there under the blooming fragrant oleander trees. 

When in 1956 after the 20th Party Congress 14 denunciation of the cult of Stalin began, I didn’t bother about it, but what Khruschev 15 was saying about Stalin was horrifying. I remember a big meeting at the plant where my husband worked where they denounced Beriya. As a rule, common workers also spoke at such meetings to represent the masses. One uneducated Azerbaijanian was directed to read a speech in Russian. His reading was very poor. He could hardly read syllables. After the denouncing part he was used that all speeches ended with the words: ‘Long live… whoever’, and he habitually finished his speech with ‘Long live comrade Beriya!’  There was dead silence and then attendants burst into wild laughter. Nobody could hold back his laughter.  Later, in the 1960s I read ‘One day of Ivan Denisovich’ by Solzhenitsyn 16 that astounded me. I don’t quite like the rest of his works. And I don’t quite like him. Perhaps, his mentor’s tone does not quite impress me.

I lived in Baku for five years. My husband and I didn’t get along. I moved to my parents in Izmail.  Boris died shortly afterward. In a park. He was walking and then he sat on a bench and died. He was never ill in his life. He was under 30 years of age.

My mother and father lived their routinely life in Izmail. Twice a week there were new movies in movie theaters and my mother and father went to the cinema. My father booked tickets on the phone: ‘We are coming today. Please reserve our seats’. My father had poor sight and they usually sat in the 7th row.  We didn’t often have guests. We had young acquaintances for the most part: Vitaliy Sinelnikov, doctor, graduate of the Leningrad Medical Academy. He was appointed a forensic doctor of the Danube Fleet and my father was training him in this specific medical profession. He became my parents’ friend, though he was my age. There was also Vladimir Ivanov from Moscow, a journalist. I hardly knew him since I was in Baku when he was in Izmail. My parents said he was a talented young man, but he died young. He liked drinking.

I worked as a weather forecaster in the weather bureau.  In November 1960 my father died. After my father’s death I worked there some time longer, but then the weather bureau closed. There was no job for me in Izmail and I moved to Odessa.  My former college lecturer offered me a job at the department of physics in the Refrigeration Institute. I became a lab assistant and then a scientific employee. I worked at the Refrigeration Institute till retirement.  At first I lived with Inna. My mother often came to visit us. Inna worked at the conservatory library.  At the age of 30 she fell ill with severe diabetes and quit work, though she led a very active life.  She often went on tours abroad and in our country. I went with her to Bulgaria and the Caucasus. Inna liked giving me expensive gifts. Inna was very active. When they bought a dacha and were reconstructing it, she made drawings herself. She supervised their workers, though she had never dealt in construction.  She also arranged repairs in their apartment when her husband was sailing. 

In 1963  my mother helped me to buy a cooperative three-bedroom apartment in Odessa and my mother moved in with me.  My mother insisted that we moved my father’s ashes to Odessa.  We were one of the first in our house to buy a TV. We watched all programs, even our state leaders’ speeches, I believe, at first.  My mother and I were sitting side by side on the sofa.  Our neighbors visited us to watch TV, of course.  One of them, lecturer at the conservatory, came with his acquaintances. There were about twenty people coming in. They sat on the floor when there were not enough chairs.  There was also a neighbor who liked figure skating. He used to sit with us till 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. We had nice neighbors and got along with colleagues.  We often celebrated birthdays together. Men gave us souvenirs and cosmetics on 8 March. My former colleagues still visit me on jubilee dates. 

I often traveled on business. I mainly went to Moscow. On my way from Moscow airport to the city I always enjoyed the view of a forest in winter: tree branches covered with hoar frost were like resembled Japanese landscape. However, I didn’t like Moscow: too much fuss and noise. But when I came to a museum – this was different.  I particularly liked beautiful museums of the Kremlin.  In the evening I went to theaters. In Kiev I went to the Lesia Ukrainka Theater.  In the 1970s my mother was severely ill and I was reluctant to leave her.  When I went on business I called home from the airport in Moscow to ask whether everything was all right. My friends came by to look after my mother and walk Plutik, our poodle.  My mother loved him dearly. He always held him in her hands and he slept at her feet.  After her death he scowled so. When I left for work my neighbors came to the door to call him ‘Plutik, Plutik!’  My mother died in 1975.  We buried her near my father in the international cemetery. 

I met my second husband Emil Levinson in the Odessa Pedagogical College in 1963. There was admission of engineers to the third year of the Faculty of physics.  There was a demand for teachers of physics. We were good friends. He had a wife and two daughters: Lilia and Irina.  Emil was born to a Jewish family in Pervomaysk in 1935. His father Abram Naumovich Levinson finished Odessa Flour Grounding College and worked as production engineer. His mother Clara Iosifovna was a housewife. His older sister Yevgenia was single.  Emil lectured on physics in the Transport Technical School. We hadn’t seen each other after finishing college in 1965. Almost 20 years later in 1982, I bumped into him on my way home from work.  It was raining and we had umbrellas. We stopped to talk. Emil’s wife had died by then. Then he began to visit and call me. And we decided to live together. At this age I was doubtful about marrying for the second time, though Emil was insisting. I replied: ‘We are so old. People get married at twenty’. Once I fell severely ill, when he was on a business trip. I thought: What am I doing? If I die, Emil won’t have the right for my apartment’. When he returned, we got married. His daughters are very good to me. They thank me for living with their father. I reply: ‘I feel good living with your father. He is so good. You don’t have to thank me’.  Lilia and her family live in Karmi’el in Israel and Irina lives in Dresden. 

In January 1986 Inna had a heart attack and I took quite an effort to make her go to the hospital of sailors. I stayed with her in her ward for a month. We informed her husband on his boat. He arrived from Italy few weeks later: at that time visa services were slow. He stood on his knees before her and stayed with her till the end.  She died in my hands and Volodia’s two days later. 

We were positive about perestroika 17. I liked Gorbachev 18. He made an impression of a trustworthy person. As for our former leaders, I didn’t even distinguish them. They were amazingly alike. Only Brezhnev was different with his wide brows. I remember new magazines and interesting articles published. We learned many knew things that we had never heard about before. As for the break up of the USSR, it probably had to happen. Who needed this huge empire where they suppressed everybody. It’s all right with me that Ukraine separated from Russia. I’ve always identified myself as a Jew. I have many Jewish friends. And they would be my friends even if they were not  Jews.  

In 1998 Emil and I visited his daughter Lilia in Israel.  It was a wonderful trip. Even that I was called ‘zhydovka’ for the first time in my life didn’t spoil the trip.  We went there by boat, and there was another couple in our cabin: an old Jewish man with his wife. I have diabetes and have to make regular injections of insulin. Once I prepared my syringe when they came in. I asked them to go out for a minute. Lord, she began to yell back: ‘Zhydovka! [abusive word for a Jews]
You only think about yourselves, that’s why everybody hates you!’  Emil got very angry and informed the passenger assistant who suggested informing Israel authorities that there was an anti-Semite on the boat and they would not allow her to even step onto the ground of Israel.  I felt sorry for these people: ‘You know, let them go’.  The assistant talked with our co-passengers. After his visit they changed beyond recognition: ‘Are you comfortable? Do you want this?’ It was very unpleasant.

Israel is an amazing country! The main impression is feeling at home. Lilia bought us a number of trips. We traveled almost across the whole country within a month.  The only place we didn’t visit was the Dead Sea. I remember when we were in the north of Israel, a big bus stopped and a bunch of kids came out of it. They wore black jackets and payes.  They were like penguin babies.  It was probably their prayer time: they turned in the direction of Jerusalem and prayed swaying. It was a very moving scene. Of course, we went to the Wailing Wall and dropped our notes. We are very concerned about Israel now. I am not going to leave and I think one must live in the land he was born in, where ones ancestors are buried. 

I’ve always liked history, and the history of our people is very interesting. Now I receive Jewish newspapers and magazines ‘Or Sameach’, ‘Shomrey Shaboth’ and ‘Migdal’. I receive many other publications in the library of the Jewish center ‘Migdal’. Jewish charity center Gemilut Hesed helps us a lot.  Now, when my husband and I are pensioners their food parcels are very supportive. We actually spend all our money on the apartment fees and  medications. I am an invalid of grade 2 due to diabetes and we receive medications per 30 hrivna per month. On Pesach we receive two packs of matzah, and we even sent one to Germany. We have a very nice and caring curator Irina.  When Emil and I were in hospital she visited us there. For almost a year a girl from Hesed cleans our apartment and takes our laundry to the Laundromat.  In autumn we were invited to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. It was very interesting.  We went to listen to interpretation of the Torah several times.

Glossary:

Iosif Gotlib

Date of interview: October 2003
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya

Iosif Gotlib lives in a three-bedroom apartment in a new district of Lvov. His wife Antonina, daughter Lilia and Lilia’s son Anton, their grandson, live with him. They have standard 1970s style furniture in their apartment. One can tell that they enjoy doing things with their own hands: they’ve taken a lot of effort to make their dwelling comfortable and cozy. They did repairs in their apartment and Iosif’s wife Antonina placed her embroidery patterns on the walls. Iosif made shelves and stands for pot plants. Their apartment is very clean and bright. There are many pot plants and there are photographs of Iosif and his wife, their children and grandchildren on the walls. Iosif is a man of average height, thin. He was ill and it affected his speech, but he willingly agreed to give this interview and said a lot about his life and family. Although he doesn’t go out, he takes a vivid interest in everything happening around him.  He reads a lot and likes to discuss what he has read.  

I didn’t know my father’s parents or any members of his family. Since my father’s patronymic was Mikhailovich [the customary polite address in Russian is by first and patronymic name, which consists of one’s father’s name and a suffix: –ovna for women and –ovich for men], I can guess that my paternal grandfather’s name was Moishe which is Mikhail in Russian [common name] 1. I don’t know anything about my grandmother. My father Abram Gotlib was born in the town of Sudhza [250 km from Moscow] Kursk province in Russia in 1888. All I know about my father’s childhood or youth is that he became an orphan young. Somehow he moved to St. Petersburg where he entered the medical Faculty of the university. I don’t know where my father studied before he entered the university.  Although my father was a Jew, and at that time there was a Jewish admission [five percent] quota 2 in Russian higher educational institutions, my father was admitted. My father was a very talented and educated man. He knew 5 European languages: English, French, German, Italian and Romanian; he could draw well and play the piano. After finishing his studies he was trained in a hospital for a year where he obtained qualifications as a surgeon. My father worked in this hospital until the beginning of World War I. When Russia entered the war my father was recruited to the tsarist army. He was a surgeon in a frontline hospital.

I know a little bit more about my mother’s family. My maternal grandfather David Levandovskiy and grandmother whose name I don’t know lived in Voyutichi village in 13 km from Sambor town of Lvov region [600 km from Kiev], in the Russian Empire. I don’t know their birth date or place. I remember a portrait of grandfather David that we had at home. My grandfather had a big gray beard and had a black suit and yarmulka on. I remember my grandmother a little. She was short, fat and very kind. She spoke drawlingly and always smiled and wore long dark clothing and a black kerchief. She has a silk shawl with fringes that she wore to the synagogue. The grandparents spoke Yiddish at home, but they all knew Polish and Russian.  My mother told me that her parents were religious. They always celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays at home. My grandfather went to the synagogue on Saturday and Jewish holidays and my grandmother only went there on Jewish holidays.

My grandfather was a cabinetmaker and my grandmother was a housewife, as was customary with patriarchal Jewish families. Their children were born in Voyutichi. Haim was an older son and then Shymon was born. I don’t know their dates of birth. My mother Dora was born in 1896, and her younger brother Leizer was born in 1898. My mother was still a child when the family moved to Lvov [510 km from Kiev]. It’s hard to say why they decided to move. My mother told me that there was no anti-Semitism at the time when she was young. It appeared after World War I when even Jewish pogroms in Russia 3 happened, but Lvov was a big town and there were no pogroms in it.  They happened in smaller towns where they were not afraid of facing any resistance. In Lvov there were no national conflicts. There were synagogues and Jewish schools. Jews also owned trade. There were Jewish teachers, doctors and lawyers, but of course, the majority of the Jewish population were poor craftsmen.

My maternal grandparents rented an apartment from a Jewish owner in Lvov. He owned a 4-storied house that he leased. He also owned a store on the first floor of this house. The owner and his family lived on the 2nd floor and had tenants in remaining apartments. There was a small hut in the yard of this house that my grandfather also rented from him and had his carpenter shop there. They manufactured furniture, doors and window frames in this shop. My grandfather had his shop closed on Saturday. His two older sons also worked with him. Leizer, the youngest son, died during flu epidemic in 1913. Grandfather David died in 1915. They were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Lvov. After grandfather died his sons inherited his shop.  

My mother’s brothers studied in a Polish school and cheder. My mother also finished 8 grades of a polish school. Girls didn’t go to cheder and my grandfather made arrangements with a melamed to give my mother classes at home. He came every other days and taught my mother to read and write in Yiddish and read in Hebrew and taught her prayers. My mother was very talented and wanted to continue her education, but there were very limited opportunities for women at that time. There was a choice of going to Froebel school 4 training governesses or becoming a medical nurse. After finishing school my mother went to study at 1-year school of medical nurses in Lvov. After finishing this school in 1915 she and other graduates were sent to a hospital at the front where my future parents met. They worked in the same hospital. They fell in love with each other and got married in 1917. They didn’t have a Jewish wedding, but registered their marriage. When in 1917 a revolution 5 took place in Russia and the Russian Empire fell apart, new borders were established. The Western Ukraine was annexed to Poland 6. There was famine and war in Russia. My mother’s family lived in Poland and my mother convinced him to move to her mother in Poland.

After they moved to Poland my father’s life was hard. Poland didn’t recognize his Russian doctor’s diploma. He had to take exams in polish, but he didn’t know it. He tried to work illegally in Lvov, but it was dangerous.  My parents moved to Biskovichi village Sambor district Lvov region [580 km from Kiev] also belonging to Poland. My mother’s family helped them with money, and they bought a house. My father worked as a veterinary. My mother didn’t work after getting married.  Their first baby David was born in 1917. He was named after my mother’s father. In 1919 my older sister Sima was born. After Sima Moishe, named after my father’s father, was born in 1921. I was born in November 1922 and named Iosif-Leizer. My sister Haya was born in 1925. Shmil was born in 1928, and in 1930 Eshiye, the youngest boy, was born.

Our house was rather big. It was built from thick beams faced with airbricks. It was divided into two parts. There was a fore room and there was a door to two small rooms serving as my father’s veterinary office. The living quarters were on the right. There were four rooms: my parents’ bedroom, boys’ room, girls’ room and a living room. There was a big kitchen where we had meals on weekdays. On Sabbath and Jewish holidays we had meals in the living room. There was a wood stoked stove in the kitchen. It heated the kitchen and my mother cooked on it. There were smaller heating stoves in the rooms. We had household chores to do. However small we were, we fetched water, sawed wood and the girls washed dishes and cleaned the house. There was a small orchard in the backyard, few trees, a woodshed, a toilet and a small well. My father worked from morning till night. Sometimes his customers brought their animals to him and sometimes he had to go examine them at their places. Villagers mostly paid him with food products. My mother often helped my father in his office.

My parents were religious. My mother and father observed Jewish traditions. We always celebrated Sabbath at home. My mother baked challahs on Friday morning and cooked food for two days. She put cholnt with meat, beans and potatoes and a big pot with two big chickens boiling in it into the stove. In the evening my mother lit candles and she prayed, then father blessed the meal and we sat down to dinner. My father didn’t work on Saturday. He read the Torah and told us, kids, stories about Jewish life and Jewish religion. We spoke Yiddish and Polish at home. There was no synagogue in Biskovichi. There were three other Jewish family in the village besides us. The rest of the population was Polish, Ukrainian and there were few Russians. Neighbors got along well and helped each other. On Saturday our polish neighbor came to stoke our stove, boil water for tea, heat food and light the lamps. My mother always gave her some money or some treatments. On Jewish holidays another neighbor rode my mother and father on his wagon to the synagogue in Sambor in 8 km from Biskovichi. Our neighbor took care of us, children.

I remember when my father had to do his job as a surgeon. There was no doctor or assistant doctor in Biskovichi. A midwife came to help with childbirth. She witnessed almost all children of Biskovichi born to this world. There was a wealthy Polish villager in Biskovichi, I don’t remember his name now. He had 250 cows, farm fields and a big forest area. His wife had problems at labor and the midwife couldn’t do anything to help her. The woman was dying and this farmer came to ask my father for help. My father refused at first saying that he had no right to operate on her, but the farmer begged him to rescue his wife and baby and my father agreed. My father warned him that if authorities heard about it he would have to pay a big fine and the villager promised that he would pay it if it came to it.  My father went to his home and then he sent for mother. They made Cesarean section and the woman and her baby survived.  They named this boy Kazimir and he became a close friend of my younger sister Haya and brother Shmil. His father was grateful to my father. Every winter he supported our family with vegetables, flour and meat. 

My mother’s distant relatives Shpringers lived in Sambor. They didn’t have children and convinced my parents to let them adopt their older son David. David moved in with them and they gave him the last name of Gotlib-Shpringer. My brother David lived with his adoptive parents and occasionally visited us. 

There was one 4-year Polish school in Biskovichi. My older sister Sima and brother Moishe went to study there. I also went to this school in 1929. I was doing well at school. I was the only Jew in my class, but I didn’t face any bad attitudes due to my nationality. I had few Jewish, Polish and Russian friends. We didn’t think about who was of what nationality. 

In 1930 there was a big fire in Biskovichi. Few houses in our street including our house burnt down.  Our neighbors offered us to live in their houses while my father was to build a house for us, but my father decided otherwise. My father received compensation from the municipality for his burnt house and managed to buy a house in Sambor for this money. Sambor was a small town, but it seemed huge to me compared to Biskovichi. The majority of population was Jewish, but there was also Polish, Russian and Ukrainian population. There were few synagogues, Jewish schools and even a Jewish grammar school. Jews mostly dealt in trade and craftsmanship in Sambor. They owned all stores and all shoemakers, fur dealers, tailors, joiners and barbers were also Jews. Jews mainly resided in the center of the town. Land was more expensive in the center and the houses stood very close to one another. My father bought a house in the central street. It was a brick house with 3 rooms and a kitchen. My parents lived in one room, sons in another and the third room was for the girls. There was a big kitchen with a storeroom and a spacious fore room. There was only space for a small wood shed in the yard. There were wood stoked stoves and a well in a nearby street. 

After we moved to Sambor it was difficult for my father to find a job. Veterinarians were not in such big demand in town as they were in a village and on the other hand, my father was not allowed to work as a doctor.  He was good at drawing and woodcarving and he chose to do this to earn his living. My father carved wood sculptures. He didn’t learn carving anywhere before, but he somehow happened to do it well. Wealthier people used to decorate their gardens with them. He also made stucco decorations on ceilings and building facades. All of a sudden his works happened to be in demand and my father began to earn a lot. My mother began to work as well. She was a very good cook and began to do this to earn her living. She cooked at weddings or other celebrations in wealthy families. Of course, it had to be kosher food and her clients wanted to be sure that their cook followed kashrut at home. My mother followed kashrut strictly. She did not only have special dishes for meat and milk products, but also, plates, spoons and even dish wash sponges for meat and dairy products. My mother soon became a very popular cook in Sambor and she even had to refuse from orders since she was busy in other houses on those days when they wanted her to cook in their houses. Cooking usually took a week before a party. Mother baked strudels, honey cookies and other pastries and one day before a party she cooked other dishes.  My mother had two Jewish assistant ladies preparing food products for cooking and washing utensils. My mother did the cooking herself, she didn’t let anyone else to do it. She had a notebook where she put her orders for months ahead.

At home my sisters were helping mother with cooking. My mother taught Sima and Haya everything she knew herself. She said the girls would always be able to earn their living if need be. Of course, we began to have a wealthier life. Shortly after she went to work, my mother bought a piano that she had long dreamed about. She had wonderful hearing. She didn’t know notes, but she played tunes by ear. I remember that we gathered in our parents’ room on Saturday and sang Jewish songs that we knew many and my mother accompanied for us and sang too. Later my parents bought my older brother Moishe an accordion and he often played with my mother. Later he began to teach me to play. Our family was very close and I often recall those happy hours.  

My father went to the synagogue in our street on Saturdays and Jewish holidays. It was a small synagogue and there was no room for women in it. The boys went to the synagogue with our father after they turned 7, it was a custom in Sambor that children started going to the synagogue at this age. My father didn’t have a beard or payes. He only had small moustache.  He wore a hat to go out and a yarmulka to the synagogue. He put it on inside the synagogue and they took it off to go home. We, boys, also took our yarmulka to the synagogue and didn’t have our head covered elsewhere. Of course, when it was cold we wore caps or hats. I remember that my older brother and I usually went to play football with other boys after the synagogue. My mother went to a bigger synagogue in the neighboring street also on Sabbath and holidays. My mother didn’t take her daughters with her. My mother didn’t wear a wig. She had a long plait. When my mother went out she clipped it on the back of her head. My mother only wore a kerchief to go to the synagogue and at home on Sabbath or holidays. 

We celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays at home. Before Pesach we cleaned the house. Everything was shining with cleanness. No breadcrumbs were to be found anywhere. After the cleaning all breadcrumbs or pieces of bread were taken to the yard to be burnt. We also took away our everyday kitchen utensils and took down a box with special Pesach dishes from the attic. There was crockery and kitchen utensils – casseroles and frying pans - stored in the box. My mother also kept her dishes for making matzah separately. She had a bowl for dough for matzah, a rolling pin and even a wheel to make holes on matzah.  My mother baked herself. Sometimes our neighbors joined her and they made matzah for together for their families. My mother always cooked a lot before holidays. She only baked her pastries from matzah flour. My older brother and I took turns to crash matzah in a copper mortar and then sieved it. My mother made strudels, honey cakes and Pesach cookies with raisins from sieved matzah. Mother always made chicken broth with dumplings from matzah flour, a chicken neck stuffed with fried flour and chicken liver and gefilte fish at Pesach. I’ve never tried such delicious forshmak as my mother made. There was a white tablecloth with embroidered lions and quotes from the Torah on it for seder at Pesach. In the evening the family got together for seder. My father sat at the head of the table. He recited a prayer and then broke a piece of matzah into three pieces and put away the middle part. It was called afikoman and we had it to finish the seder. One of the children had to find the afikoman and give it back to the father for a redemption. When I did it I asked my father sweets or toys in return. Then I asked him traditional four questions in Hebrew. My father answered me. The front door was open to let Prophet Elijah 7 in. There was a big wine glass with wine for him on the table. We bought wine for Pesach at the synagogue, red and very sweet. During seder each of us had to drink four glasses of wine. Children drank wine from small glasses. After answering questions my father recited a prayer and we sang Pesach songs. Nobody went to bed until seder was over. Younger children happened to fall asleep sitting at the table.  My mother or father didn’t work through 8 days of Pesach. We visited our parents’ acquaintances and they visited us.  

At Rosh Hashanah my parents went to the synagogue in the morning. In the morning my mother put a dish with apple pieces and a bowl of honey. When our parents came back from the synagogue we dipped apples in honey and ate them. There was Yom Kippur 10 days later. On this day children above 8 years of age had to fast from the morning till the lunch time. After bar mitzvah we fasted all day long. A day before my mother made a hearty dinner. We had to finish our meal before the first star when fasting began. Frankly, I never fasted.  Of course, my parents didn’t know about it since I didn’t eat at home. There was a Ukrainian family living nearby and the boys from this family were my friends.  During the fast I ran to their house and they gave me something to eat. My parents stayed at the synagogue a whole day on Yom Kippur.  They came back home in the evening and we sat down to a festive dinner.

On Sukkot my father made a sukkah in the backyard. There was a table inside and we prayed and had meals only in the sukkah. I also had two other favorite holidays: Chanukkah and Purim. On Chanukkah all our visitors gave children some money. My parents had many acquaintances and before evening I collected quite a sufficient sum. I spent this money buying sugar candy and ergots. There were dark brown hard and very sweet ergots sold in stores. We liked chewing them and my sisters made necklaces from their seeds. Purim was a merry holiday. There were performers in costumes coming to houses. My mother made lots of pastries at Purim.  There was a tradition to take pastries to relatives and neighbors and children were running around with trays of treatments and they brought us theirs.  In every house we went we got something sweets or some coins in return.

In Sambor we also went to a Polish school. My brother and I studied at school and cheder. There were religion classes at school for Catholic children. Their teacher was a Roman Catholic priest.  Children with different faith could go home. I had a good voice and ear and I sang in a school choir.  After finishing school Sima and Moishe went to a Jewish grammar school and so did I later. My parents had to pay for the grammar school, but they could afford such expenses at that time. We studied all general subjects in Yiddish. We had two religious classes twice a week. A rabbi came to conduct these classes. Some children skipped classes of religion. It was allowed and in their school records book they had a dash instead of a mark for this class.  It didn’t take me long to understand that it was more fun to play football than sit in class and I began to skip these classes along with other children. Of course, my parents didn’t know about it. I had all excellent marks in all other subjects. 

I turned 13 in 1935 and became of age. I had a bar mitzvah at the synagogue that my father attended. A melamed from the cheder prepared me for bar mitzvah. I don’t remember any details, but I remember that on Saturday after my birthday I went to the Torah stand at the synagogue and read a section from the Torah, there is a special section for a boy to read on his bar mitzvah. On this day I had a tallit on for the first time in my life. It was quite a ceremony and everybody greeted me. My father brought a bottle of vodka and lekakh to the synagogue and after bar mitzvah the attendants enjoyed the treatments. In the evening my mother arranged a special dinner for the occasion. My mother’s brothers came from Lvov. They visited us on almost all Jewish holidays. Haim was married and had two sons, a little older than me. He always came with his family. My cousins and I were friends. Shymon didn’t have a family.  

Sometimes we visited my mother’s relatives in Lvov. In 1936 my grandmother, my mother’s mother died. She was buried near my grandfather according to the Jewish tradition in the Jewish cemetery. I remember that on my grandmother’s funeral a woman approached my mother and me and tore up our clothes. I didn’t understand why she did this and my mother explained that it was a sign of the mourning. Haim, an older son, recited the Kaddish at the funeral. I don’t know whether any of my mother’s brothers recited Kaddish or sat shivah after grandmother, but we went home. My mother’s brother Haim perished tragically in an accident in 1940. He was buried near his parents. Shymon died of typhus in evacuation in the 1940s. After his death I lost contact with Shymon’s family.

In 1937 our quiet family life came to an end. My father was making stucco molding on the facade of a building and fell from scaffolds. He had a severe cranium injury. He was taken to hospital and after he recovered his doctors didn’t allow him to continue doing any physical works, particularly working on elevation. My father returned home, but he couldn’t work any more. He suffered from headaches and dizziness. My mother was the only breadwinner in the family. We were hard up and Moishe had to quit grammar school. Moishe became an apprentice in a railcar depot and I became an apprentice of a joiner. I studied 2 years and in 1939 I was to take my specialty exam and obtain a certificate of qualification, but this didn’t happen after the fascist Germany attacked Poland. In August 1939 German troops came to Poland and the Great Patriotic War 8 began. My older brother David Gotlib-Shpringer was mobilized to the army.  

Before German intervention there was no anti-Semitism in Poland. There were routinely incidents, but they were rare. We didn’t see Germans in Sambor. We read in newspapers and heard on the radio about intervention of Soviet troops. We had a radio at home. By the way, there were newspapers issued during the war. Of course, they were not delivered to people’s homes, but they were sold at post offices. We didn’t know anything about the Soviet Union before. When Soviet troops liberated Poland from fascists Sambor and Lvov districts were annexed to the USSR [annexation of Eastern Poland]. They became a part of the Ukrainian SSR. We were very happy about it. We thought that the USSR was a country of justice and equal possibilities for all nations and that it was a country where there was no anti-Semitism. There were many newcomers from the USSR. They were holding high official posts. The Russian language was introduced everywhere and it took me no time to pick it up. I liked Soviet girls very much. I remember once telling my mother that I would only marry a Russian girl and she jokingly threatened me with her rolling pin. Soviet authorities began their struggle against religion 9. They began to close temples of all religions and conduct anti-religious propaganda. Moishe and I became convinced atheists and my mother and father were distressed by it. They kept observing Jewish traditions and we were telling them that they were holding to vestige of the past.  

During the Soviet regime private shops became the property of the state. The owner of the joiner shop where I was an apprentice was also taken away from my master. I failed too obtain my certificate of qualification.  However, the railroad depot of Sambor employed me as a joiner. In the first months of my employment I joined Komsomol  10.  There was a Jewish chief of the training department of the depot. His surname was Shluze. He suggested that I attended training classes for locomotive operators after work in the evening. I studied there 6 months and I was a successful trainee. I had a medical examination and there were no restrictions. I passed all exams and obtained a certificate of qualification to work as assistant locomotive operator of freight and passenger trains. I took my first trip in June 1940. Since then I worked as assistant locomotive operator and I earned well. My older brother Moishe worked as track foreman in this same depot. The younger children went to school.  Since Moishe and I went to work the material situation in our family improved.  

I could play few musical instruments: piano, accordion, saxophone. I took part in an amateur club of the Sambor depot. There was a brass orchestra that often performed at concerts. I was a saxophone player, a dancer, master of ceremonies and a soloist singer. So I went on trips according to the schedule to be able to attend rehearsals. In January 1941 our orchestra went to a contest of amateur performers in Moscow. After a concert organizers of this contest approached me and offered to move to Moscow and join the Lazar Kaganovich  11 ensemble. They promised that I would be able to obtain a certificate of locomotive operator in Moscow. I said I had to think it over and talk about it at home. When I came to Sambor and told my mother about this offer she asked me to work in Sambor till my younger sister and brothers finished school. The family needed my earnings. I agreed with my mother and wrote to Moscow that I would join them a couple of years later. 

At 6 o’clock in the morning of 22 June 1941 I was to take a trip to Germany as an assistant locomotive operator. I came to the depot at 5 o’clock in the morning to obtain documents and do the final inspection of the locomotive before departure. I was surprised that there were no lights in the depot and there were many people in military uniforms  on the platform. The depot radio announced that all depot employees had to stay in the depot and if they left it they would be executed.  I didn’t understand what happened. At about 10 o’clock one of militaries announced that Germany attacked the Soviet Union without an announcement and that we were at war. I climbed my locomotive and saw another operator incinerating his documents: a Party membership card, certificate and something else. Then we were ordered to drive the locomotive to a train. When we drove there I saw that the train consisted of platforms for cattle transportation with hastily made plank sides and roofs. There were women and children crowding on the platform. It turned out that we were to evacuate families of the Harrison of Sambor. We headed Stryi and then Gusiatin. The train was bombed on the way, but it wasn’t damaged, fortunately. We stopped in Gusiatin for passengers to get water and food and members of the locomotive crew could rest. I fell asleep and when I woke up I saw that the locomotive operator was dead. He was killed with a shell splinter. There was no replacement operator available in the depot in Gusiatin. They provided an assistant and I had to drive the locomotive. We reached Kharkov [430 km from Kiev], our point of destination. Went to the depot office to get a job task. There was a military sitting there. He looked at my documents and gave me an application form to fill up. I wrote in this form that I studied German in a grammar school and when he saw it he told me to wait aside. There were few others in the group waiting. We boarded a truck and it left. We had no idea where we were going. We drove for few days. We were taken to a camp where they took us to take a bath and then we were given military uniforms. We didn’t know where the camp was located. Only later it turned out that it was in Moscow region. Few days we learned to shoot and crawl and studied service regulations. Then we were distributed to military units. I joined an intelligence unit as an interpreter, my major duty was to interpret interrogation of German captives. The regiment was deployed near Moscow. This was September 1941. There were no actions near Moscow and we moved to Byelorussia. I went scouting with the unit several times.

We lived in trenches for the most part. We excavated wider and deeper trenches and placed planks on top. We had branches of the ground floors and slept on our overcoats. Of course, these were unbearable conditions. Everything was difficult: washing and even combing. Combs and razors broke and there was nowhere to get new ones. We shaved with sharp blades or knives: whatever we had. For this reason many frontline men grew beards and moustache, though the service regulations didn’t allow it. In a short time we all got lice.  There were happy moments when we could stay in village  houses and got an opportunity to wash and put ourselves in order. There were no men, only elderly omen, in villages. All men of 18 through 50 years of age were at the front. Village women sympathized with us and gave us better food, though they didn’t have enough either. We could wash in a public bathroom when there was one in villages, but unfortunately, it didn’t happen often. 

There was a field kitchen moving with our regiment. Food product supplies were delivered from the rear. There were delays during combat action, but then we had dried bread and tinned meat.  It was hard for smokers. There were delays with tobacco delivery and then they smoked dry leaves and dried rind.  Tobacco served as currency: one could exchange anything for it. 

I didn’t stay long at the front. In January 1942 I was wounded in my arm and head. Our regiment medical unit provided first aid and then sent me to a rear hospital in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, in 2500 km from home, where I stayed for almost two months. When I was released from hospital I went to a military registry office to request them to send me back to my unit. The military commandant looked at my documents and said that there was a railroad crew formed in Karaganda and  that he was sending me there. There were 3 columns formed and I joined the 28th locomotive column. There were 10-15 crews in each column, 12 members in each: 2 locomotive operators, 2 assistants, 2 stokers, 2 chiefs, 2 escort men, 2 foremen: those were 2 crews.  We worked two shifts on trips: one crew taking a rest, another one working. There was a railcar carriage for crews to take a rest. There were plank beds and an iron stove where we could make something to eat. Chiefs and escort members were officers and the rest were privates. We hauled military force and military loads. We drove at night to avoid raids. When we transported weapons, especially rockets for ‘Katyusha’ units [Editor’s note: The Katyusha Rocket ‘Multiple Rocket Launcher’ BM-21], we attached those shipments in the middle of a train so that Germans couldn’t recognize their location. We hauled people, tanks and planes – anything. As a rule our destination points were near the frontline so that people or equipment could reach it promptly. There were frequent air raids. Almost in every trip there were losses of staff: crewmembers were wounded or killed. We looked death in the eyes every day. Of course, it was scaring, but not at work. During the shift I was calm and concentrated. 

Only during my short service in the intelligence unit I didn’t face any anti-Semitism. When I was in the column they often called me zhyd [Editor’s note: ‘Zhydy’ (kike) – abusive nickname of Jews in the Soviet Union] in my absence or even looking me in my eyes. At first it was a shock for me and I tried to hit the counterpart, but then I tried to explain that it wasn’t nationality that mattered I don’t know which of these worked, but I didn’t suffer abuse again. But who knows what they were saying when I wasn’t there… They also awarded Jews so reluctantly and only when they couldn’t help doing it.

In 1944 I submitted my application to the Communist Party. Two locomotive operators of our column gave me recommendations. There was one-year term of candidateship before they admitted to the Party. I believed that to be a Party member was an honorable and responsible thing and that a communist had to be an example for all. 

In March 1945 we already began to drive trains in the direction of Germany.  In late March 1945 our crew was awarded with orders. A locomotive operator of my crew was awarded an Order of the great Patriotic war of the 1st grade and I was awarded the same order of the 2nd grade.  I was also awarded medals ‘For Courage’ for fighting for various towns. [Editor’s note: There are orders and medals awarded to him for his combat deeds and labor achievements on his jacket, including the Order of Great Patriotic War, Order of Glory, medal for Defense of Stalingrad.]

In late April 1945 our train was running in the vicinity of Berlin, about 30 km.  We didn’t reach Berlin, though. I remember a funny incident  at a big station. A Soviet colonel came to the train and asked for a locomotive operator. I responded and he asked me to follow him. We came to the station and I saw a beautiful shining car there. This colonel said: ‘Start this car’ and I replied that I was a locomotive operator, not a car driver. He grew mad, called me stupid and told me to go away.  He thought that everything that could move operated in the same way.

I met my wife in this locomotive column. In late 1944 our column was stationed in Nida, a Byelorussian town. Many girls came to work in the depot at Komsomol assignment. They sent a young girl from Pskov to work as a stoker with me.  Antonina Fomina was born in Pskov in 1926. Her parents were farmers. Antonina had 3 brothers and 2 sisters. She was very industrious with her work. At first I didn’t take much notice of her. Later she told me that she noted my accuracy. Some operators had their cabin dirty or there was coal near the stove, but they didn’t care. I liked to keep my work place clean and orderly and then it felt better to work. I shaved every day and washed my uniform. She liked it and took a closer look at me. I was seeing Galina, a Jewish girl working in the depot. We went for walks and went dancing at he club. Once we went dancing and Galina refused to dance with me saying that she was tired, but almost right away she went for a dance with another guy. Of course, I felt hurt and told her that we would not be meeting any more. She jerked at me angrily: ‘Maybe you’ll marry your stoker girl?’ I replied: ‘That’s a good idea of yours!’ It was a joke then, but I took a closer look at Galina: she was a nice girl.  Hardworking and pretty and I could see that she liked me. I invited Antonina to dance and then we began to take walks in the town after work. Shortly afterward I asked Antonina to be my wife. Since we were both assigned as military we had to obtain permission of chief of headquarters Stepanov and  column commissar Natanin to get married. They signed our request and on 12 January 1945 we went to a registry office in Grodno, the nearest Byelorussian town where we got married. We had a wedding party at our work. There were tables set in the dining hall and chief of the column made us a wedding gift: few bottles of vodka. There was another gift: we were allowed 10 days of leave.

In the middle of 1944 I met with my family. I didn’t even know whether they were alive before. From Sambor they evacuated to the Ural and returned to our house after liberation of Sambor. My older brother David perished at the front in 1943 and the rest of my family survived. My parents couldn’t even imagine that I would marry a non-Jewish girl. Of course, I told my mother that I had my wife to meet her. My mother asked me to not tell my father that I got married. Even my sisters and brothers told me off for marrying a non-Jewish girl. I told them that I wouldn’t give up my wife for anybody. My future life showed me that I was right.  When they met Antonina they got to liking her, even my mother. My father never knew that Antonina was my wife, he thought that she was just my friend. We stayed few days with them and then left for our unit.

We were near Berlin on Victory Day 12. Everybody was happy that this terrible war was over. People greeted and hugged one another. There were fireworks in the evening and orchestras playing in squares and streets.  My wife and I were looking forward to demobilization, but we were told that our column was staying in Germany. We transported the military, military shipments and food.  Only in October 1945 our column returned to Nida in Byelorussia. Only 19 of 300 who were initially in our column survived. We were awarded Stalin’s award letters. In this letter they thanked us for outstanding labor during the war on Stalin’s behalf and wished us success in peaceful labor. 

I demobilized in early 1946. Railroad men from the Baltic Republics often came to Nida and they invited young locomotive operators to come to work there. They promised us lodging and good salaries, but I wanted to go back to Sambor where my family was. I didn’t know that my parents and siblings emigrated to Israel in late 1945. Only my older brother Moishe stayed in Sambor. But we didn’t meet with him: Moishe perished in early 1946. I didn’t know about it for a long time. They wrote me, but I didn’t receive their letter. My wife and I arrived at Sambor and went to my house: and there were strangers there.  They told me that my family moved out. I felt distressed and bitter about it. I didn’t know that I could claim my house to be returned to me and nobody told me there was this opportunity. My wife and I were accommodated in the hostel of the railroad depot. I went to work there as a locomotive operator.  In November 1946 our son Pyotr was born.

There were people who still remembered me in the railroad depot of Sambor. I submitted my application to the Party again and obtained recommendations. Chief of depot authorized me to organize an amateur club. I spent a lot of time organizing a choir and an orchestra.  We began to perform at parties and in contests. My wife didn’t like it that I spent there my time that I could spend with my family. Later she confessed that she was jealous. Whatever, but she posed an ultimatum: a family or an orchestra. I chose a family, of course, but I had to give up my orchestra.  When the Party bureau was reviewing my application, they blamed me that I didn’t accomplish my Party task: that I gave up this amateur activity. They didn’t admit me to the Party. I became a member of the party only in 1956. I was a convinced communist and a convinced atheist. Religion has been alien to me.

In 1950 I was sent to work in a depot of Lanovtsy station  [360 km from Kiev] where I became chief of the depot. My wife and son stayed in Sambor till I received a lodging.  In April 1951 our daughter Lilia was born in Sambor. In 1952 I received a dwelling in Lanovtsy and my family moved in with me.  Antonina didn’t go to work. She was to stay with our baby daughter till she turned one year of age. Then our son went to a kindergarten and our daughter was sent to a nursery school.  My wife went to work in the depot.

After the war anti-Semitism grew stronger. Cosmopolite processes 13 began. This period didn’t affect my family or our surrounding and I sincerely believed that the party was denouncing its enemies. Another round of anti-Semitism started after the Doctors’ Plot 14 in January 1953. And again I believed it was true that many Jews happened to be enemies and saboteurs of the soviet power. Of course, I didn’t tie Stalin’s name to the growth of anti-Semitism. When on 5 March 1953 Stalin died, it was a big blow and horror for me like for the majority of Soviet people.  I remember, the railroad issued an order for all locomotives to stop on all stations with their horns on at 13 hours on 5 March. My locomotive stopped at Drogobych station and the horn was on for 5 minutes. 

After Khrushchev’s 15 speech on the 20th Party Congress 16 my eyes opened. At first I believed him in disbelief. The thing is, we didn’t know what was happening in the USSR before 1939 when we lived in Poland. And later we didn’t have enough information. Gradually I began to think about it and compare things. I got to know that there were trains prepared to deport Jews to Birobijan 17, Siberia. From Khrushchev’s speech I understood that the ‘doctors’ plot’ and other ‘plots’ were organized specifically to strengthen anti-Semitism to justify deportation of Jews to Siberia. I understood that Stalin eliminated all Party officials and military leaders because they presented a threat to him, not because they were plotters and spies, as we were told. However, all Stalin’s followers were also destroying the country, each in his own way. But I understood this only later. 

Locomotives were gradually replaced with electric locomotives. I finished a locomotive school with honors and they sent me to a depot in Chanyzh station [460 km from Kiev]. My family moved to Chanyzh with me. Our children went to school and my wife and I went to work. I liked spending my weekends with the family. We went for walks, to the cinema and theater. We didn’t celebrate any Jewish or Russian religious holidays at home.  We celebrated birthdays and Soviet holidays. In the morning we went to a parade and then Antonina arranged a festive dinner at home.   We often invited friends and colleagues. We traveled on our summer vacations. I could have free railroad tickets for the family and we traveled a lot across the country.  We traveled to the south and north of the USSR and we liked tourist trips.  

In 1966 I was transferred to the depot in Uzhhorod [700 km from Kiev], in Subcarpathia. This was a bigger town compared to where we lived before. We received a small 2-bedroom apartment called ‘khruschovka’ 18 and said it was to be our temporary dwelling and that we would receive another apartment. We lived in this ‘temporary’ dwelling for 12 years and only recently we got a comfortable apartment. 

My wife decided to go to study. She finished a medical school and went to work as a lab assistant in a dermatovenerologic dispensary clinic where she worked until retirement.

My children studied well at school. They were ordinary Soviet children. They became pioneers and then Komsomol members. They didn’t face any anti-Semitism. They had my typical Jewish surname of Gotlib, but my wife and I decided to change their nationality to their mother's to avoid problems in the future, in the passport they are written down as Russian. My son liked my job very much. After school he often came to the depot where he helped me and asked questions. After finishing school he decided to enter the Locomotive faculty in a Railroad School in Lvov.  He passed his entrance exams successfully and was admitted. My son studied well and received wonderful recommendations after every training session. After finishing this school Pyotr received a mandatory job 19 to the locomotive depot of Lvov. He worked there 3 years. In 1967, when his 3-year job assignment was over, Pyotr got a transfer to Uzhhorod depot.  Back in Lvov he married Tatiana Yakovenko, a Ukrainian girl. My first grandson Pyotr was born in 1968, and my granddaughter Svetlana was born in 1976. Pyotr received a 2-bedroom apartment in Lvov. He worked at the depot until retirement. Locomotive operators retire at the age of 55. Pyotr has grandchildren. My grandson Pyotr’s daughter Kristina Gotlib was born in 1993, and Svetlana’s son Saveliy Andriyanov was born in 1992. Pyotr and Svetlana have non-Jewish spouses. This has never been a matter of importance in out family. What mattered was that they were nice people and loved our children.   

My daughter Lilia finished school with a silver medal. She entered the Faculty of Electronics of Uzhhorod University. Upon graduation Svetlana got a job assignment to work as an engineer at Uzhhorod instrument making plant. She lives with us. Her private life never worked out.  Her son Anton Gotlib was born in 1985. Now he is a 2nd-year student of Uzhhorod university. After perestroika the plant where Svetlana worked closed down.  She went to work as an accountant at the department of railway passenger and freight transportation. She works there now.

From 1946 I’ve tried to find my family. I sent requests to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and tried to search them through the Red Cross.  They replied that they had no information about them. Later I gave up those efforts: for a citizen of the USSR it was dangerous to have relatives abroad 20. Besides, I was a Party member. They found me after we moved to Uzhhorod in the late 1970s. I received a letter from my younger sister Haya. She wrote that she wanted to come to the USSR to see me, but they didn’t issue her an entry visa.  She went to Hungary. It was easier for residents of Subcarpathia to obtain a Hungarian visa compared to the rest of the USSR and I went to Budapest to meet with my sister. Of course, we were so happy to see each other. We didn’t even hope that we would meet again. My sister told me about my dear ones. After returning from the front my older brother Moishe worked in the depot of Sambor. He perished in 1946, he was smashed between two trains. He was married, but they didn’t have children. My father died in Israel at the age of 67 in 1955. After he died my mother lived with Sima and her family.  Sima married a Jewish man in Sambor before they moved to Israel. She didn’t work after getting married.  She has a son, but I don’t remember his name. Haya married a Jewish man from the USSR in Israel. Her family name is Strikovskaya. She finished an accounting school in Israel and worked as an accountant till she retired. Haya and her husband have two daughters: Tsviya and Esta. They are married to Jewish men and live in Haifa. I don’t remember their marital surnames. My younger brother Shmil finished a Construction College in Israel and worked as a construction superintendent. He is married and has a son and two grandsons. He named his son Abram after our father.  Shmil and his family have lived in New York, USA, for over 20 years. The youngest, Eshiye, finished a construction school and made stucco decorations. Eshiye got married in Israel. His wife’s name is Sarra. They have no children. In 1966 Eshiye moved to New York, USA. Eshiye and his wife loved each other, but unfortunately, they had no children. Eshiye was the best at music in our family. He could play any instrument and had wonderful voice. Regretfully, my brother died too early. He had throat cancer. He had few surgeries, but they didn’t help. Eshiye died in New York in 1972. I couldn’t go to his funeral due to strong iron curtain 21, separating the USSR from the rest of the world. We couldn’t even imagine traveling abroad on a visit. Later, in 1982 my sister could come to Uzhhorod and we met again.

When in the 1970s Jews began to move to Israel, I didn’t want to go. I love my wife so and I was afraid she would face this prejudiced attitude as Jews face here. Also, my children were not considered to be Jews according to Jewish laws because their mother wasn’t a Jew. According to the Jewish law, there are two ways someone can be a Jew. You can either be born a Jew, which means that your mother is Jewish, or you can convert. A convert is called a ger which literally means stranger. Being born a Jew means that if your mother is Jewish then so are you, if she isn’t then neither are you. It doesn’t matter whether your father is Jewish or not. Besides, I didn’t hope to find a job at my age and I didn’t want to be a dependent receiving welfare. However, I sympathized with those who decided to leave and wished them to be happy with their new life. 

I became a pensioner in 1977, but I continued to work in the depot.  Firstly, it was hard to live without working. It seemed to me I would die if I quit my job. Besides, it was hard to live on a pension. I had to support my daughter. I got a job of a track dispatcher. It was an interesting and responsible job and I liked it.  I worked in the depot until 1992. Only after I had my first stroke my family talked me out of going to work. 

When perestroika 22 became I thought that Gorbachev’s 23 promises were idle. Whatever hadn’t they promised on behalf of the Party… But then there were notable changes. The dead wall separating the USSR from the rest of the world, fell down. Soviet people got an opportunity to travel to other countries and invite their relatives and friends from abroad. In 1991 I visited my relatives in Israel. It happened a year before, in 1990, that my wonderful and beloved mother died. She lived 94 years and until her last days she was in sound mind and she remained kind.  I never saw her. I only managed to visit her grave in a Jewish cemetery in Rishon LeZiyyon. My mother and father were buried nearby and according to Jewish rules, of course. 2 months of my stay in Israel flew by like one day.  I met with my family and saw my friends who had moved there long before. Israel is a beautiful country and I am happy to have visited it at least at my old age. Of course, perestroika gave me this opportunity. However, I think perestroika took away from much more than it gave. During perestroika our society divided into the rich and the poor. I still think they shouldn’t have allowed this.  In the end perestroika ended in the breakup of the USSR  [editor’s note: Breakup of the USSR: Yeltsin in 1991 signed a deal with Russia's neighbours that formalized the break up of the Soviet Union. The USSR was replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).]. Life became harder. I was an ace, the best locomotive operator, I have over 20 awards for my work, but now I am a beggar. 

After declaration of independence the rebirth of the Jewish life in Ukraine began. Before Hesed was established in Uzhhorod in 1999 the Jewish community began its activities in Uzhhorod. People began to go to the synagogue freely and stopped hiding their Jewish identity. I’ve never attended the synagogue.  I’ve been an atheist, though I believe in some superior force supervising us.  My wife Antonina began to attend a women’s club at the synagogue. We joke at home that Antonina is more Jewish than me. At least, it was her initiative to celebrate Jewish holidays at home. We do not celebrate Sabbath. On Jewish holidays Antonina cooks traditional Jewish food. We always have matzah at Pesach.  However, we also have bread at home at Pesach since my grandson doesn’t think it necessary to refuse from it. As for my wife and I, we do not eat bread at Pesach. My wife insists that I do not fast. She doesn’t think my health condition is fit for fasting. I’ve never strived to it, but I’ve got adjusted. Almost all of my wife’s friends are Jewish ladies.  They taught her to cook traditional Jewish food and my wife cooks for holidays. Only my mother could make as delicious gefilte fish as my wife. My wife and I read Jewish newspapers and magazines Vek (Century), and Yevreyskiye Vesti (Jewish news) that we receive in Hesed and then we discuss what we’ve read. Of course, Hesed helps us to survive. They used to bring us meals from Hesed, but my wife and I decided we would have them brings us food packages rather than cooked meals. Not because their meals were not good. It’s just that I, like any other man, think that my wife can cook better. Hesed provides medications and makes arrangements for a stay in hospital, if necessary. When my grandson Anton was at school he went to Jewish summer camps. He is much closer to Jewish life than me. Unfortunately, after my illness I cannot go to meeting or concerts in Hesed.  I hardly ever leave my home, but we constantly feel Hesed’s care. This is how it should be: if Jews hadn’t supported each other, they wouldn’t have survived and wouldn’t remain a nation through centuries.

Glossary:

Rosa Freisond
Mogilov-Podolski
Date of interview: May 2004
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya

Rosa Freisond lives with her older sister Lubov in a two-bedroom apartment of a 4-storied building built after the war. They have no excessive furniture, just what they mostly need. This furniture was also bought after the war, but it hasn’t worn out. They have bookshelves full of books in Russian and Ukrainian. Rosa reads pedagogical literature, Russian and Ukrainian classics and foreign writers. Rosa is a short slim lady, very sociable and vivid. She speaks very distinctly and pronouncing each word very clearly – one can tell she is a teacher. She has a great sense of humor. Rosa says she is an optimist and this helps her a lot in life. Her former students remember and keep in touch with her.  During the interview we’ve been interrupted by phone calls. Her former students, younger and older, have dropped by. They remember their first teacher, and this speaks for itself.  

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

Few generations of my parental families lived in the Jewish town of Yaryshev, Vinnitsa region. My paternal grandfather Moishe-Eleh Freisond was born in the 1850s. I guess my father’s mother Rivka was few years younger than her husband. I don’t know my grandmother’s maiden name. I know that my grandfather was some kind of a trade dealer, but I don’t know any details about what he did for a living. My grandmother was a housewife like all married Jewish women in the town. My grandmother had many children, but only four survived. My father Abram Freisond, born in 1876, was the youngest. I don’t know his older brothers’ dates of birth. My father’s older brother Aron Freisond lived in Yaryshev near where we lived and I remember his family well. His wife’s name was Kreina. Aron had four children. They were older than me. One daughter died from tuberculosis in her childhood. I went to school with the other three girls. We were friends. My father’s next brother Iosif died very young in the early 1920s. I remember his widow Hana and their four children, who were older than me. My father’s third brother moved to USA in the 1910s, and the family lost track of him. I don’t remember his name.

My father’s family was religious like all Jewish families in the town. Before the revolution of 1917 1 there was a cheder in the town where my father and his brothers studied. My grandmother and grandfather spoke Yiddish at home and Ukrainian to their Ukrainian neighbors. I don’t know whether my father studied at school, but he could read and write in Yiddish and Ukrainian. My father and his brothers had to go to work to help the family. My father worked as cattle dealer. He purchased cows and calves from villagers and supplied them to butchers.

My mother’s father Eleh Ber Kaz and his wife Rivka Kaz were born in Yaryshev in the 1840s. My grandfather was a tailor and my grandmother was a housewife. My grandfather was short and thin. He worked at home and I remember him wearing his black vest with many needles and pins that he needed for his work – in it and a kippah. My grandfather had a meter tape line hanging round his neck. He was always busy doing his work and spent little time with his numerous grandchildren. My grandmother had to save every kopek to manage the household and give education to her four children. My mother was the youngest and the only daughter. I don’t know how many children my grandmother had in total, but only four of them survived: my mother and her three brothers. The oldest brother’s name was Azril. The next one was Aron and the third brother was Gershl. My mother Motl was born in 1866. Her brothers cared for her much. They studied in cheder and when they were doing their homework my mother sat closer to them and they showed her letters teaching her to read.  My mother picked Hebrew and could write and read in it.

My mother’s older brothers Azril and Aron began to help grandfather Eleh-Ber with his work after having bar mitzvah and studied the tailor’s vocation. Aron stayed to work with him while Azril got married and started his own tailor’s business. Grandfather also taught my mother and she learned tailoring. Gershl became an apprentice of a blacksmith and stayed to work with him after his apprenticeship was over. I don’t happen to remember their wives’ names or my cousin brothers or sisters’ names. I remember that Azril had three sons. Aron and his wife had a daughter. Gershl, the third brother, had four children. My mother brothers’ wives were from Yaryshev, of course. 

My parents got married in the early 1900s. They had a traditional Jewish wedding, of course.  People in Yaryshev were religious and observed all traditions. After the wedding my parents lived in their own house that as my mother’s dowry. Her father and brothers gave it to the newly weds. Our family lived in this house before the Great Patriotic War 2. It was a wooden plastered house with a big fore room where my mother kept food stocks for winter, a big room where the children slept, my parents’ bedroom and a kitchen with a big Russian stove 3. This stove heated our parents’ bedroom and there was another stove to heat the children’s room. The only thing my father didn’t like about the house was that it adjusted to another house.  The family living in this house had a yard and a separate entrance, but my father used to repeat that if one constructed a house he should make sure that one could ride a horse-driven cart around it.  However, this was common in Yaryshev that houses adjusted to one another. We had a small yard and a shed in it. Some time after I was born my father built a little house with one room and a small kitchen in it in the yard. He said that older daughters would move to live with their husbands after getting married and the youngest one – and this was me – would stay with my parents and that then they would move to live in this smaller house and I would be in the bigger one with my family.

I have right memories of the town of my childhood and youth. I don’t think it has changed much since that time. Jews resided in the central part of the town. Yaryshev was a lovely town. It remains to be a piece of paradise for me, the place where I had a happy childhood and youth. Its population counted to over 400 people. We got along well with our neighbors attending weddings and funerals. Of course, routinely anti-Semitism has always been in life and it will always be, but in Yaryshev it only revealed itself in the form of short quarrels that people forgot soon, but state anti-Semitism either did not exist or we didn’t face it in Yaryshev before the war. 

There was a big choral wooden synagogue in the town. The synagogue was called Shil [in Yiddish]. Men sat downstairs and women – on the upper gallery listening to the prayer through little openings. It is not there any longer. The synagogue was beautiful, and it’s a pity it’s not there any more. It wasn’t ruined in action during the Great Patriotic War, but the local Ukrainians took it apart using wood as construction material during the war. That was it. Men went to the synagogue regularly while women only attended it on Yom Kippur. They dressed up and wore white shawls on their heads. Men wore white clothes with contrasting black stripes of their tallits. I remember this well. There was also a prayer house built by one of two wealthy men in Yaryshev. There was a cheder in the town before the revolution of 1917. There was a primary Jewish school and two Ukrainian schools: l7-year lower and 10-year higher schools in the Ukrainian part of the town. After finishing the primary school all children went to Ukrainian schools. There was a drugstore and medical office in the town. The assistant doctor, a Jewish man, was very experienced and skilled. He went on calls and prescribed medical treatment to patients, and it was very simple at the time: aspirin, castor oil, herbal teas and clysters. Perhaps because people trusted their ‘professor’, as they called him, his prescriptions worked all right. There was also a hospital in Yaryshev, but people only came there in emergency. Women gave birth to babies at home, tended by the assistant doctor and a midwife. There was a public library with books in Yiddish and Ukrainian and a cultural center in the town, and people of different nationalities borrowed books from there.

Before the revolution and during the Civil War 4 there may have been pogroms 5 in Yaryshev. My mother told me about one. My parents had two children then: my older brother Lev and sister Liebe. When gangs 6 came into the town, Jews hid away wherever they could find a place. My mother and the children took shelter in the basement of the only two-storied building in our neighborhood across the street from our house. My father was away from home. My brother studied to play the violin. When my mother saw that bandits were taking away his violin she ran out of the basement and ran to ask them to leave the violin. They beat her mercilessly and hit the violin on the ground and left. There was another pogrom before this one. My father told me about it. The family took hiding in one place and my father went to a different place. This was safer. Bandits found my father and beat him. They hit him on his stomach and he had liver problems for the rest of his life.  My father died young from liver cancer that must have resulted from this beating.

The Jews of Yaryshev accepted the Soviet power with enthusiasm. They were probably hoping that there would be no more pogroms, anti-Semitism or anything bad in their life. Most of Jewish residents were craftsmen: tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths and tinsmiths. Some Jews owned shops selling convenience goods: salt, sugar, kerosene, matches and cereals. They were small stores and their owners often could hardly make ends meet, so poor they were. There was a fabric store owned by two wealthier Jews that were in relation to one another. After the revolution the Soviet authorities did not even dispossess Jews of their shops, probably because they were so small.  After the revolution the Jewish population began to celebrate Soviet holidays: 7 November 7, 1 May. They got together at the cultural center, made speeches, concerts and parties.

The houses were lit with kerosene lamps in Yaryshev. Electrical lighting was only provided shortly before the war. I remember that we had a very nice bronze hanging lamp. My mother cleaned and polished it with woolen cloth every Friday. My parents had a table kerosene lamp in their bedroom.

Many Jewish families had lived in Yaryshev for generations. They must have been all in some kind of relation to one another. There was one restriction about marriages between cousin brothers and sisters, but marriages between distant relatives were allowed. I remember our neighbor marrying a guy from Ozarintsy in Vinnitsa region. Her husband moved to Yaryshev. People discussed this wedding for a long time blaming the bride’s parents of having failed to find her a match in their own town. This guy was called ‘foreigner’ by others. Of course, everybody in Yaryshev knew everybody else, but there were still shadkhanim and they gave their advice about possible matches. There were traditional Jewish weddings in the towns with a chuppah in the yard and a rabbi.  All residents of the town were invited to weddings. If a girl came from a poor Jewish family, the whole town contributed to make her a dowry.  There were big parties and musicians playing at weddings. Musicians accompanied the most honored guests to their homes playing music. Before she had to step under the chuppah the bride had her hair cut and right after the chuppah she put on a wig. All women wore wigs and men – a yarmulke and caps or hats. People were very close. If somebody got in trouble they gave money or whatever help they could. They knew everything about each other, and I guess they even knew what their neighbors were having for dinner. Occasionally somebody from Yaryshev traveled to Mogilov-Podolski. This was a full range trip. They made prearrangements with a balagula cabman. Nowadays Mogilov-Podolskiseems to be about 30 km from Yaryshev, not too far, but a trip in a horse-driven carriage took a long time then. People went there for an X-ray, or if they needed something special to buy in a store. For example, those who had babies went to Mogilov-Podolski to buy white bread to soak it in milk, wrap in gauze and give babies as a dummy.

There were four of us, kids, in the family. My mother had 11 babies, but the others died in infancy. I don’t remember, when my oldest brother Lev, Jewish Leiba, was born. My sister Lubov, Liebe, was born in 1907. Then my sister Lisa, Jewish Leya, was born in 1909. I was born in 1918 and named Rosa, Reizl in Jewish.

My father was a cattle dealer and my mother was a housewife. We were neither wealthier nor poorer than other Jewish families in Yaryshev. We didn’t know any other way of life and were content with what we had. Children only got new clothes for Pesach. My mother and father’s parents also gave us new clothes on Jewish holidays: a hat, stockings or a new shirt.  All clothes were bigger size to fit them next autumn. I didn’t get new clothes as often as the older ones: being the youngest, I got what they’d grown out of. It was all right with me since this practice was common in Yaryshev. 

My parents followed kashrut strictly. My mother had separate dishes, utensils and tableware for meat and dairy products. She kept them in separate cupboards in the kitchen and a separate spot for all of them on the table. Even dish wash sponges were separate.

There was a market in Yaryshev twice a week. Farmers from Yaryshev and neighboring villages came there to sell their products: eggs, dairy products, fruit and vegetables, corn and wheat flour. There was a shochet near the synagogue. Housewives bought live chickens and took them to the shochet to have them slaughtered. The shochet also sold kosher veal and beef. Housewives also bought turnip that they ground, added onions and goose fat serving this dish almost every day. Villagers even called turnip ‘the Jewish pork fat’ joking. Housewives bought plums, apricots in buckets to make jam for winter on a brick makeshift stove in the yard. They usually made lots of jam and neighbors came in to help with taking stones out of quinces or cut apples singing songs and talking while working. When it got too late, they baked potatoes in the fire to eat together. People supported and helped each other.

My parents were religious. My father went to the synagogue on Sabbath and Jewish holidays. My mother went to the synagogue on Yom Kippur. We celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays. On Friday morning my mother cleaned the house and baked brown bread for a week ahead and two white challah loaves for Sabbath. On Friday morning all housewives went to the market to buy food products. My mother made us chicken broth with homemade noodles or gefilte fish. In the evening the family got together. My mother dressed up and lit candles in beautiful bronze candle stands, her dowry. She covered her face and prayed over the candles. Then we took down to dinner. My father didn’t go to work on Saturday. In the morning he went to the synagogue and when he returned, he read us stories from the Bible. We spoke Yiddish at home, and my father usually translated for us from Hebrew so that we could understand the stories.

Pesach was a special holiday. There was a general clean up before Pesach. Furniture  was removed from the rooms to whitewash the walls and the ceilings. The house was also whitewashed outside whatever the weather. About two weeks before Pesach a community representative collected contributions for the needy families for them to be able to buy flour for matzah, chicken, fish and vegetables. I remember this man who collected the money. He always said that some people might think that he left some money for himself, so he did take 5 kopeck each time so that the person who thought so did not sin before the Lord. People laughed when he said this.

When the house was clean, neighbors got together to make matzah. Jewish families were big: women bore as many children as the Lord gave them and they needed a lot of matzah for the holiday. Matzah was kept in wooden boxes on the attic where they kept crockery for Pesach. One day before Pesach, when there was not a single bread crumb left in the house, they took the matzah and crockery off the attic. My mother cooked much for Pesach. We crashed matzah in a mortar and sieved it. My mother added bigger pieces to chicken broth. She made strudels with jam, nuts and raisins from the matzah flour and also – maina, strudel with meat, fried onions, spices and homemade noodles also made from matzah flour, gefilte fish, puddings, delicious potato pancakes baked in the oven in a big ceramic pot. We also liked egg puddings with matzah. Housewives shared their recipes. My father conducted seder in the evening. He put on a white kipr that men wore on Yom Kippur. He reclined on cushions. My mother also put a saucer with salty water, bitter greenery, hard-boiled egg and a piece of meat with a bone on the table, and a big wine glass for Elijah the Prophet in the center of the table. Father broke a piece of matzah into three and hid the middle part under the cushions. One of the children was to find it and hide away and later give it to our father for a ransom. I remember that the family allowed the youngest to do it and this was me. My father recited the Haggadah in Hebrew and my brother asked him four traditional questions in Hebrew. Lev just learned the words by heart. Then my mother or father recited a prayer and we all sang merry songs. The entrance door was left open for Elijah the Prophet to come in and bless us.

Yom Kippur was a sad day, when all went to the synagogue. Housewives made food for the children and spent the day at the synagogue. Adults fasted till the first evening star, almost 24 hours. Parents took cookies and fruit with them for their children to come to the synagogue to see them and get treatments. My mother could read in Hebrew and read prayers to other women sitting upstairs. On Sukkoth a sukkah was installed in all Jewish yards and decorated with ribbons and greenery. There was a table inside for a family to have meals and pray inside.  On Purim it was customary for relatives and neighbors exchanged sweet treatments: jam, cookies, and candy. On Chanukkah children got some change for a gift.

After the revolution there were 2 kolkhozes 8 in Yaryshev: one for Ukrainian villagers and one Jewish kolkhoz 9 named after Lenin 10 with its fields in Yaryshevskaya Sloboda 2 km from Yaryshev. Schoolchildren  could work there on summer vacations.

In the middle 1920s grandfather Moishe-Eleh Freisond died. A couple years later my maternal grandfather Eleh-Ber Kaz died. They were buried in the Jewish cemetery in accordance with Jewish traditions. Every anniversary of their death we went to the cemetery and my father recited the Kaddish for them over the graves of his father, his father-in-law and his brother Iosif who died some time before grandfather passed away. My maternal grandmother Riva died in the 1930s. She was buried near my grandfather’s grave. Grandmother Tube went to live with my father older brother Aron’s family, whose children had their own families by then and lived separately from their parents.

My older brother and sisters finished the Jewish primary school in Yaryshev and went to the 7-year Ukrainian school. After finishing school my brother entered the agriculture technical school in Vinnitsa. After finishing it he became a specialist in growing tobacco in the Jewish kolkhoz. My sister Lubov went to work as a secretary/typist at the equipment yard. Lisa fell ill with scarlet fever after the 7th form and grew deaf. She didn’t work being an invalid.  I went to the Jewish school after all others had finished it. We studied there in Yiddish and also had Ukrainian classes. I enjoyed studying at school. I learned to read before going to school and reading became my favorite pastime for life. I had all excellent marks at school. I became a pioneer and took part in all school activities. After finishing the 4th form I went to the 7-year Ukrainian school where my brother and sisters studied before. I joined the Komsomol 11 in this school. I attended a drama club where I played the main roles in performances. Sometimes an amateur theater from Mogilov-Podolskicame to Yaryshev on tour. Their performances were free of charge. I attended all of their performances. During summer vacations I worked in the Jewish kolkhoz. Schoolchildren received a little money and food products for our work.  I finished school withal excellent marks.

In 1929 my father fell ill. He was taken to the hospital in Mogilov-Podolski where they identified his terrible diagnosis: liver cancer. He died shortly afterward. My father was just 53 years of age. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in accordance with Jewish traditions. My older brother Lev was married and lived separately. His wife’s name was Rosa. She was from Yaryshev. My brother supported us, but he could not support two families. My sister Lubov was working. My mother decided to lease the little house that my father built. Buchatskiy, manager of the equipment yard, lived there for quite a while. He was a nice and kind person. I became a teacher thanks to him, and I will always be grateful to him for this. My older sister Lisa learned to saw. My mother had a sewing machine and Lisa sewed plain clothes for women. Her clients sometimes paid her money and sometimes paid her with products. 

Shortly after my father died my mother fell severely ill. The Jews of the town collected money for the road and my brother took her to the hospital. My mother happened to have a benign tumor of a kidney. She had a surgery: they removed one kidney, and my mother lived with one kidney for almost 39 years. Probably her optimism that al children inherited from her helped her to hold on.

1932-33 was a period of famine 12 in Ukraine. People in Yaryshev were forced to give away all of their grain stocks for winter. There were searches and inspectors took away even bags with 1-2 kg flour or cereals, whatever they found. Our people picked berries and mushrooms in the woods, made soup of herbs, made flat bread from roots and managed to survive. 

Growing up

I finished school in 1934 at the age of almost 16. Once Buchatskiy, the tenant who rented a room from us, asked me whether I wanted to become a teacher. I laughed – teachers were like idols for me. He said there was a 2-week teachers’ training course in the village and after finishing it I could go to work. It goes without saying that I rushed to this course. After finishing it I obtained a certificate of a primary school teacher. The course sent me to work at the likbez school 13. Of course, I felt awkward having to teach people of the same age as my parents, but they treated me with respect as they should treat their teacher, and they enjoyed studying. One of my adult students even became a teacher of mathematics later. I liked my job. I worked there for a year before I was offered a job of a primary school teacher at the 7-year Ukrainian school. I hadn’t turned 17 yet and enjoyed playing with my pupils during intervals.  They respected me and took off their hats to greet me: ‘Good afternoon, Rosa Abramovna!’. When I greeted them first, they replied: ‘Day Bozhe Zdorovya!’ [Lord grant you health!], a common greeting in the village. Those were the 1930s and Lord should not be mentioned in those years, the period of struggle against religion 14. I asked director of the school what I was to do and he advised me to reply ‘Good afternoon to you’ to the relevant greeting. My sister made me a sateen dress, dark blue  in white polka dots. I wore it all year round and when there were ceremonies or meetings at school, I sewed on a white collar to it and it became a fancy dress.

In the first year of my work at school I was elected deputy of the local town council. There was another council of the farmers’ part of the town. I was responsible for making minutes of meetings. Not all deputies had education to do this.

In 1937 arrests 15, and trials against ‘enemies of people’ 16 began in the USSR and Yaryshev was not exception. I don’t know whether there were any Jews arrested in the town. My Ukrainian colleague,  a teacher  of literature in our school, was arrested. There was a militia office across the street from our house. Its officers often came by our home, when they needed something. Our house faced the windows of the cell where this teacher was kept.  His wife came to us and kept sitting for hours looking at her husband. The militia men discovered it and closed the shutters on the windows. Later this teacher was taken to Vinnitsa and this is all I know about him. He was a good man and it’s hard for me to believe that he was an enemy of people. When our tenant Buchatskiy was arrested, I couldn’t believe he was guilty either. However, this was how we trusted the Stalin’s propaganda and believed that enemies wanted to destroy our state. I had some doubts, but on the whole, I believed that our state was revealing the enemies. None of our relatives or friends suffered from arrests.

During the war

There was an affiliate of Tulchin Teachers’ Training School in Yaryshev. I attended classes in the evening there. A year later I finished it with all excellent marks and entered 3-year Teachers’ Training College in Vinnitsa. I studied there by correspondence. I went to Vinnitsa to take exams once a year. I stayed with my brother wife’s sister, who was a doctor. In June 1941 I was taking graduation exams in college. I was to take my last exam on 23 June. On Sunday of 22 June I was preparing for the exam. The radio was turned off to not distract me. The doctor came home from work and said that patients had been taken to her hospital and that the war began. I passed my last exam on the second day of the war. It is fearful to think about it now, but then my only concern was my exam and not the war. We were taught so that our army was invincible, and that if an enemy attacked us we would defeat them on their own territory. I had no doubts about it. As soon as I passed my exam and obtained the diploma, I made an effort to go back to Yaryshev. This was hard to do since there were hardly any trains going in this direction. Kofman, one of our distant relatives from Yaryshev, lived in Kopaygorod Vinnitsa region. He was chief of the town financial department. I called him and he promised to help me. I came to Kopaygorod where he helped me to get on a train to Yaryshev. He said that we had to leave Yaryshev.  I was not so sure that we had to do this, but decided to do as he said. My mother and sisters packed some clothes. I asked my brother and his family and other relatives to come with us, but they refused. Older people, who remembered World War I, were telling the others that there was no need to panic, that Germans were cultured people and did no harm to Jews during World War I. Chairman of the Jewish kolkhoz gave me a horse-driven cart and my mother, my sisters and I moved on. Tsylia Dikstein, a teacher from my school also went with us. We took little luggage. I had a change of underwear and my ‘teacher’s’ dress with me. We didn’t take any warm clothes, being sure that the war was going to wend soon. We just locked the door and left. It never occurred to us that we were leaving Yaryshev for good.  We road on the road, but then fascist planes began to bomb it. Before coming to Vinnitsa we left the house and the cart with some farmers and walked across the woods for safety. We got to the railway station in Vinnitsa and took a train. We didn’t know where we were heading. We were the only ones who managed to leave Yaryshev. Few days after we left director of the Jewish school and his family wanted to leave. They only rode few kilometers, when somebody told them that Germans were in Vinnitsa already and they had to go back to Yaryshev. 

Our trip was long. On the way our train was often bombed. The train stopped and people scattered around looking for shelter. At times not all of them returned. The train moved on and there was no opportunity to bury the deceased. Two weeks later we reached the Northern Caucasus. The train arrived at the Armavir railway station. People came to the station ringing food and offering  accommodation. We stayed there for some time. Then the evacuation office offered us to go to Kalacha village between Armavir and Maykop [Azerbaijan, 1800 km from Kiev]. The locals were friendly. One of local women offered us accommodation. Her husband was at the front. She lived with her three children. There was a vacant little house in her yard and we accommodated there. At first my sisters and I went to work at the kolkhoz. Then I heard that there was a children’s home evacuated to Kaladja from Ukraine. Tsylia and I went there hoping to get a whatever job, but director of the children’s home said that their men went to the front and there was a number of vacancies.  We became tutors at the children’s home, and I also taught Russian in the local Uzbek school in the classes where our children studied. In 1942 Germans sent their land troops to Armavir near Kaladja. We had to evacuate the children’s home immediately. The kolkhoz provided oxen and carts. We got to a railway station and from there evacuated to Tashkent [] where the children’s home was dismissed and I lost my job. My sisters, Tsylia Dikstein and I went to work in the kolkhoz. My mother could not work. There was an evacuation inquiry office in Buzuluk. We started looking for our relatives or acquaintances and got to know that Kofman from Kopaygorod lived in Pokrovka village of Orenburg region. We wrote him and he replied inviting us to join him there. We obtained a permit for moving there and got train tickets. We reached Orenburg and from there went to the village. We stayed with the Kofman family. Tsylia and I went to work in the local school. My sister Lubov worked as a secretary/typist in the district financial department and my sister Lisa went to work in a garment shop. Winters in Orenburg region were very cold, and we didn’t have any warm clothes with us. The locals were very kind to us bringing us warm clothes, mittens and valenki [very warm high boots made from felt sheep wool]. The word ‘valenki’ derives from the Russian word ‘valat’ that means ‘felt’] boots. We received food cards and at school we were provided soup and bread.  The bread was falling apart and we had to put slices f it on a plate to keep it together. The market was very expensive. A bucket of potatoes cost a monthly salary. At times we were paid in food products at work instead of money. I remember once we were pad with over frozen potatoes and I didn’t know what to do with it. Tsylia ground these potatoes and made soup from them. This soup looked and tasted terrible, but then we enjoyed eating it. Only my poor Mum could not eat one spoon of this soup and I left my ration of bread for her. But we survived anyway!

We followed the front line news in the evacuation. We were convinced that our army would win the war, though we already realized that this was going to take longer than we had been told before it started. We read every line of newspapers. There was one radio in the village in the village council office. At noon all those who could come there got together to listen to news and then retold what we heard to others. In late March 1944 we heard that Serebria village [] near Yaryshev was liberated. We started thinking about going back home. The Kofman family was the first to leave. They wrote us that they settled down in Mogilov-Podolski, but there were no details. Kofman wrote that I would receive a permit for going back from the Ministry of Education. I received it shortly afterward and we went on our way back to Yaryshev. We didn’t know anything about our relatives, but we were hoping that they had evacuated and would return to Yaryshev. My mother and sisters stayed with the Kofman family in Mogilov-Podolski and I went to Yaryshev. The town was empty. The houses were taken apart and the others had no windows or doors in them. Our house was not destroyed, but there was nothing left in it. I went to the Ukrainian part of the town where Ukrainians told me about the terrible fate of the town residents. Germans made a ghetto in the town fenced with barbed wire. Ukrainian policemen were guarding the ghetto. There were Jews from many villages of Vinnitsa region in the ghetto. 5 Jewish families stayed in our house. On 21 August 1942 all inmates of the ghetto were lined in columns and taken outside the town. They were convoyed by policemen with machine guns. One of my colleagues from school was there with her 6-year old son. When they were passing a corn field, she pushed her son to run away, but a policeman noticed him, chased after the boy and took him back to the column. They were all taken to the outskirts of the town where there was a deep pit dug. They were made to stand on the edge of the pit and killed. They killed those who still stirred. Almost all our relatives lie in this pit. On 21 August 1942 my paternal grandmother Tube, my father’s brother Aron, his wife Kreina and their three children, and my father brother Iosif’s wife and her four children were killed. My mother’s brothers Azril and his wife, Aron and his wife, daughter and the daughter’s children, Gershl, his wife and their four children perished there. My brother Lev, his wife Rosa and their two sons also perished in this shooting. The older son was 14 and the younger one was just 4 years old. All inmates of the Yaryshev ghetto, including 400 Yaryshev residents lie in this ghetto. The Jewish town of Yaryshev vanished. Only those who were away from Yaryshev survived: my father brother Aron’s sons, who were in the army. Two of them perished at the front and one returned. There were about 40 of us, survivors. None of them stayed in Yaryshev, but we meet and correspond. Only my sister Lubov and I stayed to live in Mogilov-Podolski: the rest of us reside in other towns and countries. Few years ago we collected money and installed a memorial crypt on this shooting place. There is a plague with the names of the deceased on it. Unfortunately, we could not identify the names of all inmates of the ghetto, who perished here, but we had the names of all Yaryshev residents inscribed on it. The crypt was installed beside the pit. We arrive there on 21 August to honor the memory of our dear ones. 

After the war

Many Ukrainian residents hearing that I’d returned came out of their houses to say the words of sympathy to me. One woman, who learned to sew from my sister, returned the sewing machine that she took from our house after we left, but this was all I got back. I had a fur jacket before the war made from the fur lining of my father’s coat. One of villagers told me that a woman from the village had it. I went to see her and asked her to give it back to me, but she set her dog on me. I went away. People are different, before or after the war. 

I was offered a job at the School in Yaryshev, but I just could not stay there. Every stone or house reminded me of the deceased. I remembered each of them and I remember now. I remember my Yaryshev with pain and gratitude. Dammed be the war that destroyed my town and thousands towns in Ukraine and all over the world. I remember the life in our town. One cannot retell this. This has to be lived through or nobody can understand this. Of course, there were arguments: they have an argument today and forget all about it tomorrow. In trouble all supported each other. We lived like a big family and I’ve never had this again in my life. The war took it away.

I went back to Mogilov-Podolski and told my family about my trip. We stayed in Mogilov-Podolski. At first we rented a room from an old Jewish woman, whose husband and sons perished at the war. Later we received a room of 13 square meters in a communal apartment 17. There were no comforts in the house, and even the toilet was in the neighboring yard. When new houses began to be constructed, we received a two-bedroom apartment in the first 5-storied building. By that time my sister Lubov married Aron Geizel from Mogilov-Podolski, a widower, and moved in with her husband. His wife died after the war and he had two teens: daughter Yevgeniy and son Boris.  They entered the Vinnitsa Polytechnic College after finishing school and left their home. My sister’s adoptive children treated her like one of their family and I was happy for my sister. There were three of us in the apartment: my mother, my sister Lisa and I.

I went to the education department looking for a job at school after returning to Mogilov-Podolski, but there were no vacancies. I bumped into my former colleague from the Yaryshev school and he turned out to be chairman of the town teachers’ trade union committee. He offered me to work as his secretary till the end of the academic year. Of course, I accepted his offer gladly.  The trade union office shared a building with the district educational department responsible for employment of teachers. I did well at work. New schools were opened and being a secretary, I knew about new vacancies. Before the start of a new academic year I was employed as a primary school teacher by a new Ukrainian general education school in the very center of the town where I worked for almost 40 years. The classes were big. There were children of different years of birth studying in one class due to the war. Overgrown children felt awkward about it at first before they got used to this. Gradually, tings were getting orderly and our school became the best. I remember all of my postwar pupils well. There were many Jewish pupils and teachers. Mogilov-Podolski was a Jewish town. According to 1969 census there were 6 000 Jews, while now there were a bit over 300 left. Many left the town and the others passed away. We got along well with each other and didn’t face any anti-Semitism, though it existed beyond the school already. 

In 1948 trials against cosmopolites 18 began. Almost each issue of newspapers published articles disclosing another cosmopolite, ‘enemy of the people’. They were Jews, activists of science and culture. Dirt was mercilessly poured on them, they were fired and many were sent to the GULAG  19. Besides, all articles emphasized and focused on their Jewish identity. The Jewish anti-fascists committee 20 that actively worked during and after the war was liquidated. Most of its members were sentenced to death and the others were sent to the GULAG for long sentence. Solomon Mikhoels, 21 an active member of the JAFC, a famous actor, was killed. He was hit by a truck, as if unintentionally. Of course, everybody understood what it was all about, but it was dangerous to pronounce such things aloud. There were words ‘Zionists’, ‘Jewish bourgeois nationalists’ coming into everyday use. People could be blamed for Zionism for speaking Yiddish or going to the synagogue. In 1953, the period of the ‘doctors’ plot’ 22, anti-Semitism grew even stronger. People in clinics refused to be patients of Jewish doctors. There were meetings in organizations where they discussed the article about ‘poisoning’ doctors titled ‘Murderers in white robes’ and wrote exalted letters to Lidia Timoschuk, who had ‘unmasked’ them. However, pupils, their parents and teachers did not change their attitude to Jewish teachers at school. I never faced any anti-Semitic demonstrations, but who knows what it would have led to if it had not been for Stalin’s death. Teachers and pupils were crying at school. I remember the day when the radio announced that Stalin died. I also cried asking myself: ‘How do we go on living without Stalin?’ The time passed and then there was the 20th Congress 23 of the party.  Believed what Khrushchev 24 said about Stalin and his comrade fellows’ crimes at once. Probably this was because the arrests of people in Yaryshev imprinted on my memory, though I did not give it a conscientious thought. I hoped that we have a different life after the 20th Party Congress, and that the USSR would become a real country of justice and equality, but time passed and this hope proved to be false. I clearly realized this, when director of my school invited me to his office and said that he had submitted documents to the Town department of education to award me the title of an ‘Honored teacher of the USSR’. I was very proud of having deserved this high award, but some time later he told me that he had been ordered to suggest another person with a more suitable surname. This was the crash of my illusions. When this director offered me a recommendation to join the party I refused point blank. I said I was a communist in my heart, but I didn’t want to submit an application and then ear that my Jewish surname was not suitable for a Soviet communist. And I never ever took an effort to join the party.

I didn’t have a private life. I was the only breadwinner and provider for my mother and sister Lisa, who could not work due to her deafness. They had so-called social pensions since they hadn’t worked that were miserable. I knew they needed me and I realized that I would hardly find anybody, who would agree to support his wife and two old and ill women in addition. My school and pupils became my life. I taught my pupils from the first till the 4th forms. Starting from the 5th form they had different teachers in all subjects while in primary school I taught all subjects, but physical culture and singing. My schoolchildren were my children. Parents wanted me to teach their children, when admission to my class started. I was very pleased, I must confess. Then my former pupils brought their children and then – grandchildren to my class. It was wonderful, but also sad – a reminder of the flow of time.  

Teachers got low salaries in the former USSR, and I didn’t have any additional earnings. However, we were used to living a modest life and it didn’t cause any disturbances to me. Besides, many people lived like this after the war. Even after working a few years I could not afford to buy a watch and I was modest about my need in clothes. The only thing I allowed myself was buying a new suit or dress before the start of a new academic year. There was a military unit in Mogilov-Podolski and there were many children of the military studying in our school. The military received decent salaries and many of them had brought trophies from Germany. Their wives came to parents’ meetings dressed up and wearing expensive jewelry. I didn’t want to look miserably poor in their eyes, and I had a new suit every year. 

When my mother was with us we celebrated all Jewish holidays. Of course, we did it in secret – if someone got to know about it, I wouldn’t have worked one day as a teacher. On Sabbath my mother lit candles and prayed and we had a festive dinner, but for me it was a tribute of respect of my mother and not a need. I had to go to work on Saturday. My mother and sister tried to do no work on Saturday, but I didn’t feel like following this rule. Before Pesach my mother baked matzah in the gas oven and cooked gefilte fish and chicken broth. She watched it that we didn’t have any bread at home on Pesach. At home and at school we celebrated Soviet holidays: 1 May, Victory Day 25, 7 November, Soviet army Day 26, 8 March – international women’s day and New Year. There were concerts and parties at school on holidays where they invited parents. On Victory Day all school children and teachers went to the bank of the Dnestr River where the first tanks that entered the town, when it was liberated from fascists, was installed on the pedestal. There was a meeting, and the children greeted the war veterans and gave them flowers. On 1 May and 7 November the whole school went to the parade. We also celebrated Lenin’s birthday [April 22]. On this day schoolchildren became pioneers, and they said their pioneer’s vows near the monument. At home we had quiet celebrations. My sister Lubov and her husband Aron visited us. I celebrated my birthday with my colleagues at work. We didn’t have a tradition of celebrating birthdays at home. My mother died in 1968. We buried her in the Jewish cemetery according to the Jewish traditions, as she had requested. My sister or I didn’t celebrate any Jewish holidays after she died. 

I retired in 1975, but I could not lie without my school and I returned to work. I finally retired in 1990.

I felt different about the mass emigration to Israel that started in the early 1970s. I didn’t blame these people, but I honestly did not understand what they were looking or hoping for in another country. Many of my former pupils left. Their relatives sometimes told me about their life and I felt happy for those who did well and was sorry for those who didn’t have things as they expected them to be. As for me, I did not consider emigration. My life was here, here was my school and the graves of my dear ones – my life that I had here.  Besides, I would not have been able to be a teacher in Israel, and this was the most important part of my life. My older sister Lubov’s adoptive children moved to Israel. They have a good life there. They correspond with my sister and occasionally send her money. Of course, I am thinking about them. There is no peace in Israel, but the most scaring thing about it is that it is an undeclared war. When there is a war you know where the rear or the front line is, but it is impossible to escape from terror. And I pray to God, if there is God, to send peace and quiet to this beautiful little country. 

When perestroika 27 started in the USSR, I accepted it fully with all my heart. I liked what Gorbachev 28 said about freedom, honesty, openness of policy – everything that we missed so during the years of the Soviet power. Unfortunately, in the course of time perestroika took a different direction from what we imagined and ended in the break up of the USSR [1991]. However, it had positive sides. The Jewish life began to revive during perestroika. A Jewish community began to work in Mogilov-Podolski, there are Jewish newspapers and magazines.  The community supports older people. This is the first time in my life, when I feel well provided for. I receive a pension and the community helps me. When my sister Lisa died in 1994, the community made all arrangements and payments for the funeral. Lisa was buried near our mother’s grave in the Jewish cemetery in  Mogilov-Podolski. My sister Lubov’s husband Aron Geisel died that same year.  We decided it would be better if she moved in with me. My sister is weak and needs care. The community helps us a lot. They deliver hot meals to us. A visiting nurse takes great care of us. The community celebrates Jewish holidays. I used to attend them, but now it’s become difficult. My friends and former pupils visit me. Many of them live in other towns and countries, they write and call me, but when they visit Mogilov-Podolski they always come to see me. The only disturbing thing is my developing blindness. I have retina deformation and there is no cure of it.  I hope I will die before I grow blind. God forbid living longer than having the sight… Reading has always been so important for me. It’s hard to read now, and I am eager to learn so much! There is so much interesting in life. I don’t understand it, when people ask: ‘Why do you need it?’ And I wonder that people much younger than me ask this sort of question. Don’t they find things interesting? I tried to do things at home so that our visiting nurse gets more time to red us something. I receive the ‘Yevreyskiye Vesti’ [Jewish News] newspaper and like listening to her reading this newspaper for me. They publish many interesting and new things. At times I think – long life is God’s gift or punishment?  I don’t know, but I know one thing for sure. When I was a child, my mother used to say frequently: ‘One can find a bit of happiness even in the serving of routine’. I find my bit every day.

Glossary 

Grigory Gendler
St. Petersburg
Russia
Interviewer: Vera Postavinskaya
Date of interview: August 2006

Grigory Haimovich Gendler is a vivid personality.

He is 86 years old, but remembers well the smallest details of his colorful biography and speaks about himself and about his family with pleasure.

He articulates distinctly, his voice is a clear voice of professional lecturer. It seems that he carefully threads time-ordered details of his narration.

When you listen to him, you realize that it is not simply a story of a person about his life, but a well-edited work of fiction.

Grigory Haimovich lives in a large apartment in one of the new districts of St. Petersburg.

His family is large: he has a daughter, a son-in-law (husband of his daughter), a granddaughter and another son-in-law (husband of his granddaughter).

In the room of Grigory Haimovich there are a lot of shelves with books on economics and a big writing-table at the window.

Grigory Haimovich still works:he supervises research activities of postgraduate students.

Memory of Grigory Gendler keeps a lot of information not only about pre-war time and military operations, but also about present-day realities.

He is a very good company. 

• My family background
• Growing up
• During the War
• After the War and later life
• Glossary

• My family background

I know nothing about my great-grandparents. My paternal grandfather was born in the middle of the 19th century; I do not remember the exact date of his birth. His name was Shaye. I remember him to be rather strong man. Before the revolution of 1917 he lived in Kiev [capital of Ukraine]. My parents lived there, too. There (in Kiev) I was born in 1921. My grandfather owned a wood-store in Kiev and was well-to-do, in contrast to the family of my parents: they were rather poor. In Kiev we lived in the same street. Sometimes my grandfather rendered me assistance: he gave me presents. In the 1920s grandfather decided to leave his wood-store (as time went on, things began to change and he understood it) and managed to master the profession of bookbinder. As far as I remember, he was a success and performed a lot of orders for binding books. In 1927 our family moved from Kiev to Moscow, but when I visited Kiev, I always came to see my grandfather. He loved me very much, and I loved him, too. 

My grandfather had got several sons and daughters. One of his sons was a very handsome young man (a little bit older than me); under the Soviet regime he managed a shop in Kiev. We were good friends. He liked to court ladies (I often watched him doing it). My grandfather reached a great age (he died at the age of 90 in 1970s). I cannot tell much about my paternal grandmother: she died early in life (before the war). I do not remember her name. After her death grandfather married another woman and I remember her face better.

Among the children of my paternal grandfather I remember his daughter Klara, the youngest child. Klara became a widow early in her life. Her daughter Tanya is still alive. When after the end of the war we appeared in Leningrad, we invited her to live with us. She lived in our apartment for 6 years as a student at the Refrigeration College. After graduation, she left for Kiev.

Her first marriage was unhappy: she fell in love with a very handsome man, an athlete, but his mental faculties were much worse than his physical ones. Therefore she parted from him and got married for the second time. Later she left for America together with her mother Klara. It happened about 15 years ago, after the Chernobyl disaster. [The Chernobyl disaster was a major accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986. An explosion at the plant was followed by radioactive contamination of the surrounding geographic area.] I don’t know where they are now. I think Tanya works as an engineer of refrigerating equipment.

My paternal grandfather and my father were religious people, they observed all traditions. In Kiev on the opposite side of the street there was a synagogue. They visited it sometimes. I remember Jews in the synagogue dancing with greenish velvet Torah scrolls and singing. Most probably it was Simchat Torah. I do not remember, but I guess my grandfather prayed. He attended the synagogue. He finished cheder and taught children arithmetic at a Jewish school. In our family we spoke mostly Russian, and sometimes Yiddish. My Yiddish is poor.

I remember appearance of my maternal grandmother and grandfather. They also lived in Kiev. Sorry, I do not remember their names. Probably my maternal grandfather’s name was Hirsh, because my mother's patronymic was Georgievna. My maternal grandfather was an employee: he worked in a large firm engaged in manufacture and sales of leather products; he was a great expert in that sphere. Mom had got 5 sisters, no brothers. After the end of the war (for the most part after Chernobyl disaster) some of her sisters moved to America and Canada. We were close friends with Rachel, mother's younger sister who was married to an interesting person. His surname was Byuk, he was an expert in communication service. Vova Byuk, their son and my cousin was my friend: we were brought up together. At present Vova Byuk lives in Israel.

In Kiev we lived in the stone house; synagogue was situated across the street. I remember a large room on the 2nd or the 3rd floor. My parents took care of me: I was their only child.

My father Haim Shayevich (Efim Issaevich) Gendler was born in 1897 in Ukraine (in Korosten of Kiev province, 200 km from Kiev). He moved to Kiev approximately in 1920, there he worked as a math teacher. Later he became a handicraftman. He had got a knitting machine, and knitted caps. Later he lost his job, and in 1926 parents moved from Kiev to Moscow searching for work.

My Mom Berta Georgievna Smyk was born in 1903 in Korets (in Poland) and in 1920s she moved to Kiev. Mom was afraid to talk about the place where she was born. She was very nervous, because she suffered much. Mom told me that when she was young and not married, she lived on the 2nd floor of a wooden house in Kiev, near a monastery. During the Civil War 1 gangs under the command of Petliura 2 occupied Kiev and arranged pogroms 3. They tried to catch my mother, therefore she was forced to jump down from the 2nd floor, escaping from Petliura’s soldiers. Unfortunately it affected her mind detrimentally.

• Growing up

In Kiev she did not work, at that time I was a baby. Parents observed Tradition partly: they were not deeply religious and did not observe kashrut.

In 1927 our family moved to Moscow. At first we rented a small room in Lossinoostrovsk (suburb of Moscow). I remember that in Lossinoostrovsk our samovar fell down accidentally and burned my leg. Parents took me to a doctor in a sledge.

Later we moved to the center of Moscow. Our room was situated in a cellar. Father worked as an accountant, later he became a bokkeeper, and his last 20 years he worked as a warehouse manager at the Ministry of Chemical Industry. During the war father was in evacuation with his warehouse in Kirovochepetsk (a city in Kirov region). A chemical industrial complex was situated there. Father died in 1961 in Moscow. Mom helped Daddy at his warehouse and worked there as a packer. Later (after the end of the war) she sold newspapers in a kiosk in the center of Moscow. Later we moved to a room on the 3rd floor (12 square meters) near the Kiev railway station. 

At school I had got a friend Tolya Myagkich, later he became an actor. His father was a member of the Moscow CPSU committee. But soon he was expelled from the CPSU, and worked as a roofer.

Mom’s brother Tsale Smyk lived in Vinnitsa (Ukraine). In 1916 Tsale was a CPSU member, worked as an economic manager. He frequently visited us in Moscow, and economics occupied my attention.

In 1937 Tsale was arrested and declared a Polish spy. He was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment with confiscation and exile (it was equivalent to execution). His wife and his son were deported to Kazakhstan. During the war his son perished in the Battle of Stalingrad 4, and his wife Sonya was rehabilitated in 1953.

My parents read much, but never subscribed to newspapers. In Moscow my parents often visited the Jewish theatre of Mikhoels 5. Parents were not CPSU members. Their wedding ceremony was carried out according Tradition.

In 1939 I finished my school. I usually spent summer vacations in Moscow, and sometimes went to pioneer summer camps in suburbs of Moscow. Before the school I did not attend kindergarten.

At school I came across no manifestations of anti-Semitism and till the 8th class did not know my nationality. My parents never spoke about it. I was an excellent pupil; I liked to study very much. Every subject was easy for me: literature, mathematics, etc. I used to take part in different contests for schoolchildren. I remember that one day my teacher of Russian language Antonina Ivanovna said that in her opinion I should become a professor in the future. Our teacher of physics was a very interesting person, he was elegant in dress. I remember that our teacher of biology Bella (I do not remember her patronymic), a Jewess pronounced the word myasso (meat) in a very funny manner. In my early childhood when we got to Moscow, my parents bought a violin for me, but my studies lasted not long: my family could not afford my lessons. I remember that in 1930 (when people suffered from starvation) my parents sold their wedding rings and bought tasty meals in Torgsin store 6.

During my school years I was engaged in amateur art activities, an actor Yemelyanov from the Vakhtangov theatre taught us. We put on the stage “Gypsies” by Pushkin 7. I read the narrator’s text, and my friend Tolya played the role of the old gipsy. I also recited the poem To The Sea by Pushkin, and got a diploma for it.

When I was a pupil of the 8th and 9th form, I studied at a glider school. There I learned to make short climbs, but did not fly. I remember the opening ceremony of the Palace of Pioneers in 1937 or 1938.  N. Khrushchev 8 was present at it (at that time he was a secretary of the Moscow CPSU committee). I was an active pioneer.

I visited Yumashev [Andrey Yumashev was a test pilot, a member of the Gromov’s crew - participant of the flight over the North Pole in 1937] and Krestinsky [Nikolay Krestinsky was a Soviet CPSU and statesman, in 1930-1938 he was a USSR deputy people's commissar of foreign affairs] to invite them to our school. Yumashev did not come, and Krestinsky came and gave us a lecture.

In my childhood I was lucky to see Chkalov 9 and his son in Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. I heard that his son said to him ‘Daddy, look! Here is your portrait’.

At school I was the chairman of the group pioneer organization. Kanina, our school director was an Honored Worker of Education; she was always nice to me. I had got a schoolmate Boris Goldin, who became an outstanding architect later.

After school (in 1939) I entered college without entrance examinations (because my school leaving certificate was full of excellent marks). My parents did not interfere and I chose the Moscow College of Philosophy, History and Literature named after Chernyshevsky (philosophical faculty). I studied 3 months and a half, and was called up for military service. Later my parents helped me to transfer to the correspondence department of the Moscow State University (by the way, during the war the Moscow College of Philosophy, History and Literature was liquidated).

From the recruiting center they took us somewhere by train (in a heated goods van) and made us get off at Shepetovka (a town in Khmelnitsk region of Ukraine) railway station. There I studied at a special training platoon; they prepared me to become an anti-aircraft gunner. There I studied 9 months, and then we were moved to Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankovsk, a city in Ukraine) to the 15th tank division under command of general Feklenko. There they decided to appoint me a political worker, because I was a student of the College of Philosophy. So I started writing articles for the division newspaper The Soviet Patriot. I wrote much, and they invited me to become an instructor. I lived in barracks. Arkady Raskov, the former correspondent of Pravda newspaper and Yastreb, an assistant of Katukov worked together with me. Later I remained alone, visited different military units and described soldier’s life. Twice they let me go to Moscow to pass through the next in turn examinations at my college.

At the Moscow College of Philosophy, History and Literature named after Chernyshevsky there were well-known teachers, outstanding representatives of philosophical science, higher mathematics, physics, and biology. Among them there were professor Avdeev and academician Zavadsky. I often attended meetings of poetry fans at the Polytechnical Museum. I was present at performances of Sergey Mikhalkov and Nikolay Osseev (they were well-known Soviet poets), listened to public debate on Mayakovsky’s poetry.

I remember that in 1941 I came to Moscow to pass through exams. I took a taxi and I remember that the taxi driver did not switch on the taximeter. After the trip he demanded more money than it was necessary.

At that time I spent 2 days at home: 2 first days of the war. Together with other people I listened to Molotov’s speech 10 on the radio.

• During the War

Having learned about the beginning of the war, I hastened to the Kiev railway station. When I arrived to Kiev, I met there my cousin Sasha Feldbeim (later he became an outstanding architect) in the break between my trains. We had a talk with Sasha, and I left for Ivano-Frankovsk [Ivano-Frankivsk at present, a city in south-western Ukraine]. There at my editorial office I got to know that everybody left for Chernovtsy (a city in Ukraine). In Chernovtsy I got up to the 15th tank division and my office. Fascists bombed the division and gradually encircled it. We were divided into 2 parts: tanks fought their way towards Kiev, and trucks under command of colonel Ryabov moved through woods towards railway station Peryatin, where we joined the rest of tank battalions.

It was in July 1941 when we got aboard the train and moved to the East for re-formation. We stopped near Stalingrad. Commission from the General Staff arrived there and selected 2 tank brigades. I got into the 4th Tank Brigade. Later it became known as the 1st Guards Tank Brigade. As the newspaper had been liquidated by that time, I asked for permission to serve in the anti-aircraft division, but Ivan Derevyankin, the chief of our political department suggested me to edit a local tabloid (for the 4th Tank Brigade). So I was sent to Stalingrad to take equipment for printing. I managed to bring not only the equipment, but also several water-melons from a melon plantation. 

In September 1941 Colonel Katukov became the commander of the 4th Tank Brigade. He was a skilled officer, later he became a Tank Marshal. Our Brigade moved to the western front by train (towards Moscow). Our tanks were detrained at Kubinka railway station. At that time high-powered tank armada of fascists under the command of well-known general Heinz Guderian moved towards Tula [a city to the south of Moscow]. That armada contained 2 mechanized and 1 tank division, a lot of artillery, mortars, infantry, etc. Our Brigade had to stop that tank group of enemies on their way to Tula and Moscow. Therefore immediately from Kubinka advanced divisions of our brigade were brought into action near Orel [a city to the south of Tula], which was occupied by German divisions on October 1, 1941. Near Orel they gave a great battle. In that battle our brigade followed interesting tactical scheme: tanks took their places along the front line, blocking the way of German tanks. Our tanks waited in ambushes together with motorized infantry. Tanks were positioned 100-150 meters apart within the range of vision and hearing. Germans tried to cut their way through in different directions, but they met our tanks everywhere.

Germans had several times more tanks: they brought a tank army against 1 tank brigade (we had got only 70 tanks and 1,000 soldiers). During the fights near Orel I had to collect information about feats of arms of tankmen, infantrymen and other soldiers of our brigade, so that they could exchange fighting experience and morally support each other. I had to do it on the firing line: I crept from one tank ambush to another, talked to tankmen, and watched the battle episodes near Orel. Having collected necessary information for the newspaper, I came back to our place and together with my comrades Roskov, Yastreb and Shumilov we used to run off several hundreds copies on a mimeograph. After that I took that pile of copies and went back to the firing line to distribute them among soldiers.

It happened in the beginning of October 1941. We took part in defensive actions near Orel and Mzensk [a town near Orel], getting over from one firing line to another, and blunting attacks of superior forces of Germans. In our tabloid we described Ivan Lyubushkin's feat in details. He became the first hero of the USSR in our Brigade. Ivan blew up 9 tanks. Later central newspapers wrote about it, and the whole country got to know about his feat. Of course our moving to tank ambushes and back was noticed by Germans. But during those actions we (reporters) did not have to shoot, because our tankmen operated skillfully and handled enemies roughly. About 2 weeks our Brigade blunted the attack of the tank army and provided conditions for approach of additional forces.

So we successfully accomplished a difficult task, our losses were not heavy. Unexpectedly for us, we received the order signed by comrade Stalin, the National Commissioner of Defense, about renaming of our 4th Tank Brigade. We were named the 1st Guards Tank Brigade. Colonel Katukov, our commander was given the rank of major-general of tank armies. Actions near Orel (Russian territory from time immemorial) inspired soldiers of our brigade.

After the actions near Orel and Mzensk I addressed the command with a request to transfer me to a fighting unit: I was tired of describing feats of my comrades and wanted to take part in fights myself. By that time there appeared a vacant place of a Komsomol 11 leader of antiaircraft battalion. My drill was connected with antiaircraft artillery, therefore I became an officer. Before that I was in the rank of sergeant-major. I understood that it was a great danger for a Jew to be a political worker in the army, therefore for me it served as an additional stimulus never to yield myself prisoner. We knew that among captured soldiers Germans chose and shot commissars and Jews first of all.

Commander of the battalion captain Afanassenko met me suspiciously. In order to try my abilities he sent me together with Korsakov, a senior sergeant on the scout. Our task was to reconnoiter the firing line, to plot firing points of enemies and give a report. We both crossed the front line and got deeper towards the Germans. Between 2 firing lines we found small deserted villages. Passing an izba [a traditional Russian log house], we heard a girl cry. We got in and saw a wounded girl lying there. Her leg was bleeding. We took her with us, carrying her on our shoulders.

When we were coming back, we got under blanketing fire of our Katyushas. [Katyusha was an informal name of the Soviet rocket launchers which played very important role during military operations in 1941-1945.] We waited through bombardment in entrenchments, and then got back to the brigade. We carried the girl to our medical and sanitary battalion and gave a report on our results. After that raid, Afanassenko changed his attitude to me and the battalion commander immediately included me into the merit list (to give me the first officer rank of lieutenant).

The battalion fought defensive actions: Germans tried to cut their way through to Moscow from Volokolamsk. On their way there were infantry and tank units, including our brigade. Near to our position there stood on the defensive a division of General Panfilov (that was the time when 28 guardsmen of that division accomplished their well-known feat) [On November 11, 1941 28 General Panfilov’s guardsmen went into action near Volokolamsk defending Moscow. During 4 hours they knocked out 18 German tanks. Most of them were killed in that action, but they managed to stand the enemy off.] The mounted detachment of general Dovator was also near to our brigade.

I especially remembered our fight in October 1941. Germans tried to burst through and came across the battery of our antiaircraft battalion. We took part in repulsing of tank attacks. We used tracer shells which made great impression on Germans (terribly frightened them), especially at night. Germans suspected us to have invented some new variant of Katyusha. One of our batteries we even had to bring the anti-tank grenades into play, because Germans came too near.

Germans managed to push aside our units in Volokolamsk direction and approached Moscow. We stopped in Kriukovo settlement near Moscow (32 km from Moscow). There we stood several days. It was a lull in the fighting and I was sent to Moscow to Lenin's museum, because I was asked to bring the facts about feats of arms of tankmen. At the Lenin's museum I met the former rector of my college where I studied before the war. Her surname was Karpova; she was an old Bolshevik 12. By that time our College was affiliated to the Moscow State University and she became a director of the Lenin’s museum. She gave me a warm welcome.

Naturally I found a minute and came to the house of my parents in Dragomilovskaya Street. I entered the four-storied stone house, went up the stairs to the 3rd floor, but unfortunately nobody opened the door: the apartment was empty. On the stairs I met a neighbor, who told me that my parents had been evacuated somewhere to the Urals region. So I bowed low to the house and went back to my brigade. Later in autumn of 1941, I got to know that my parents were evacuated to Kirovochepetsk, where father worked at the chemical industrial complex. He also was sent to do tree cutting. There in Kirovochepetsk they received my first postcard and got to know that I was in the brigade of Katukov. It was possible for them to keep their eye on my moving in Europe according to information from newspapers. Since that time we kept in touch with my parents by correspondence. I still keep some letters from them.

In the beginning of December the Western front under the command of Zhukov 13 (including our brigade) began counterattack. We liberated Istra and moved towards Volokolamsk. On December 19, 1941 our brigade entered Volokolamsk by force, having made good execution to Germans. After the recapture of Volokolamsk we spent a quiet night in the basement of the local school. There we found a gramophone record with Klavdiya Shulzhenko's song Zapiska (Note). We listened to it times without number.

In the central square of the city we found 8 local Komsomol members hanged by fascists. Two years later during the Kursk campaign there happened the following episode: actors arrived, and among them there was Klavdiya Shulzhenko [a popular Soviet singer]. It was a great concert for the whole tank army. During the concert I sent to Klavdiya Shulzhenko a note with the request to sing a song Note. I also described in short that unforgettable night when we listened to her song in Volokolamsk. Unfortunately my note did not reach Shulzhenko or possibly she had different plans. So till now I consider her to be a debtor to me! After the end of the war being present at concerts of wartime songs, I always asked to sing a song Note. At one concert they asked me about the reason and I told them about that night episode with the gramophone record in Volokolamsk.

The territory we liberated (Istra, the Novoierusalimsky monastery - places near Moscow) looked very sad: a great number of dead German soldiers, broken German cars, ashes, big fires, smell of putrefaction, people wandering around, exhausted women meeting us in liberated settlements and cities. Our brigade was the first to rush into Volokolamsk. We saw terrible scenes of our infantrymen tearing off fingers of dead German soldiers together with their rings. It was very unpleasant, but it took place really. Near Volokolamsk I saw dead German soldiers bolted up in blocks as logs: terrible sight.

We left Volokolamsk and during 2 months tried to break further, to overcome the Volokolamsk firing line. But there were several hills we could not force. Infantrymen attacked in the very old manner and we had a task only to support them (we had no self-dependent tasks). Therefore both infantrymen and our brigade suffered heavy losses during those frontal attacks. Till now I remember Gudina hill covered with dead infantrymen (not only ours, but also marines from Siberia).

After the end of the war veterans-marines recollected at the meetings that they were about 500, and only a few dozens survived. You see, in the beginning of the war we lost enormous number of soldiers because of lack of skill: we did not know how to fight.

After all, in March 1942 we managed to step forward. I also remember that in March there happened another joyful event: trucks equipped with shower-baths appeared in our brigade and we managed at last to take a bath, because we were full of lice (it was terrible!). During the first 6 months of war all of us had lice. We tried to make fun of it, but that was no help. That shower was a real help. It was served by special sanitary detachment, which moved from one military unit to another.

Since that time we moved to the West, dislodging enemies. Our full-scale offensive was slowed down after defeat of Germans near Moscow. Many Germans were taken prisoners. At last in April our brigade was taken out from the front line for re-forming to Zheltikovo village near Kalinin (now Tver). There we had a rest, received new tanks and fresh forces, prepared for new actions. We spent there about a month and a half. Germans reached us by air raids there, too.

In the summer of 1942 we were moved to the Bryansk front. At that time German armies assumed the offensive: broke our line through near Rostov and moved towards Stalingrad. In order to draw Germans from Stalingrad, our brigade (together with others) was sent to strengthen the Bryansk front. There we immediately went into action near Voronezh. Fights were very tough. On our way there near Livny about 100 German bombers attacked and bombed us, they even dived down on our positions. It was terrible, but I had got a flasket with diluted alcohol with me for distressing.

Ivan Shelushkin, the first hero of the Soviet Union perished during those actions (he destroyed 8 German tanks near Orel). At that time I was appointed a Komsomol assistant to the chief political department. It meant for me the following military rank: a captain. I was a captain up to the end of the war, except the last months when I was appointed an instructor of the political department.

Step by step I got used to tanks: I mastered driving tanks, firing a gun and tank machine gun. Step by step I became an anti-aircraft tankman.

I remember the following episode. In 1942 near Voronezh I walked from one place to another and a Messerschmitt aircraft noticed me and chose to be his target for some reason. It went down periodically and fired at me from its machine gun. I tried to dash right and left to avoid its fire. It repeated attempts several times, but fortunately I managed to reach a ravine safe. I remember that very well, because it was June 30 - my birthday. As a matter of fact that day I felt a new man.

At the end of 1942 we got to Kalininsky front. We participated in actions near Rzhev. We had a task to break through towards Leningrad front and participate in break of blockade of Leningrad. But unfortunately we did not manage, because tanks sank in the very deep snow of that region. We had to dig into the snow to sleep. Sometimes we slept in trucks, where it was warmer. Sometimes we spent nights in dugouts equipped with stoves. We did not manage to meet soldiers of the Leningrad front. We were very close (near the Ilmen Lake), but had to turn back. 

At that time headquarters formed large tank units, and basing upon our brigade they created the 8th mechanized corps under the command of Katukov, our brigade commander. Later it was transformed into the 1st Guards Tank Army. The army was moved to Kursk region (near Belgorod). It happened in summer of 1943. First of all near Kursk we mastered new technical equipment (new advanced tanks with longer guns). We lived in villages nearby.

At that time reporters from Moscow arrived to our brigade. Among them there were 2 photographers and a well-known sportscaster and reporter Vadim Sinyavsky. During the war he often came to front lines (for instance he was in Sevastopol during its defense, where he was wounded). I was ordered to assist Vadim Sinyavsky in searching for participants of actions near Moscow and recording stories of tankmen about their fights. He recorded the story of Katukov about actions near Orel. Sinyavsky brought special equipment for recording; he had got everything necessary for that work. He wanted to record stories of tankmen accompanied by singing of famous Kursk nightingales. I found a small shady grove, where I supposed nightingales would sing at night and at dawn. So we went there early in the morning and managed to hear and record energetic singing of nightingales.

I was asked to read the soldier’s oath. Our tankmen lined up repeated the words and Sinyavsky recorded it. Later I asked him to record my message to my parents, but unfortunately they did not receive it for unknown reason. And another message I sent to Moscow to my schoolmate Olga Pashuk (she is still alive). She received the record, but later lost it. Many years later I got a letter from my brother-soldier Guryev, where he informed me that he knew about 75 extant sound recordings with my voice reading the Guards oath. Those records were stored in a Moscow archive. The archive workers got in touch with me and I told them about that episode of my biography in details.

In the beginning of July 1943 Germans passed to the offensive near Belgorod. The peak of approach of Germans was on July 3 and 4, 1943. At that time Orel was in hands of Germans, and we were to the north of it. Germans were going to smash our armies near Kursk and make another attempt to occupy Moscow. For that purpose Germans moved several armies from the Western front to Kursk region. Our tanks occupied positions in tank ambushes according to our favorite tactics. Of course soldiers were different (during 2 years of actions the brigade suffered heavy losses), but our people were perfect, they were chosen. It was me who told new soldiers about our actions, traditions, about heroes of our Brigade. I also told them about weak spots of new German tanks Tigers and Ferdinands. You see, I was a Komsomol leader!

On July 5 or 6 we went into action. I was at the observation post of the brigade commander Gorelov, a Hero of the Soviet Union. Together with him and his tank crew I fought near Kursk. After the battle of Kursk 14 he put me forward for a decoration. Unfortunately, he was killed because of an accidental discharge: a drunken ratfink from infantry fired a shot. Our observation post served as a communication center. Our tanks were 300-400 meters away from it. The post was camouflaged with rye ears. 

The soldiers, who already participated in the Battle of Stalingrad, said that the Battle of Kursk was much more stern. We fought day and night. At night German bombers dropped parachute flares highlighting battlefield: battle did not stop. It lasted 3 days and 3 nights. Then we fell back several kilometers and occupied new positions. 2 weeks we fought losing our tanks and destroying German ones. When our tanks became few in number, the brigade was moved away for reforming.

Later there happened the famous tank battle of Prokhorovka where 800 German and Soviet tanks met in an end-on collision. We did not participate in it, because we were down to our last tanks. By the way, several years ago Prokhorovka collective-farm field was bought by Elena Baturina, the wife of the Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov. Probably she decided to exploit iron ore or to be engaged in agribusiness. I got to know about it from newspapers.

Our brigade was often visited by well-known journalists, photographers, and actors. For example, we met Yury Zhukov [a Soviet journalist from the Pravda newspaper] and Levitan [a famous radio announcer and the only newsreader in 1941-1945].

After the crushing defeat of Germans near Kursk we went forward and participated in liberating of several cities and villages of the Kharkov, Belgorod, and Sumy regions. We crossed the border of Ukraine in July 1943 during the full-scale offensive. I moved together with Gorelov's observation post on our tanks. One day in the morning we rushed into Lutovka village. German garrison soldiers ran every which way and left a German airplane.

We moved to the West, crossed the Dnieper River. By that time the Dnieper had been already recaptured. In November Kiev was liberated, but without us: we were moved to Vinnitsa and Zhitomir regions. There fights were not so stern, but nevertheless Germans stood up. By the end of 1943 we passed by Korosten, a town where my father was born.

In Kazatin we found a German warehouse full of chocolate. I liked chocolate very much, and there I saw lots and lots of chocolate bars. So I filled my suitcase with it and put it in the tank. Till now my relatives played a joke on me saying that my diabetes came from Kazatin.

Later we moved towards Ternopol and then to the South (to the Dniester River). In spring of 1944 we participated in forced crossing of the Dniester. Our tanks waded the river. Then we liberated Chertkov town, and our Brigade was named after it.

Some days we spent in Chertkov, fighting not only with Germans, but also with Hungarians. We forced them back to foothills of Carpathian Mountains. We participated in liberation of many cities: Nadvirno, Ivano-Frankovsk, the most beautiful small town Kolomya on the Dniester River. It was in April 1944. Approximately in May we crossed the border of the Soviet Union.

Later we took part in liberation of Lvov. Then we moved towards Poland and recaptured Sandomirsky jumping-off place. In the beginning of 1945 Soviet armies started its full-scale offensive in Poland. We had a task to occupy vodka distilleries and warehouses so that infantrymen could not get drunk. Infantrymen were inclined to get drunk.

We found Poland to be not as ruinous as Istra. Later we moved towards Warsaw (from the South). There we crossed the Vistula River.

One day I was walking together with a group of transport trucks, motor-infantry and artillery. Suddenly several armored troop-carriers rushed out from the forest and fired at our column. Immediately we turned our guns and fired back. Germans jumped off the troop-carriers, we caught them and took prisoners. It turned out that there I was the superior officer (a captain) and they brought prisoners to me. One of them was from SS troops. I got to know about it from his documents. I took his documents, medals and photos. He took those photos in Krasnogvardeysk (now Gatchina near St. Petersburg). 

Later we approached the Oder River near Frankfurt-on-Oder. We crossed the border of Germany, moved to Berlin, and then came to the Baltic Sea near Rostok. Later we joined the Rokossovsky front near Gdynia (Gdansk, or Danzig). After that we turned back to Oder and approached Berlin.

Boyko and Boyarsky were my commanders. Our Brigade operated in reserve of the army. The most serious fights fell to the share of the 1st Guards Tank Brigade under the command of Abram Temnik, the Hero of the Soviet Union, a Jew by nationality. On our way to Berlin there were a lot of field fortification, but by the end of April we managed to cross the Spree River and appeared in the streets of the city.Every brigade got its own direction towards the center of Berlin.

Infantrymen moved first and cleared neighboring buildings. After that tanks moved forward. On the 2nd of May actions in Berlin were finished, Germans capitulated. We ran to Reichstag: took photographs and left inscriptions on its walls. We watched the destroyed Berlin. I was encharged with a task to read the text of victorious communiqué: I read it standing on the truck. Later we moved to Dresden region and formed a part of occupational armies.  

During the capture of Berlin Abram Temnik was killed by a shell splinter.  We walked much around Berlin, one night I spent in the American Commandant's office. It happened because I wasted time visiting markets where Americans sold their watches. Americans differed much from our soldiers in appearance: they all were tall and well-nourished.

• After the War and later life

I started peaceful life, though in the army. We studied military equipment and communicated with Germans. Staff of the Katukov’s army was situated in Dresden. I served in Germany till November 1945. And then there came an order to send soldiers for studies at the Leningrad Military Pedagogical College named after Kalinin.

Here an episode came to my mind. After liberation of Chertkov we also received a similar order and the chief of our political department offered to send me, because I wanted to study and was at war from the very beginning. I went to the front staff to collect documents, but the political department asked me to wait for their decision. 20 minutes later they informed me that they did not permit me to leave for studies and ordered to get back to my military unit. I did not ask about the reason, because I had nothing against military career. Later I got to know that there was an order not to permit Jews - political workers to leave front lines. I guess it was a manifestation of anti-Semitism.

So I got a permission to study in Leningrad only in November 1945. It was possible to choose a faculty. When I arrived in Leningrad, they took into consideration my pre-war study at the Moscow College of Philosophy, History and Literature named after Chernyshevsky. Therefore I became a student of the 2nd course (economic faculty) without entrance exams. That college prepared teachers of social sciences, philosophy, political economy, etc for military academies. By the way, at the end of the 1950s that college was liquidated. Major-general Afanassyev was the college chief. He was present at my interview and liked my answers. It was him who made the decision to invite me to the 2nd course, but at that moment the personnel manager asked me about my subjected to repression uncle. I flew into a passion, and Afanassyev said ‘Stop bothering the front-line soldier!’ So I became a student and graduated with honors in 1949. At the College I was promoted to the rank of major. In 1947 (being a student) I got married. 

My friend Vigdorchik Boris (he also arrived from Germany) acquainted me with my future wife. He married a beautiful girl Mipha and introduced me to her friend. It happened at the dancing session (at the Marble Hall of the Palace of Culture named after Kirov). I started courting her. Her name was Rebecca Mironovna Slavina. She was born in 1925. She studied at the Pediatric College. Later I was introduced to her parents and they agreed to our marrying. By that time my parents returned from evacuation and agreed, too. I visited them in Moscow several times before marriage.

Having arrived from Germany, I visited my parents first of all. Before my departure from Germany I visited them in June of 1945: I got a leave for the victory in shooting (TT pistol) competition. Parents lived in the same room, wherefrom I was called up for military service (near the hotel UKRAINE).    

My son Semen was born in 1950. He entered the College of Mines (evening faculty of thermophysics). At the same time he worked as a selector of stones. He studied perfectly and was transferred to the day time faculty. He graduated and passed through the kandidat nauk 15 exams (under my pressure). But he refused to enter the postgraduate course: he learned his lesson during the entrance examinations, when they did not permit him to become a day time student. I guess it happened because of his nationality.

In 1949 I graduated from the College and was assigned to Pushkin (to Radio-locating School), where I taught political economy for five years. Then I was transferred to the Leningrad advanced training courses for political workers of tank armies. There I taught political economy and other subjects for about ten years. Then the courses were liquidated. I decided to defend my kandidat nauk dissertation. I did it at my former Military Pedagogical College in 1956. My topic was Forms of Wages in the Industry of the USSR. When I tried to become a postgraduate student (in 1949), I was explained that people of my nationality could not become postgraduate students.

My former co-worker became a faculty head at the Military Academy named after Mozhaysky. He invited me to teach political economy at his Academy. For that purpose it was necessary to be demobilized urgently. I managed. At that time I was 35 years old. They gave me a small retiring pension (my time-in-service was 23 years, including years of war counted 1 for 3). So I came to the Academy as a civilian person. And later (as you know) I defended my kandidat nauk dissertation in 1956.

At the Academy I worked 17 years, everybody was nice to me. There I became an assistant professor, then full professor (I got a doctor's degree). Lieutenant-general Vassilyev, the Academy chief did not hate Jews. He used to send me on business trips to different secret establishments, entrusted me with secret research topics. I wrote books and articles. When I brought my doctor’s certificate to Vassilyev, he suggested me to move to a new apartment (from our communal one 16). That was the 1st separate apartment in our life (it happened in 1980). Later (when my children grew up and got their own families) I aimed at buying a large cooperative apartment.

I managed and we moved to that new apartment together with my wife and the family of my daughter.

In 1975 I started working at the Financial and Economic College. I worked both at the Academy and at the College. It was hard and could not last long. I decided to leave the Academy. So by now I have been working at the Financial and Economic College more than 30 years. I am a professor of the faculty of Personnel Management. My daughter works at the faculty of Sociology and Personnel Management. My granddaughter refused to become a college teacher and works at a bank.

I am a member of the Jewish Organization of War Veterans, headed by Zhuravin. There are about 3,000 members. Several times I was elected their council member. Several years ago I was entrusted to head the scientific conference devoted to the 60th anniversary of the Victory in WWII. We invited foreign guests from Jewish organizations from Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, and France. At that conference I was a key speaker and gave a report on the role of Jews in the Great Patriotic War. My report was a great success, theses were published in Israel. Zhuravin has got the text of my report.

Unfortunately my sight is failing gradually, therefore I visit that Jewish organization rarely. But I consider its activities to be very useful. To tell the truth, religious events are alien to me, because I was brought up in the atheistic environment.

At the end of 1980s my life changed, because I became older and my health became worse. Perestroika did not affect my life.

My daughter married a Jew, and my son’s wife is Russian. His wife did not change her Russian surname and my granddaughter’s nationality is registered Russian. My granddaughter is a gynecologist; she works in a maternity hospital.

I guess if I were not Jewish, my position would have been much higher: I could become a faculty head. My Jewish origin disfigured my career. My father died in 1961, and Mom died 20 years ago. Father is buried in Moscow on the Jewish cemetery. And mother is buried on the Jewish cemetery here in St. Petersburg.

In 2004 according to the decree of the President I was awarded the honorary title of the Honored Worker of the Higher School of Russian Federation. I was also awarded an Israeli medal (as a WWII participant). But I’ve never been to Israel.

• Glossary:

1 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.

2 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.

3 Pogroms in Ukraine: In the 1920s there were many anti-Semitic gangs in Ukraine. They killed Jews and burnt their houses, they robbed their houses, raped women and killed children.

4 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.

5 Mikhoels, Solomon (1890-1948) (born Vovsi): Great Soviet actor, producer and pedagogue. He worked in the Moscow State Jewish Theater (and was its art director from 1929). He directed philosophical, vivid and monumental works. Mikhoels was murdered by order of the State Security Ministry

6 Torgsin stores: Special retail stores, which were established in larger Russian cities in the 1920s with the purpose of selling goods to foreigners. Torgsins sold commodities that were in short supply for hard currency or exchanged them for gold and jewelry, accepting old coins as well. The real aim of this economic experiment that lasted for two years was to swindle out all gold and valuables from the population for the industrial development of the country.

7 Pushkin, Alexandr (1799-1837): Russian poet and prose writer, among the foremost figures in Russian literature. Pushkin established the modern poetic language of Russia, using Russian history for the basis of many of his works. His masterpiece is Eugene Onegin, a novel in verse about mutually rejected love. The work also contains witty and perceptive descriptions of Russian society of the period. Pushkin died in a duel.

8 Khrushchev, Nikita (1894-1971): Soviet communist leader. After Stalin’s death in 1953, he became first secretary of the Central Committee, in effect the head of the Communist Party of the USSR. In 1956, during the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev took an unprecedented step and denounced Stalin and his methods. He was deposed as premier and party head in October 1964. In 1966 he was dropped from the Party's Central Committee.

9 Chkalov, Valery (1904-1938): Russian test pilot, and hero of the Soviet Union. He developed several advanced aerobatic moves. In 1936-37 he conducted continuous, no-land flights between Moscow and Udd island (the Far East) and Moscow – North Pole – Vancouver (US). His plane crashed during a test flight.

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

11 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.

12 Bolsheviks: Members of the movement led by Lenin. The name ‘Bolshevik’ was coined in 1903 and denoted the group that emerged in elections to the key bodies in the Social Democratic Party (SDPRR) considering itself in the majority (Rus. bolshynstvo) within the party. It dubbed its opponents the minority (Rus. menshynstvo, the Mensheviks). Until 1906 the two groups formed one party. The Bolsheviks first gained popularity and support in society during the 1905-07 Revolution. During the February Revolution in 1917 the Bolsheviks were initially in the opposition to the Menshevik and SR (‘Sotsialrevolyutsionyery’, Socialist Revolutionaries) delegates who controlled the Soviets (councils). When Lenin returned from emigration (16 April) they proclaimed his program of action (the April theses) and under the slogan ‘All power to the Soviets’ began to Bolshevize the Soviets and prepare for a proletariat revolution. Agitation proceeded on a vast scale, especially in the army. The Bolsheviks set about creating their own armed forces, the Red Guard. Having overthrown the Provisional Government, they created a government with the support of the II Congress of Soviets (the October Revolution), to which they admitted some left-wing SRs in order to gain the support of the peasantry. In 1952 the Bolshevik party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

13 Zhukov, Georgy (1896-1974): Soviet Commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Soviet Union. Georgy Zhukov was the most important Soviet military commander during World War II.

14 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.

15 Soviet/Russian doctorate degrees: Graduate school in the Soviet Union (aspirantura, or ordinatura for medical students), which usually took about 3 years and resulted in a dissertation. Students who passed were awarded a 'kandidat nauk' (lit. candidate of sciences) degree. If a person wanted to proceed with his or her research, the next step would be to apply for a doctorate degree (doktarontura). To be awarded a doctorate degree, the person had to be involved in the academia, publish consistently, and write an original dissertation. In the end he/she would be awarded a 'doctor nauk' (lit. doctor of sciences) degree.

16 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 communal or shared apartments continued to exist for decades. Despite state programs for the construction of more houses and the liquidation of communal apartments, which began in the 1960s, shared apartments still exist today.

Boris Girshov
St. Petersburg
Russia
Interviewer: Vera Postavinskaya
Date of interview: August 2006

Boris Davidovich Girshov is a very sociable and charming person. He is 84 years old, but despite of his age he leads an active life. He is a man of astonishing memory and humor.

He lives in the center of St. Petersburg in the cosy three-room apartment together with Tamara Abramovna, his wife and Eduard, his son.

They are very pleasant and hospitable family. Recently they celebrated the 60th anniversary of their wedding. It is a pleasure to watch them: so attentive and touching they are to each other.

Boris Davidovich remembers both pre-war Jewish shtetl life and his studies at the Naval Medical Academy, hard times of war and Stalin’s regime, Soviet reality and the period of Perestroika.
Boris Davidovich is a member of St. Petersburg religious community.

He lives not far from the Great Choral synagogue and visits it 3 or 4 times a week (usually in the morning). Usually it takes him about 30-40 minutes to reach the synagogue. Boris Davidovich shares with us details of his biography with pleasure.

• My family background
• Growing up
• During the War
• After the War
• Marriage, children and recent years
• Glossary

• My family background

I was born on August 24, 1922 in Usvyaty shtetl of Smolensk region in the family of David Yosefovich Girshov and his wife Rokhl-Leye. Usvyaty shtetl is situated near the borderline of Belarus (near Nevel, Velizh, Vitebsk, and Velikie Luki). At present this place is a part of Pskov region [Pskov is situated 300 km far from Petersburg]. Around Usvyaty there are a lot of lakes, small rivers, and grey boulders. The lakes are so to say interspersed among big woods and pineries. There are various fish in the lakes, and a lot of mushrooms, berries, hazelnuts, and small animals in the woods.

I know about my ancestors not so much, but some information I can share with you. My paternal great-grandfather's name was Meyer Girshov. I charted our family tree, where my great-grandfather Meyer is the eldest. I know many maternal relatives, but not very distant.

All my relatives came from Usvyaty shtetl. As Usvyaty is located between the rivers Dneper, Zapadnaya Dvina and Lovat connecting it with Riga, people there used to be engaged in rafting since old times. My uncle Ieronim (my father’s brother) told me that my ancestors were engaged in rafting, too. In Usvyaty they used to form a team, collect wood, raft it and go down the river to Riga.

I remember my grandmother Rosa, my father's mother. She was born in 1868, and died in 1934. I watched her flying around the house: she was only a housewife. My grandfather Yosef Meyerovich died before I was born. My grandmother lived at her sons in Petersburg, and usually came to us in Usvyaty to spend summer time.

My maternal grandmother’s name was Hana. She was born in 1880 and died in 1936. She lived in Usvyaty together with my grandfather Hachi, who was born in 1870 and died in 1930. Their family name was Brook. I am not sure that I know about my grandfather’s occupation, to my opinion he was one of that shoppy people. Their family was rather large: aunt Mira, uncle Lev, Nekhama and Bekke. My Mum was the elder child.

My grandmother Hana was very religious. Many times I saw her in the synagogue. She knew how to pray and prayed with all her heart. She could write in Yiddish. Once on Yom Kipur she was praying and crying. I remember it very well (I was a boy). I asked her ‘Grandmother, why are you crying? Why are you crying?’ She answered ‘You know, I am praying and asking God about this and that…’, and she briefly told me about what she was praying for. She always observed all the rules, including kashrut. My mother was not absolutely strict: she did not eat dairy and meat together, but she was able to buy meat of the animal which had been killed not by shochet. But to tell the truth, we always brought hens to a shochet (it was my duty to catch them in the henhouse and bring to shochet). We ate chicken only on Saturday; it was celebratory dish (you can guess about financial position of my parents) only for Sabbath. Parents always arranged Seder for Pesach. I always said Fir Kasches (words of the elder son). I used to ask my father all traditional ritual questions necessary for Pesach Seder. So we arranged everything in our family, though we were not too prayerful.

And my grandmother always observed traditions strictly. She told me about the history of the Jewish people.

My paternal grandmother was not religious. She lived with her children, and they were secular people (like my father). They lived in Petersburg, where Jews were not very religious. I even do not know if my grandmother visited synagogue.

My father David Yosefovich Girshov was born in 1888 in Usvyaty. He was 13 years older than Mum. He was a decent, strict, and hardworking person, not very religious, though my parents tried to observe Jewish traditions at home, especially on holidays. When a young man, Daddy was physically strong. His comrade Petr Vladimirovich Belkin (uncle Pinya) whom I met in Petersburg, told me that Daddy showed his strength not only in fights against his coevals, but also lifting in his teeth a table with boiling samovar, bending horseshoes, etc. Every young man in Usvyaty both Russian and Jewish knew him very well as a local Hercules.

My father participated in the World War I. He was wounded in the leg. We had a photo showing him and a few injured people sitting together and expressively pointing fingers at his wounded leg.

His character was quick-tempered and impulsive. That was the reason of his frequent quarrels with Mum. He used to punish me for my faults with a belt or lash. It was very painful and I keep it in mind all my life. Mum tried to protect me from it.

During the period of NEP 1 my parents were owners of a little store and sold small items. After abolition of NEP, Daddy worked in the regional consumers union. [The regional consumers union was a special structure for purchasing agricultural products from peasants.] At first he worked as a storekeeper, and later he was engaged in acceptance of grain which peasants handed over to the Government according to Food Tax. [In the Soviet Union Food Tax was raised from peasants in 1921-1923.]

Father was uneducated, therefore I had to help him in drawing up reports, making calculations, etc.

Father was an indisputable authority for me. First of all he wanted me to become a great guy. In conditions of our town he taught me everything, including riding a horse. He spurred me to go in for sports: I became a first-grade gymnast. Father didn't pinch pennies on my studies the violin: I took lessons at professional teacher. Father showed me to professional musicians who came to our small town for vacation. Daddy loved classical music very much, he played the violin himself, and was happy that I learned to play the violin, too. My brother Arkady also had musical abilities and father was very pleased to know that Arkady (when a little boy) got a prize at the amateur art contest.

Father sent me to the Jewish school. In addition to it I studied at cheder to acquire knowledge of Judaism, to be able to pray. Father was a real Jew and tried to accustom me to Jewish Tradition. He always observed Tradition at home. Daddy dreamed that my brother would become a violinist, and his dream came true. Jewish melodies always moved him to tears. I remember him to be very pleased when I learnt to play some Jewish melodies. Father used to invite his friends, send for me (I was always playing football somewhere in the street) and ask me to play melodies chosen by him.

Parents arranged bar mitzvah for me, but not for my brother: he was too little for the ceremony when parents left Usvyaty for evacuation.

Daddy died in 1943 in Kuibyshev [now Samara] of tuberculosis where he took his family for evacuation in the beginning of the war. As soon as the war burst out, father brought his family to the railway station and got aboard the train to Kuibyshev. He saved us, because soon Usvyaty was occupied by Germans and all local Jews were killed.

My mum Raissa Isaacovna Girshova (Rohl-Leye Brook) was born in 1900 in Usvyaty, too. Mum was a beautiful woman. Before her marriage she lived in Vitebsk together with her sisters. Her sister Mira and brother Lev lived in Vitebsk (in Belarus). There Mum worked as a shop assistant. She told me about strictness of the senior clerk at that time in compare with later period of time. At that time she was a girl, nevertheless he demanded much of her.

After her marriage Mum continued working. She worked at the factory producing soft drinks, kvass and lemonade. Mum was responsible for washing bottles. By the way at that time manufacturers used to hammer corks in the bottles. During my childhood parents (both father and mother) worked all the time.

Parents finished only primary school, so they were able to read and count, but nothing more. But they could do it both in Russian and in Yiddish. Both Yiddish and Russian were their mother tongues; they could speak and write in both languages.

The Brooks, family of my mother lived in poverty, therefore when Mum grew a young girl, she was sent to work as a shop assistant to Vitebsk. My father got to know about her (possibly he visited Vitebsk at that time, but I am not sure). Father was rather active young man and he liked my mother. When she arrived in Usvyaty from Vitebsk (probably to visit her parents), they decided to get married. Their wedding was a real Jewish ceremony: chuppah, etc. Later in my life I was present at different Jewish weddings, and I know well what it is to get married according to Jewish Tradition.

Parents did not wear Jewish traditional clothes, they used to dress like all inhabitants of our settlement.

As both father and mother worked, they earned enough money to support themselves and their children. We were provided for better than families of most of my coevals. I often invited them home and regaled them with sandwiches. It happened during hard times and lean years.

Mother was more educated, than father: she used to read books, often visited theatre. A theater company from Leningrad usually came to Usvyaty on tour in summer. Their drama performances took place in the Usvyaty House of Culture. Mother took me there with her. I remember we watched Intrigue and Love by Schiller, and Romeo and Juliet.

Father was an active member of Jewish community; he used to take me to synagogue with him; he sent me cheder (besides my secondary school), therefore I was able to read and write in Yiddish. I read Hebrew texts only in the prayer book, I could not speak Hebrew. At home we observed kashrut not strictly, though I remember my mother shouting ‘Don’t take it, it’s dairy.’ We used to eat chicken. In our community there was shochet, so we bought only kosher meat. It happened not because parents were religious, but because public opinion played dominant role. As our settlement was Jewish, people noticed, for example Yosef going out to buy meat. That was why people held dear their reputation. When Mum became an old woman, she did not observe kashrut at all: I consider it to be confirmation that she did not observe it being young. We celebrated Jewish holidays, we ate hamantashen, kneidl, kugl, matzah for Pesach, etc. We used to arrange Seder for Pesach.

Father was a member of no political organization. Mother had communist views, but she was not the Party member. She never liked Stalin and named him Cerberus. When he died, she said ‘Good gracious! Why are they crying? Is it a real loss? Thank God that he died.’ She never was fanatic.

• Growing up

We did not have our own house; we rented it from a rich Jew, a smith. Jews of our settlement were handicraftsmen, shoemakers, repairers; rich Jews were owners of a mill or a smithy. Owner of our house could shoe a horse (horses were the basic carriers), repair kitchen utensils. I remember that I helped him in it. He possessed 1 or 2 houses which he leased. He invested money in houses, because at that time money quickly decreased in value. Our family occupied one of his houses, a one-storied wooden one. Father used to send me to the owner to carry him our rent. In our house there was a kitchen with a Russian stove 2, a dining room, a hall, some sort of sitting-room and a small bedroom. In winter we heated stove only for cooking, therefore it gave little heat. In each room there was a round furnace, and in the bedroom there was a small stove bench on which it was possible to lay and get a warm. The furniture was poor: an expandable square table in the sitting-room, ordinary chairs, stools, iron beds. Parents slept on wooden beds. There were also a wardrobe, a sideboard for plates and dishes, a table for me and my sister where we did our homework in turn. There was no water supply, so I used to bring water from neighbors’ well, or sometimes from the lake. Parents also brought water from the well.

We kept no animals. We had only a vegetable garden. Together with my sister we had to dig it up, take manure from neighbors’ cow and fertilize. We had 6 vegetable beds. We ate onion, carrots, beet, and cucumbers from our vegetable garden, and had to buy all the rest foodstuffs. 

In Usvyaty there was a Jewish community, all Jews knew each other, everybody knew the way of neighbors’ living and the way they observed Tradition. From my point of view our family was well-to-do. In 1933 and 1934 we did not starve, while many people in other parts of Russia did. At that period father worked at grain warehouses. We were not hungry; Daddy was one of the synagogue donors (I saw him making a donation to it). During holidays Jews also visited houses to collect donations for the synagogue (to engage a cantor or to pay synagogue maintenance costs), and father always gave money. He was among those people who supported the Jewish community of Usvyaty.

Father was in touch not only with Jews, and mother communicated mainly with Jewesses. In Usvyaty people lived alternately, but the Jews lived close to each other. All Jews were handicraftsmen. The Russians did not have such masters; they all went to Jews for repair. At school I had both Russian and Jewish friends, but my best friends were among my relatives.

My relatives were also handicraftsmen. For instance, in Leningrad our relative Zalman was a tailor. He was a real master: Leningrad actors and representatives of rank and fashion ordered suites at him. One of his suits was shown at the exhibition that took place in Paris. He was awarded some prize for it. That was the level of skill!

We met relatives on holidays or other local events, sometimes visited each other to have a talk. Mother used to be in touch with our neighbor who had a cow. We bought milk from her.

I did not go to the kindergarten. Father kept an eye on me: if I forgot myself in playing, he called me and pressed to make my lessons. First years at school I studied not well, but beginning from the 5th form till the finals I was an excellent pupil. I made progress in mathematics and physics, I studied honestly. At first our school was Jewish, but later it became a Russian one. When the school was Jewish, all subjects were taught in Yiddish, teachers spoke only Yiddish.

At school I liked mathematics most of all. Our teachers were very good. I remember a teacher of literature: he was a professional actor, but worked as a teacher (unfortunately I forgot his name). During his lessons he used to recite prose and poetry. He not only read Pushkin 3 or Lermontov 4, but performed characters as an actor, so that his lessons turned into literary performances. A teacher of physics was very good, too. I liked physics and mathematics; I studied them at home on my own. If I was not able to reason out the answer to a mathematical problem, I could not sleep. At home I assembled an electric engine without any assistance; it functioned after switching on the current. At home we had a radio center. Together with my friend we put an antenna on the roof of our house. We could listen to Moscow radio broadcast: news, concerts. At that time it was uncommon. In our settlement the only one loud-speaker was placed in the window of the local Communist Party committee, people used to come up to the window and listen to the radio. And when I was born, there was no electricity supply in Usvyaty.

Neither teachers, nor pupils of our school demonstrated anti-Semitism. In our class there studied both Jewish and Russian schoolchildren, number of Jewish children was less.

I came across manifestations of anti-Semitism in Usvyaty when I was a little boy. There lived Terekh, a Russian muzhik, a drunkard. When he got drunk, he bothered Jews with the following words: ‘You, dirty Jews, we will kill you!’ And so on. I keep it in mind since my childhood. I asked my parents about him, and they explained to me that he was only a drunkard. Our Russian neighbors also considered him to be only a drunkard.

At our school nobody ventured to behave that way.

The same was in Academy: neither teachers, nor cadets were anti-Semites. And there were a lot of Jewish cadets (25-30%).

Once again I came across manifestations of anti-Semitism here, in Leningrad and also during Stalin’s state campaign of anti-Semitism, but I’ll tell you about it later.

Musicians from the Leningrad Conservatoire used to come to Usvyaty to spend summer vacations. I often stood near the windows of their houses and listened to professional musicians playing the violin or the piano. It was interesting for me. I remember that one day my father got acquainted with a Conservatoire teacher and brought me to his place for trial. I played some pieces, he advanced several remarks and said that I was not yet ready to study at a conservatoire. He also gave me some recommendations regarding my musical studies.          

My school friends were both Jews and Russians. After school together with classmates we used to go to the cinema, discussed films, went to skating rinks, dancing (in senior classes we danced foxtrot, Cracovienne, waltz, etc.).

I was an athlete, I went in for gymnastics. When I arrived in Leningrad, I took part in competitions and got 1st sports category. At school we were trained by our PT teacher after school. I also was interested both in football and volleyball. But gymnastics was my favorite kind of sport. Once in Usvyaty I appeared on the theater stage and performed exercises on horizontal bar. I was a Komsomol member 5.

At school we had a musical orchestra, which I participated in. Sometimes I even was in the driving seat, because I was more advanced in music than other children.

I was brought up in the Soviet spirit and could not imagine another order of things.

I never spent vacations in pioneer camps. I spent it at home, sometimes visited relatives in Leningrad. In summer I used to gather mushrooms and berries in the wood.

I remember that I saw a motorcycle and a car for the first time in my life in Usvyaty. We ran following it. It happened when I was a pupil of primary school. Later big lorries appeared in our small town. Only big brass came to our town by cars. My first trip by car happened when I went from Usvyaty to Nevel (to the railway station). Earlier people went there by horse (about 40 km). My trip by car happened in 1935-1936. The same year I went by train (for the first time in my life) to Leningrad, being a schoolboy. We went there on vacation to watch theater performances and visit museums.

According to historical data Usvyaty settlement was regularly demolished during different battles. The last war destroyed almost all its houses, including that of mine. Orthodox church, a fine sample of architecture was ruined. Only the central square with several houses (shops) on it and a two-storied white house (a manor) remained safe. That manor housed our school. At present a Memorial in honor of battles of the Great Patriotic War is situated there.

Before the war burst out, population of Usvyaty was about 5,000 people, now it is much more. Before the war most citizens were Russians and Byelorussians. There were also a lot of Jews. Their life was very similar to the life of Jews described in stories by Sholem Aleichem 6.

I also remember seasonal fairs in Usvyaty. Many people came there by horses, brought various goods: vegetables, fruit, hens, geese, ducks, wooden and ceramic hand-made goods, etc. They bought food for winter. At home people made sour cabbage, cucumbers, packed apples and other fruit into boxes. Together with my sister Nina we actively participated in the process.

When our brother Arkady was born, Nina became a real nanny for him. In fact she was the only one who took care of Arkady, because parents were busy at work.  

Parents had got 3 children, I was the eldest (born in 1922), and my sister Nina (Nekhama) was born in 1925. We studied at the same school. She actively helped mother about the house: tidied up rooms.

• During the War

In 1941 she was 16 when the war burst out. Together with parents and our brother she left for Kuibyshev. In Kuibyshev there lived my mother’s aunt Blume Rosenfeld (a sister of grandmother Hana). At first my parents lived at hers, later they rented an apartment. Soon (in 1943) father died of tuberculosis. Mother was still a young woman (43 years old); she worked as an unskilled laborer at a warehouse. In Kuibyshev my sister finished school and entered the Pedagogical College (faculty of foreign languages). Her profession was a teacher of German language. The College did not stop studies notwithstanding severities of war. Nina graduated from it and became a good teacher. She spoke fluent German (I guess because she knew Yiddish), and started working at a Kuibyshev school as a teacher. They sent her to a German school, where German children (children of people sent to Kuibyshev from Germany on business) studied. She taught them different subjects in German: geography, history, Russian language. Later that school was closed, and she worked at ordinary secondary school teaching German language. She was a good teacher, and was considered an authority. They often sent her to Germany as a head of school delegations.

In Kuibyshev my sister got married. Her husband is Zakhar Solomonovich Braynin (we call him Zolya). Their son Sasha was born approximately in 1950. Sasha became a doctor. He graduated from the Medical College. He took his doctor's degree and at present works in Kuibyshev (now Samara) as a therapist. Nina’s husband is a press photographer. He worked in Pravda and Izvestia newspapers and also in local newspapers. He had a photo laboratory, worked at theatres of Kuibyshev, made highly artistic photos and photo advertisements. At present together with my sister they live in Israel. They left there in 2000, being already pensioners. In Israel they live in Ashkelon.

My brother Arkady was the youngest child in our family: he was born in 1935. Since his childhood he was aptitude for music. When a child, he played balalaika and guitar (he managed without any assistance), and at that time he even was not able to climb onto the chair. 

When parents came to Kuibyshev, they sent him to musical school (it did not stop studies during the war time). There he studied in the violin class. He achieved much success in it and was their best pupil. His teacher invited my mother and said ‘If you want Arkady to become a musician, it is necessary to bring him to Leningrad or to Moscow. In Kuibyshev we cannot give him education of proper level.’ I lived in Leningrad and Mum brought him to me. At that time he was a pupil of the 4th or 5th class. I brought him to musical school at Conservatoire and they admitted him, because of his absolute pitch. That was a boarding school. He finished it and entered Conservatoire. Mother supported him financially and he worked part-time.

I was not able to give him financial assistance him, because I had already got family. But he often visited us. He never was hungry. He graduated from the Conservatoire and was invited to work at the new Novosibirsk orchestra. He left for Novosibirsk, and he still lives there and plays at that philharmonic orchestra. Though he is already 70 years old, they don’t permit him to retire. He is a very conscientious person. He helps the conductor to rehearse young musicians. Arkady is also very responsible. He often goes abroad on tour with his orchestra; he likes to travel all over the world. He has got a son and a wife. His wife is not a musician, therefore it is hard for him to have no close friend to talk about music. So when we meet, we talk about music day and night long. My brother’s wife is Russian. Her name is Galina. Their son Dmitry was born in 1965. Galina worked as a personnel manager at a large enterprise in Novosibirsk and she still works, though she is a pensioner. Their son graduated from a Novosibirsk college as a physicist, but at present he is engaged to business. His family is well-to-do.

When a teenager, I was strong. I prepared myself for military service. I studied very well and got excellent school-leaving certificate. The local military registration and enlistment office offered me to enter a military school, but I decided to have higher education, therefore I left for Leningrad where there were a lot of military educational institutions.

My relative uncle Ieronim lived in Leningrad. He helped me very much. Together with him we visited different military educational institutions, but everywhere they admitted only servicemen. By chance we got to know that the Naval Medical Academy was opened for everyone. We went there and handed in documents. There was a large entry: 20 persons per 1 place. It was necessary to pass through 13 examinations. I managed to do it and received good average mark. I also managed to get a pass examination in health (50% of entrants were eliminated by the medical board). It was enough for me to enter the Academy.

So that was the way I became a cadet of the Naval Medical Academy. When I was a student of the 1st course, Daddy came to Leningrad. That meeting was our last one. I keep it in mind most probably on account of the following. I remember that he came to me depressed, because he had lost his wallet. He was going to give me some money, but failed. Moreover, I had to give him money for return ticket (and my stipend was rather scanty). Till now I remember his wails apropos of this.

In 1941 the war burst out, by that time I finished the 2nd course of the Naval Medical Academy. As Germans quickly approached Leningrad, Voroshilov (commander of the Leningrad military district) ordered to raise a brigade of marines consisting from underclassmen of military educational institutions, including our Academy, Frunze Military School, Dzerzhinsky Military School, Kronshtadt Military School, etc. The brigade was quickly created and we were brought to the Luga firing line near Gostilitsy. We started preparing for defense. For the company they gave us rifles (model of 1891), several submachine guns, hand grenades and bottles with Molotov cocktail (to fight against tanks). The Luga firing line was situated about 100 kilometers far from the city. We dug entrenchments, implemented close reconnaissance. Germans located us and bombed several times. Then we were brought into action. Our brigade suffered heavy casualties: Frunze, Dzerzhinsky and Kronstadt battalions were annihilated. My first battle I remember till now: explosions of bombs and death of my comrades around me. It happened in August or September 1941.

Our Academy was to be disbanded, but our chief Ivanov Alexander went to Moscow and obtained permission to keep its status. By that time cadets of the 4th course quickly passed their examinations and became professionally qualified doctors. The Academy chiefs tried to evacuate them, but on their way across the Ladoga Lake their barges turned turtle because of the storm. All of them were drowned. The chief of Academy received Stalin's order about evacuation of thу rest cadets to Kirov. Therefore they took us away from the Luga firing line and urgently brought to Leningrad. Preparation for evacuation began. It happened in 1942, Leningrad was already besieged 7 and each of us received 125 gr. of bread per day. We crossed the Ladoga Lake on foot (40 km to Kobona village). We were 300. Later we were ordered to reach Kirov any way we could: on foot, by autostop, by train. Some of us walked to the railway station where hospital train was formed. Chief of the train took us as hospital attendants. We reached Kirov a month later (by the beginning of February). A lot of cadets went home. In Kirov we were placed to the rooms of the Kirov Pedagogical College. All military registration and enlistment offices received the following order: ALL CADETS OF THE NAVAL MILITARY ACADEMY HAVE TO REPORT FOR THE ACADEMY IN KIROV IMMEDIATELY.

Soon all cadets gathered in Kirov. We started our studies. After the 2nd course we had to do practical work afloat. I was sent to the Black Sea Navy (Sukhumi and Poti 8). I served on board the ship Krasnaya Abkhasia. It was a part of the separate battalion of gunboats. These ships were used for creeping and transportation cargoes to front lines, because they were able to approach coast without mooring.

We were appointed medical assistants. Besides creeping we several times went to Malaya Zemlya near Novorossiysk where our soldiers fought battles а outrance. During one night we had to bring there reinforcements, ammunition, etc., and take injured soldiers therefrom. We had to manage everything before dawn. Once we stayed there too long embarking injured soldiers and at dawn Germans started bombardment. Krasnaya Georgia, a ship of the same type got a shell-hole and went down before my eyes.

In 1944 after I finished the 3rd course, we were sent for practical work as assistants to doctors in medical and sanitary battalions and front hospitals of the Leningrad front and Northern fleet. I got to the front hospital of the Leningrad front. There were 3,000 beds. It was situated in Leningrad in the building of Suvorov Military School. There I was seriously trained in surgery.

They brought us 100-300 injured people a day. In operating-room there were 20 tables. We worked sorting injured people, assisting during operations and dressings supervised by more experienced doctors. They put into our hands only initial treatment of wounds, immobilizing of extremities, putting in plaster, etc. We did not make abdominal operations. I remember that I had to take care of a soldier with a wounded knee. The knee joint was open, facets of femur and shin-bone stuck out. A doctor approached us and said ‘It is necessary to amputate the leg!’ And I managed to do it for the first time in my life. Till now I remember all stages of that operation: fixing tourniquet, cutting muscles up to the thigh-bone, pulling muscles aside, sawing the bone, loosing the tourniquet and making ligature. Then final removal of the tourniquet, additional hemostasis, and final stump formation. You see, I was impressed so much that keep all details in my mind till now.

Every day injured soldiers from our hospital were transported to the railway station and sent to the east of the country by hospital trains.

• After the War

As the war was coming to an end, we did not go to Kirov any more. Cadets of our course were left in Leningrad and started preparing the Academy building for active functioning (it was situated opposite the Vitebsk railway station). We were told off to do duty around the city or in the Academy, repaired damaged buildings and apartments where our professors and teachers lived.

In 1944 in Leningrad I got acquainted with my future wife Tamara at the dancing-party at the Technological College, where she studied. She came to Leningrad from evacuation and became a student.

In May 1945 I went to Samara to visit my mother (each of us got a fortnight holiday for hard work in Academy restoration). During the war we corresponded with Mum. I did not meet my father: tuberculosis killed him in 1943. When I came to Samara, I found out that my Mum had been sent to the local timber industry enterprise (to Samara suburb). I went there to find her. I wanted to take her with me to Leningrad. And I managed to find her! What a joyful meeting it was! And they let her go before the end of my vacation.

Later I returned to the Academy for studies. In October I took my finals and was sent to prophylactic medical examination. They diagnosed tuberculosis and placed me into the Naval hospital in Izhora. I already knew about that diagnosis: when I did my practical work at the front hospital, I had a special entry in my sanitary book (results of x-ray test). So if I became an officer, they could send me on board a ship to serve as a doctor, but being an ordinary cadet I had to be demobilized because of my disease. By that time the war was already finished, and our group was supposed to be sent to Pacific fleet. I asked Tamara whether she would go with me to the Far East (as an officer’s wife). Tamara refused flatly, and I made my decision. I was demobilized, received a diploma and status of disabled soldier of the Great Patriotic War. After that I arrived to Kuibyshev (to my Mum) and started my medical practice as a civilian physician.

In Kuibyshev circumstances were against my intention to work as a surgeon. There were a lot of tubercular patients, and lack of physicians. I decided to devote myself to phthisiology. I was sent to the T.B. prophylactic center (doctor Yakobson was its head). I quickly mastered the basic method of treatment: artificial pneumothorax. 3 months later I was appointed the head physician of another T.B. prophylactic center. They placed a room at my disposal, and I ate out (in the center). I worked much: I was the only phthisiatrician there, other doctors were therapists. They were not able to implement the procedure of artificial pneumothorax. I also made pleural punctures.

• Marriage, children and recent years

I am sure that if I continued my medical practice in Samara, I would have become an outstanding phthisiatrician. But my Tamara remained in Leningrad. We lived apart during a year, and I did not want to rest satisfied only with her letters. So at the end of 1946 I moved to Leningrad and we got married.

There I started working as a phthisiatrician in the hospital at T.B. prophylactic center. There I met Rotenfeld, a radiologist. He became my teacher both in medicine and in life. He was born in tsarist Russia. He told me about establishment of Soviet power, about soviet leaders. Rotenfeld used to listen to western broadcasting stations, and I read our newspapers. He demonstrated me barefaced lie in soviet newspapers, he engrafted dissident ideas in my mind. So long before the Doctors’ Plot 9 I was filled with anti-Soviet ideas. You see, our talks were a weight on my mind, but did not surprise me.

He used to say ‘It’ll be even worse. This country is alien to us, our country is Israel, we have to go there.’ At that time I was still a young doctor. I always felt like a Jew, though I lived in the family of veteran Bolsheviks. In the USSR when everyone was afraid of everything, I used to visit synagogue on holidays. Only my wife Tamara knew about it, and her parents didn’t. My wife didn’t accompany me to the synagogue. As for me, I understood religious essence of Jewish holidays.

I was a qualified doctor. I had serious surgical practice at the front hospital. Phthisiology required surgical skills, and I managed. The head physician of our clinic was Konstantin Andreev, a real Russian intellectual. During the period of Doctors’ Plot he was brave enough to give jobs to professors and assistant professors fired from different institutions. At our clinic there was a nurse, who was a secretary of the local Communist Party organization. We were on familiar terms with her. She told me that they called her in and asked ‘When will you stop giving jobs to Jews at your tubercular clinic ? Tell the head physician that it is a scandal to invite fired Jews!’

To tell the truth the invited doctors were among the best doctors of the city. I was lucky to be engaged in research work under their supervision. An assistant professor Bergman gave me a topic for my dissertation. I wrote an abstract and reported to professor Tsigelnik. Tsigelnik gave me good references and said ‘Do you know who you are?’ I answered “Yes.’ Tsigelnik ‘I can do nothing for you. If you wish to become my postgraduate student, get your own way, go ahead! I gave you the testimonial - that’s all I can do for you.’

I carried my documents to the personnel department, they looked through them and said ‘Boris Davidovich, go on working, and we have to send your documents to Moscow for approval. We will inform you in case of affirmative reply.’ You know, they have been considering my documents till now.

As you know, I got acquainted with my wife, Tamara Gershtein in 1944, when she was a student of the Technological College and I was a cadet of the Academy. One evening the Technological College arranged a party for students. Because only girls studied there (most guys were at the front line), they invited cadets from our Academy. And we (200 young people) came to them (marching in well ironed naval uniform). We stood on the one side of the hall, and girls stood on the other one. I looked round and saw a pleasant looking girl. I invited her to dance (I was not shy at all). We danced and danced, and I did not want to let her go. But I had to return to the ranks. I asked her about her telephone number, and she gave it to me. Well, we got married in 1946.

Her parents were veteran Bolsheviks, they started their activities before the October Revolution of 1917. Her father’s name was Abram Rafailovich, and her mother’s name was Berta Abramovna. He was born in 1897, and she was born a little bit later. Father died in 1976, and mother in 1973. They were devoted to communist ideas, knew almost nothing about Judaism. My wife’s mother Berta Abramovna was a Communist Party member since 1920. Later she worked as a director of a canteen. She finished a secondary school, and her husband got higher (he was a lawyer).

We lived together with them in their apartment. Therefore I was not allowed to discuss my anti-Soviet moods at home. We were in good relations with my wife’s mother, she called me her son. They always lived in Leningrad. My wife’s father worked as a public prosecutor of the Baltic fleet and a public prosecutor of the October railway (major-general). They lived in a smart apartment on Vassilyevsky Island. On holidays Tamara had an opportunity to watch military parades on the main square of Leningrad (only VIPs and members of their families could be invited there).

In 1937 my father-in-law was read out from the Communist Party. They dismissed him from everywhere: they alleged him to be in touch with an enemy of people. He remained free and alive by a miracle. He got frightened to live in a general’s apartment, therefore he changed it for two rooms in a communal apartment 10, where I got acquainted with them later. Tamara was the only daughter in their family. She was brought up in the communist spirit. Her father’s friends were veteran Bolsheviks, too (they used to play cards together). My wife’s father survived a serious heart attack at the age of 60. He stopped working, though he was a legal adviser at several organizations. At the 19th CPSU Congress his reputation was restored.

Abram Rafailovich had got 5 brothers and 1 sister. They were engineers; builders of ships, hydroelectric and thermoelectric power stations. One of them was lost together with his family during bombardment of Leningrad. The sister was a dentist, she lived in Serpukhov.

Berta Abramovna had got 4 brothers and a sister. One of her brothers was a pilot. All of them were participants of the Great Patriotic War, were on the front line. After the end of the war they were administrative workers. Her sister Vera spent 10 years in prison as a wife of the enemy of people. At present only her cousins are alive and live in Israel.

My son Eduard was born in 1947. At that time my wife was a student of Medical College. It was me who convinced her to change future profession from a specialist in chemical agents and explosives she was going to become studying at the Technological College. I considered it to be not adequate for a female. Later my wife graduated from the Medical College and worked all her life long (more than 40 years) in the hospital.

Our son graduated from the Shipbuilding College, because at school he was fond of ships modeling. He worked as a design engineer. When Perestroika came, it became impossible to make both ends meet. He entered the College of Culture and became a producer. His family life was not successful. He got acquainted with a girl in Crimea and brought her to Leningrad. Soon our grandson Konstantin was born. Eduard lived with his wife and son some time, but soon they broke up.

Under the communists I celebrated Jewish holidays by myself visiting synagogue. At home we did not think about Jewish problems. Regarding Jews my views and views of my mother-in-law were more concurrent: she was a Jewess brought up in Ukraine according to Tradition. In his young days in Saratov my father-in-law witnessed Jewish pogroms, but those pogroms impelled him to become a communist. During the Great Patriotic War he was a divisional public prosecutor.

My father-in-law died and I started thinking about Jewry more and more. Before his death I visited synagogue only on holidays, but after his death I visited it regularly. Now I visit synagogue on week-days, too.

At home we observe some Jewish traditions. For Pesach Tamara makes kneidlah and other Jewish dishes, but stuffed fish is my point of honor. It became mine after the death of my mother-in-law (she used to make it herself).

After Stalin's death and I was a leading doctor at our T.B. prophylactic center and when our head physician died, they invited me to the local Board of Health and appointed me the head physician (to fulfill his duties). A year passed, but I still was a deputy head physician. I addressed the chief of local Board of Health with a request to solve my problem, because I worked both as a head physician and a clinic manager. At the local Board of Health they assured me that the local CPSU committee would never approve my candidature. They also said that the local Board of Health would better search for other candidature. You see, it was an essentic manifestation of anti-Semitism.

I was a fan of Israel from the moment of its emergence. During the Six-Day-War 11 I did not sleep at nights: I listened to the Voice of America 12 and other broadcasting stations. A friend of mine secretly tried to persuade me to leave for Israel, but I knew that Tamara would never go there. It was impossible for me even to hint at it. You see, she is a Jewess by birth, but not by conviction. At home I have got Torah, but when I ask her to read it she refuses flatly.

I never visited Israel, but know about it more than my sister who lives there!

After 1989 our life changed for the better. I feel like a real Jew, I regularly visit synagogue, I cut the string. All my Jewish friends whom I know since our studies at the Academy are informed about my visits to synagogue, and they show jealousy of me. When in the synagogue there is nobody to recite the Kaddish, they call me ‘Berl ben Dovid!’

Sometimes I am invited to participate in different events organized by our community. Once I visited the new building of the Jewish Community Center in Raznochinnaya Street. My wife is a client of the Drugstore program of the Hesed Avraham Welfare Center 13. It is very important for us. I am not a client of Hesed, because according the Hesed criteria my pension is too large.

I am sure that Jews of St. Petersburg differ much from those Jews I knew earlier. They (and my wife, too) are assimilated, including people who visit synagogue. At present they are money-minded, they think only about food-packages, meals, etc. I visited the St. Petersburg Center for Jews - Disabled Soldiers and War Veterans, but met there only assimilated people trying to pose as Jews. I guess that something important has disappeared, just like Jewry of the Eastern Europe after Holocaust.

• Glossary:

Minna Birman
Odessa
Ukraine
Interviewer: Natalia Rezanova
Date of interview: November 2003

Minna Mordkovna Birman lives with her single daughter Yekaterina in a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a 1956 house called ‘Stalinskiy’ design. A big old mirror in a carved frame catches my eye in the hallway. This mirror and two very old wardrobes are family relics. Minna received them from her parents. The rest of furniture was bought in the 1960s. There is a big round table covered with a tablecloth in the middle of the room. Minna Mordkovna is a hospitable hostess and it is next to impossible to refuse from pastries she has made particularly for this occasion. There are medications on a low table by her sofa. Regardless of her diseases 80-year-old Minna Mordkovna delights me with her young lively voice and inexhaustible jokes.  She loves talking and laughs at this fondness of hers. She speaks emphatically with theatrical pauses and jests. She was enthusiastic about this opportunity to tell the story of her family of which she is very proud. 

All I know about my paternal grandfather Moisey Birman is that he was born in the Jewish neighborhood in Warsaw in the 1860s. He was a melamed. He was an expert in Torah and Talmud readings and this is all he could do. The only language he spoke was Yiddish. He died in Warsaw in 1915.

I don’t remember my paternal grandmother’s name or date of birth. All I know is that she was a housewife and took care of the household and the children. After my grandfather died my grandmother lived with her daughter’s family in Lodz. When her daughter died in 1936 my grandmother, her two granddaughters and her son-in-law moved to my grandmother’s sons in Paris in 1926. During WWII, when Germans occupied Paris and announced registration of all Jews my grandmother refused to go and didn’t allow her granddaughters to follow this order. Her son-in-law and one of her granddaughters went to this registration, though. They never returned home and were never seen again. My grandmother and her granddaughter Malka found shelter in their neighbor’s apartment during German raids. Their neighbor was an immigrant from Italy. My grandmother corresponded with my father till the end of her life. I remember my father saying once that my grandmother had sent us an invitation to a world exhibition in Paris. She died in the late 1950s.

My father had two brothers and two sisters. I don’t know much about them. His older sister, whose name I don’t know, died in Lodz in 1936. My grandmother raised her two daughters. My father’s brothers Iosif and Shmil were born in Warsaw in the early 1900s. My father’s younger sister Rieva was born in Warsaw in 1912. All children had education.
After the October revolution 1 the family stayed in Poland that had separated. In 1926 Pilsudski [Editor’s note: Yuzef Pilsudski (1867 – 1935), actual dictator of Poland after the military coup that he headed in May 1926. In 1926-1928, 1930 – Prime minister of Poland] came to power. Iosif had to go to the polish army. He didn’t want it and was thinking of moving to the USSR. At this time Pilsudski executed a treaty with France that needed workers and many Polish workers moved to France.  Both brothers were glove makers. They were both married and decided to move to France with their families. In Paris they rented a room on the top floor of a house. Top floors were commonly accommodated by servants. They worked at home and also gave work to other Jewish immigrants. Sister Rieva worked with her brothers in Paris. She married French Jew Moris and they had a daughter named Rachel. 

During WWII my father’s brothers and families left Paris. Iosif and Shmil took part in the Resistance movement [Editor’s note: national liberation anti-fascist movement against German occupants during WWII]. Before departure they assigned their shop to their neighbor, an Italian immigrant, since Germans took away Jewish property. During occupation this Italian man cooperated with fascists and expanded his business. After the war, when Iosif and Shmil returned to Paris, this neighbor reassigned all rights for the shop to them. Iosif’s son married this Italian neighbor’s daughter.
In the 1950s my father’s brothers belonged to middle class and had houses on the outskirts of Paris. Iosif, Shmil and Rieva and their spouses and children came on tour to Odessa in 1961. This was the first ship with foreign tourists in Odessa. Almost all passengers were former emigrants from Russia and there was a crowd of their relatives meeting them on the seashore in Odessa. My husband and I and my mother and father came to the pier, but we had no idea whether we would recognize them. They recognized me since Rieva’s daughter Rachel and I were as like as two peas in a pod. This is all I know about my father’s relatives from France.  After he died in 1976 I lost contact with them.

My father Mordko Birman was born in Warsaw in 1895. He was the oldest child in the family and there were numerous children born after him, which was a usual thing with every poor Jewish family. Grandfather Moisey said that there was no need for my father to go to cheder.  A poor Jew had to learn his craft. My father was educated at home and the only language he spoke was Yiddish. He became an apprentice of a Jewish shoemaker. At 17 my father joined the Zionist Jewish socialist party of workers [Paolei Zion] [Editor’s note: the social democratic party Paolei Zion (workers of Zion) was founded by Ber Borokhov in Poltava in 1906. In April 1917 it branched a radical socialist party Paolei Zion. The seat of its central committee was in Odessa. The social democratic party Paolei Zion adopted the doctrines of Bolshevik ideology and existed in the USSR until 1928. Soviet authorities liquidated it]. My father was a shoemaker’s assistant for some time. He gave his mother his earnings and paid Party fees. He had tuberculosis since childhood. They used oxygen enrichment to cure him. As a result, my father had only one lung left.  He wasn’t recruited to the army due to his health condition. In 1913 my father was sent in exile to Siberia for his revolutionary activities. He was to accommodate in a village in Verholensk district of Irkutsk province [Editor’s note: Verholensk district of Irkutsk region was a place for criminal and political convicts in czarist Russia (from the second quarter of the 19th century)]. My father made cone stocks in the taiga and was paid for his work. My father’s younger sister Rieva told me how my father sent them some money to them in Warsaw  and they could buy potatoes and herring and she went to buy some coal from a coal seller. It was like a feast. In 1917 the term of my father’s exile was over and he decided to go to Odessa to improve his health condition in the south. He was hoping to have no problem finding a job at the shoe factory in Odessa. During his trip back my father felt ill. He started hemoptysis and arriving in Odessa my father had to sit at the railway station all exhausted. This was where my father met my future mother.

My maternal grandfather Mordko Gredenitski was born in Gradanitsy village Ovidiopol district Odessa region in the 1860s. In the 1880s he moved to Odessa and got married. Grandfather Mordko was a small stockjobber dealing in wheat. He wasn’t doing very well. I heard in my childhood grandfather calling his family ‘kaptsans’ [‘beggars’ in Yiddish]. I visited my grandmother and grandfather when they lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the same house where we lived. They had beautiful furniture. My parents told me that in 1912 my grandfather made good money and bought new furniture. I have a mirror in the carved fame and a wardrobe from this set of furniture in my apartment. When I visited my grandparents I opened the wardrobe to pick pieces of matzah wrapped in a tablecloth. I remember that grandfather Mordko was a handsome old man with a gray beard. He wore casual clothes common with townsfolk. He was religious. He attended a synagogue and spoke Yiddish at home. My grandfather died in a hospital in Slobodka [Neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa.] in 1927. He was buried in the 3rd Jewish cemetery in Slobodka.

My grandfather Mordko had two sisters. I know little about them. They lived in Tiraspol (in Moldavia presently) where they got married.  After the NEP 2, was over their husbands lost their business and they all moved to their relatives in Odessa. His younger sister lived with our family for some time. I remember that she was called ‘bobele’ [‘grandmother in Yiddish].    She didn’t have children. Bobele died shortly before the war. The second sister, whose name I don’t remember, left Odessa after her husband left her.  This is all I know about their life.

My maternal grandmother Ghitl Gredenitskaya (nee Kerzhner) was born in Akkerman [Belgorod-Dnestrovski since 1918] in the 1850s. When living in Odessa she was a housewife. Grandmother Ghitl also cooked for our family. At Pesach she made dishes from matzah. Grandmother Ghitl was very religious. She went to the synagogue in Pushkinskaya Street, but she did it in secret to not spoil the reputation of my parents who were Party members. She wore dark modest dresses and a kerchief tying it over her ears. The only language grandmother Ghitl talked was Yiddish. She spoke poor Russian. Ghitl had brother Yakov and sister Sopha. I don’t think I know anything about them. Ghitl died in 1930. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery

My mother Sophia Gredenitskaya was the only daughter n her family. She was born in Odessa in 1893. At that time my grandfather had a three-bedroom apartment. My grandfather let one room to a Jewish teacher who was only allowed to teach Jews. This teacher helped my mother to prepare to study in a grammar school. My mother went to the 7th grade in a grammar school in order to save money and receive a certificate as soon as possible.  After finishing the 8th grade in grammar school students were allowed to teach. My mother wanted to continue her studies, but her family couldn’t afford it.  During WWI all relatives of veterans of the war were issued a permit for free education. One of my mother uncle Yakov’s sons was at the front during the war. He sent my mother confirmation that he was at the front and my mother managed to enter  the medical Faculty of Novorossiysk University in 1915. In 1917 a revolution began. My mother got involved in revolutionary activities ad quit the university. Her fellow students were involved in revolutionary activities and they involved my mother. My mother’s friends were Jews from Foreign collegium [Editor’s note: collegium of foreign propaganda in Odessa regional committee of the Communist party of Bolsheviks  (December 1918 - August 1919) – an underground Party group formed at the decision of the central committee of the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks to conduct revolutionary propaganda in interventionist troops in the south of Ukraine during the Civil war. This group was shot by Denikin troops in 1919]. Its member was Jacques Yelin [Editor’s note: Yakov (Jacques) Yelin (1888 – 1919), one of organizers of the foreign collegium. Shot by French interventionists in 1919], Shtivelman among them and she knew many other members.  These young people couldn’t enter a university in Russia due to the quota. They went to study in France, came to Russia on vacation and when the Civil War 3 began they couldn’t go back to France.

My mother also had ties with the Zionist socialist working party. Once in 1917 she heard somebody saying ‘A comrade has returned from exile. He has hemoptysis and is staying at the railway station’. My mother and her friend Manya Gombakh went to the railway station to pick up a former convict. Manya was an orphan. She lived with her brother and there was no space for anybody else in their dwelling.  My mother took my future father to her home. Grandfather Mordko and grandmother Ghitl didn’t mind. They helped my mother to look after my father. The young people fell in love with each other and began to live in a civil marriage.  They also belonged to the same party. At that time left procommunist wings separated from bourgeois Jewish socialist parties and united into a Jewish communist union that supported Bolsheviks. My father was a member of the committee of the union and my mother was his messenger. When Denikin troops 4 came my parents went into the underground with Bolsheviks. In 1920 when the Soviet regime won over they officially joined the party of Bolsheviks. My father was sent to the Romanian border. During the famine of 1921 5 many people tried to leave Russia for Romania and there were many arrests. My father had unlimited authority. He could even cancel arrests of ChK 6. Later he started hemoptysis and had to return to Odessa.

My grandmother and grandfather wanted my parents to have a religious wedding and convinced my parents to enter into one. My mother and father went to the synagogue. There was a chuppah at their wedding. However, I’ve never seen any document from the rabbi’s office. When in 1921 my father was a member of the regional committee of the Communist Party there was a Party purge. My mother was trying to tell my father to keep the fact of their wedding at the synagogue since she had already been through it and told them everything. However, my father didn’t understand such things. He wrote the truth in his report and was expelled. He lost his position, but he had ties with Jewish organizations. They valued him and during the famine in 1922  my father was appointed a Joint representative in Yelisavetgrad of Odessa province. My mother went with him. She was manager of a women’s department. My parents were paid in golden 10-ruble coins. They sent some money to my father’s mother in Poland. 

They stayed there through 1922 and 1923. I was born in Yelisavetgrad [Kirovograd from 1924] on 2 January 1923.

In early 1924 my father came to Odessa. The period of famine was over and Joint ended its activities in the USSR. My father was appointed chairman of the party committee at the shoe factory. Holding this position he took over the Brodskiy synagogue [Editor’s note: one of the biggest and most beautiful synagogues in Odessa. Its origin goes back to the arrival of Jewish migrants from Germany and Halitsia in the early 1820s in Odessa. They were called ‘Brodskiy’ Jews after the name of Brody town. The synagogue was open in 1940. This was the first choral synagogue in Russia. Construction of the building of the synagogue started in 1863 under supervision of architect F.Kolovich. It was funded by contributions. Since 1925 the Brodskiy synagogue housed Odessa regional archive] to make a factory club in it. Once I asked my father ‘Why did it have to be the Brodskiy synagogue?’ and he replied ‘It was the most beautiful one and I wanted poor Jews  who had lived in basements and had never had an opportunity to go to this synagogue to come to this beautiful club and feel human there’. He frankly believed it was a noble deed on his part.

On 19 February  1927 my brother Ilia was born in Odessa. We lived in 12, Lenin Street then. My mother was ill after childbirth and the baby screamed all the time. I remember coming to his bed and dumping all my toys into his bed: it was a doll crockery tin set. My parents talked me off since I scratched the baby. Ilia’s birth was a trauma for me. I believed he was loved more. At the age of 3 I went to the kindergarten of leather craftsmen in 25, Yekaterininskaya Street. The kindergarten was one block away from where we lived. I remember my father teaching me to be on my own. He didn’t hold me by my hand, but walked fast ahead of me. I followed him gazing at his gray head. There was a noise orchestra in our kindergarten. We played triangles, castanets and tambourines. In summer the kindergarten went to a dacha. We lay in the sun, bathed in the sea, played and had meals outside. My mother always shaved my head to avoid the risk of fleas.  

In 1930 –my mother was sent to study in Odessa College of Tinned Food (present Refrigeration Industry College). This same year I went to school. People’s commissar [minister] of education issued an order to witch to the Ukrainian language of teaching at schools.  There was one Russian school left in each district of Odessa. For some reason my parents sent me to Ukrainian school #4 on the corner of Troitskaya and Preobrazhenskaya Streets. I was a miserable pupil since I didn’t know Ukrainian. My Ukrainian teacher used to say ‘Is this a girl? This is a boy and isn’t he a bad one!’ considering my short haircut and bad marks. Once my teacher told me to tell my mother to come to school for a talk. My mother was so busy that I decided to tell her nothing. Instead, I stopped going to school. I left home in the morning and went to walk along Alexandrovski Prospect where I played with cobbles. Then I went to Troitskaya Street and waited until schoolchildren began to leave school and I went home. This lasted for a month and a half.  

My friends from our yard Vitia Degtiar, Volodia Chudinov, Nadia Shyriaeva, Volodia Shtubes, Boria Sovietov studied in Russian school #25, in Bariatinski Lane (present Nakhimov Lane). My friend Nadia Shyriaeva tried to pull strings for my transfer to her school.  Her teacher Maria Isaakovna said it was not possible. The port was sponsoring his Russian school and children had their school parties in the port club. Nadia invited me once to a party. The entrance to this club was on the first floor from Lastochkin descend and exit from the concert hall was from the second floor down a very narrow staircase. When we were going in somebody yelled ‘Fire!’ and everybody ran to the exit door.  Only noticed the beginning of panic and when I came back to my senses  I saw Nadia standing over me crying and Maria Isaakovna standing beside her.  When Maria Isaakovna saw me opening my eyes she sighed with relief ‘Hey, she is alive!’ I had a hemorrhage in my eye. After this happened Maria Isaakovna felt sorry for me and convinced my mother to send me to school #25.

The famine in 1933 didn’t have an impact on our family. We even had extra food. My father was director of mixed fodder plant and received good food rations there. Besides, he was a member of the association of former political convicts [Editor’s note: for some reason (1921 -1935) was founded in Moscow and had over 50 affiliates in various towns of the USSR. It published the ‘Katorga and ssylka’ and ‘Bulletin’ magazines] and all members received food at the regional Party committee food department. My mother was in the Tinned Food College that had ties with tinned food factories. She also received food packages and lunches. My parents also had additional food cards as members of the party. I know that my parents gave their extra cards and food to their relatives. I also remember that there were many homeless children at this period. There were asphalt containers in the streets. They were for melting asphalt and kept warm for a long time. At night those children slept in them. Once my friend and I went to a confectionery store in 12, Deribassovskaya Street. It was in the basement and there were bars on its windows.  There were homeless boys sticking to these bars. One boy untied his clift, a quilted cotton wool coat, and we saw that he was absolutely naked underneath.  What happened was that they were taken to a children’s room in the railway station. They took their clothes for sanitary treatment and then it turned out there was no place to accommodate the children. All children’s homes were overcrowded. They gave them these quilted coats and let them go. My friend and I grabbed the boy and brought him to my home. My parents decided that my father would try to pull strings for the boy to go to a children’s home, but then my mother said: ‘Let him stay and this means that we will have three children’. The boy stayed with us for some time. My parents gave him good clothes, but once he told our housemaid Fenia that he was going to look for his brother. He left and disappeared.

We had a two-bedroom apartment. The bigger room had an area of 30 square meters. My mother liked everything in the apartment to be nice. She bought a beautiful silk shawl and ordered a lampshade to be made from it.  There were curtains on the windows and there were woolen strip carpets on the floors. There was a beautiful mirror in a carved frame over the sofa and a big Ukrainian woolen carpet in red roses on it. There was a big table in the center of the room. My mother didn’t do any housework. She couldn’t cook. Our housemaid did the cooking and served meals to us. Our first housemaid Emma was German. She came from a family of dispossessed German colonists 7. Then we had housemaid Fenia. She was also German. Our neighbors used to say to my mother: ‘You pay your housemaid everything you earn’. My mother replied that she preferred to go to work and feel an active member of the community. We didn’t often have guests, but they came to us after a parade on 1 May and 7 November [October revolution Day] 8. The table was covered with two white tablecloths. After a meal the guests sang revolutionary songs and danced. My father danced very well. He was an artistic, easy-going and very sociable person. He was very thin due to his disease. My mother was a tall grand lady. She liked to dress nicely and never had enough money left for food. My mother wore crepe de Chine dresses and hats. My mother’s dressmaker made clothes for her and for me. Every year I had a fancy dress made for me. After wearing it for a year I began to wear it to school and had a new fancy dress made for me. I remember going with my mother to a hat shop to order a new hat for her. This was the only time she took me there and I was so happy that I felt like floating beside her. My mother chose a pink felt hat with silk bands. My mother was so beautiful! She always had her hair done and her nails manicured. Once her colleagues commented that a member of the Party wasn’t supposed to have manicured nails and my mother replied with defiance: ‘Would you feel better if I had black nails>’ –You will be expelled from the Party!’ – You just try!’ My mother was never afraid. She had this kind of character.

My mother and father were so different: she was noisy and had a loud voice, she could even slap us if she was in this kind of mood. My father was quiet her opposite: he never raised his voice and spoke quietly and was against physical punishment of the children. My parents were very kind and sympathetic people. My parents hardly spent time with us. My mother was at work until late. She worked in the trade department of the town Party committee and didn’t have time for her children. I came from school and my brother came from his kindergarten and we played in the yard until my father came home from work. My mother came home at six o’clock. By this time we had to be at home and have our hands washed.  The family got together for dinner and our housemaid was at the table with us. After dinner my mother went back to work and stayed there until nine o’clock. My father often left home in the evening. He spent time at the association of political convicts and was involved in social activities.

In the early 1930s my father and other communists were sent to a district town to organize collectivization 9. My father was reluctant to be involved in this and didn’t accept any forced measures toward farmers. This became known and my father was called back for a discussion in the town Party committee. At this time he had hemoptysis again and my mother didn’t allow him to go there. She sent my father to a tuberculosis recreation center in Gagry. When he returned home this incident was forgotten.  
We had portraits of Marx 10, Engels 11 at home and a photograph of Lenin 12 on the table, but we never had any portraits of Stalin. My mother called him ‘a man with moustache’. In 1934, when Kirov 13 was murdered my parents had a hot discussion about how this could happen and where his guards where at the time. They thought it was different from what an official version described.  

In 1936 Ushrovich, director of Odessa Torgsin 14 stood in public court. The charges against him stated that he was a provoker since the time when he was in exile in Siberia. Ushrovich managed to prove that all these charges were false. Beginning from middle 1937 [Great Terror] 15 many of my classmates’ relatives were arrested. There were children of 12 nationalities in my class. Galia Panaioti, a Greek girl, had her mother and father arrested in 1936. Luba Turchenko, a Ukrainian girl, her mother was arrested. Her mother was chief of political department of Chernomorsk shipyard. Ania Gavrilchenko, Ukrainian – her uncle was arrested. Galka Dyomina, Russian, her father was arrested.  Our Ukrainian teacher Polikarp Lvovich disappeared. Later he returned and continued teaching. He never mentioned what happened to him. My friend Rogovaya’s father worked in railroad shops and was a Party organizer of the association of political convicts. He was arrested in 1936 and he disappeared.

My parents discussed the subject of arrests in 1937 whispering at night. Their loud whisper woke me up sometimes and I heard their conversations unintentionally, but I didn’t tell anybody.  My mother was strict about the family order: the children were not allowed to talk about any talks or happenings at home. I remember my mother once punishing my brother with a belt for blurting something out in the yard that my father was grabbing her hands screaming ‘Sophia, you will kill him!’ My parents sorted out their collection of books. There were political books that my father collected and they had to get rid of them. There were works by Trotskiy 16, Kamenev 17. They threw them out.

My father was arrested in 1938. He was accused of wishing to assist Hitler and Japan to attack the Soviet Union. What else could they accuse him of?  Shortly before arrest our janitor Gidulian told my father that he knew very well who was the next to be arrested. Before arresting a person NKVD 18 officers visit a janitor under pretense that they intend to check a housing roster, but actually they ask questions about the tenant that interests them. The janitor said that they’ve come to see him and asked about our neighbor Rhubel, director of a recreation center in Kholodnaya Balka town, but this Rhubel was away from home. The janitor respected my father and advised him to leave home as well, but my father ignored it: ‘Where can I go? We don’t have money to travel!’  By that time he was fired from work. However, we moved to the dacha where he was arrested on 8 June 1938. Young NKVD officers came to arrest him. My mother and father slept on the terrace and my brother and I slept in the room. They made a careless search and my mother managed to put some Party documents into my pocket.  They didn’t search us and we kept these documents.
  
Somebody named Melnichenko had something to do with my father’s arrest. I remember this name very well even now. He probably wanted to have a big Jewish trial in Odessa and all arrested Jews were kept in the town. This saved many Jews, including my father. My mother wrote a letter to Stalin. She told my brother and me that Stalin’s office would send this letter back to Odessa and my father would stay in town until they clarified all circumstances. My father stayed in prison for about two years and returned home. He was very lucky to have been arrested on 8 June 1938 and Yezhov [Editor’s note: N.I. Yezhov (1895-1940) – people’s commissar of home affairs in the USSR in 1936-1937] had been replaced with Beriya 19. During the Yezhov rule prisoners were beaten and put on conveyor like they did in the past.  Beriya issued an order to stop beating and tortures. When my father was arrested the housing authorities gave one room to a woman whose husband was also arrested. My mother didn’t get along with her. They argued and my mother called her a whore. When my father was released she sued this woman to have her out of our apartment and the court took a decision for this woman to move out. Then all of a sudden my mother declared that however bad this neighbor might be she was the wife of a prisoner and we couldn’t throw her out. This woman stayed to live with us.  

After my father was arrested I left school and entered a Jewish Machine building Technical School. My mother felt positive about it. She was afraid of being arrested and hoped that they wouldn't send my brother to a children's home now that I was a student. I received a stipend at school and I could learn a profession soon. Prisoners’ children were thrown out of educational institutions, but when filling up my application form in the line item ‘father’ I wrote ‘my father doesn’t live with us at present’. I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell the truth either. Later it became known that director of my school knew that my father was in prison, but she kept silent about it. I studied at school for three years. I didn’t join Komsomol 20, since I didn’t want to join an organization of executioners. I thought: Komsomol and Party members were involved in beating my father and I couldn’t be in the same organization with them. My mother argued with me. She thought this was dangerous conduct, but I stood my point.

Through this whole period my classmate Revmir Cherniak gave me moral support. He was my future husband.  He often came to my home and helped me with everything. Revmir was born in Odessa in 1923. His parents Isaac and Torah Cherniak came from Lithuania. They were also involved in the revolutionary movement. His father was sent in exile in Arkhangelsk region before 1905 and his wife followed him there. Later they moved to Odessa. They were tailors. Revmir had two brothers: Israel and Mikhail and sister Mariana Aihenvald in her marriage.  They were much older than Revmir. Mikhail, their youngest, was born in 1910. Revmir finished school in 1940 and entered a military school in Leningrad. I corresponded with him.

On 21 June 1941 [Great Patriotic War] 21 I went to the dacha to visit my father’s friend from Kharkov Shura Poplavskaya. The weather was bad on the next day that was Sunday. It was raining. All of a sudden we heard Levitan’s 22 voice on the radio at 12 o’clock: ‘All radio stations of the Soviet Union speaking’. He announced that fascist Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Everybody knew that there was going to be a war, though. Shura said that we had to buy tickets to Kharkov. Shura and I went to the railway station. It was awful there with crowds of people trying to buy tickets. Shura managed to buy a ticket and went to Kharkov. On the first day Levitan announced that Odessa and Sevastopol were bombed. I didn’t see any bombing in Odessa on that day. The first serious bombing was on 22 July. German planes were combing streets on a low level flight.  I was going along Grecheskaya Street to my friend when I heard explosions and jumped into an entrance of a house. There were trams #23 moving along Grecheskaya Street. Streetcars rushed up and down the street at full speed so that sparks were falling from wires. Passers by told each other that many young men and women perished in Primorski Boulevard. I ran home to make sure that my family was all right. On my way home I saw Pushkin’s house [A.S. Pushkin museum] on fire. There was nobody home. My parents were at work.

My father was again director of mixed fodder plant and my mother worked in the trade department of the Party town committee. She said that members of the Party were not allowed to evacuate, but they received evacuation cards for members of their families. She obtained cards for us and her cousin sister Vitia who was her close friend as well.  I said we were not leaving without her. Our neighbor Lisa Alevenshtein didn’t want to evacuate for a different reason. She said: ‘Where would I go? I have no husband and I have three small children and my old mother. I have no money’. She was very concerned about expensiveness of life. There were rumors in Odessa that evacuation was very expensive, that a bagel cost 5 rubles. We were going to leave Odessa in the direction of Nikolaev along with army troops. Once during another air raid I was hiding in an entrance with a woman. She asked me why we were not leaving and I replied that we were planning to leave with army troops. She said: ‘I am from Pereyaslav [present Pereyaslav-Khmelnitskiy]. The army left it. They don’t even take officers’ wives with them! This is not even a Civil War, you know!’  I felt scared. When I came home I told my mother that we had to leave immediately. My mother made jute sacks for each of us to be able to walk with our luggage. My father couldn’t leave the town due to his orders. While we were waiting for him we found out that Germans had come to Nikolaev and Odessa was in encirclement and there was the only way out by sea. My mother’s acquaintance from the Party town committee gave us boat boarding tickets to Novorossiysk [700 km to Odessa by sea].  

My mother’s cousin sister Vitia Vishnevskaya said when my mother brought her a ticket: ‘My daughter-in-law (she was Russian) is not allowed to quit her job and I cannot leave her with a baby and go!’  Aunt Vitia and her younger son Yakov stayed in Odessa. Once, when they were out, her bitch of a daughter-in-law took their gold from a hiding place in their apartment and aunt Vitia’s good coat and left for Nikolaev with her baby. Aunt Vitia stayed in Odessa during occupation 23. Aunt Vitia didn’t even have a coat to go to the ghetto. Her neighbor gave her a coat. Her daughter-in-law came to their apartment in 1942 during occupation and took away all their furniture. Their neighbors told her off and she threatened them: ‘If you talk much I will go to the town office and report that you help Jews!’ At this time other people were rescuing aunt Vitia’s son Lazar Vishnevski. He was captured and when Germans ordered: ‘Communists and Jews make a step ahead’ Lazar was standing in the second line and wanted to step forward, but the men standing in front of him didn’t let him. Lazar asked him to move aside, but he replied: ‘Go to hell!’ ‘I am a Jew!’ ‘What the hell, you are Vishnevski, a Polish!’ «Russians saved his life another time as well. Prisoners were to go to a bathroom. Lazar said to his fellow prisoner: ‘What do I do now? I am circumcised!’ He gathered few reliable men and they shielded Lazar so that a guard didn’t see him. They saved his life.

Two Russian women living in our house Berezovskaya and Rogova cooked cereals every day, took buckets of water that they carried on a yoke and went to the ghetto in Slobodka. They brought food for the family of Lisa Alevenshtein and our neighbor Rhubel. Rhubel’s two sons were at the front. Before going to the ghetto she left two suits with Berezovskaya in case her sons returned from the army and had nothing to wear.  The Alevenshtein family and Rhubel perished. They were probably shot near our house where there is the Park of Lenin. There used to be a ravine and now there is a pond in this spot.

From Novorossiysk we were taken to Ust-Labinsk of Krasnodar region. We didn’t have any money and my mother went to a district Party committee looking for a job. Secretary of the district committee said: ‘Why do you want to get a job here? Germans are advancing. They are almost near Rostov. Move farther to the east of the country!’ My mother said we didn’t have money. The secretary arranged a free train trip to Kropotkin town and gave us a note addressed to commandant of Kropotkin requesting assistance for us. Nevertheless, we stayed in Ust-Labinsk for about two weeks. We worked in a kolkhoz: my brother mowed grass and I worked in a vegetable crew. Chairman of the kolkhoz gave us some flour: this was our earning, he said.  The owner of the house where we stayed, a Kazak woman, baked us some bread and gave us some cheese. She said: ‘I don’t know what is going to happen to us. What if we have to escape and then somebody will help us?’   

I faced anti-Semitism for the first time in my life during this trip. I was sitting on a platform at the railway station in Kropotkino when a train from Caucasus arrived. Some recruits came onto the platform. They asked me: ‘What’s the news?’ I began to tell them about the situation when one of them asked all of a sudden: ‘What’s your nationality?’ I said: ‘I am a Jew’ and he said: ‘Can’t you hear that she burrs her ‘r’?’ I felt like doused with boiling water.  Nobody ever said anything like that to me.  At that moment a young man, a Russian blond with blue eyes, came up to me and said: ‘Don’t listen to this idiot. He cannot talk himself. Don’t be afraid. We shall beat Germans and you will go back home. All the best to you!’ and he shook my hand. I shall never forget this.  

We finally arrived in Tashkent [3.200 km from Odessa in Uzbekistan] We immediately obtained a residential permit and received a 14-square-meter room at reasonable cost. Later we exchanged this room for another room in a private sector. Here we also paid reasonable fees for the room and power. My parents were treated well. My father worked as a controller of water gauge facilities.  He inspected water jets. My mother worked as an accountant. I don’t know in what organization she worked.  My brother Ilia went to a vocational school where he received a uniform and was provided meals.  I went to work at the Tashkent agricultural machine building plant that manufactured shells and repaired tanks at that period. There were vacancies in a foundry and I went to work there.  I was a core rod installer installing core rods into shells. We worked 12 hours per day. There were Uzbek workers as well. They didn’t speak Russian and didn’t understand anything.  They were constantly scolded. They had to carry such heavy loads that we felt sorry for them, even though our life was as rough. Thus, I heard some Uzbek talking about ‘zhydy’ [abusive word for a Jew] behind my back on a bus. I turned to them and said that in that case they were ‘sarty’, abusive for Uzbek people. They were about to beat me.

In Tashkent we received 800 grams bread per day per our bread coupons and workers of the foundry received a free lunch and additional 200 grams of bread. It was a miserable lunch with flour prevailing in dishes. There was a spontaneous market near the entrance to the plant where workers were selling their ration of bread. 800 grams was the weight of a loaf of bread. I went to the market once and found out that selling one loaf I could buy enough food for my whole family. I sold a loaf every other day buying rice and even plant oil. Uzbeks delivered milk to houses. They sold it on credit. We were surprised, but our landlady explained that there were no local customers to buy it anyways and all they wanted was selling it one way or another. I also donated blood and received additional food for it. Some time later my father went to work at the Tashkent town executive committee, but their ration of food was small and my father was swollen from hunger. My mother and I had pellagra [Editor’s note: disease caused by lack of nicotinic acid and some other vitamins of B group]. My parents and I wore our winter coats that my mother had packed into our sacks back in Odessa. My brother also received a quilted coat and boots in his vocational school. There were very cold days in Tashkent. Once my brother caught cold. He felt ill, but he went to school for a meal. They even had meat for lunch. He was told that he could take his food home. His ration of food was enough for three of us.

My brother Ilia studied at school for a year and became a car mechanic. He and other graduates were sent to work in the Ural. There doctors discovered that my brother had tuberculosis and sent my brother back to Tashkent. On the way to Tashkent he was robbed somewhere in Kazakhstan. He went to commandant of a town and since he looked older than he actually was this commandant sent him to a medical check up and from there my brother was sent to a march company. Since he was educated they made him a clerk. He stayed in Kazakhstan for four months.  Then he returned to Tashkent. Ilia was eager to go to the front. He continuously went to a military registry office requesting them to send him to the frontline. Chief of the registry office got so tired of him that he burned Ilia’s passport, wrote that his year of birth was 1926 and sent him to the army in 1944. Ilia studied in a sniper school in Kushka. Then he studied in Volskoye technical school and after finishing it in 1945 he was sent to an aviation regiment that moved to Austria. Ilia was a technician in a squadron. At the end of the war he was in Austria. After the war Ilia served in the army for 7 years.  He finished his service in Grozny where he married a local woman. Her name was Taya Shubina. He moved to Odessa with his wife. We made Ilia finish the 10th grade. Is wife didn’t want to live in Odessa and they moved to Grozny. Ilia finished the Oil College. His wife worked as a seamstress. In 1956 their son Igor was born.

My parents and I returned to Odessa in 1944. There were other tenants in our apartment. We went to court. We felt anti-Semitic attitude toward us. Since my mother and father were members of the party since 1919 and they wrote a complaint to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine they managed to obtain a residential permit for us to live in Odessa. They returned one room to us. The judge said: ‘This is sufficient for three people’. My brother was at the front. I didn’t work at first. I donated blood and received a food package and a meal for it. My mother began to work in the city finance department and father soon got a job of inspector in savings-bank. 

My fiancé Revmir was at the front near Moscow in 1941. He was wounded and was taken to hospital with his legs frost-bitten. Gangrene started on one foot. It was amputated and he was sent to a hospital in Kazan. After he was released he was sent to Podolsk infantry school where he taught artillery. He continuously requested to send him to the front and he finally succeeded. In 1943 he took part in Kursk battle 24, and then in Korsun-Shevchenkovskiy operation [Editor’s note: 24.1 – 17.2 1944, in the course of struggle for Pravoberezhnaya Ukraine Soviet armies of the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts П (army generals N. F. Vatutin and I.S. Konev) encircled over 10 armies of the South group German armies (General Field Marshal Manstein) and crushed them], he was awarded an order, he also took part in battles near Yassy and was awarded another order. He sent me his officer’s certificate for allowances. Revmir was in Banska-Bistrica in Czechoslovakia when the was over. He arrived in Odessa in autumn 1945. We became a husband and wife, but we didn’t register our marriage.

In 1946 our daughter Yekaterina was born. Only then we registered our marriage to obtain a card for the baby. It was a card for 400 grams of bread. My husband entered the Mechanic Faculty of Odessa Polytechnic College. I entered Communications College and received a stipend. In 1951 our son Mikhail was born. We didn’t doubt that my husband would get a job assignment 25 in Odessa after finishing his college since he was an invalid of war and had two children. : However, he was the only one of all graduates to be sent to Petropavlovsk [in Kazakhstan] in the north. Of course, this had to do with my husband’s nationality. It took us quite an effort to have them change my husband’s job assignment. We moved to Kaspiysk [in Russia now]. I commuted 20 km to work in Makhachkala. I worked as senior technician of international telephone communications. I continued my studies as extramural student in Odessa Communications College. 

In 1953 in Kaspiysk we got to know about Stalin’s death. The only thought I had had about Stalin was “Let him die!’ I lived with a constant oppressive feeling as if the sky was on my head.  When Stalin died I felt as if this sky lifted up. I felt so happy! However, my husband cried. He easily subdued to influences. When he joined the Party I asked him how he could do it and he replied: ‘My commissar was so good and we were friends!’ ‘But you laughed at him saying that a political officer was nobody!’ 

In Kaspiysk our daughter Yekaterina went to school in 1953. I went to take my exams in Odessa.  I had all excellent marks, but they didn’t give me a diploma. I had to complete practical training and I failed to find a job of telephone operator in Odessa. So I never got my diploma. My husband completed his mandatory term in Kaspiysk and we returned to Odessa in 1955. We lived with my parents. An acquaintance of mine helped me to get a job of assistant accountant in the jute factory storeroom. In 1956 it was decided to remove our house in Lenin Street. We received a billet for a two-bedroom apartment for six of us.  My husband was on the list for receiving an apartment as an invalid of war and I thought we had to fight for receiving two apartments, but my father, my mother and my husband were telling me that we had to agree. Their major argument was ‘There is a bathroom in the apartment!’ I tried to tell where I was going to have my children sleeping – in the bathroom?', but they didn’t hear my point.   Since then we’ve lived in those two rooms in Gamarnik Street.

Our family had a difficult life, but we were seeing changes to better during Khrushchev rule 26. Khrushchev was a good person. He gave apartments to people living in basements and earth-hoses. It was impossible to make a living on pensions before Khrushchev, but he made pensions to enable people to live on them. However, the state level anti-Semitism became stronger during Khrushchev rule. My husband and I did face it. He left his job and it took him a month of searching before he managed to get another job. Nobody was employing him!  The human resource manager of one Odessa plant, who formerly worked in a labor camp employed him and his director asked him ‘How come you you’ve employed a Jew?’ and he replied ‘I had a vacancy of an engineer and he is an experienced engineer! I didn’t look at his passport, I don’t care about his nationality! There were Jews and Ukrainians in my camp and they were all equal!’ Later somebody told my husband this story. Our daughter and son also faced negative attitudes at school, particularly our daughter since she happened to be the only Jewish pupil in her class. 

In the late 1950s my brother Ilia, his wife and their son moved to Odessa from Grozny. They came to live with us. There were 9 of us living in two rooms. It was awfully hard. Ilia’s wife Taya turned out to be greedy. She used to nag to her husband for a whole week that he dared to spend three rubles without her permission. My mother offered them money for them to rent a room, but Taya didn’t want it. She felt as a hostess in our apartment. After another row I opened the door and said: ‘Get the hell out of here or I will throw you out with all your belongings!’ They left. My parents gave them money to buy a one-bedroom cooperative apartment that they bought in Filatov Street. Ilia fell under his wife’s influence and became as greedy as she was.

In 1961 my mother died. She was buried in the 2nd Christian cemetery. My daughter Yekaterina finished school in 1964. She tried to enter the Chemical Faculty of Odessa University four times and only the fifth time she was successful. She is sure that these failures at the exams were not incidental. Yekaterina managed to enter an evening department. She never got married.  

In 1965 my father traveled to Paris at the invitation of his brothers Iosif and Shmil. It took him quite an effort to obtain a permit to go abroad. He had to go to various authorities to prove his right to visit his brothers. Life abroad made a great impression on him. He used to criticize the soviet regime, but after he returned from France he said that even workers had very decent life there. My father wanted to move abroad and his French relatives offered their assistance, but he didn’t want to go there alone and my family wanted to stay at home. My husband thought that he had reached his status here, he was an engineer and if he decided to move he would have to stand by a desk cutting fur for gloves. Uncle Iosif sent me an invitation to France. I went to the foreign passport office where they told me that people were allowed only to visit close relatives and uncles were not considered as such. I wasn’t allowed to go.

After finishing school in 1968 my son went to serve in the army. He served in Volgograd and Khabarovsk region. After the army in 1972 Mikhail entered the Mechanical and Mathematic Faculty of Odessa University. After graduation he couldn’t get a job due to his nationality. He picked up all kinds of jobs that he could get. In 1978 he married Marina Solodovnikova from Moscow and moved to live in Moscow. There he found a job of programmer that was his specialty. Irina is Russian. In December 1981 their daughter Olia was born. Irina works as a librarian at school. Her sister emigrated to Germany a long time ago. They could move there as well, but they didn’t want to change their life. My granddaughter Olia studies at the Faculty of Sociology in a Pedagogical College. Unfortunately, I do not get along with my daughter-in-law. For this reason my granddaughter does not visit me. 

In Brezhnev’s epoch [1960s – 1970s] our life consisted of trying to get food and clothes. There was no meat or butter and there were no beautiful clothes. My son and I got up at six o’clock in the morning and went to the market. We stood in two lines waiting for meat to be delivered.  If we managed to return home at three in the afternoon with meat we felt happy. My husband was allowed to buy food in special stores for invalids of the war. We called these stores ‘thank you, Hitler’. We were allowed to buy 6 kg of miserable meat per month, some other products and clothes.   

During Brezhnev regime I didn’t vote in principle. My husband and I always had arguments because of this. He was very law-obedient and he couldn’t believe it when I told him that somebody else would use my voucher. Once, for the sake of experiment I came to the polling station 15 minutes before their closure. A woman on duty told me that Minna Birman had already voted. I was indignant and they gave me a blank form. So I proved to my husband that I was right and never again went to vote. Our family was always interested in politics. We discussed all political news at home. Our children read a lot and were thoughtful personalities. We often took our son and daughter to theaters and museums.  

When in the 1970s people began to move to Israel I was eager to go there, too, and obtained several invitations, but my children didn’t want to go and here I am. 

In 1976 my father died. He was buried in the 2nd Christian cemetery by my mother’s grave.  They lived their lives together and they lie beside each other.

In 1985 my husband died. Revmir was buried in the Tairovskoye cemetery [international town cemetery]. After my husband died my daughter and I had a difficult life. My brother Ilia didn’t support us, although he could have. He worked as chief engineer of the Kislorodmash plant. We had an argument when in 1982 he refused to contribute 1992. His wife Taya lives in Cheryomushki in Odessa. She has a two-bedroom apartment. Ilia’s son Igor and I are friends. He often visits me. Igor is married to Tatiana, a nice Russian woman. He has a daughter named Lena. Igor is a computer specialist. He works in a private company.

My daughter Yekaterina changed few jobs. She worked as a chemist in Probirnaya Chamber, an engineer in design office ‘Kinooborudovamiye’ (cinema equipment) and an environmental chemist for sewerage facilities. During perestroika 27, when there were economic problems and she didn’t get her salary regularly my daughter finished an accounting course.  She worked as an accountant in Filatov Institute for 8 years. In 2002 Yekaterina retired, but she continues to work as an accountant in a trade company. 

I accepted the beginning of perestroika with understanding. I think that Mikhail Gorbachev 28 is a very decent man. People blame him that perestroika failed, but I believe he did everything he could. He initiated changes, though in his position of the secretary he would have sufficient for the rest of his life. The situation couldn’t develop any differently. The USSR lived on oil needle that was like drugs. It crashed, but Gorbachev has nothing to do with it. I felt negative about the breakdown of the USSR 29. It was all right for Baltic Republics where the mentality is different. I’ve always thought and believe it now that Ukraine lost from separation. There is no oil or woods, the coal is expensive and all industries were tied to the USSR. We argued a lot about it. My children told me that Ukraine gave Russia bread and we were feeding the USSR. I cannot say for sure whether perestroika failed or not.  It failed in Ukraine. Life is better in Russia. Much failed because the Russian Empire was always enslaved whether it was serfdom or Stalin’s regime. People are not used to freedom and independence. I felt more comfortable living like that as well, but I realized that it was wrong. However, one felt rather calm receiving a fixed salary and knowing that employers wouldn’t fire their employees.  

Worked as an accountant in Chernomorniiproject for over 20 years. I literally worked for two. According to all existing standards I needed an assistant. I submitted requests for one many times, but nothing came out of it. I had to quit since I didn’t get along with my boss who was a militant anti-Semite and it was difficult for me to work with her.

I live with my daughter. My son works as a programmer in Moscow maintaining computer networks of few companies. They are not considering moving abroad. The main reason is that they feel that they won’t be able to follow the Western standards and merge into a different life.   They identify themselves as Jews, but they are far from Jewish traditions. We do not celebrate Jewish holidays. I am not religious and my children aren’t either. Back in the early 1980s I once went to the synagogue in Peresyp [in an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa]. I went to see how Jews celebrated Pesach. They sent me onto the balcony where I was standing behind other women where I couldn’t see anything from behind. Another time I went to the Osipov synagogue some time in 1999. I went there to subscribe to the Jewish newspaper ‘Shomrei Shabos’. It was a day off and there was a man on duty. I asked ‘May I come in to look?’ He replied ‘Come in, are you a Jew?’ ‘Can’t you tell?’ ‘Come in!’  I came in and looked around. It beautiful, but it didn’t stir any religious feelings in me. 

I’ve been in touch with Jewish charity organizations for a long time since the early 1990s. At first I received humanitarian aid in the Palace of Culture named after Lesia Ukrainka in Tiraspolskaya Square. When Gemilut Hesed began its activities I was almost the first one to enroll on its lists. My daughter and I receive food packages there. My daughter and I do sympathize with the rebirth of Jewish life in Odessa. We began to attend the Jewish center when it resided in the house of medical employees in Grecheskaya Street ]late 1980s]. We also enjoyed attending concerts of cantors and performances of the Jewish Theater ‘Shalom’ that came on tour to Odessa several times. I am very much interested in the Jewish history and culture. I am now putting in order our family archive that is of interest to the community. Sometimes historians come to talk with me. I want to be of help to people.

Glossary

Emma Balonova
St. Petersburg
Russia
Interviewer: Natalia Vassilyeva
Date of interview: February 2005

I met Emma Mikhaylovna Balonova in her room in the communal apartment 1, situated in the center of Petersburg. Emma Mikhaylovna is short and active.

She is slope-eyed, she looks very young. Emma Mihaylovna is that kind of person in a thousand who attracts attention of her interlocutor from the first minutes of dialogue.

Her relatives, friends, former colleagues, and neighbors - they all love Emma Mikhaylovna very much.

All her life long Emma Mihaylovna had to overcome hardships. Misfortunes followed her. She lost her younger son and her beloved husband.

But she kept optimism, interest in surroundings, and desire to be useful to people.

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

• My family background

I know about my paternal great-grandmother and great-grandfather almost nothing. I only know that my paternal relatives lived in Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia. In Belarus there is a small town Polotsk. My father often told us about their life in Polotsk, about his father and grandfather. 

According to father, they lived very poorly, almost in abject poverty. If my memory does not fail me, my father’s father and grandfather taught Jewish children in cheder.

Parents paid for their children’s studies, but only those parents who were able to do it. The total sum was beggarly, because all Jews there were poor. But my father’s father and grandfather had no other profession. Well, and my great-grandmother kept their house. 

I visited my grandmother and grandfather only once. At that time we lived in Minsk, and Daddy made a business trip to Polotsk. He took me with him to show me grandmother and grandfather, to introduce me to them. I do not remember the date when it happened. I remember that I was very little. I also remember their big wooden house, where they lived with their children. They had a lot of children: 6 or 7. 

Family of my paternal grandfather was very religious. My grandfather held a post in the synagogue. I do not know how it was called, but I know that he assisted rabbi.

He had payes and a long beard. And he never was bare-headed. His name was Israel Kalmyk. He was a long-liver: he died when he was over 90 years old. 

My grandfather did not serve in the army. Grandfather's first wife Sore-Zelde Kalmyk died early in life, and he married for the second time. His second wife took care of her own children and the children of her husband and was nice to all of them absolutely equally.

For example, my father got to know that he was brought up by a stepmother when he was already an adult. She was a very good woman! It is a pity that I do not remember her name.

My daddy left home when he was very young, and began to earn his living. He was not educated: finished only cheder, but he was a person of capacity. He had very good memory, and he was gifted in general. He coached pupils from rich families, helped them to get prepared for school, and then to span gaps in their knowledge.

His name was Mendel Kalmyk. He was born in 1897 in Vilno region. He died in Gorky in 1943 in evacuation.

Regarding my mother’s parents I know even less. You see, they both died very early in life. They had 11 children, and all of them became orphans.

My mother's father was called Rafael-Abram (Jewish name Folye-Avrom). It is interesting that Mum had a sister Nekhama, they were twins. And you see, on my mother's tomb it is written Sofiya Abramovna, and on my aunt's one Nekhama Rafaelovna.

My Mum Sofiya Balonova was born in 1895 in Vilno region, too. She died of cancer in 1946 in Leningrad.

The rest of my maternal relatives I remember better, because all of them are my relatives twice: I married the son of my mother’s brother, i.e. my mother's nephew or my cousin.

My mother's family lived in Riga. As I already told you, parents died early in life and children had to make their own way in life. Riga was a big European city. There lived very rich families, most of them were German. Many girls, including mother’s sisters, worked for rich German families making clothes for all family members. My mother-in-law and her sisters did the same when they were young. They also lived in Riga.

My mum’s brother Yakov was a very qualified shoemaker. He had a great success making shoes. He also lived in Riga. By that time managers of a shoe factory in Petersburg decided to improve their production process making better footwear. They wanted to invite highly skilled experts. Several managers from that factory came to Riga to find the best shoemakers.

Among others, they invited my uncle, who became my future father-in-law. By that time he was already married to my future mother-in-law and they had a son (my future husband) Isaac Yakovlevich Balonov. They considered themselves to be lucky, when Isaac got an invitation to the Petersburg factory: they did not want to remain in Riga as they were disquieted by rumors of the coming war, they had temptation to go to Russia.

The factory gave them a good apartment, and their family settled there. Later Yakov’s younger sister Emma came to their place too.

My Mum lived in Petersburg since she was a young girl, but I do not know the way she got there. Unfortunately at present there is nobody to ask about it. I guess her brother and his wife invited her to live with them. I remember that sometimes she spoke about her work at a knitting factory when she was very young.

My future mother-in-law and her sister were very good dressmakers. At that time my father lived in Vilno, he arrived in Petersburg on a business trip and met Emma. They fell in love with each other and were going to get married. But it went ill with them: the bride got sick with typhus and died. According to Jewish laws Daddy had to marry her sister, my Mum.

Daddy named me Emma in honor of his lost bride. You may consider their marriage to be a shotgun one, but they lived in harmony all life long. I guess they got married in Belarus. I do not know exactly, but Mum and Daddy left for Belarus as a groom and a bride. I guess my parents did not marry in the synagogue: by that time Daddy already was a bellicose atheist.

My father served in the tsarist army. I know no details about his service, but once father's photo in his uniform stroke my eye. He told me that he took that photograph before leaving for the army. By the way, during his service in the army father had been ill with typhus and lost his hair. Since then he had to cut his hair close to the skin. People thought that he did it in conformity with the latest revolutionary fashion of those years.

Having got married, my parents lodged in a small town in Belarus (I’ve forgotten its name). Soon they moved to Minsk. And I was born on April 17, 1920 in Vitebsk. Mum did not want to give birth in Minsk, because she was afraid that father would not allow arranging bar mitzvah for the newborn boy (she was sure a boy would be born). But it was me who was born, and our family remained in peace: I already told you that my father was an atheist.

When he was a child, he used to sing at the synagogue because he had got a good voice, but when he grew up, at the age of 19, he broke with religion and became a communist. He always told me and my sisters that there was no God. And it went without saying that our family members could arrange no bar mitzvah for newborn boys.

Through habit I go on saying my sisters, but in fact I had only one sister. Now I’ll tell you how my second sister appeared in our family. In 1921 in Samara people starved and suffered from cholera epidemic. Two Mum’s sisters lived there, they both died during that epidemic. One of them left 3 little children; each of them was taken by the families of their uncles and aunts in order to avoid children's home.

That was why Mum’s niece lived in our family as mother's sister. But unfortunately 4 children of the other Mum’s sister got to a children’s home somewhere in Belarus. From time to time my Mum took them home, and we made good friends. They were always hungry and ragged.

Once I even got frightened, when I went out and saw a dirty child in the street (it happened in Minsk). I came back home and said ‘Mum, I am afraid to go out, there is a homeless boy over there.’ When that boy came into our court yard, I recognized my cousin David. Later he appeared to be a very talented person; he graduated from the Leningrad University through a correspondence course and became a school director. Everybody loved him very much.

My younger sister Klara was born in 1923, and my elder cousin sister was born in 1912. Her name was Mirra Goman.

My father joined the Russian Social Democratic Worker’s Party of bolsheviks in 1919 and soon became a professional Party worker. [The Russian Social Democratic Worker’s Party (of bolsheviks) appeared in 1917. In March 1918 it was renamed the Russian Communist Party, in 1925 renamed All-Union Communist Party, and in 1952 - Communist Party of the Soviet Union.] He worked there almost all his life long, only in his later years he became a director of the Evening Pedagogical Institute in Gomel.

In Minsk he worked as the first secretary of MOPR 2.

• Growing up

I can’t recall very well our apartment in Minsk. For some reason now I can hardly recall our family life. I guess we rented a small house. Our neighbors were Belarusian families. We all lived in peace and friendship despite different nationalities. I do not remember anybody coming to oblige. Otherwise Mum would have not sent me to the kindergarten. I liked my kindergarten.

The only crumpled rose-leaf was absence of my sister Klara there: she was too little for it. I cried so bitterly that they allowed her to attend my kindergarten with me as a guest.

In Minsk I went to school, and studied there 5 years. We studied Belarusian language and loved that subject very much. As a result, we spoke it very well, we could read and write in Belarusian language. We were also interested in Belarus literature and knew many poems by heart.

What an odd mixture is human memory! I do not remember the number of rooms in our apartment, but can recall some political events clearly.

Probably it was connected with my father’s work. Well, in 1927 two Italian communists Sacco and Vanzetti were executed because they were communists and were in touch with the Soviet government.

[Nikola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italians by birth were workers and revolutionaries in the USA. In 1920 they were charged in murder, brought in a verdict of guilty and sentenced to death penalty.]

In Minsk there took place a great manifestation of protest against that execution. I remember the large square in the central district of Minsk. It was overcrowded with people carrying banners and slogans. Leaders of the city mounted the rostrum, and my father was among them. He even made a speech. And he took me (what a mercy!) with him to the rostrum. It was impossible to be forgotten!

My elder sister was a very active member of the Komsomol organization 3. At the Officers’ House there was a local Komsomol organization.

Its members arranged different recreational events: dancing, choral singing, theater performances. Sometimes my sister took me there, and I enjoyed it very much. In summer my elder sister used to work in pioneer camps as a pioneer leader.

[Pioneer camps were out-of-town establishments for children - members of the Pioneer Organization 4.]

She always took me with her. But mum never allowed my younger sister to go with us, because her health was very poor: at the slightest provocation she immediately fell sick.

At my school in Minsk I had 2 friends: Sara and Rachel. We remained true friends till now. After we graduated from our colleges, one of us moved to Moscow, another one stayed in Minsk, and I moved to Leningrad, but we visited each other every year. By the way they came to me on the occasion of my wedding in 1940.

In 1932 when I was 12 we moved to Gomel. At that time my younger sister was 9 years old, and my elder sister was already 20. She entered a technical school. [Technical schools appeared in the USSR to prepare employees of middle level for industrial, agricultural and other organizations.]

In spite of the fact that Daddy was a Communist Party worker, we lived in a communal apartment. At that time party workers had no privileges in compare with benefits which appeared later on. We lived in a four-room apartment: 2 rooms were occupied by us, 2 rooms - by our neighbor.

Our rooms were very large; we also had a vast balcony. The apartment was very good. There was central heating, but we heated our bathroom with firewood. I remember Daddy chopping firewood. It is interesting that in our apartment there was a big Russian stove 5. Mum always made very tasty pies, because Russian stove was very good for baking.

Mum did everything about the house and my elder sister helped her. My younger sister and I never assisted them. When I was a child I washed not a single handkerchief myself. Parents told us that we had to study, and that was all. The only assistant to Mum was a laundress, who came to us once a week: she used to work all day long.

Our neighbor sang fairly well: she appeared in concert halls with Jewish songs. I also sang delightfully, therefore she started teaching me to sing Jewish songs. And I knew the language, because I lived in a Jewish city.

In Gomel we lived in one of the central streets in a big house. In Gomel there lived many Jews. There were no special Jewish zones of residence: one could hear people speaking Yiddish all over the city. I do not remember any manifestations of anti-Semitism, I do not remember anybody talking about nationalities. The same was at my school: we never discussed it.

We chose friends following different preferences, but we never thought about nationality. One day when we were already adult, we tried to recollect who of our classmates was Jewish, but did not manage. I remember the synagogue in Gomel, but nobody of our acquaintances visited it. The synagogue building was a big, uncared-for, painted dark grey. I never got in.

Besides the secondary school, I attended a musical one. Therefore I could not spend all my time with my friends though I wished to: all my school friends did their homework and were able to do anything they wanted till the next day. As for me, every evening I had to go to my musical school. But on holidays and days off we visited each other at home, listened to music.

All my friends (especially when they grew up) liked to discuss political topics with my Daddy. Daddy used to deliver public lectures on international situation. A great number of people gathered to listen to him; his speech used to come across very well. By the way, my father could speak Yiddish, Russian and Belarusian languages very well.

All of us liked our form-master (a teacher of chemistry) very much. Her name was Nina Fominichna Guseva. She was very strict, but very good. Half of our class became enthusiastic about chemistry and entered chemical colleges (and I was one of them). Here you see what a large part a teacher can play in the life of their pupils!

We never celebrated Jewish holidays. We even did not celebrate the New Year day. Our favorite holiday was November 7 [Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution - the main state holiday in the USSR] and May 1 [the Day of the International Solidarity of Workers - the state holiday in the USSR].

On that days Daddy always took us to take part in demonstration. In Gomel there was a very good drama theatre. Moscow theater troupes often gave performances on tour there - we never missed them. Daddy had free-of-charge pass to all theatres. But most of all we liked when Daddy was at home with us, we considered it to be a great holiday. We loved him very much and never called him father, only Daddy.

I remember that when we lived in Gomel, Daddy often went to Moscow on business trips. In order to reach the railway station he always took a cab. We (Mum, my sisters and me) always went to the station together with him. At the railway station there was a very good restaurant and before the train departure we all used to have supper there, then saw off Daddy and walked back home. The railway station was situated not far from our house, but we liked to keep that order.

In the summer we used to go on vacation to one of nearby communes. [Agricultural communes were first created in 1917 by workers and farm laborers (they worked together). It was a form of agricultural production co-operative, later (in 1930s) Soviet authorities transformed them into collective farms.]

When the commune members got to know that my Daddy was a Communist Party worker, they asked him to be their adviser, to help them solve various problems. He easily made friends with people; he was a highly educated person, easy to get along with and had a good sense of humor.

Among the important political events of that time I remember the murder of Kirov 6. That murder initiated the Great Terror 7. Late at night some people from the local Communist Party committee came to us, woke my father and said that Kirov had just been killed in Leningrad. It was like a bolt from the blue.

Daddy jumped out of bed, dressed quickly and left. Later in 1937 mass arrests and executions began. Daddy was not arrested by pure accident. Later we got to know that he was in the list, but he was lucky to be at the bottom of it. By that time Yezhov 8 was already dethroned and executed by shooting in Moscow, and after that many cases were closed. But many of our acquaintances were arrested and lost during that period, including the best teachers from our school.

I finished ten-year secondary school in Gomel and got only excellent marks. Having got excellent school-leaving certificate pupils were exempt from entrance examinations. I sent my documents to the Leningrad Technological College and became a student of the chemical department.

In August I arrived in Leningrad for interviewing. They placed me in the hostel, and I did not come back to Gomel any more (it was rather expensive to go from Leningrad to Gomel and back). Do you know the song ‘Daddy was a man of honor, but of a very modest income’? You see, these words could be said about my Daddy.

So my life far away from my family began. But in Leningrad I was not lonely: there lived my uncle Yakov (at that time I did not know that he would become my father-in-law). I visited my uncle every Saturday. I made friends with Maria, my cousin. And my cousin Isaac did not live at home: he was a military man.

He was much elder than me, and in 1936 he graduated from the 1st Medical College in Leningrad. [The St. Petersburg Medical University (former College) named after Pavlov was founded in 1897.] Among the students of their group there were 3 boys, after graduation they all were called up for military service. Isaac served near Leningrad.

Almost every Saturday he came home, bought theater tickets for me and Maria, gave us money to buy cakes. Later he started going to theatres and concerts together with us. It seemed to me that he treated me like a child. One day before his long business trip, he asked me ‘Will you marry me?’ I answered ‘Yes!’ I thought it was a joke.

Next day he left. And later I received a letter from him, where he wrote that he would be happy to marry me. Only then I understood it was not a joke, but that day I had to start on my destiny.

One boy from Gomel studied together with me in the College. We were friends at school, came to Leningrad together. People around us thought that we were going to get married. He always accompanied me wherever I went; but suddenly he noticed that several times I visited the same apartment. He asked me ‘Is that your brother you visit there?’

Later I got married, but I it was too much for me to tell him about my wedding. Therefore I asked my friend to inform him about my marriage. He cried and left our College, because it was above his strength to see me there. Later he became a doctor.

• During the war

I finished 2 courses, and the war burst out. On July 19, 1942 the College was evacuated to Kazan, we studied and worked there. Some faculties organized production of saccharin. As for me, I worked at the faculty of pyrotechnics; there we were engaged in getting of phosphorus. It was a harmful and dangerous process. Every day I received a small amount of butter and 2 spoons of granulated sugar. It supported my organism a little.

In general, we lived in poverty. For dinner they gave us 2 spoons of mashed peas (we liked it very much). We added there an onion and ate it with a piece of brown bread. We received worker’s cards, therefore it was impossible to die having 800 g of bread a day.

Every Sunday together with my friend we went to the market and bought half a kilogram of potatoes, boiled it, ate and drank the water. Till now I can’t permit myself pouring out water, where I had boiled potatoes. So, we lived that way, but it couldn't be helped! In Leningrad people starved more 9. We knew it for sure, because a lot of us had relatives there…

Winters were very hard in Kazan. And we had almost no clothes to put on. The Kazan girls had valenki. [Valenki - winter boots made of milled wool.] And so we wore those valenki by turns. I was lucky: I had a winter coat with me. When we were at the railway station going to leave for Kazan, my mother-in-law almost threw it in my hands by force.

I remember that I was very indignant at it ‘It is summer now, the war will be finished in 3 or 4 months, why should I take it with me?’ And she answered ‘If you don’t need it, give it somebody as a present. And now take it please, don't refuse, do as I ask you.’ So I took it, because it would have been in bad taste to refuse. Till now I cannot understand, how she managed to find me that day at the overcrowded railway station. She also brought me a wadded blanket.

It is incumbent upon me to mention that in Kazan we were received very well, though a lot of colleges were evacuated there. We never heard a word of reproach, while in fact not everywhere evacuated people were met affably. We were lodged in the large basement of Kazan Chemical and Technological College. They placed there a hundred beds and a hundred bedside-tables. It was very warm there, that’s why I did not unpack my blanket.

In 1943 or 1942 they sent us to dig entrenchments [during the war all people able to work were mobilized for earthwork construction around the cities]. At that moment I called my blanket to mind and took it with me. We were lodged in a premise with an earthen floor and I decided to unpack my blanket. I undid the package and saw a blanket in a snow-white blanket cover.

And you see, the blanket cover was beautifully embroidered. Well, the girls saw it and immediately nicknamed me Countess Balonova. They called me Countess all the time we were together.

My parents and sisters were evacuated in Gorky [Nizhniy Novgorod at present]. At the beginning of the war people lost each other, nobody knew where their relatives left for. Only later we gradually began to learn about the destiny of our relatives. In Gorky my father died. He caught a cold, because they left in haste practically without clothes and had no money to purchase winter clothes.

His disease had lung complication and he died of pneumonia, because it was impossible to get penicillin at that time. And my younger sister served in the army. She was mobilized as soon as they arrived in Gorky.

She served all the war long, and after the victory day they got aboard big lorries and started eastwards. In their battalion there were only women. They all thought they were going to be demobilized. But they went on moving eastward through Moscow, through Urals, through Siberia. When they understood that they were not going home, they started shouting, crying. It appeared that Japan drifted into war 10. So my sister had enough time to fight there till the end of the war. She was there together with her future husband (he was their commander).

And my husband’s family remained in the besieged Leningrad. He managed to help them bringing food, because he served nearby. His sister Maria served in the same medical unit. One day he brought his mother a pork chop, and she said ‘Isaac, I never ate pork, so do you think now in my old age I shall eat it? Don’t feel hurt, but I won’t do it.’ She was very courageous and did not allow her relatives to lose heart. She forced them to get up in the morning, did not allow them to go to bed in the afternoon, and made them change linen and wash whenever it was possible.

In spring of 1943 I graduated from the College. They gave me my diploma written on the yellow parcel paper. They offered me to choose a place of work: Dzerzhinsk near Gorky or Zagorsk near Moscow. I chose Zagorsk, because I hoped to see my husband one day before the end of the war. I hoped that they would send him to Moscow on a business trip. You see, at that time my husband served as a medical officer near Leningrad.

The factory I worked at produced gunpowder and colored smokeless pistol-flare-lights for the front. Earlier I never saw gunpowder, and in Zagorsk I kept the keys to powder-shop. Imagine what serious responsibilities I accepted! Colored pistol-flare-lights were used first of all as a signal system and a means of communication.

For example, the red rocket was a signal to take the offensive, and the green one - to retreat. Therefore it was very important that shipment of red pistol-flare-lights never contained green ones. You see, it could cost thousands of soldiers and officers their lives.

My dream to meet my husband soon came true. He had to accompany a badly wounded pilot to Moscow. From Moscow he came to me (to Zagorsk). I cried all the night long: I was very happy to meet my husband and very sorrowful to part again. Soon I moved to Leningrad and gave birth to my eldest son Mikhail.

In 1944 Soviet armies liberated Baltic republics. My husband served in air-units and participated in liberation. He was left there to serve. I left my factory and moved to my husband together with my newborn son. Once at night some person called my husband and informed about unconditional surrender of Germany.

Early in the morning all Tallin citizens were in the Ratusha square, the main square of Tallin. They were dancing, embracing, crying, singing. They did not care about nationalities: Russians, Estonians, Jews were together there. It was impossible to be forgotten!

In Tallin we had a neighbor Anna Ernestovna. She was a remarkable woman, a real heroine. Such people are worth monuments; let my story about her be that monument.

• After the war

When the war burst out, Anna Ernestovna lived in Pskov. Near Pskov Germans brought down a Soviet airplane, one of its pilots was wounded, managed to survive and reached Anna's house by crawling. She hid him in the cellar. Above them in the same house there lived German officers. Every evening some girls visited them, they danced. And Anna told us ‘If only they knew that they danced on the floor under which there was a Soviet pilot whom they could not find!’

Anna took care of him, fed him, and bandaged his wounds. When he recovered, he said ‘Anna Ernestovna, thank you ever so much, now I’ll go to find my relatives, they live in Pskov.’ She answered ‘Don’t go, Germans will catch you, look around!’ - ‘No, I’ll do it secretly.’ Several hours later somebody knocked at the door. She opened it and saw 2 Germans and the pilot. He was beaten within an inch of his life: she even could not recognize him! Anna always cried telling that story! It turned out that Germans caught the pilot, beat him and forced to show the house where Anna was hiding him.

So Anna, her husband and 2 their daughters were taken away into the concentration camp. On their way to the camp her husband died of gangrene. Germans moved them from camp to camp in Poland and Germany. Americans liberated them from Buchenwald 11. Anna Ernestovna also had 2 sons. They were at the front line: one of them was on our side and the other one was with Germans (in Pskov Germans forced him to become their soldier).

I told Anna Ernestovna about a beautiful song An Yiddish Mother, and my husband (he was a fighter for equal rights) said ‘Why only a Yiddish mother? And what about the other mothers?’ And Anna Ernestovna answered ‘Isaac Yakovlevich, when they brought us to the camp, all mothers had the right to take their little children with them. But Jewish mothers were not allowed to do it. If they ran after their children, Germans shot them. That is why there is a song about Jewish mother.’

When Americans liberated Buchenwald, they equipped barracks, where camp prisoners were waiting for departure for different countries, with radio. In the barrack of Soviet prisoners they listened to Soviet broadcast. And Anna Ernestovna who suffered knowing nothing about her sons, suddenly heard ‘Listen to the orchestra under the baton of Anatoly Gashnik.’ So she got to know that her elder son was alive.

Anna Ernestovna vowed to adopt an orphan, if her sons survive the war. After the end of the war she went to Pskov and went through the process of adoption of a boy whose parents were lost. She changed his name to Anatoly (her elder son’s name), therefore she had got 2 sons named Anatoly. After that her son came to Tallin to his mother and sisters and settled in our apartment, too. We made good friends with him. Soon he became a dean of the Tallin conservatory.

And that son of hers who served in the German army also survived the war. He was found in Germany, in Danzig by a friend of Anna Ernestovna: she sent her a press-cutting with an announcement about his engagement. He was afraid to write his mother: he thought (not without good reason) that it could be dangerous for her. Only many years later he came to meet his mother.  

In Tallin we lived about four years. After that my husband was sent to Germany. I did not go with him, because at that time authorities did not allow wives to go abroad together with their husbands. In Germany they started activities of the Soviet military government, where Soviet people worked to plant soviet ideas.

My husband had to teach Germans soviet methods of health protection. He said ‘God forbid them to learn it! For a hundred years we can be only dreaming about their level of public health service.’ While Isaac served in Germany, my son and I lived in Leningrad. I worked in the Institute of Toxicology.

In 1952 my husband returned from Germany and was assigned to Ukraine. I went with him. Of course our son was with us. In Ukraine they moved my husband from one place to another. During 6 years we changed 5 places of residence. We lived in Kremenchug, in Uman, and I even have forgotten names of the rest places.

In Kremenchug I taught chemistry at school. But soon I had to leave the school, because by that time there came children born during the war time. Number of such children was very small, that was why a lot of teachers were fired, first of all those ones who had no pedagogical certificate. And I was among them. In Kremenchug in 1955 my younger son Yakov was born.

During his work in Ukraine (and during his life) my husband was never oppressed because of nationalistic reasons. Possible reason was my husband’s great scholarship, compliance and sense of humor. He always easily made friends with people.

In 1958 my husband got demobilized and we returned to Leningrad as a family of four. My husband went to the State College for Advanced Training of Doctors. [The State College for Advanced Training of Doctors was the first in the world educational institution for improvement of doctors’ skill.

It was founded in 1924.] He wanted to get a specialty of radiologist. To tell the truth, he had already got it. You see, serving in Germany he did not drink vodka every evening (like others), but spent his spare time with his friend who worked in the local hospital. His friend was a radiologist; he taught my husband fine points of his profession.

In Leningrad he studied at the advanced training courses for half a year and got a certificate of radiologist. And he worked in one of the Leningrad hospitals as a radiologist for about 30 years. We all lived at my mother-in-law in her large five-room apartment. She put a room at our disposal. And I went to work at the Chemical and Pharmaceutical College.

There I worked 5 years. But before I went there, I made an attempt to return to the Institute of Toxicology, where I worked earlier. I did not go to its personnel department; I addressed my former laboratory head directly. He said ‘You’d better find some other place to work now, but when it becomes easier from the certain viewpoint, I’ll call you, and you will come.’ It was absolutely clear for me what he was talking about: at that time they were not permitted to take Jews.

He called me 5 years later (in 1964), during the so called Khruschev Thaw 12. I came to the Institute and worked there till 1979. I had the right to retire on pension at the age of 45 (because we worked with chemical agents dangerous to health, though pension age in the USSR and in Russia was 55), but I worked 14 years more. I came across no manifestations of anti-Semitism: I worked under very pleasant conditions, though I knew that it was practically impossible for a Jew to find work in our Institute.

It is interesting to mention that a veto was put only on newcomers of Jewish nationality. In the institute there worked a lot of Jews, almost all of them occupied leading positions: managed laboratories, directed scientific investigations, etc. I retired on pension in 1979, and did not work any more.

As in our Institute we worked with chemical agents dangerous to health, each employee received a free-of-charge place in any recreational center he liked one time in 4 years 13. But every year we used to go for vacation to the South: sometimes to Crimea, sometimes to the Caucasus.

During the year we saved money to have an opportunity to go for vacation in summer. My sister’s husband was military (a colonel), he was one of the major executives and used to go for vacation to very good sanatoria every year. Being in sanatorium, he used to find and rent an apartment for his wife, his son, my little children and me. When my children grew up, they started spending summer holidays in sports camps.

Certainly in our family we did not observe Tradition in the full sense of the word. But we always celebrated Jewish holidays and never ate pork. We began buying ham only when my mother-in-law died. Nobody was such a light hand for matzah flour dishes as my sister-in-law. And my mother-in-law was a real master in stuffing fish!

All of us wanted to educate our hands to it: we breathed down her neck watching, and then tried to repeat. No, we never managed. My mother-in-law always put on the table horseradish sauce (to eat it with fish). We used to make horseradish sauce ourselves. We tried to make everything ourselves, not to buy.

First, it was tastier to make yourself, and second, we never had money to spare. Our house was open for friends. When we were young, my husband’s friends often visited us, and we all drew round the table and had dinner. But on holidays we did not invite quests, we liked to be in the family circle.

My son Mikhail was born in 1944 and Yakov in 1955. They were very good children. We had no problems with them, we always understood each other. They both were good sportsmen. The younger son was a volleyball player (he had a sports category), and the elder one went in for boxing and weightlifting.

Since he was an eight-class pupil, Mikhail spent each minute of his spare time reading serious scientific books on nuclear physics. He always studied extremely well. At school he had no problems connected with his nationality, excluding one case. My elder son never fought (he was not a fighter by nature). And suddenly I got to know that he had beaten a boy from his class. I asked him what happened.

Mikhail told me the following ‘Mum, he called me a dirty Jew, and I (in presence of our classmates expressing full approval of it) pushed his face in.’

When he finished his school, Mikhail expressed a wish to enter either the Leningrad University or Polytechnical College [these higher educational institutions were among the best ones in the country]. But he understood how difficult it would be for him to enter [in the USSR higher educational institutions often did not accept Jews, the Polytechnical College in Leningrad was one of them]. Therefore he became a student of the Shipbuilding College.

He finished the 1st course and came to a dean of the Polytechnical College. He showed him his student's record-book (there were only excellent marks in it). Mikhail asked the dean if it was possible to change my College for the Polytechnical one having such marks. The dean looked at his marks and at Mikhail (he was fair-haired and did not look like a Jew) and said that they would be glad to have him as their student if he would pass through 3 extra examinations.

My son got 3 excellent marks and came to the dean again. Later Mikhail told me that the dean looked sadly at his passport, where his nationality was written in black and white. But he appeared to be a decent person and did not take his word back.

Yakov also studied at the Polytechnical College. Since his earliest childhood he was crazy about cars. So he did not graduate from the College, left therefrom and became a taxi driver. He was happy. Sometimes he picked me up after his work to bring me somewhere I needed. I said ‘Yakov, you have already worked 14 hours, have a rest now.’ And he answered ‘Mum, now I’ll have a rest at the driver’s seat.’ Yakov died early in his life from heart disease. And Mikhail works in Vienna now, he had been working there for 7 years.

He signed a contract with the International Agency for Atomic Energy. You know that 20 years ago there happened Chernobyl disaster [Chernobyl disaster was the largest damage of nuclear power station in the history of mankind: it resulted in atmospheric contamination in all European countries], and Mikhail was an expert in that sphere.

At present they invite him from all over the world. Recently he went to Washington to give a report and was awarded a medal for it. Mikhail is a very touching boy. When he earned high money, he told me ‘Mum, I know that you dreamed to see Paris since childhood.’ And he bought us (my sister and me) tickets to Paris and we visited it indeed. Can you imagine it?

Political events never left me indifferent. To tell the truth, it was difficult to remain indifferent: Doctors’ Plot, for instance 14. One morning we got up and heard the official communiqué by radio. They said that doctors treated our leaders incorrectly, poisoned them, therefore our dear leaders died. We grew cold with terror.

You remember that my husband was a doctor, he knew all the listed doctors very well. He had no doubt about their high professionalism and understood that a doctor would never commit such a crime. Almost all listed families were Jewish, so the true purpose of that action was beyond any doubt. We understood that the government authorized pogroms. Everybody became disrespectful to Jews.

One day a soldier came to my husband for medical consultation. My husband asked him to undress to the waist, but the soldier became confused and suddenly said ‘Comrade major, they say that now Jewish doctors will not treat us, but poison.’ You see, it was terrible.

Many people say that they were very sad for Stalin’s death. I also grieved, I thought ‘Why did he die so late?! Why didn’t it happen 10 or 20 years ago? We would have been much happier!’

Regarding the Hungary revolution 15 and the Prague spring 16: I did not trust our newspapers. I understood that it was a scandal to interfere in affairs of other countries. It was shocking and impudent!

I was very much pleased with victories of Israel in its wars [17, 18]. I guess that no Jew was indifferent at that time.

When Perestroika was initiated, I admired Gorbachev 19. We could not even imagine that we would live to see, for example, the fall of the Berlin wall. [Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 to separate Western and Eastern parts of Berlin in Germany. It was demolished in 1989.]

Not many of our friends have left for Israel: 4 or 5 families. We were never going to emigrate. I was afraid of the heat, and my husband always said (for some reason) ‘Don’t even start talking to me about it.’ His work was always very important for him, probably he was not sure to find work there.

I am connected with the Jewish community of St. Petersburg for the most part through the Hesed Avraham Welfare Center 20. I receive 3 or 4 food packages a year. Sometimes they offer me clothes: once I got good winter boots, next time - a knitted suit. Recently they brought me a huge package with bed linen.

I never received help from other countries.

• Glossary:

1. 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 communal or shared apartments continued to exist for decades.

Despite state programs for the construction of more houses and the liquidation of communal apartments, which began in the 1960s, shared apartments still exist today.

2. MOPR (International Organization for Aid to Revolutionary Fighters): Founded in 1922, and based on the decision of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, the organization aimed to protect workers from the terrorist attacks of the Whites and help the victims of terrorism. It offered material, legal and intellectual support to political convicts, political emigrants and their families.

By 1932 it had a membership of about 14 million people.

3. 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.

4. All-Union pioneer organization: a communist organization for teenagers between 10 and 15 years old (cf: boy-/ girlscouts in the US). The organization aimed at educating the young generation in accordance with the communist ideals, preparing pioneers to become members of the Komsomol and later the Communist Party. In the Soviet Union, all teenagers were pioneers.

5. Russian stove: Big stone stove stoked with wood. They were usually built in a corner of the kitchen and served to heat the house and cook food. It had a bench that made a comfortable bed for children and adults in wintertime.

6. Kirov, Sergey (born Kostrikov) (1886-1934): Soviet communist. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1904. During the Revolution of 1905 he was arrested; after his release he joined the Bolsheviks and was arrested several more times for revolutionary activity. He occupied high positions in the hierarchy of the Communist Party.

He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, as well as of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. He was a loyal supporter of Stalin. In 1934 Kirov's popularity had increased and Stalin showed signs of mistrust. In December of that year Kirov was assassinated by a younger party member. It is believed that Stalin ordered the murder, but it has never been proven.

7. Great Terror (1934-1938): During the Great Terror, or Great Purges, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin's former Bolshevik opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to labor camps or killed in prison. The major targets of the Great Terror were communists. Over half of the people who were arrested were members of the party at the time of their arrest.

The armed forces, the Communist Party, and the government in general were purged of all allegedly dissident persons; the victims were generally sentenced to death or to long terms of hard labor. Much of the purge was carried out in secret, and only a few cases were tried in public ‘show trials’.

By the time the terror subsided in 1939, Stalin had managed to bring both the Party and the public to a state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so atomized and the people so fearful of reprisals that mass arrests were no longer necessary. Stalin ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union until his death in March 1953.

8. Yezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich (1895-1939): Political activist, State Security General Commissar (1937), Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR from 1936-38. Arrested and shot in 1939. One of the leaders of mass arrests during Stalin’s Great Purge between 1936-1939.

9. Blockade of Leningrad: On September 8, 1941 the Germans fully encircled Leningrad and its siege began. It lasted until January 27, 1944. The blockade meant incredible hardships and privations for the population of the town. Hundreds of thousands died from hunger, cold and diseases during the almost 900 days of the blockade.

10. War with Japan: In 1945 the war in Europe was over, but in the Far East Japan was still fighting against the anti-fascist coalition countries and China. The USSR declared war on Japan on 8 August 1945 and Japan signed the act of capitulation in September 1945.

11. Buchenwald: Nazi concentration camp operating from March 1937 until April 1945 in Germany, near Weimar. It was divided into 136 wards; inmates were forced to labor in the armaments industry, quarries; approx. 56,000 thousand of the 238,000 inmates, representing many nationalities, died. An uprising of the prisoners broke out shortly before liberation, on 11 April 1945

12. Khrushchev, Nikita (1894-1971): Soviet communist leader. After Stalin’s death in 1953, he became first secretary of the Central Committee, in effect the head of the Communist Party of the USSR. In 1956, during the 20th Party Congress, Khrushchev took an unprecedented step and denounced Stalin and his methods. He was deposed as premier and party head in October 1964. In 1966 he was dropped from the Party's Central Committee.

13. Recreation Centers in the USSR: trade unions of many enterprises and public organizations in the USSR constructed recreation centers, rest homes, and children’s health improvement centers, where employees could take a vacation paying 10 percent of the actual total cost of such stays. In theory each employee could take one such vacation per year, but in reality there were no sufficient numbers of vouchers for such vacations, and they were mostly available only for the management.

14. Doctors’ Plot: The Doctors’ Plot was an alleged conspiracy of a group of Moscow doctors to murder leading government and party officials. In January 1953, the Soviet press reported that nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, had been arrested and confessed their guilt. As Stalin died in March 1953, the trial never took place. The official paper of the Party, the Pravda, later announced that the charges against the doctors were false and their confessions obtained by torture.

This case was one of the worst anti-Semitic incidents during Stalin’s reign. In his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchev stated that Stalin wanted to use the Plot to purge the top Soviet leadership.

15. 1956: It designates the Revolution, which started on 23rd October 1956 against Soviet rule and the communists in Hungary. It was started by student and worker demonstrations in Budapest started in which Stalin’s gigantic statue was destroyed. Moderate communist leader Imre Nagy was appointed as prime minister and he promised reform and democratization.

The Soviet Union withdrew its troops which had been stationing in Hungary since the end of World War II, but they returned after Nagy’s announcement that Hungary would pull out of the Warsaw Pact to pursue a policy of neutrality. The Soviet army put an end to the rising on 4th November and mass repression and arrests started. About 200,000 Hungarians fled from the country. Nagy, and a number of his supporters were executed.

Until 1989, the fall of the communist regime, the Revolution of 1956 was officially considered a counter-revolution.

16. Prague Spring: The term Prague Spring designates the liberalization period in communist-ruled Czechoslovakia between 1967-1969. In 1967 Alexander Dubcek became the head of the Czech Communist Party and promoted ideas of ‘socialism with a human face’, i.e. with more personal freedom and freedom of the press, and the rehabilitation of victims of Stalinism. In August 1968 Soviet troops, along with contingents from Poland, East Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria, occupied Prague and put an end to the reforms.

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

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

19. Gorbachev, Mikhail (1931- ): Soviet political leader. Gorbachev joined the Communist Party in 1952 and gradually moved up in the party hierarchy. In 1970 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, where he remained until 1990. In 1980 he joined the politburo, and in 1985 he was appointed general secretary of the party.

In 1986 he embarked on a comprehensive program of political, economic, and social liberalization under the slogans of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). The government released political prisoners, allowed increased emigration, attacked corruption, and encouraged the critical reexamination of Soviet history.

The Congress of People’s Deputies, founded in 1989, voted to end the Communist Party’s control over the government and elected Gorbachev executive president. Gorbachev dissolved the Communist Party and granted the Baltic states independence. Following the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States in 1991, he resigned as president. Since 1992, Gorbachev has headed international organizations.

20. Hesed: Meaning care and mercy in Hebrew, Hesed stands for the charity organization founded by Amos Avgar in the early 20th century. Supported by Claims Conference and Joint Hesed helps for Jews in need to have a decent life despite hard economic conditions and encourages development of their self-identity. Hesed provides a number of services aimed at supporting the needs of all, and particularly elderly members of the society.

The major social services include: work in the center facilities (information, advertisement of the center activities, foreign ties and free lease of medical equipment); services at homes (care and help at home, food products delivery, delivery of hot meals, minor repairs); work in the community (clubs, meals together, day-time polyclinic, medical and legal consultations); service for volunteers (training programs).

The Hesed centers have inspired a real revolution in the Jewish life in the FSU countries. People have seen and sensed the rebirth of the Jewish traditions of humanism. Currently over eighty Hesed centers exist in the FSU countries. Their activities cover the Jewish population of over eight hundred settlements.

Lyudmila Kreslova
St. Petersburg
Russia
Interviewer: Inna Gimila
Date of interview: July 2002

Lyudmila Kreslova is a fragile woman with very big gray eyes and an expressive face. Her hair is short, soft and wavy, with a beautiful streak of gray color. In the course of the interview she gesticulates in an animated way, helping herself to recall some details of the past. She emotionally describes stirring events, at some moments tears sparkle in her eyes, but she doesn’t allow herself to cry, she just picks at a handkerchief she holds in her hands. Very often she acts the events out, using direct speech. Her speech is very fast and abrupt; the narration was rather confused, but very interesting. Lyudmila answered all my detailed questions with great patience.

My family background

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Marriage life and children

Glossary

My family background

My name according to my passport is Lyudmila Anatolievna Kreslova 1. My Jewish name, given to me by my parents, is Leya. My maiden name is Khotianova. I was born in 1921 in Vitebsk [today Belarus]. Our family lived in Vitebsk. It was a small but very beautiful and ancient town on the bank of the Western Dvina River. Houses were two-storey and three-storey, mostly built of stone.

My paternal grandfather, Borukh [Boris] Khotianov, was a cantor. He sang in the synagogue, where the town Jews gathered. He had a very good voice, they said it was unique. Grandfather wore payes and a huge beard. I don’t remember him at all.

Grandmother Khotianova died in 1896, long before I was born. Her small children were left with Grandfather. There were five of them: the eldest brother Lev [Lyova]; sisters Frida [Nina] born in 1886 and Riva; my father Navtoliy [Anatoliy], he was the fourth to be born; and another brother, whose name I don’t remember, I think it was David. When Grandmother died, Frida was ten years old, and my father was five. I don’t know the age of the other children. Grandfather didn’t want to marry again. He wasn’t able to raise the children himself and gave them away to various families in order to teach them crafts. He sent Lyova to a shoemaker, who made the upper parts for shoes; Frida found herself in the family of a seamstress and my father was given to a tailor’s family. I don’t know where the other children were raised. Grandfather left Vitebsk.

Later Father tried to find Grandfather. He found out that he left for Harbin [town in Manchuria, in the North-Eastern part of China, where a lot of emigrants from Russia lived, who maintained the Chinese-Eastern railroad]. He must have left for the place in order to earn money. Besides, there was a synagogue there. But Grandfather vanished in Harbin. Father received a reply to his inquiry, stating that Boris Khotianov had been run over by a car at the beginning of the 1930s. He was buried in Harbin.

Uncle Lyova served in the Tsar’s Army during World War I and in 1916 he was taken prisoner by the Germans. The Germans treated him very well. Thus, when we were evacuated from Vitebsk in 1941, he told Father, ‘I can speak German, I have been in German captivity, I won’t go with you, I want to stay.’ So he stayed with his family and of course they all perished. His wife Rosa perished too. They had very beautiful children: daughter Ida – the eldest, daughter Zina and son Daniil. When the war broke out, Daniil was ten years old. Ida had snow-white marble-like skin. She was born in 1924. We were neighbors with this family, our house was near theirs. We were coevals, played with them and went to the same school. It’s a pity there are no pictures of them. Uncle Lev worked as a shoe supplier at the shoe factory in Vitebsk, I forgot its name. Rosa was a Jewess and worked as a pharmacist in a drugstore. Lev and Rosa with their two daughters were buried alive not far from Vitebsk together with all the Jews, who were driven to that terrifying place.

We don’t know anything about Daniil, he disappeared without a trace. We don’t know if he managed to escape or perished. We had a neighbor, she was Polish, her name was Vera Tamulevich. She wrote me a letter after the war, in the 1960s, when I was looking for some of my friends from Vitebsk, who had survived. She wrote that she didn’t know anything about Daniil, but she doubted that he had perished. Vera asked me not to write to her after some letters. She wrote, ‘Don’t write to me, I get very upset and nervous, when I recall everything!’ The Germans didn’t touch the Poles in Vitebsk, but I know nothing about other Poles in other areas. She was lucky to be a Pole, she survived. It seems to me she lost her mind a little bit after the war. Of course, she saw such things! I could judge by her letters; I threw all her old letters away. Can you imagine, if you collect all your old stuff at home, you would have so much trash! She was a partisan during the war, near Vitebsk. When the war ended, she was given an apartment and she worked at the district Executive Committee 2, I think, as an accountant, I don’t remember exactly. She got married and had a child, but he had problems with his health.

My father Navtoliy and Uncle Lyova observed traditions. Neither their parents, nor they were interested in politics. They wore tzitzit under their clothes. It was passed to them from Grandfather.

Aunt Frida worked as a seamstress in Vitebsk and later left for Petersburg for further study. She was very beautiful. At a ball she got acquainted with the son of Putilov, the owner of Putilovskiy Plant [a large machine works in St. Petersburg, renamed to Kirovskiy Plant in 1934]. Putilov’s son fell in love with her, but he couldn’t marry a Jewess. She converted to Christianity and was baptized with the new name of Nina. Frida was baptized but remained a Jewess in her soul. He concluded a marriage contract with her for 20 years. They got married in a church. She lived with her husband on Bolshoy Prospect at Petrogradskaia Storona. They had no children.

All this happened before the Revolution 3. When the Revolution of 1917 started, Putilov’s son went abroad together with his father. Frida didn’t want to leave. She stayed after the Revolution. She told me that she loved Russia very much. However, deep in her soul she remained faithful to the Jewry. To be more precise, she had a Jewish soul. She never went abroad. I had a feeling that she was very beautiful, but not very clever. [A church marriage was indissoluble in Russia. The presence of a contract testifies for a common-law marriage, which was unofficial and was deemed as mere cohabitation.] Later Frida married for the second time. Her second husband was also from a good Russian family, some prince, but he was a real drunkard. I don’t remember his name. He stayed in Russia after the Revolution because he loved his motherland. Once, Frida came to Vitebsk to visit us, when I was small.

When the war broke out 4, Frida survived the siege of Leningrad 5. Their house was destroyed by bombing. She was evacuated with her husband to Vyshniy Volochok [a small town in Tver region, between St. Petersburg and Moscow]. Her husband died in Vyshniy Volochok. We were in evacuation in Bashkiria [today called Bashkortostan] at that time. Mother wanted to come home to Vitebsk from Bashkiria, but she didn’t get a permit 6. We obtained passes only to Vyshniy Volochok. So we went to Frida. She had one room, but she took all of us in, though my mother’s sister Nina came with two children, a boy and a girl. When we arrived, everybody went to the Russian bath to wash themselves. Then we came back to her house. I stood in front of a large mirror combing my hair. She told my mother, ‘Look, a tailor’s daughter is combing her hair in front of a mirror.’ Mother replied, ‘Certainly, the tailor is your brother.’ She was confused. She was a kind woman, but considered herself a metropolitan lady as compared to us, provincials. Frida died in 1959 in Vyshniy Volochok. She had no children.

Father’s sister Riva was older than my father. She was born in 1888. Riva was very serious. She left Vitebsk for Moscow, studied at university and obtained an education. She married an English Jew in Moscow. He was a socialist revolutionary. The younger brother of Riva and my father, who was also a revolutionary, introduced them to each other. Together with Riva’s husband-to-be they hid from the police, who wanted to arrest them. Riva lived in Moscow at that time and helped them. Riva had a daughter from this Englishman. The daughter was older than me, she perished in Moscow during the war, in the course of the bombing. During the war Riva remained in Moscow with her husband. After the war we lost contact with them. I know her English husband only from pictures.

I know very little about my father’s younger brother, whose name I don’t remember. He was very attracted by revolutionary ideas when he was young. Then he left for Moscow and studied at university, but joined a revolutionary organization. He always carried a gun and hid from police. He married a Jewess, who was also a revolutionary. He was 20 years old when he married that woman. She was much older than him. She had a 20-year-old son, his coeval. They both studied at university in Moscow, he and her son. Father’s younger brother died at a very early age. The ‘revolutionary’ brother and Riva, who married an English Jew, weren’t religious. Father loved his ‘revolutionary’ brother and Riva, but he didn’t approve of their activity. They didn’t meet and didn’t visit each other. But Father always said that they have the right to live as they want. He loved them all very much.

I remember my maternal grandparents, Mendel Kurnov and Esther Kurnova. Grandmother was a tall woman and Grandfather was short, he hardly reached her armpit, he was actually my height. Esther and Mendel were promised to each other in their youth, when they lived in their native shtetls. They had a lot of children: four daughters and three sons. They lived in Vitebsk, in the same street as we did, just next door. They were very religious. Grandfather wore a beard and Grandmother wore a shoulder-length wig. They always had kosher food. Grandmother went to the shochet to slaughter chicken and bought only kosher meat.

Grandfather Mendel was born in 1864 in Vitebsk province, in a village not far from Vitebsk. He was six years older than Grandmother. I visited them in their apartment every week. He obviously liked me, though he didn’t make much of me, didn’t tell me stories and never expressed any special tenderness. I was very small and I don’t really remember how often he prayed. Grandfather Mendel was very neat, very clean and wore only good clothes. He had a taste for clothes, as he was a tailor and he was an expert in it. They lived well, they were neither poor nor rich. Grandfather never smoked, but liked to drink: vodka, wine, but not too much. He certainly drank on holidays, both Jewish and Soviet. Since there were many holidays, it turned out that he drank often. At dinner he liked to pour himself a small glass of alcohol. Grandmother scolded him for that, but he replied, ‘I drink because of my nerves!’ Mendel had suffered from Jewish pogroms and he had nervous stress and fear from those times.

There were Jewish pogroms in Vitebsk, but only before the Revolution of 1917. Grandfather Mendel, my mother’s father, told us how he had hid in the attic from the pogrom-makers. It didn’t happen again after the Revolution. During the Civil War 7 there were pogroms in Ukraine 8. Khokhly [topknots; pejorative name for Ukrainians] didn’t live in the town, only Belarusians did [terrible pogroms of Jews in Belarus were arranged during the Civil War by Polish soldiers and local gangs]. There was probably nationalism in everyday life, but I didn’t notice it.

Grandfather Mendel stayed in Vitebsk when the Germans occupied the town in 1941. He perished in 1942. Those who survived told us later that the Germans had a high opinion of my grandfather, even though he was a Jew. He sewed uniforms for them and did that very well, so they needed him. He lived until 1942, but later he was murdered together with the other Jews. This is all I know about them. I found out about their fate from Polish Vera’s letters.

Grandmother’s name was Esther Kurnova, I don’t know her maiden name. She was born in 1870, in a borough near Vitebsk. Grandmother had a lot of brothers and sisters. She was the eldest. When her mother died, her father asked her to carry milk for sale to Vitebsk. They woke up early when it was still dark and walked to Vitebsk. She walked on foot with her younger sister and dragged the heavy milk-can. Once in winter they met a wolf pack on their way. They lit a torch and walked with it, thus they scared the wolves away. There were no bandits, only these dangerous animals, the wolves. Grandmother and her sister were very much frightened and remembered this fearful encounter forever.

I remember Grandmother as a very beautiful, willful and proud woman. I was too small at that time and Grandmother didn’t tell me anything about her family, about her religiosity, about school or any other events. And I wasn’t interested in such things. Grandmother Esther was always busy about the house and I remember her doing something all the time, but not talking to anybody. Before the Revolution of 1917, before the Soviet time, in the 1900s and 1910s they earned their living by taking cigarette paper and tobacco from a cigarette factory and making cigarettes at home. All the family did this, including the children. I didn’t see it, but my mother told me about it.

Grandmother raised her own children very well, but she didn’t want to bring up her grandchildren. She was of the opinion that grandchildren were enemies. I don’t know why. She was a strict and unemotional person. She never told us stories, nor did she dandle us. We were neighbors and paid visits to each other. I loved my grandmother, but I don’t remember if she ever fed me or treated me to something delicious. I was always offended: how can that be? I don’t remember Grandmother perform any ceremonies at any Jewish holidays, but I know that she kept Jewish candlesticks to lit the candles on holidays, one for two candles and another was a chanukkiyah for Chanukkah, for nine candles. Grandmother came from a religious family, she also raised my mother and all her children like that, but they all lost it later. We believed in Stalin, not in God! Grandmother died in 1944 in evacuation. We lived poorly at that time. We managed to get some cereals, but it appeared to be poisoned because of rodents. Everybody ate porridge cooked from these cereals. Only the young ones survived, but she died. She was 74 when she died.

Vitebsk was a small town, there were only 5,000 people living there or even less. There were a lot of Jewish communities, but no synagogue. The synagogues were shut down by the authorities after 1923 9. The Jews gathered in various apartments to pray. They said there were 63 of such meeting-houses. Father attended such meeting-houses on Saturdays. There were wardens at such meeting-houses. There must have been a mikveh, as my mother’s sisters also attended it. The Jewish education still existed in the 1920s, there were yeshivot and cheders.

Mendel and Esther Kurnov had seven children. Their first son, Zalman, was born in 1894. Later, in 1896 my mother Rakhil was born. The next child, David, was born in 1898. After him daughter Nina [1906], daughter Basia [1908], daughter Frida [1910] and son Sholom [1915] were born. Grandmother gave birth to her last child when she was 45. All children were born in Vitebsk. None of my mother’s brothers and sisters was really religious.

Zalman, just like my father Navtoliy, was a very good tailor. He left for America in 1914, got married there and had two sons. I don’t know their names. Later we lost contact with him. David, mother’s younger brother, was also a tailor, his father Mendel taught him. Mendel handed down his art to his sons. David lived in Minsk [today capital of Belarus], he married a Jewess and left for Minsk, his wife’s motherland for good. David and his wife had three children: a boy and two girls, I don’t remember their names. Two of them died recently, only one daughter is alive, she lived in Archangelsk. Sholom, my mother’s youngest brother, graduated from an academy in Leningrad [today St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg before WWI and Petrograd during WWI] and worked as a manager at a large plant.

Nina worked as a barmaid in Vitebsk and changed three husbands. I will explain why this happened. Her first husband was a Jew, his name was David. Nina had a son, Michael, with David. David died of some illness and she couldn’t get married for a long time. The two other husbands were Russian. They had a Russian mother and a Jewish father, who died in Vitebsk during the war. However, their sons, these Russians, were raised in a Jewish manner, their Jewish father raised them like that. They both knew Jewish traditions very well, they knew how to act in this or that situation. One was called Iosif, the other was Ivan. Nina got acquainted with them in the cafeteria at the plant where she worked; Ivan also worked at that plant. They fell in love with each other. She was a tiny and good-looking woman. Ivan was a very active person, a cheerful one. They got married. In 1940 Ivan and Nina’s daughter Maia was born. When the war broke out, the girl was one year old. Nina left Vitebsk with her two children, Michael and Maia, and went to Pskov near Leningrad to visit Iosif, Ivan’s brother, who was a bachelor. Nina wanted to get some rest after she gave birth and nursed her daughter Maia during the first year. Thus, they were in Pskov when the war broke out. Ivan thought that his wife would return to Vitebsk, but the war barred the way back. During the war Ivan was taken prisoner-of-war, stayed in a German camp and perished there in 1942. Nina didn’t know about Ivan’s death. She was making her way to her sisters in Bashkiria with her two children, and spent the war in Bashkiria.

Meanwhile, Iosif was also prisoner-of-war, but managed to escape. He became a lone guerilla. He blew up trains and at the place of diversion left a piece of tree bark on which he wrote, ‘Guerilla Hussar.’ Hussar was his nickname. The Germans promised a lot of money in exchange for his head, they wanted to catch him. Later Iosif was drafted into the army, was at the frontline and survived. In 1946 he began to look for his brother Ivan, but didn’t succeed. He started to look for our family, because Nina was my mother’s sister. He found us in Leningrad. He tried to find us in Moscow, with the help of the Red Cross, I don’t know exactly how he did it. Iosif came to Leningrad and proposed to Nina, because he was aware of the Jewish family custom, that a brother may marry his brother’s wife, if the brother died or perished. Iosif and Ivan were registered as Russians in their passports, but they executed the law of their Jewish father’s ancestors. It should be mentioned that I liked both Ivan and Iosif, they were wonderful people. They were kind, intelligent, cheerful and very sociable.

Nina was 40, when she married Iosif. Iosif and Nina had a son, Leonid. Nina gave birth to this child when she was 45. They moved to Novgorod near Leningrad and stayed there. Nina worked as a barmaid and later retired. Iosif became a fisherman at Novgorod lakes, at some fish combine. Nina’s son Michael got married but he had no children. Michael died in Leningrad in 1960 of a severe liver disease. Iosif died in the 1970s and was buried at a Russian cemetery in Novgorod. Nina died in 1980 in Novgorod and was also buried at a Russian cemetery. Maia married a Moldovan and lives in Moldova. She has three daughters: Julia, who married an Italian and moved to Italy; Olga went to visit Julia in Italy, an Italian fell in love with her and they got married. Maia’s third daughter, Svetlana, lives with a Russian husband in Moldova. We don’t keep in touch with them, since they are distant relatives.

Basia, the next sister of my mother, didn’t study anywhere, but she had home education, she could count, read and write. Basia lived with her relatives for a long time in Vitebsk and helped them with the household. When their mother, Esther Kurnova, turned too old, Basia became the housekeeper. In the former times housekeepers got paid by the state for their work. During the war, Basia left together with Grandmother Esther Kurnova, her mother, for evacuation in the Tatar republic on the Volga River. She got married there at a late age. One Jew was courting her there, he loved her very much. Basia married him. She had two sons: Semion and Valeriy.

Semion graduated from university and worked at a printing plant as the head of the shop. Basia lived with his family. When she grew old, Semion, under the influence of his wife, treated her badly. Basia was 91 years old when she called me and said, ‘You know, I didn’t want to upset you, but they aren’t giving me any food, I am starving.’ However, I couldn’t visit her. Her son Semion wouldn’t let me in. Valeriy worked at construction sites. He had an apartment of his own in Leningrad, but at the other end of the city and called Semion rarely to find out about their mother’s health. He couldn’t take his mother in, as his wife didn’t want it, since his wife’s old mother was already living with them. Valeriy didn’t know that Semion treated their mother badly, he didn’t find out about it even after her death. Basia worked in a hock-shop, where people bring their old belongings to sell. She died in 2001 in St. Petersburg.

Frida, the youngest sister, obtained two University degrees: in History and Drama. She was a good actress, she sang and danced very well, but she didn’t manage to make a good artistic career because she wasn’t tall. Before the war Frida married a Russian. He was a very nice person. He graduated from two academies and held a high position; he was a military scientist holding the rank of a general. When the war broke out, he went to the frontline. A bomb hit his command post and no one survived. He didn’t come back from the front. After the war Frida married a Jew, but she wasn’t really happy. Frida had no children. She died in 2001, the same year as Basia.

Sholom, my mother’s youngest brother, graduated from the Technological Institute in Leningrad. He married a Russian. Her name was Zina. They had two girls, twins. One of them died when she was one year old. The other, Galina, lived with him. While his daughter was small, we helped Zina to raise her and took the girl with us to the summer house 10. Aunt Frida bequeathed her apartment to her. Galina and her husband are still alive, they live in Leningrad now, they are retired.

Sholom volunteered for the Leningrad frontline at the age of 25, though he didn’t have to go to the army, and perished in 1942. I came across his grave in 1974. I was going to pay a visit to my friend. So I was passing the city-memorial not far from the railroad station. There was a construction site right on my way. Suddenly I came across 20 pink marble graves. ‘Sholom Mendelevich Kurnov’ was written in large golden letters on one of the plaques. This was my mother’s brother. My uncle was buried there! I didn’t have a camera, I was shocked and surprised. My aunt, who lived there, didn’t know about it. She wrote an inquiry to the Tikhvin military registration and enlistment office, asking, why had they sent her a notification about him missing? If there was his grave? They sent her a reply, stating that he was on the list of those who were deemed missing. Soon after that our friends went there and told us that there was no such cemetery any more. It was razed to the ground, nothing was left. I don’t know what they did with it. We immediately wrote to that organization again, but never received any reply.

My mother told me about her childhood, about her youth. Mother’s Grandmother was so fond of cleanness that is wasn’t possible to visit her without putting on clean socks before the visit. She always wore a head kerchief, washed herself and was very cleanly. She loved my mother very much. Mother’s education was limited to three grades in cheder 11. The rabbi, who taught the children, beat her. He beat all children. The teacher beat them on the hands with a ruler for each mistake. That’s why she quit going to cheder. Her parents knew it, but there were no other teachers. And my mother didn’t want to go to this cheder. So they contented themselves with already obtained education and it was enough for Mother for her life. Mother said she couldn’t tolerate it any more. Thus she finished only three grades with difficulty. However, she spoke, wrote and read freely in Yiddish and Russian. When Mother grew up and became a young girl, she rolled cigarettes in order to earn some money. 

Mother lived with her parents, the Kurnovs, when my father returned from the front in 1916 and started to work with them. Grandfather Mendel hired him to work as an assistant. Mendel taught him the tailor’s craft, though Father already had considerable experience. When Mother and Father fell in love with each other, there was no match-making. My father was completely alone by that time. His father, my grandfather Boris, had disappeared from Vitebsk long ago. They had a splendid wedding, with a lot of guests and presents. They were a very nice couple.

Soon after the wedding they got two rooms in the building next to my grandparents’ house. Mother found out that some living space became vacant near Grandmother, and the clothes’ factory rendered it to her father, the factory’s employee. When my parents moved in there, Mother wanted to occupy the 3rd and 4th rooms as well, to have the whole apartment. Father always kept other people in mind and understood that they were also in need. He allowed her to occupy only the rooms, which the factory rendered 12.

Mother had two children before I was born. Daniil was born in 1917. He was a very handsome child. When he died, Mother kept his lock. Everybody said that he had been very handsome. He had very big eyes. Once, a woman approached him in the street. She picked him up from the ground and said, ‘How handsome you are.’ He fell ill and died. It happened in 1920. Mother believed that he fell ill because an evil spell was cast on him. However, there was another reason. Nina, mother’s sister, was rinsing the washing on the bank of the river. She took Daniil with her. She took off his shoes and put his feet into the ice-cold water. The child caught a cold and fell ill with meningitis. Meningitis was a fatal illness in those years. Mother gave birth to a daughter, Ida, in 1919. She starved to death when Mother was sick with typhoid in Vitebsk. Father was in the army at that time. I don’t know anything else, since I wasn’t born yet.

Growing up

I was born in 1921. My first recollection refers to the time when I was three years old. I had a sister Peisia [Polina], born in 1923. I was two, when she was born. I was small and I wanted to be held by my mother, but she paid all her attention to my younger sister. It offended me very much. My brother Boris was born in 1927 and Vladimir in 1930. I was the eldest daughter and my mother’s helper. I took care of all the children.

Mother always sent me to do the shopping. That was the NEP 13 period. The authorities allowed private trade and small business. It was possible to buy all necessary things if one had money, but we had none. However, the sales assistants at the stores kept debt books to write in the name and the amount of the debt. I was small, only five years old. I came to a store and named what we needed. The shop assistant gave me food products on credit. My parents paid off the debt later. In 1926 there were interruptions in bread supplies. I was five years old, but my mother sent me to get bread. So I had to stand in line for bread during the night and half of the day.

I went to the market-place with my mother. There were always live geese, hens, ducks, roosters and other animals. Mother bought live hens, took them to the shochet to be slaughtered, and later plucked them and made pillows out of down and feathers. Mother sewed well, she sewed blankets, pillows and also baked very tasty bread.

Father loved me. He sat me onto his lap and told me about his military service. He told me that in the Tsar’s Army they had bad uniforms, bad food, only one rifle per three soldiers and it was hard to conduct the war. It was during the first war with the Germans [World War I, 1914-1918], in 1916.

I was four years old when Father hired a teacher. He sat me onto his lap, we sat at the table and he taught me to read and write. I don’t remember exactly, if he was a Russian or a Jew, but he taught me Russian. Father said, ‘Boys have to learn Yiddish, and you are a girl, you don’t need it.’ The teacher tortured and punished me. Maybe he didn’t have the correct attitude to a child. When he said something, I started to object. So he spanked me. I cried very often.

After that teacher my mother hired a Jewish nanny for me and my sister. There were Jewish nannies in Vitebsk. Mother hired one, but she didn’t speak Russian. She was about 60 years old, an old woman. She lived in her Jewish environment: Jewish family, Jewish neighbors. At first I didn’t understand what she said. Mother and Father spoke Yiddish to each other, but they always spoke Russian to us. So the nanny started to persuade me, ‘You have to learn the Yiddish language.’ So I learnt it step by step. I can speak Yiddish now, though I forget some words. Nanny taught me to read books, she brought me Russian fairy-tales, ‘The Gray Wolf, Prince Ivan and Elena the Beautiful.’ [Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki] She gave me the books, because she didn’t understand Russian. I was not five years old yet, when I read fairy-tales myself. I read Russian fairy-tales. There were no Jewish fairy-tales, I don’t know why. But there was the Soviet Power, so there could be nothing of the kind. Nanny spent all days with us, working days and holidays, she also participated in the feasts. She was an old woman, and a lonely one, she had no relatives. She lived for two years with us and then left. After her we had a Russian nanny. The Russian nanny was also old, but she was very cheerful and she also brought me books. She didn’t spend the Jewish holidays with us, she wasn’t invited. I liked both nannies.

We lived on Nizhniaia Petrovskaia Street. We lived in a two-storey building, which looked like a German cottage 14. We lived on the second floor. Our family occupied two rooms, 20 square meters each. The other two rooms were occupied by our neighbors. We had a common entrance and a common kitchen with the neighbors. I remember that we had huge windows. Our windows faced the yard. There was a back wing in the yard where people also lived. Two rooms faced the street in our apartment. These rooms were occupied by our neighbors, they were also Jews. I remember that our neighbor’s name was Yokha Beit. She loved me and we were very close. Her husband was also a Jew. He worked as a timber-floater on the Western Dvina River. They were very good people. They had two sons, their elder son lived in a different city and the younger son lived together with them.

The younger son of our neighbors fell in love with a Russian girl. His parents didn’t allow him to see her. The girl’s parents didn’t want a Jew either. The girl was very beautiful, a lot of guys tried to court her. The girl preferred our neighbor. When their baby girl was born, the young man was beaten by the Russian guys. They simply were on the look-out for him, when he came back from work in the evening. He was beaten so severely, that he fell ill with consumption. When his daughter was two or three years old, he died. He knew that he would die soon. Before his death he came to us, because we were like close relatives. He said, ‘Lyusenka, I respect you very much, I want to hand over the books to you.’ He had a very good library. He brought all the books to me, all two bookcases. I took some spirits, wiped all the books and read them. As a result, I also caught tuberculosis. However, I found out about it only in 1941, when I was 20 years old.

Both our maternal and paternal relatives came to visit us. People liked to pay visits to each other at that time. For example, my father’s brother Lyova was also our neighbor. The yard was huge. There was a back wing in the yard, where Uncle Lyova lived with his two daughters and son. There was a storehouse in the yard, where the luggage was delivered from the railroad station on horses and cars. There was a school not far away. The stores and the railroad station, as well as the Western Dvina River were also close. It was a mixed block of buildings; both Russians and Jews lived there. The houses were small.

We didn’t play in the yard, because horse-carts and cars constantly arrived at the storehouse. We played near a very beautiful church not far away. There were big old trees around. There was a garden near Grandmother’s house with excellent pear-trees. On the one side there was a garden and on the other there was a site where we played ball games.

Father worked all the time. He worked as a cutter at a clothes’ factory. He worked from early morning for 16 hours. Then he came home and continued working at home. He was considered the best tailor in the town of Vitebsk. The customers had to wait in line for three years and brought their own fabric to place an order with him. The clothes he sewed lasted for ever, the fabric grew old and was torn, but the seams remained. It was so because he always waxed the threads. He even made a hole for wax on the sewing-machine, so that it would also sew using the waxed thread. The customers valued his work very highly. Thus we had a small tailor shop in our house.

Very important people visited my father. They loved me. There was this professor, a famous surgeon. He spent time with me, while Father sewed. He explained to me, how to behave, how to maintain cleanness, observe sanitary and hygienic rules, because there were a lot of microbes around. Maybe that’s when my interest in medicine arose.

Actually, this reminds me of a case that happened some time in 1956. I liked to wash my hair with rain-water. I approached the rain-water barrel, and it was full of water, but the water was covered with a yellowish film. I didn’t know what it was, moved this film away with my hand and took some water. And the landlord of the summer-house, where this took place, it was in Melnichiy Ruchey, ran out and screamed, ‘What are you doing? Your arms will rot!’ I laughed at him, ‘You’re talking nonsense, this is impossible.’ He said, ‘Pray to God that it won’t turn out as I predict.’ But it turned out exactly as he said. I returned to the city and my arms started to rot. Now they are thin, but they used to be plump. All the flesh and skin has rotted away.

I went to the doctor’s. He said that we had to amputate my hands. I mean, it’s possible to live without legs, but without hands? I didn’t know what to do. He said, ‘Let’s not rush things.’ And he told me to come back in a month. I left. I was walking past a pharmacy store and bought two jars of each possible cream, one for each arm. I started wrapping my arms using this cream. I bought cotton wool, paper, dressing. I wrapped my arms, and kept the wrapping with each cream on for three days. When I was using the last, ninth, cream, there was still no result. It was already 24 days after my doctor’s appointment. I applied the last cream, and took it off after five days; everything had healed. This cream I found myself, the doctor didn’t prescribe anything to me. I came to see him and said ‘hello.’ He replied, ‘Hello, show me what’s left of your arms.’ I said, ‘Sure, if it had been up to you…’ I left his office, and saw a man, about 40, without an arm. I asked him what was wrong with him. He told me. I said, ‘I had the same thing.’ He said, ‘This is terrible, I should have met you, you could have saved me.’ This was in Leningrad.

Once I was walking with my children. We lived on Petrogradskaya Side, corner of Lenin and Bolshoy Avenues, near the jewelry shop ‘Yuvelirtorg.’ We were just walking, passed by other shops, the House of Culture. Then, suddenly we see a convoy, black limousines, police all around them. [It must have been a high Soviet official.] They had these special lights, and they suddenly lit up, this meant radiation. They got out of the limo and said: ‘We won’t go any further, there’s radiation here.’

My parents tried to stick to their environment; they didn’t have Russian friends. Father was a tailor, that is why Russians came to him, but he tried to work for Jews. Father preferred to work with the Jewish customers, since it was prestigious for him, to see that Jews valued him highly. Russians also appreciated his work, but it was more important that he was recognized by ‘his people.’ They called him Anatoliy in the Russian manner.

We lived very modestly. Father charged 300 rubles per suit, but there were a lot of children in the family and Mother had to receive some treatment after her illness [typhus]. The price of eggs was five rubles per dozen. We had electricity in the house; Mother cooked using a kerosene stove. There was a common kitchen in the apartment with a huge Russian stove 15. Mother baked bread in it. Our neighbors didn’t cook as well as Mother did. It was so delicious that I once ground my teeth, it was very painful. 

Father prayed only on Saturdays, he didn’t have time to do it on other days. On Friday night and on Saturday he put on tallit and tefillin and prayed. We celebrated Sabbath at home. Overnight mother baked matzah and bread. On Friday night Mother lit the candles. We had very expensive big copper candlesticks. When we fled from Vitebsk in 1941, we left them behind. My mother didn’t cook on Sabbath, she asked some Russian women to do it. Mother always bought chicken and cooked broth. She also cooked chicken cutlets and mashed potato. She cooked jellied-meat out of calves’ feet, baked bread in a Russian stove. We were eating it for three days. But my mother didn’t like it when I helped her, she told me not to disturb her. As an adult I never cooked any traditional Jewish meals. Mother cooked everything while she was alive. When I was a child, we had a big kitchen, but we didn’t cook there, because there were other neighbors in the apartment.

Mother cooked everything in the room and then took it to the kitchen to put it in the stove. Mother cooked her own matzah for Pesach and I helped her. We made it on a big table in the room. Mother mixed flour and water, nothing else; she rolled it out and made holes with a special small wheel and quickly put the raw matzah on a wooden spade with a long handle and threw it on an iron red-hot sheet and into the stove. Sometimes Mother swept the stove clean, took out the coals and put the raw matzah right into the stove without any iron sheet. We had a big square basket. Mother spread a clean cloth inside it and placed hot matzah inside it, just taken out of the stove. We ate matzah out of it during Pesach, some was even left after the holiday.

My parents also observed the kashrut. When I was small, Mother went to the shochet to have the hens slaughtered. I don’t remember her doing it later, when the Soviet power began to persecute those who observed religious traditions. But when I was small, sometimes I went with her.

When in 1927 my brother Boris was born, a brit milah was arranged for him on the 8th day. A lot of guests came, about 50 people. We had a big room with a big table and chairs around it. Two chairs were put near the window and two huge pillows were placed on them. My brother, very small, was put onto these two pillows. A mohel performed the circumcision. Brother cried so bitterly and I felt so sorry for him, that I ran away, hid in a corner and couldn’t watch all that. I was six years old at that time. There were a lot of presents. Just like for a wedding.

My brother Boris didn’t go to the frontline. He had flat feet. He went to the same medical-specialized school in Vitebsk as me. After the war he worked and studied in Leningrad. He finished a secondary school and worked at an institute near Finland railroad station. He worked there for 30 years as a metal worker and a lathe operator. He could do anything; he could even build a house. He got married and Lyudmila had two daughters. Aunt Fania’s daughter, his cousin Klara made him marry her. She got acquainted with him, got pregnant and then came to us and told us that Boris had raped her. She lied to make him marry her in order to hide her shame. Boris, being a kind and well-bred person, married her and raised somebody else’s child; he knew perfectly well that her daughter Lyuba [Liubov] wasn’t his child. So he had to marry her, though it wasn’t his baby. Soon after that Boris divorced Klara and lived with a different woman. His family life was unhappy, though he has four grandsons from his daughter Klara and is very happy about it at his old age. Now Boris is retired. The institute was shut down and he lost his job. He is 75 now.

My sister Polina worked as a cleaning lady. Her education was six grades only. Mother didn’t want to have more children after I was born, because two of her children had died already. Mother wanted to have an abortion, but somehow it didn’t go right. Polina was born disabled, with an injury. She didn’t get married and lived with our mother all her life. She had two children. Her son was also a bit defective unfortunately. Her daughter perished together with her, it happened in 1997. My mother died in 1986; her husband Nukhim, my sister and her two children got a three-room apartment, but my niece took to drinking. In 1997 a fire started in the apartment. As a matter of fact, it is still a question, what really happened there. We weren’t allowed to bury them for a whole month. They thought that murder and arson had been committed. We have a grave at the Jewish cemetery. In 1946 my brother Vladimir was buried there. We buried my mother near Vladimir at the Jewish cemetery. In 1997 we buried my sister Polina and her children there. All of them are buried at the Jewish cemetery.

When I went to school my mother chose a Russian school with medical specialization, it was located in our yard. We had a very good school. I studied in it between 1928 and 1936. We studied microbiology and were prepared to be medics. I was offended, because there were three Jewish schools nearby, but Mother sent me to a Russian school. However, Mother appeared to be right. The Jewish schools were anyway shut down soon.

I didn’t have friends at school, I don’t know why. I loved to read and read a lot of books in Russian when I was young. I liked science fiction, adventure books and books about animals. I didn’t read anything in Yiddish. Geography was my favorite subject, I adored it. Our teacher of geography was a handsome man. He narrated so marvelously, that all children including me forgot that we were in a class. We had a feeling that we participated in the events and traveled.

I became a Komsomol 16 member at school. I wasn’t a member of any Zionist organizations, though I heard and read in the newspapers about them, that they existed and functioned. There were only three Jews in our school besides me: my sister Peisia and my brothers Boris and Vladimir, who were in junior grades.

In 1936 I left school and entered nurses’ courses. When I had studied at the courses for half a year, we were sent to a pathologist to learn to prepare corpses for experimental purposes. I came home crying. Father asked me what had happened. I told him. He said, ‘You are a medic, you should not be afraid of dead people. If you can’t do it, I will go and collect your documents.’ I wasn’t able to overcome the fear, I was scared of the dead. It is frightful to cut a person, even a dead one.

I entered accounting courses after that failure. After finishing the courses I worked as an accountant at a leather storehouse between 1937 and 1941. The leather was delivered for storage, it was processed there and transferred to production of footwear and clothes. I was responsible for stock-taking of the leather.

I loved a Russian boy. We were four years old when we met. We drove each other on sleighs. We really loved each other, but like small children do. His father was a pilot. Before World War II his father was summoned to Moscow to a new place of employment. When his mother found out about our love, she didn’t like it at all. When we played as small children, she had a good attitude to us, but she didn’t really want her son to marry a Jewess. His father summoned him to Moscow in 1938. We parted. In 1941 he left for the front. He was very brave. He perished later. A woman, who lived near us in Vitebsk, visited us after the war. She told us that all his family perished as well.

During the war

When in 1941 the war broke out, our enterprise was immediately evacuated. I remained with my parents. I was a Komsomol member and a patriot, so I wanted to volunteer for the frontline. I came to the enlistment commission and wrote an application for the front. The medical commission required tests to be made, which actually revealed that I had tuberculosis. I didn’t know anything about it. The doctor wrote in the medical conclusion that I had consumption. I was crossed out of the list. I got cured later on.

The German Army approached Vitebsk very quickly. We managed to evacuate on 6th July 1941. We left for evacuation all together: my father Navtoliy, mother Rakhil and the four children – me, my sister Peisia and brothers Boris and Volodia [Vladimir]. Six people all in all.

We went there by train, in open cars. There were only two families in our carriage, the six of us and another big family with children. Our train was the last one that managed to break free from Vitebsk, occupied by the Germans. We traveled together with the military unit. Two last railroad cars were closed and sealed. The cars contained pyroxylin, an explosive, used to produce bombs. The cars and carriages were all camouflaged from bombing. German planes bombed us three times. The heaviest bombardment happened in Belaia Tserkov [town in Ukraine, not far from Kiev], we were also bombed at two other stations. When the German planes bombed us, an officer came out and ordered us to run as far as possible. He shot in the air to make people obey him.

We found ourselves in evacuation in Bashkiria [autonomous republic in the basin of the river Kama, the left confluent of the river Volga. Bashkirs are Asians, Turkic-speaking Muslims]. We arrived in Ufa [main city in Bashkiria]. Ufa enlisted us to work in a kolkhoz 17. We were sent to a Ukrainian village. Though we were in Bashkiria, only Ukrainians lived in the village. We found ourselves among the ‘khokhols’ who are our main enemies: Ukrainians hate Jews. When we came to that village, people in the street asked us, ‘Are you Jews? But where are your horns and big ears? We were told that Jews are horned and they have hooves instead of feet.’ They were not children, but grownups. Later these villagers came to like us. Father sewed clothes for them. Besides, as evacuees, we got flour and sugar in the kolkhoz. We worked in the kolkhoz and were paid per workdays 18. We got two buckets of honey per year and a lot of flour. The food was very good and we were absolutely fine.

I worked as an ‘izbach,’ the village library manager. Local citizens didn’t want to go to the library to read books. What could be done? I was a Komsomol member and a responsible person. So I had to take the newspapers and books and go to the fields looking for people. I read and gave them newspapers and books right at their work places. My task was to inform people about the political situation.

The land there is really wild with a lot of forests. Once I walked in the forest singing a song. When I finished singing, I heard the branches crunch behind me. I turned around and saw a wolf. It was an unusual wolf, a red one. I decided that it was a red dog and addressed it with kind words. It crossed the road, stood still at the edge of the forest, turned its snout to me and looked at me. I recalled my favorite Jules Verne’s novel ‘A Captain at Fifteen.’ The main protagonist of the novel met a lion. He stared in the lion’s eyes, and the lion lowered its gaze. The human being won. I stood still without moving, staring into the wolf’s burning eyes. It also stood staring at me, but lowered its gaze first, turned its back to me and ran away. When it disappeared out of view, I continued walking. I read a lot about animals and knew that one should never run away from them. Next time I met an old woman with a boy in the forest, they were running. I asked then, ‘Where are you running?’ ‘There’s a bear chasing us.’ I explained to them, ‘Never run away from a bear, it will with no doubt run you down, you have to fall on the ground and try not to breathe, or, vice versa, make a lot of noise. Animals are afraid of noise.’

Father died in 1943. They wanted to draft him into the army, but he didn’t want to go, he was afraid to leave us alone. He began to smoke tea, he made cigarettes out of tea leaves, to initiate heart problems, but definitely overdid it. He wasn’t enlisted into the army because of illness but he really ruined his heart and died soon. It happened in Bashkiria.

After the war

In 1944 our army liberated Vitebsk from the Germans. Mother wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, M.I. Kalinin 19, asking for a permission to return home. During the war years in order to come back to a liberated town after evacuation, one had to obtain an invitation from an enterprise or a family member. We received a reply from M.I. Kalinin’s chancellery, saying, ‘Not a stone was left standing in Vitebsk, so you can’t go there. You have no man to take care of you, so you can’t return.’ After that Mother asked for a permission to go to Leningrad, where her sisters lived, or to Vyshniy Volochok, where her husband’s sister lived. Thus we obtained a pass to Vyshniy Volochok.

We came to Aunt Frida’s place in Vyshniy Volochok and lived with her for some time. Then we wrote a letter to Mother’s sisters in Leningrad. They replied that we should come. But we weren’t allowed to. So we bought train tickets and reached Leningrad, but we needed a pass. We were sent back. We tried to get there by train several times, but we were brought back. Once we were locked in a railroad car in order to be brought back to Vyshniy Volochok. Someone in Vyshniy Volochok advised us, ‘Get into a passing car and go to Leningrad, but don’t go by train.’ One man was delivering glass to Leningrad and offered us to join him. He asked for 1,000 rubles, it was a lot of money at that time. But we had to give it to him. Thus we found ourselves in the city and lived with Aunt Basia. She had a big room. She lived in the center of Leningrad, on Petrogradskaya Side. Aunt Basia managed to register us in her room, though we arrived in Leningrad illegally.
We tried to stick together. There were five of us, me, Polina, Boris and Vladimir and our mother. In 1946 Vladimir suddenly fell ill. He was put in a hospital and a small egg-sized tumor was found in his armpit. It was already inoperable. A German doctor treated him. Maybe she didn’t treat him correctly. He died soon. He was only 17 years old. He was buried at the Jewish cemetery.

Mother married for the second time in Leningrad in 1946. Her husband was an Orthodox Jew. His name was Nukhim Davydovich. He was a nice and kind man. He had a separate two-room apartment. He was married before, but his wife had died during the siege. He had a daughter and a son. He didn’t keep in contact with his son, but his daughter helped him. He was very pious, always attended the synagogue, in the morning, at daytime and in the evening and observed Sabbath strictly. We didn’t celebrate Jewish holidays together. He didn’t invite us to come. Even if he had, I wouldn’t have come, I had too much work to do. We lived separately. He taught somebody else’s children, only boys, Hebrew and was paid for it. When we had hard times, he sent me to the synagogue and asked the rabbi to help us. For instance, the rabbi helped us with money. The Rabbi called us and told us that we had to come to the synagogue to get the money. I received from 65 to 100 rubles several times.

My mother’s husband was an antiquarian by occupation and worked in a store, which accepted antique objects. When in 1960 the money exchange reform was carried out, he lost 50,000 rubles. I called him Uncle Nukhim. We had very good relations, he loved me more than his own daughter.

I started to work at the Ordzhonikidze plant, a ship-building plant, in 1945. I worked as a registrar in a design office. My job was to do the following: an engineer came in and asked for a scheme of a ship. I found it and gave it to him on receipt. When a ship was built, its scheme and passport remained in the archives. I had a very good salary, 400 rubles and wasn’t needy.

My husband was a distant relative of Nukhim Davydovich. My husband’s parents and my stepfather lived previously in one borough and knew each other. It was in Vitebsk region, in the village of Kamen. My husband, Abram Zosimovich [Zusevich], had a Polish last name, Krislav. I think he had relatives in Poland. Every time he spoke with me, he called me ‘Bat.’ I didn’t understand, what he meant. Later I found out that it meant ‘girl’ or ‘daughter,’ so he called me ‘daughter.’ We met in my mother’s apartment.

My husband was born in 1915 and was six years older than me. When he was 14, he moved to Leningrad from his native village. A lot of Jews moved here, because the prohibition to live in big cities was lifted 20. He came here all alone and began to work at the ‘Vulkan’ plant. Later he studied at a military school and became an officer. As soon as the war broke out, he went to the frontline.

Almost all his relatives were murdered by the Germans. His father was hanged, because his four sons were at the front and couldn’t hide him. His five sisters and mother were buried alive in Kamen. Two of his brothers perished at the front. Only two people survived of the whole family, my husband and his brother Misha.

My husband was a Communist. When he came back from the army, he was assigned to work at the ‘Bolshoy Dom’ [‘Big House’ – regional NKVD and later MGB and KGB Administration, located on 4 Liteiny Prospect 21, 22] and worked there until he was 60. He was offered a position of a supervisor at the prisoners-of-war camp near Leningrad. He agreed. It wasn’t a prison, but a camp where imprisoned Germans were kept.

Later he quit that job and working at the ‘Big House’ in general. He was a disabled war veteran; he survived a head wound and shell-shock. He had 56 shell fragments in his body. He had to undergo an operation in the course of which 19 fragments were removed. After that he was granted the 3rd category of disability in order for him to work.

Marriage life and children

I got married in June 1946. I was 25 at that time. We didn’t have a wedding celebration. After the wedding I started to live at my husband’s place. He had a small room – 11 square meters – in a communal apartment located on Goncharnaya Street. While we lived in the communal apartment, our children were born. We lived in that communal apartment from 1946, right after our wedding, up to 1969, with evil neighbors. Later we got a three-room apartment in the South-West of Leningrad. Our neighbors were anti-Semites. They fought and quarreled with me. They even sent for the Deputy [Member of Parliament]. The Deputy said, ‘You are scolding her, but no one scolds you, so why are you complaining?’ My stepfather once heard the neighbors abuse me and said, ‘Take the children, let’s go!’ And he took us with him to his apartment. We celebrated only Soviet holidays: the New Year, 1st May and October Revolution Day on 7th November 23. We didn’t know any Jewish holidays anymore and didn’t even think of them.

Our eldest daughter Galina was born in 1947. I was rather plump after the war and no one guessed that I was pregnant. Galina went to a Soviet school for ten years. She went to work as a cook in a cafeteria after finishing school. She didn’t continue her studies, because she didn’t want to and money was needed. She married a Russian, Victor Gurianov, at the age of 20 in 1967. In 1969 their daughter Julia was born and in 1974 their son Yuriy was born.

Our second daughter Elena was born in 1950. She went to a Soviet school for ten years and after that entered a technical school to study to be a sales assistant of confectionary goods. She worked in a store for a year. After that she studied to be a projectionist in the ‘Barricada’ cinema, there was a teacher who taught her. She found a job at the ‘Leningrad’ cinema and worked there until 1970. After that she studied to become a hair-dresser and now works in a beauty shop. Elena fell off a swing when she was ten years old and hurt her spine. We treated her spine all her life and she still suffers. Other parts of her body began to ache because of her spine and Elena became disabled. She married a Russian, Sergey Sidorov, and had two daughters: Marina was born in 1975 and Alexandra was born in 1977.

Our youngest daughter Lyubov was born in 1955. She got married when she was 19. She has a daughter [Karina], born in 1978. Her husband’s name is Yuriy Iosifovich Gapchuk, his father was a Jew, his name was Rubinstein. He is a ‘khokhol’ on his mother’s side. Later, when his grandparents and parents died, he inherited two million rubles. They were already married by that time. He didn’t plan to leave and go abroad. He had 63 commercial outlets: at Moscow, Baltic and Warsaw railroad stations, he had such outlets everywhere. He sold food products and haberdashery there. Some people started to envy him. He was general manager, the president of the company. He was threatened and he always carried a gun with him, it wasn’t so easy to get him. They began to threaten my daughter and granddaughter. So my granddaughter had to be guarded. I woke up early in the morning and came to her to see her off to school, because I was scared that they would kidnap her. When a bomb was blown up at the apartment door and they started to openly hunt for my granddaughter, my son-in-law’s partner offered him to leave for Florida, where he lived. He said that it would be possible to live at his place and later, when everything calmed down, to return home. My daughter and her husband packed quite spontaneously, they didn’t take anything with them, only some clothes and money and left with that American. It happened in 1992.

My husband was a war veteran, disabled, with a pension of 120 rubles. Bread cost 14 kopecks, we didn’t have luxurious food, we wore common clothes. We spent money on his medicine and on our three children. 120 rubles was a big pension, but my husband had the right to earn officially up to 300 rubles per month, that is, he could have earned 180 rubles more at the ‘Vulkan’ plant, where he worked. If he earned 302 or 320 rubles, the 2 or 20 rubles wouldn’t go to him, but to the state, as tax. He was given a paper every month at work, which said that he had earned 180 rubles and his pension was 120 rubles. Such was the Soviet system. We were assisted with money and with work.

I didn’t love my husband. He was a rude disciplinarian. He was wounded in his head, had to receive some treatment and was cured. He was one of these people, who don’t understand what love is. At first I didn’t understand, if I loved him or not. I believed that there can be only one love. I loved a Russian guy before the war, but he perished. Maybe if he had perished in front of my eyes, I would have perished with him. When I met my would-be husband, it was important for me that he was a Jew. Besides, he had a room to live in. He was an officer, not just a soldier. Sometimes he started a row and I kept quiet. When we got married, he once hit me because of some trifle. I don’t even remember why he threw me on the floor. While we were fighting, we forgot to close the door. His brother’s wife came in at that moment. She was a very brave woman, a Georgian Jewess from Makhachkala [today in Dagestan, Russia]. She grabbed him by the collar – she was a robust woman – and said, ‘If I ever see this happen again, I will destroy you.’ Nothing of the kind ever happened again, but he did beat our children.

My husband died in 1986. There was no place at the Jewish cemetery. The plant took the funeral upon itself, we buried him at the Yuzhnoye cemetery as a warrior, in the Main Alley.

We did face anti-Semitism in everyday life after the war. The so-called Doctors’ Plot 24 of 1952 affected me very painfully. I felt very sorry that the Jewish physicians, who couldn’t have done anything bad, had been accused of a monstrous crime. Once, in the 1980s, we were on our way to our summer house on a train. My husband, as a war veteran, was granted a summer house in Per, at Karelia Isthmus [a summer-house settlement 50 km north of Leningrad]. My husband had his battle decorations on. People in the railroad car started to say that we were Jews, that our summer house was bought with stolen money, that my husband had bought his decorations. My husband said, ‘May God let you buy such decorations as I did, I would like to see you after that.’ We didn’t talk to these people anymore. Another time when I was on a train, a man stood up to give up his place for me to sit down. Then, suddenly, he changed his mind and said, ‘You are a Jew-woman’ and sat back down. I told him, ‘Who are you praying to? Jesus Christ? Well, he was a Jew.’ ‘It can’t be.’ ‘Go ask your priest.’ My daughters faced anti-Semitism during their studies. It happened even more often with my granddaughters, though my daughters are married to Russians.

I didn’t respect Stalin. I felt that he was different from other people. When before the war he granted the Germans 18 railroad cars of flour, I began to hate him. I found out about it from the newspapers, which said that Stalin helped the Germans, reckoning that in that case they wouldn’t attack us 25. I was 19 already and I thought, ‘My God, why would they not attack us?’ I knew that they would start the war, people were talking about it. We had a radio, some black plate, and Stalin said on the air, that if the war started, we wouldn’t give a single inch of our land and would carry out the war on foreign territory. It seemed fine when he said so, but then he gave bread to the Germans, who were our enemies. I understood that he was a sick person. My father also said that something was wrong.

Then Stalin died in 1953, and I rejoiced. One of my husband’s relatives perished at Stalin’s funeral. She was very upset about Stalin’s death. She went to his funeral and she was crushed to death there. I was really surprised by the grief she felt, because I was happy. My husband and I knew that he was already preparing railroad cars to take all Jews to Siberia 26. My husband was a Communist, but he still remained a Jew.

I liked Khrushchev 27 very much. He was a kind man, even concerning small things. When vast beds of diamonds were discovered in Yakutia [the Russian North], Khrushchev said that small gems have to be produced, so that all Soviet girls and women would get at least one. It was a joke, but I came to respect him for it.

I knew about the foundation of the state of Israel. When Golda Meir 28, who was actually a distant relative of my stepfather, came to Leningrad, she met him and tried to persuade him to leave. He didn’t want to. My mother saw her, but I was busy at that time. If he had left, we would have left with him. I wanted to leave together with my husband, but he was in doubt, ‘I am a Communist, what if they don’t accept us, we won’t be able to return.’ But I wanted to leave with all my heart.

There were wars in Israel in 1967 29 and in 1973 30. My heart bled for it. There was something I was really amazed at. One of our women-scientists left for Israel. I was very much offended and shocked by the fact that she had been attacked by Arabs. She left together with her children and her parents. She was walking in the street and they started calling her names. She took a stick and hit one of them. She was arrested and sentenced to 20 days in prison. She was forced to do some works. It was done by our Israeli police. I think they were wrong. Then some time passed, about a month. She was driving in a car with her family and they were stopped by the Arabs. They said, ‘Get out of the car.’ She replied, ‘I won’t.’ She had a gun and started to shoot. The Arabs became indignant at her shooting, but the police took her side, as she was protecting her family and she had the right to do so. However, the Arabs weren’t arrested, and she was reprimanded for shooting. But she was shooting in the air, not at them, she merely wanted to scare them and to draw the attention of the police. I was also deeply outraged by that event. Can it be possible that the Jews don’t feel secure even in Israel?

Perestroika 31 also filled me with indignation, I was crying for three years. I was outraged by the fact that we had been trying to achieve Communism, and suddenly found ourselves in capitalism. When my husband was dying in 1986, he told me, ‘I feel sorry for the children, I am sorry I haven’t left for Israel, what a fool I have been.’ I replied, ‘What do you feel sorry for?’ He was wounded during World War II in his head and I decided that he was raving. He said, ‘They will live in capitalism.’ He thought that it was bad. There is capitalism in Israel too, but kolkhozes [the interviewee means the kibbutzim] have existed there for 80 or 90 years already.

The fact that there are extremist movements in Russia now horrifies me. God loves me, but he punishes me, because politically I appear to be concerned more than others. I came to Hesed 32. There is a canteen in front of Hesed, the ‘Nautilus’ restaurant, I go there to eat.

I have believed in God since I was five, though starting from the 1930s I didn’t observe the traditions. My children lead a secular life but today I attend the synagogue very often. I even have lunch there. On Saturdays I go to the synagogue, 25 people gather in the big synagogue. The rabbi gave me a Jewish prayer book, a siddur, in Russian. I read it in the morning and in the evening.

Glossary:

Solomon Epstein
Saint Petersburg
Russia
Interviewer: Olga Egudina
Date of interview: October 2007

Solomon Borissovich Epstein invited me to his apartment-studio situated in one of the most beautiful districts of St. Petersburg.

We had our talk surrounded by his beautiful paintings. Solomon Borissovich is talented for all spheres of life:

he is a worthy party in a conversation, an author of the very interesting memoirs about war, and a brave soldier in the past.

One can be envious of his exact memory. When you listen to Solomon Borissovich, his stories seem to come alive and you become able to hear sounds and smell…

• My family background
• Growing up during the war

• After the war and recent years
• Glossary

• My family background

I know nothing about my great-grandparents. My paternal and maternal grandfathers were born and lived in Belarus near Vitebsk. My maternal grandfather’s name was Ruman. As far as I understand, he was a tzaddik of the local community. He had got several daughters. My paternal grandfather lived about 60 kilometers far from Vitebsk - in Velizh. My grandfather Ruman was short and rather weak, very kind and silent, and my grandfather Hirsh-Leyb-Meir Epstein was a joker, a horse-lover. He was very tall and black-haired (looked like a gypsy), very cheerful. Both grandfathers were very kind.

Grandfather Hirsh had got many children, and not only girls. He was engaged in carrying goods between Velizh and Vitebsk. He got acquainted with grandfather Ruman and his family somehow. Ruman was a tailor and grandfather Hirsh sent his son Boris (Berele) to Ruman as an apprentice. That was the way Berele found his love (my future Mom). I keep his love-letter written in 1916.

The letter was written in Russian, and the first letters of lines spelled my mother's name Ester. By that time Daddy had finished 4 or 5 classes of gymnasia and knew Russian well, though my both grandfather’s mother tongue was certainly Yiddish.

My father was a very talented person, a real artist of tailoring. Later in Leningrad he became one of the most famous local tailors. People of high position (now we call them VIP) lined up to get his services. They paid him much money, because everybody knew him to be a magician able to turn an ordinary person into a real picture. He was left-handed to no profession: a furrier, a glover, and even a shoemaker.

I do not remember my grandmothers very well. Grandmother Rachel, Ruman’s wife wore a wig and I remember her bald head under the wig. When it became clear that my hair became shockingly red, everybody said that it was passed down from my grandmother (she was red-headed). Haya was Hirsh’s wife. She was a person of cast-iron character, completely different from her husband.

But here it is necessary to take into account that she had to take care of a large family, and it was not easy: Hirsh traveled much and his family was not a burden for him. Last year I made portraits of my grandfathers from memory. For the last time I saw them at the age of two and a half (by the way, I have no photos of grandfather Hirsh). At the same time I am absolutely sure that in my picture my grandfather looks real, I felt like giving birth to him by means of my brush. I kept a photo of grandfather Ruman, but strangely enough it distracted me from my work. I put it aside and did not look at it during my work on his portrait.

My parents got married in Vitebsk in 1921. Both my brother and I were born there, too. David was born in 1923, and I was born in 1925. A year later our family moved to Leningrad and we started our life there (I know nothing about the reason). We lived in Zhukovskogo Street, in the city centre, in a communal apartment 1. I lived in that house during 50 years. For the first time I left it in March 1942 for evacuation (we moved along the Road of Life 2 across the Ladoga Lake).

After the end of the war I returned home to that house and lived there till 1975. By now the house is reconstructed, and some very rich people live there. When we made it our home in 1924, our apartment looked rather strange: the floor of one its part was situated higher than that of the other one. Between these levels there was a stairway of 9 steps. In our apartment there lived 6 families (they had got 9 children (boys) in total). So we used to slide down from that stairway on my father’s furriery boards.

When I reached the age of 7 (and David was 9), parents brought us to the House of Art Education for children in Chaykovskogo Street. The House was founded by 2 friends, 2 enthusiasts of art education for children Solomon Davidovich Levin and Konstantin Alexandrovich Kordabovsky. They invited remarkable teachers. There we studied the following subjects: drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, archeology, history, music, scenic movement. In 1937 Palace of Pioneers was opened and our House moved there. Solomon Davidovich became a manager of the art department, and Konstantin Alexandrovich went on teaching children. I studied in his group till the beginning of the war. Besides I studied at school (certainly). My school was situated near our house. Behind our school there was a small garden, where we played lapta in summer and skated in winter.

Later I changed my school for the school #32 (it was financed by the railway administration). I studied there till 1939. But in 1939 our class was moved to the school near our house for some reason. Therefore I found myself at my first school again. I studied there during blockade, too. We were members of the school fire-fighting squad, but I’ll tell you about it later.

At school I turned out to have an inquiring nature, therefore it was difficult for me to concentrate upon certain subject. Everything was interesting for me. I read a lot of popular books, I also was interested in biographies of outstanding physicists: Einstein, Nils Bor, and others. [Albert Einatein (1879-1955) was an outstanding physicist; author of the theory of relativity; a Nobel prize winner; Nils Bor (1885-1962) was one of the founders of the modern physics.] I was also very fond of geometry and stereometry. I liked to draw very much. My teacher of mathematics used to draw carelessly, and it conflicted with my concept of exact science, therefore I did not like her.

My brother and I loved uncle Vladimir, the husband of my father's sister very much. He was a strong and kind Russian man, a naval officer. He was our idol. Uncle also loved us, especially David. David also was a remarkable guy. He also was tall and kind. I painted his portrait many years after his death.

Uncle Vladimir took care of David. He advised him to enter Naval School after 9 classes. That Naval School cadets used to be invited to enter the Military College named after Frunze, and David became its cadet after finishing his Naval School. David was much taller and stronger than me. He had got sports categories in 6 different kinds of sports. My brother was handsome and purposeful. He perished in the battle near Stalingrad during the war.

David was a yachtsman (a steersman of the first class). He often took me with him to his yacht club. I got used to work as a sailor and became very fond of yachts for their beauty. Once David brought home a second-hand album Instruction for Fans of Sailing by a Swedish yachtsman. That album was full of photographs of yachts, and it choked me up. There were also drawings for construction of yachts, and I decided to start making models. I saved money (mother gave me some money for lunch at school), bought wooden rulers and cut details for yachts.

At home I had got 3 small assembly jigs, where I assembled my yachts. Unfortunately all of them were lost during the blockade 3. So during my childhood I was crazy about several things: fine arts, models of yachts, sailing sport and contests in physics and mathematics. That was the reason why after the end of the war I handed in applications to 3 colleges: the Academy of Arts, the University and the Shipbuilding College.

Now I understand that our parents brought us up very well, but according to the rules of that time. We were brought up as persons of excellent qualities: ideal people, absolutely unpractical. Our parents believed that a person should have heavenly thoughts and be honest-minded. I have been a romanticist since my childhood. But I guess that our parents practiced the only proper method of upbringing. I believe that otherwise all people have to go on their hands and knees and grow dog-teeth.

In our apartment there lived another Jewish family of Rosenfelds. They had got 2 boys, our coevals. During our first years in Leningrad, a rabbi from yeshivah came to teach us Yiddish. But the time came when it was necessary to finish our studies and rabbi disappeared. I do not know Yiddish at all 4. Parents spoke Yiddish only when they wanted to keep something from us. We never celebrated Jewish holidays and never attended the synagogue.

Mom and Dad were born in 1890s. Mom finished a gymnasium, and Daddy studied several years in cheder. Mom frequently said as a joke that she had married an uneducated person. In Leningrad Mom entered the College of Foreign Languages, graduated from it and taught German language at school. At home we had collected works of Schiller in German. [Johann von Schiller (1759-1805) was a German poet and philosopher.] As for me, I read Schiller’s works translated by Zhukovsky. [Vassiliy Zhukovsky (1783-1852) was a Russian poet and translator.]

I do not remember any political events discussed by our parents. As far as we were concerned, we were pioneers and Komsomol members [5, 6] and we took it with great enthusiasm. On the whole, our childhood was very happy. The Palace of Pioneers protected us from the nightmare around us (as I understand it now): in fact it was the time of Great Terror 7. And we were fine (like inside a cocoon).

Parents had got many friends. I was surprised when I noticed that one of them had suddenly stopped visiting us. Parents used to explain: he had left. Later I understood that those people were arrested. One day I was playing in the street near our house, when my father told me passing by ‘Solomon, Kirov 8 was killed.’ I guess I remember it because father looked very excited: he understood that a great wave of reprisals would follow.

Father earned money by sewing. But when authorities started persecutions of private craftsmen, he had to find job of a worker at the Aluminium factory. There he worked perfectly well, too. He was awarded a copper teapot for his work. Later he found job of a cutter at a workmen's cooperative association, but there it was necessary to fulfill the plan. Father could not stand it and got back to his work at home.

We had good neighbors. They never informed authorities about father’s work at home (at that time private enterprises were not encouraged). In general, we called our neighbors our relatives. Of course there was my father’s great merit in it: he was a person of unusual charm and was able to get on with different people.

Soon after our arrival to Leningrad, father got acquainted with a GPU 9 officer (somewhere) who occupied a large apartment (later we lived in that apartment). His name was Ivan Alexandrovich Yermilov. He was very good. He liked my father so much that invited all of us to his apartment and placed 2 rooms at our disposal. Later authorities started to reduce space per person in living accommodation and his apartment became communal. Yermilov was a drunkard. Under the influence of drink he liked to shoot with a gun and did it right in the apartment (once he broke the window).  

Among our blood relatives I remember aunt Sonya (my father's sister and the wife of uncle Vladimir, a naval officer). She was a true Komsomol member of 1920s. She was a cheerful beauty. Daddy had got another sister: aunt Manya. Her husband was a German communist. During the Great Terror he was expelled from the Party and took it hard. But when after the end of the war he was suggested to join the Party again, he refused flatly. Father’s sisters lived in Leningrad not far from us. Father had got 2 brothers: uncle Lev and uncle Naum.

They also were staunch supporters of the communist ideas. Naum was killed when he was one of the party searching for excess of provisions in villages. Rich peasants did not agree to give their grain to authorities and often tried to prevent those actions. Possibly that people killed Naum: they attached stones to his feet and drowned him.

Now I’d like to tell you about my brother David in detail. I already told you that he was a remarkable person. I saw him for the last time in the window of the Military College named after Frunze. He waved a farewell. It was right before the evacuation of his College to Astrakhan. It was supposed that cadets would finish their studies in Astrakhan and go to the front line as naval officers.

But their studies lasted not long. When Stalingrad battle 10 was in its heat, all cadets were sent there into the hell. Most of them were killed. Recently I painted David’s portrait. He is about 19 years old there, but I never saw him at the age of 19. Here I’d like to read you his letter he wrote to Aunt Sonya. David wrote it before their departure to the front line.

Dear Aunt Sonya!

I am sorry that it took me so much time to write you back. We have just finished the 2nd course, but the situation requires our departure to the front line. At first they wanted to send us there as privates, but later they changed their mind and gave us the ranks of officers. At present we are near to finish the infantry school and become lieutenants of infantry. So my naval service has terminated, but I survived. It can't be helped, because it is necessary. Soon I’ll be at the front line. If I manage to survive in Stalingrad, I’ll fight further. We’ll see! 

I received the last letter from my parents a long time ago. At present I know nothing about them. I guess very soon the front line will get close to their location and it is useless to write them.
That's all for today.
Write me please while it is possible.
David,
the former man-of-war's man,
now the infantryman.

• Growing up during the war

Now I’d like to get back to my childhood. Of course Leningrad of my childhood was absolutely different. There were plenty of horses, and the city was very odorous. I remember holidays of melting snow. In winter when the city got covered with snow, people used to arrange pyramids of boards in city yards. They put a stove inside the pyramid and burned wood in it. Snow was brought from all the nearest yards and thrown into the pyramid. The yard was filled with a tasty smoke of birch fire wood and steam. For children it was a presage of spring and a real holiday. People used to store firewood in their yards in piles. It was very interesting to play boyish games between woodpiles.

It was Mom who kept the house. We had no assistants. We were not poor, because my father was doing well. But I do not remember any non-essentials. We were satisfied with food and dressed tidy, no more. We used to spend summer holidays in Velizh. Father often got permits to recreation centers 11 or sanatorium (in Essentuki, for instance), because he was ill with gastric ulcer. [Essentuki is a town in Stavropol Krai, located at the base of the Caucasus Mountains.] Together with Mom we went to Essentuki without father on June 21, 1941. So the beginning of the war found us en route.

On June 21, 1941 we left Leningrad for Essentuki by train. We heard the news about the war near Rostov-on-Don. As we reached Essentuki, we rushed to buy return tickets, but managed to get them only for July 18. Our way back was much more difficult: a lot of stops to give way for troops trains. I do not know the reason, but our train was left by the steam locomotive 15 km away from Tula, and we had to walk to Tula. From Tula we went round Moscow (it was already closed) via Kaluga, Vyazma, Rzhev, Likhoslavl having no information about the situation. At last we managed to arrive in Leningrad at the turn of July.

The front line approached quickly, and people started evacuation from Leningrad. My elder brother David was evacuated together with cadets of the Military College named after Frunze by one of the last echelons. I saw him shortly before their departure, he waved me from the College window. For the last time... Mom, Daddy and I remained in the city. Fascists tightened the blockade.

Like all other senior pupils in the besieged city, I was on duty on roofs, put out fire-bombs, later fought fires as a member of fire-brigade (we were happy to get asbestos overalls and sparkling yellow helmets of Roman style). Winter frosts were in.

One frosty night I was on duty on the roof and saw our plane ramming a German bomber. The picture stamped in me: the black sky, the white cross of the German plane in the light of searchlights, our pursuit plane, the wing of the German plane slowly falling down, and tremendous roar. Fortunately the parts of the crashed planes were strewed over the territory of the Tavrichesky garden and citizens did not suffer. Next day people were informed that Sevastyanov, a young pilot had fulfilled a ram attack (one of the first attacks of that kind during the war).

Winter frosts were followed by real famine. In March 1942 our family (we were on the verge of dystrophy) was evacuated from Leningrad. We crossed the Ladoga Lake covered with spongy ice. In Yaroslavl we stayed about a month coming to life. Then we moved to Stavropol, later to Kizlyar, Astrakhan (much later I got to know that the School of my brother had been evacuated there), and farther to Kustanay region. There I managed to finish 10 classes ahead of time

1943 was the year of my draft. Boys who finished 10 classes were directed to Tumen. In Tumen there was the Infantry School evacuated from Tallin. After 10 months of training in October 1943 we were moved to Tula, where the 5th tank corps was formed. I was sent to the 5th separate vehicular brigade.

I remember our commander addressing us ‘Soldiers who knows Degtyaryov's machine gun well, come forward!’ And I (proud young guy!) stepped forward together with some other guys. Each of us received a machine gun.

The next order ‘Disassemble and assemble!’ Having appreciated my skill, the commander came up to me. ‘Can you shoot straight?’ - ‘At School I was pointed at as an example.’ - ‘Well, start fighting!’ So I became a machine-gunner of the 5th separate vehicular brigade at the 5th tank corps. Our corps had to enter the breaks made by active forces, carrying forward the advance. Our corps maneuvered from front to front.

Our first experience under fire was unhappy: on our way to the front line we were bombed. My memory keeps feeling of shock and chaos. I remember Lera, my schoolmate dying on my hands. He used to be a cheerful and sociable guy. His last words were the following: will you remember me, will I remember you...

After that bombardment the corps was reinforced (our losses appeared to be not great) and moved towards Nevel through Gorodok. That offensive I remember in more detail.  It was in November, the first dirty sleet was everywhere. Motor-infantry of our corps was thrown into the break which was only 4-kilometer wide and was raked with fire. Our three-ton trucks stuck in the mud. Only we (infantrymen) mudded all over, were able to move and even pull, drag and push our automobiles. After all we managed to move forward and reach Gorodok. In order not to lose contact with our corps we dug in. I remember black-and-white naked trees under the grey sky and black houses on the white snow.

A comical episode which could have become tragic happened there. Our entrenchment was situated near the town outskirts and there was a privy right behind us. During a lull in the fighting I decided to make use of it. The privy door was broken and I could see the sky through it. Suddenly right in front of me I saw some sort of a black flower expanding extensively in all directions without any sound. Another one flower appeared a little bit lower. The fourth one brought awful sound of exploding mortar shell. I immediately realized that Germans noticed me and wanted to kill in the privy. The situation looked both ridiculous and awful. I jumped out falling down into our entrenchment.

Later in winter we took our stand in Belarus, near the Losvida Lake. The Lake was about 3 kilometers long and rather wide. At night we usually went to capture a prisoner for interrogation. In our group there was Yusupov, a soldier from Kazakhstan. He was a real Goliath. My task was to make noise, simulating activity in a certain place. And at that time in another place another group was creeping up to German entrenchments. Yusupov used to burst into it, seize several Germans, stun them, tie hand and foot by means of Kazakh hair lasso and easily drag them all to our position. He managed to bring in a lot of prisoners.

Much later he died ridiculously. Our plane stuck out of the ice on the Lake, its tail-end upward. Both Germans and our soldiers stamped a trail in the snow to the plane. You see, the point was that the pilot’s cabin had a special transparent cover, and the control board was set with colored semi-transparent handles made of beautiful plastic. Soldiers used them to make mouthpieces and handles for sheath-knives.

By the way, I still keep a knife made at that time. Both Germans and our soldiers crawled there to get that plastic handles. We had a secret understanding with Germans not to fire at soldiers crawling to that airplane. So Yusupov wanted to get that plastic, too. We tried to dissuade him from it, promised to bring him everything he wanted, but it did not help. He started, but Germans recognized him immediately and brought down fire on him. They remembered how he had troubled them. When we crawled there to take his body away, Germans did not shoot...

In the same place near the Losvida Lake I often waited in ambush together with my friend Genka Sidorov. Most probably we became friends because we both were from Leningrad. I was captivated by his intelligence, though sometimes he behaved like a yoot. He was tall, thin, cheerful, and fearless in fight. He was a true friend who kept vigilant watch on me and protected me (a red-haired Jew!) from bad encroachments of our associates. Waiting in ambush (digging ourselves in snow under a fur-tree), we whispered and bothered each other not to fall asleep (in fact Germans could capture us asleep). We used to spend there about 4 hours wearing short fur coats, valenki, caps with earlaps. [Valenki - winter boots made of milled wool.]

Later (in spring) field-kitchens were caught in the mud and our food supplies gave out. Genka suggested going to the neighboring village and earning some food drawing portraits of inhabitants. It was me who had to draw. At that time I always had clean sheets of paper (I did my best to find them everywhere I could) and a stub of a pencil with me. So Genka and I started towards the village during a lull in the fighting.

The village appeared to be not far from our position: about 1.5 kilometers. We found there a long earth-house and a bench in front of it. An old man was sitting on that bench. We greeted him and sat down beside him. I asked if it was permissible to draw his portrait. The old man examined us suspiciously ‘What for?’ I answered that I was an artist and wanted to draw during a lull in the fighting. ‘Well, do it, if you wish!’ I drew him quickly and the portrait was a good likeness. His wife appeared, sat down next to him, and looked at my drawing. ‘Look, it’s you! It looks like a photo!’ The old man agreed ‘You are quick and skillful!’ I handed the drawing over to him. He moved away mistrustfully ‘How much is it?’ - ‘It’s free. But if you give us something to eat, we would be grateful. You see, our field-kitchens lagged behind and we have nothing to eat.’ The old man took the portrait, looked at his wife and nodded his approval.

She jumped up and some minutes later called us to their earth-house. With great pleasure we ate shchi, potatoes and pickled cucumbers. After that I drew a portrait of the old woman. Their neighbors came; they wanted to have their portraits, too. I drew quickly. One hour of my work resulted in a small bag of potatoes, a piece of lard, some hard-boiled eggs and onions, a loaf of bread, some salt. My earned income appeared to be great! We became friends. Genka wanted to carry the bag: ‘You worked, and I only chattered!’ ‘No, you did good public relations for my work!’ Nevertheless he took the bag from me and carried it himself.

Our return was triumphal. We made a fire and reheated our meals. We also shared it with soldiers from other platoons... Here I told you about this sort of fighting episodes... Together with Genka we fought till July 1944 years. On July 17, 1944 I was wounded.

Our troops were ordered to advance in near the Baltic Sea. Our corps forced a crossing over the River Drissa. My vehicular brigade moved between tank brigades crawling over the bridge of boats. I was sitting in the bodywork of a high-powered truck. As I was sitting at the very backboard, I was the first to jump down and open protective fire while the others would get down from the truck. My soldier-assistant was sitting beside me holding reserve drum magazines. While approaching the river, I saw the narrow Drissa with the bridge of boats and tanks on it. I also saw explosions over the river: Germans tried to prevent our crossing.

The show was bewitching, like the stare of boa. It was terrible. I collected myself already after crossing, when our trucks caught up our tanks. Everything became absolutely quiet and we entered a small green cozy town Kraslava.

At that moment we were fired by Germans. We quickly jumped down and lay in hiding. I placed my machine gun on the left. Germans did not stop firing, trying to annihilate us. I rushed forward and saw a large residence with a balcony. I understood that it was the firing-point! I crossed the street and shot through the house wall until that German stopped firing.

Later during that very fight I was wounded. At first I understood nothing. I felt a stab in my back and legs. Feeling no pain, I rushed forward. But I managed to make only a few steps and fell down. I passed my hand over my trousers and saw that it was red. After that I lost consciousness.

I regained consciousness and realized that silence enveloped everything around me. I rolled over to the ditch, just in case. Suddenly I saw 2 tall Germans (their sleeves were rolled up) approaching me. My muscles toughened. But a minute later I distinguished our soldier holding a submachine gun. I guessed straight away that he was escorting 2 captives. It took a load off my mind. They came nearer and bubbled over with joy I recognized my friend Genka. I called him and he saw me. ‘Senya (they called me Senya for short), what happened?!’ - ‘I’ve caught a bullet…’ - ‘Halt! Diesen mensch nehmen!’ he ordered. ‘We’ll carry you to the medical and sanitary battalion.’

Till now I remember the round face of the red-haired tall German with a clotted wound on his cheek. He bent down to take me out of the ditch. At that moment I felt pain and a wave of nausea. I said to Genka ‘Don’t! Better send a field ambulance for me.’ Later I was picked up by an ambulance, my wound was dressed and I was put on the straw in a truck ready to start. There were several wounded soldiers in that truck. Genka came up and gave me a small notebook in red morocco cover, taken from that German. ‘It is for you, keep it as a remembrance. Live!’

I met Genka many years after the war was finished. He was a top-class long distance truck driver on routes of Scandinavia and Baltic countries. He was doing well. When I introduced Genka to somebody, I used to say ‘This is a person who saved my life: I was wounded and he carried me away from the battlefield.’ It was not a lie, though in fact the situation developed differently.

Some time after Genka’s leaving, a field ambulance appeared. Two nurses quickly cut my trousers using scissors. Before that they took off me 2 round bags with reserve drum magazines. The day before I sewed them myself, having recollected my father's profession. I made them with loving care (I attached buttons and small straps). And you see, when those nurses took those bags away from me, I burst into tears... I remember no more tears during the war.

Meanwhile the nurses quickly wrapped my legs in something white and carried me to the ambulance paying no attention to my cries. There were several wounded soldiers in the car. We bobbed up and down in it and groaned with pain. I remember that I had to ask a nurse about help. I had to hold her by her hands burning with shame and relieving myself.

So I found myself in the hospital of a small Latvian town Kretinga. The surgeon, who extracted several splinters from my body said ‘You are lucky, red, if these splinters hit you a little bit higher, you’d better be killed. And those very small pieces we left inside your body will not spoil your long life.’ (To tell you the truth, they did not!) Soon I managed to walk without crutches. I started drawing portraits of my ward neighbors. They sent my drawings home by mail. According to their requests, I often drew extra medals to them.

They never asked to draw extra orders (they thought it much), but medals were asked frequently. Time was getting on. Soon I was going to leave the hospital and it was necessary for me to get back to my corps. While I was in the hospital, our corps took the city of Dvinsk (Daugavpils) and received the name of Dvinsky. But everything changed when the wife of the commander’s assistant of the 4th army (their staff was stationed in Kretinga) noticed me drawing portraits.

She frequently came to the hospital and brought different tasty meals to the injured men. She wished to have her portrait. Soon I found myself among bodyguards of General Andrey Kalachev (her husband).

There my sense of direction appeared to be very useful: I was able to find the way without visible reference points (by intuition). The General always ordered me to sit beside his driver ‘Keep your eye on the road!’ And he was absolutely sure that we would not lose our way. The General often had to move along unknown front roads. Kalachev appreciated my ability. I liked to serve at him. At night I slept in a bed with real bed sheets (I had already forgotten such luxury!). I also realized that I had more chances to survive beside the General. We finished the war near Konigsberg. 

Here I’d like to tell you about another lucky hit: I got pennies from heaven shortly before my leaving from the hospital. One day I was appointed to accompany a local peasant mobilized to collect milk from neighboring farms for our hospital. At that time I was already recovering. I had to guard him and took my sub-machine gun with me. Not to frighten people, I hid my sub-machine gun in his telega under the hay and we started moving slowly and talking peacefully about everything. [Telega is a four-wheel carriage.]

He told me that he was a poor man, his farm was situated nearby. So we went from one farm to another. Sometimes people friendly rolled out big cans of milk and helped us to put them into the telega, the others obeyed gloomily. One peasant served us a hefty meal. By the evening we brought about 20 big cans of milk to the hospital. We became friends with that peasant. I was sleepy. I got into bed, but jumped up immediately! My sub-machine gun! That peasant had taken it away in his telega. I knew for sure that a soldier who lost his arms was worth death by shooting.

I decided to find that peasant. I had to go through the wood, and it was extremely dangerous, because the wood was full of wood brothers. [Wood brothers was a cumulative name of anti-soviet armed groups on the territory of Baltic Republics.]

I was sure that I would never get back alive. At last, after a long way I came to his farm more dead than alive. My driver came out of his house carrying my sub-machine gun. I seized it hastily and hung it on my shoulder. The peasant’s wife invited me to visit their house, gave me some bacon and apples. See what a prize I found!

• After the war and recent years

I finished war on the Kursh spit near Konigsberg. Soon after the Victory our 4th army was moved to Kazakhstan (to Alma-Ata). General Kalachev was appointed the commander of the Kazakh military district. Many years later (when I was already a member of the USSR Union of Artists) I arrived to Crimea (to the Gurzuf recreation house for artists). During my first walk along the beach I met Andrey Kalachev and his wife Nina: they spent their vacation in the central sanatorium of the Ministry of Defense. We embraced. They invited me to their magnificent apartments in the sanatorium, and we spent the whole day together. Later we corresponded.

So, the war was finished. I (a front-line soldier with awards and 10 classes of school education) had to think about demobilization and further study. I returned to Leningrad. My Mom had returned from evacuation a little earlier and waited for me in our apartment. Father survived the war, but did not return home: he married another woman. Father died in Moscow in 1970s.

I have told you already that I was so much eager to study that submitted my documents to 3 higher educational institutions at the same time. I tried to understand myself. But by that time my teacher Konstantin Kardabovsky returned from evacuation and convinced me to enter the Academy of Arts. It seemed to me that I was able to better all entrants, but it appeared that people did not like arrogant men.

They flunked me in my entrance examinations. Then I entered the 3rd course of the high art school. I studied there during a year, and then entered the Academy of Arts (the department of painting) trouble-free. I studied in the workshop of Professor Oreshnikov (a remarkable teacher and a top-class professional artist). After graduation from the Academy, I started working at the USSR Union of Artists.  [The USSR Union of Artists was founded in 1957.] There every artist had got an agent (art critics), who used to find orders for the artists. We performed those orders and earned money for living. There was a lot of interesting work.

One of orders came from the state farm where I was in evacuation 12. There was a fur farm. I painted a picture for them and sent a letter describing my life there during evacuation. We painted different pictures. For example, one of them was devoted to a working day on a cattle-breeding farm. I remember that I had to go to Kirov to perform that order.

Another one was to paint a working day in the railway depot in Kotlas. I went to Kotlas, met with the local Communist Party committee secretary, and asked about the purpose of the future picture. He answered that it was meant for the House of Culture where workers usually spent their spare time. I asked the secretary whether it was reasonable to show workers their working day when they wanted to relax. He hesitated a minute, but said ‘Paint a working day: we would feel great security.’ You see, I had got a lot of orders. But usually I managed to find some time to paint for myself, so to say for my private satisfaction.

I lived with my Mom. She was often sick, worked in some workmen's cooperative association and earned just a dab of money. She died in 1956. Being a student of the last course, I met a girl among students at a party. I immediately decided to marry her. So I did it in 1953, a year after my graduation from the Academy. My wife’s name is Nina Pavlovna Iossilevich. She was born in Leningrad in 1924. She graduated from the College of Engineers of Railway Transport. All her life long Nina worked as a structural engineer.

In 1954 our son Alexey was born. We gave him his mother’s surname (Iossilevich), because his maternal grandfather was in anguish at the fact that his family would come to an end. 6 years later our daughter Nina was born. Our children were very good. They grew up and became remarkable persons. Alexey finished school specialized in mathematics. He used to win the first places in different contests in physics, therefore he had the right to enter any College he wanted without entrance examinations. Alexey decided to become a student of the University (physical faculty).

But unfortunately the same year a daughter of Victor Eskin (a known physics and my friend) was going to enter the same faculty. Two Jews at once were too much for the University; therefore Alexey was given a flunking grade. Then he entered the Polytechnical College. After graduation he started working at ELECTROSSILA plant (they produced electric motors). He worked there at the theoretical department.

During his work at ELECTROSSILA Alexey wrote a paper about a certain physical effect known earlier, but not explained from the theoretical point of view. Alexey managed to explain that effect. He gave a report about it at the scientific conference in Odessa. Academician Khalatnikov from the Moscow Institute of Theoretical Physics was present at that conference. He listened to Alexey’s report and invited him to work at his Institute. Three months later Alexey defended his dissertation. It happened that the procedure was fixed for the day when Brezhnev died.

So Alexey was standing in the lobby of the Institute and all Institute employees condoled with him, but not upon the loss of Brezhnev, but upon postponing of the procedure. Later he defended his dissertation brilliantly. Research workers spoke that Alexey’s work was the high-water mark of contemporary physics. Alexey was suggested to be given a doctor's degree, but he refused. He explained that he did not want to outstart his coevals (colleagues). My son defended his doctor's dissertation many years later. At present he often works abroad. He has got 2 sons of 20 and 13 years old.

My daughter graduated from the Academy of Arts, too. She is a graphic artist. Unfortunately she has difficulties with her work, because she is not able to scratch her way. She has got a son Eugeny (now Eugeny is 13 years old). They live in St. Petersburg.

When our children were born and rather long time after that we lived in a two-room apartment in Zhukovskogo Street. Both rooms were dim: the wall of the opposite building was 2 meters and 6 centimeters far from our windows. And according to sanitary norms it was necessary to have not more than 2 meters for improvement of living conditions. Members of the Union of Artists put their artists on their own waiting list. I visited the secretary of the regional Communist Party Committee and he helped me. I was suggested to occupy a workshop and an apartment of an artist who had left for Israel. Giving me the voucher, a local official told me with hatred, ‘Is this apartment a runway for flying away to Israel?’

While our children were little, we used to spend summer vacations out of the city. Sometimes we rented dacha, sometimes lived at our friends.

I came across anti-Semitism as a state policy, when I presented the rough draft of my degree work for approval. You see, I was in love with Rembrandt’s picture Syndics of the Drapers' Guild. [Rembrandt, Harmenz van Rijn (1606-1669) - the greatest artist.] I wanted to paint a group portrait of the members of the Soviet Committee in Defense of Peace.

I wanted to paint it similar to the Rembrandt’s picture, of course understanding the status of Rembrandt and my own. [The Soviet Committee in Defense of Peace was created in 1949 in Moscow.] I was going to draw Ilya Erenburg 13, the chairman of the Committee in the center.

Ilya Erenburg was a picturesque figure, an idol of many people, especially of the front-line soldiers. So, I submitted my sketch, and received a recommendation not to over-stress Erenburg. I was shocked. I spent a week thinking the situation over and decided to give up my idea of the group portrait. I suggested painting 3 portraits of cultural workers and got permission immediately. After graduation I became a member of the USSR Union of Artists. By the way, when a student, I received the Stalin’s increased stipend for excellent students, but in 1952 they stopped paying it without any reasons.

I was the best student and my degree work was the best, too. But our communist party functionaries could not permit a person by the name of Epstein to have everything too easy. A student from our course (a quite good capable guy, a son of some General) was presenting his degree work just before me. His painting was devoted to Mikula Selyaninovich in full-scale. [Mikula Selyaninovich is one of the heroes of Russian epic literature.]

The frame of his picture was covered with bast mats, bast shoes were fixed to the frame. [Bast shoes are Russian country wicker footwear made of bark of young deciduous trees]. In general he presented his work in old Russian style. They decided to make it the highlight of the program. During his presentation the hall was illuminated beautifully. But after that the light was almost switched off and I had to present my work in darkness. It was ridiculous!

In the time of Doctors’ Plot 14 it was terrible. We could not even imagine the inevitable consequences. When Stalin died, I was in confusion.

During the Hungarian 15 and the Prague 16 events I was ashamed for my country.I was pleased to hear about Gorbachev’s reforms [17, 18]. When people ask me about my attitude to Putin, I answer that for the first time in my life I am not ashamed for the leader of my country. At present I have no connection with the St. Petersburg Hesed Avraham Welfare Center 19. A long time ago I received food packages there.

• Glossary:

Lasar Blekhshtein 
St. Petersburg 
Russia 
The interviewer: Anna Shubaeva 

Lasar Isaacovich Blekhshtein excites unstinted admiration because he is really hale and hearty, notwithstanding the fact that at the age of 8 he lost his leg and since then walks on crutches.

At present he is about 100 years old and he is able to fulfill exactly 100 push-ups.

Lasar strictly follows the rules of healthy life-style (information about it he had picked up from the ancient knowledge of yogis many years ago).

But after several hours of conversation you understand that hardships of his life and life of his relatives had strongly touched him and were seared into his memory.

The last misfortune (recent death of his beloved wife Gede) must have knocked him down, but Lasar, a man of spirit manages to find pleasure in his great-grandsons against everything.

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

• My family background

I was born in St. Petersburg in 1911. I managed to know something about my ancestors thanks to one very distant relative. His hobby was genealogy and he was engaged in it all his life long. He publishes articles in Russia and in America. He traced his own family back 5 hundred years and at the same time he found interesting facts for me. You know, Jews were authorized 1 to live in large cities, including capitals only since 1863; the privilege was given to college-bred people, very rich ones and handicraftsmen.

For the 1st time our surname was mentioned right then: it was spelled Blekshtein. One of those Blekshteins was a tinsmith, another one was engaged in veneering. Possibly one of them was my great-grandfather (or grandfather), but I cannot prove it.

My own information is connected with the photos I have in my album (the small album full of old photos came to me from my relatives). There are photos of my grandfather and grandmother, probably they were my father’s parents (unfortunately I do not know exactly), and also photos of my Daddy and Mom.

I know that my grandfather from that photo worked somewhere on a railway; and Mom told me with pride that he had invented an original lantern. I guess his creative abilities came down to me, because I also appeared to become a modest inventor.

Mom never spoke about her ancestors, therefore I knew nothing about them, including all her relatives. Only from that enthusiast of family trees I got to know that I had got an aunt (Mom’s sister) and her name was Tsilye!

I suppose that my both grandmothers were housewives. I also understand that my maternal grandfather’s name was Solomon, because my Mom’s name was Rebecca Solomonovna (in Russian 2 Rebecca Shlemovna). It seems to me that her maiden name was Kaplun, therefore my maternal grandfather was Solomon Kaplun. And my paternal grandfather’s name was Lasar Blekhshtein (I was named in honor of him as is customary among Jews).

I guess my father was born in Vilno [Vilnius at present, capital of Lithuania], and later his parents moved to Petersburg. Unfortunately I know very little about my father: Mom did not tell us and we (my sisters, my brother, and me) did not ask. Maybe my sisters and brother knew more, but I was the youngest among them and my father died in the year of my birth (in 1911 when he was about 40 years old). It is easy to count that he was born in 1860s.

My father’s name was Isidore (his second name was Isaac). My sisters and brother took Isaac for their patronymics (the same with me), though Isidore would have been more correct (in his birth-certificate Isaac was in brackets). Daddy was a shoemaker.

And unfortunately he got into trouble: he invested all money he had into the co-operative he worked at. But the co-operative went bankrupt and father was crushed down. Mom explained me that it resulted in his stroke. That was all.

My father was buried at the Preobrazhenskoe (Jewish) cemetery [the Jewish part of the Preobrazhenskoe cemetery was opened in 1875]. But Mom never told me about the details of the ceremony.

My Mom’s name was Rebecca (Ginde Rive) Blekhshtein, her maiden name was Kaplun. She was born in 1870 (I counted it, because she died in 1942 at the age of 72). She was religious: attended synagogue on holidays. I do not know whether Daddy did it (Mom told nothing about it). Mom belonged to Misnagdim (a Hebrew word meaning opponents). [The term Misnagdim is loosely used by Hasidim to refer to European religious Orthodox Jews who are not Hasidic 3.

I know that my Mom also came from Vilno. Mom and Dad got acquainted there. But I have no idea about the circumstances of their acquaintance. They arrived in St. Petersburg having already been married. I do not know why they appeared in St. Petersburg. Possibly there they expected to find a large labor-market for handicraftsmen.

• Growing up

In Vilno Mom worked as a senior shop assistant in the department of small wares. Probably that was why she could speak a little a lot of languages: German, French, Polish, Yiddish, and Russian. She had to accept the goods brought from different countries: France, Germany, Poland, etc. Mom told me that her Lithuanian was poor, but Polish was rather good. At home when she wanted to keep something in secret, she spoke French to my sister. But her mother tongue was Yiddish, she often spoke Yiddish to me, and I gave her answers in Russian.

Father died, and mother remained a widow with 4 children. Her life before the revolution of 1917 4 was terrible (she told about it herself). Five of us lived in a small room together. I remember the room though I was very little. I also remember the fire, and my mother pulling me out: I remember very long corridors of that communal apartment 5.

When Mom lost her husband, she immediately lost the right to live in St. Petersburg. Every week a police officer visited her to take a bribe. That was the way we lived before the revolution, but after it Soviet authorities gave us an apartment.

I also remember that during the revolution we often were hungry. A Jewish orphan asylum was opened at that time. Together with the orphans my brother, one of my sisters (middle) and I left Petersburg for Ufa (the Urals). Many years later, being already an adult, I realized that there we had seen cossacks 6 (people on horses). I guess we got there right during the fights of Chapaev brigade 7, but at that time I did not understand it.

Mom had no profession, therefore she worked at the market. She had a small stand there. For about 2 years she boiled soap (I remember it was white with dark blue strings), cooled it, cut it into pieces and sold at the market. Later she started buying and selling different things: soap, blue dye, etc. She earned little money, but she earned it. My brother also was engaged in trading (instead of studying). But in 1920s NEP 8 was abandoned by authorities.

We were often hungry: I remember myself standing beside Mom when she was frying potato pancakes (made from potato peel) on oil stove. It was a pleasure for me to wait for the next pancake. At present Mom often comes in my mind as an expert in cooking. I never ate gefilte fish cooked better than she could!

Mom was a very noble woman. Soviet authorities gave us a three-room apartment, but we lived in one rooms (for some time the second one was occupied by my sister and her husband, and the third one was empty and cold). We kept odds and ends in it.

One day in 1927 my dear Mom walked along Kanonerskaya Street [situated near Lermontovsky prospect] and saw an elderly Jewess and a girl sitting on the sidewalk. She started a talk: Fun wanen zeiter? (Where are you from?), etc. She got to know that they ran away from pogroms in Belarus, lived in need and had no place to spend the night. And Mom took them to our place and gave our cold empty room at their disposal.

They turned out to be provincial Jews with bad manners. They were ungrateful. At first they lived in out apartment without registration, but soon they got registered without our knowledge, and we lost our room (our apartment became communal). Soon they became three, and later the old woman’s son appeared.

So they lived in our room (about 16 square meters) four together. When they opened their door, something unpleasant emitted a smell. For our family it was a tragedy, a great discomfort. My Mom did her Jewish duty and in a better world (beyond the veil) she would be granted remission of forty sins.

After all our torments we had to change two our rooms for another one, dark and terrible, but in another apartment. Mother did not discuss it with her children: I was a schoolboy, and my brother and sister thought it was a temporary measure. You see what happens sometimes to polite and sorrowful people… People say that kind acts cannot be passed over as a mere trifle. That was the way we lost our apartment.

We often moved from one apartment to another. Since my birthday, I lived in 8 or 9 apartments. I was born on Vassilyevsky island [the biggest island in the delta of the Neva River]. I remember our apartment near the Great Choral Synagogue [the Great Choral Synagogue in St. Petersburg was built in 1893]. I consider that district of Leningrad to be Jewish (a lot of Jews lived near the synagogue).

Most of the Jews around the synagogue were handicraftsmen, employees, small traders, etc. - in general there were not many intelligent people. I describe the situation of 1920s and 1930s. Later people became more educated: for example, all my schoolmates received higher education. In our class there were 16 Jewish boys, and only 1 of us married a Ukrainian girl, i.e. a girl of different nationality.

I never wore a kippah; Mom forced me to wear tzitzit, but after a year I got rid of it, because I became more independent and was able not to obey Mom. I never had payes, I was always close-cut. Even the older generation did not wear Jewish lapserdak (old-fashioned floor-length frock-coat), but a lot of them were bearded.

Every day on my way to school I met people going to the synagogue. They usually carried tallit and other necessary things for praying.

Our family was rather poor, but not dirt poor. I remember that I was dressed badly, my clothes were the worst in my class. But at that time people did not pay attention to it. You see, my clothes suffered much because I used a crutch, and it rubbed against my trousers. As Mom had no time to patch, I had to do it myself and managed to repair my clothes.

My mother had got 5 children. One of them died being a baby and we never spoke about him. So I had got 2 sisters and a brother, I was the youngest.

My elder sister Elena was born in St. Petersburg in 1898 (you see, I do not know when my parents arrived in St. Petersburg, but I know that she was born here). My second sister Elizabeth was born in 1904; my brother Solomon was born in 1905. And I was born in 1911.

My elder sister Elena got married at the age of twenty. Her husband’s name was Aron Sust, he was a Jew. But he never visited his relatives. Never. I do not know why. Possibly he was a man of bad temper. I lived with Mom and my second sister Elizabeth. Elena lived with her husband in their own room (in another street), and she never came to see her mother, never brought her anything. As for me, I visited Elena many times.

Aron worked as a mechanic: he repaired sewing machines and typewriters. He made a lot of money, but I never saw him with a book in his hands. My sister also was a housewife and nothing more, but a very loving mother and a good wife. She was a real cordon bleu. A good wife, a good mother… But there happened a misfortune: she smothered a baby in her sleep.

Elena was very tired, went to bed and the baby was sleeping beside her. She turned over on her side and pressed the child against the bed. Elena’s husband loved their children very much, therefore that loss made things difficult for their family (Aron considered it to be an inexcusable sin). They had got two more children, two girls: an elder one Vera (born in 1928) and a younger one Elizabeth (I do not remember the date of her birth).

My second sister Elizabeth had a bad fall in her childhood (I guess at the age of 12) and became humpbacked and very short. She did not finish a school and did not get married. She worked as an accountant at a bank. Elizabeth read much, but had sullen disposition. She read in Russian: neither my sisters, nor my brother knew Yiddish (even the alphabet).

During 3 years I did not talk to my brother, trying to persuade him to study at the secondary school. I told him that Soviet authorities allowed us to study, we got an opportunity to study and we had to study. But my brother stood his ground and refused. So he finished only 2 classes. He was able to write and read, but he did not want to read.

My brother was dandyish: it was important for him to have two suits for each season (one for working days and one for days off), and he managed to have. Pay attention that I had got only 1 suit and wore it all the year round. Solomon liked to dress well, liked jolly crowds. But I remember no interesting persons or Jewish intellectuals among his comrades. At that time (in 1920s) it was in fashion to have parties. They used to gather every week. There they mixed with their equals, got acquainted, and married. I was never present at those parties: at that time I was too little and they did not invite me. They never arranged parties at our place.

During the NEP period my brother became interested in trading and got a small stand at the market. He sold fancy goods there. Later NEP was abandoned and in 1930 or 1931 he arranged manufacturing of woolen caps and scarves together with his friend, a Jew. They bought a knitting machine and hired a worker (a woman). That woman had no place to live, therefore we invited her to live at our place.

My brother and his partner registered her as a homemaker (I guess it was cheaper, than to register her as a worker). To cut a long story short, it was illegal. Both of them (my brother and his partner) were condemned for their crime. His partner managed to escape and ran away to China (together with his family). And my brother was brought to prison, and later to a camp. He spent two years there.

Till now I suffer, because I did not send my brother parcels while he was in prison and in the camp. Two years I sent nothing to him. You see, I was a student, I was poor, but now I think I was able to send a parcel to him! That idea did not come into my head and nobody suggested it: neither Mom, nor sisters. We acted like strangers, not relatives. We were wrong. It was necessary to send him a lot of cigarettes, so that he could change them for food… Unfortunately that cannot be remedied.

Later when he returned from the camp, he worked as a bookkeeper. You see, he was not educated, but very clever: he managed to finish courses for bookkeepers and worked as a senior bookkeeper at KIROVSTROY! The Kirov factory [The Kirov machine-building factory was founded in St. Petersburg in 1801] was a great factory! They had got a special building organization engaged in construction of new factory workshops: it was named KIROVSTROY. My brother was the Head of that organization and had got 6 subordinates. I guess he could have come to the forefront, because he was more talented than me. But he did not study…

He got married. I do not remember her name. She was a Jewess. As my brother wanted to be better and better circumstanced, his wife had to have abortions (one after another) until he got a room, furniture, cut-glass ware, clothes, etc. In the issue they had got no children. So they died having no children.

I studied at the National Jewish school #5 9. Mom sent me there. They did not teach us religion. In our class there were 8 boys and 8 girls: only Jewish children. At school there were 10 classes (about 200 pupils). All teachers were Jewish. They taught us Yiddish among other generally accepted subjects. At our school only 2 cleaners were Russian.

At that time in the city there were 5 national schools: 2 German (Annenschule, Peterschule), Greek, Polish and Jewish. The Jewish school was situated in the former gymnasium of Eizenshtadt in Lermontovsky prospect (close to the synagogue: our back door opened into the synagogue court yard).

I finished that school and I am very proud of it. In 1929 in Leningrad authorities initiated campaign for estimation of training quality and potential of pupils, i.e. investigated students’ IQ. And our school appeared to be the 2nd in the city after Annenschule.

By the way, students from Annenschule and Peterschule were from rich families: governesses saw the children to the school doors, tutors helped them in their studies, etc. And our school was a school of beggars, we were beggars. I finished my school in 1930. It functioned 20 years and was closed after our graduation.

By the way, I started my school years on September 1, 1921 and on September 30 of the same year I got under the wheels of tram. I lost my leg and since then I walk on crutches. Therefore I missed the whole year (I spent it in hospital) and continued my studies at school only a year later.

Our school was perfect! Here I’ll tell you about our director Timofey Yakovlevich Tseytlin (I do not remember his Jewish name, but I remember that it was absolutely different). He taught us social science, trained us to be good people and told us about everything. Here imagine a fine day in May, our studies are almost over. Do you think it was possible for a teacher to arrest attention of 16 boys and girls aged 16-18? Yes! He fell into talk and had been giving a lecture for 6 hours without any break.

We were so much taken with the topic that even did not leave the classroom for toilet! He was a person of encyclopedic knowledge: he was able to speak about Middle Ages, about Indians, about China. He also knew much about Jewish societies (at that time Israel did not exist). We listened and he spoke. He was a born orator! I bend my knee before him!

And his wife Lubov Sergeevna was a short slightly built woman. She taught us chemistry. But… we did not like chemistry: nobody of us (16 pupils) became a chemist. Most of us chose engineering.

Mark Yakovlevich Shnitsler taught us physics. I think he was not talented in teaching. Our Maths teacher Abram Efimovich was perfect, though he was a doctor by profession. Humanitarian subjects (History, Literature) were taught very well. Our teacher of German language knew 7 languages (her name was Anna Ossipovna Pinsker).

They taught us Yiddish (we knew nothing about Hebrew) like all other subjects: German,  Geography, Maths. At that time I could read Yiddish. At present I remember the alphabet, but I cannot read: I spell out (my English is much better), but I write easily! Four times my neighbors came to me and asked me to translate letters from Russian into Yiddish. They sent my translations to America and got answers: it means that people understand my Yiddish. Yes! I can write quickly.

Mom did not help me in my studies. You see, she worked in the market. One day a teacher from our school saw her there. She bought something from her and said ‘Your boy is a capable pupil and you should not worry about him.’ So nobody paid attention to my studies: neither my sisters, and brother, nor Mom.

In our class there were several intellectuals: for example, a son of one of our teachers (Yiddish language teacher). He became a professor later. And the majority of us were kapsonim (like my family). Kapsonim means beggars (according to Sholem Aleichem 10).

In fact nobody of us attended the synagogue. We (boys) used to run to the synagogue at Simchat Torah, because at that time they gave us gifts, and we competed (tried to receive as many gifts as we could). I walked on crutches, therefore they felt sorry for me and I got more gifts than others. I was very proud of it. They usually gave us sweets, gingerbreads, but it was not our aim, we acted for the fun of it. We were boys of 12-14 years old.

A lot of religious people attended the synagogue. I remember that at that time there were 3 synagogues: the Great Choral Synagogue, the synagogue of Hasidim (now it is called the Small Synagogue), and the synagogue of Misnagdim (inside the Great Choral Synagogue on the 2nd floor). During holidays all synagogues were full of people. And I do not remember any conflicts.

My Mom attended the Misnagdim Synagogue, and I used to bring her something to eat while she was praying. My brother and my sisters never visited the synagogue, and I attended the Great Choral (for me it was more interesting).

In the Great Choral Synagogue the first rows (about 20) were places for gvirim, i.e. for rich people; each of them had tallit bordered with gold and silver. It was impossible to have a seat there: people bought places a year beforehand (like in the Philharmonic Society). And it was expensive (I do not know how much).

There were a lot of Jews in Petersburg: I know that they were about 220,000 before Perestroika 11 and at that time they were much more. The farther from the 1st row the cheaper the seats. A lot of people had to be standing. If I came, I stood in the crowd. The synagogue hall was overcrowded.

Once in my life (I was a 12 years old boy) they trusted me to carry Torah, though I was on crutches! I carried Torah, and people touched and kissed it. That was my affecting experience.

We did not celebrate my bar mitzvah, but I remember the following. In the city there were several synagogues situated at private apartments, where religious Jews gathered to pray. One day Mom sent me to one oа those apartment on some business (she used to send me to different places: to shochet with a hen, etc.). I remember it was in June somewhere in Sadovaya Street, in the big apartment. I came in and saw people walking around the flat like sleep-walkers. As soon as I came in Jews rushed to me ‘The boy! How old are you?’ - ‘I am thirteen.’ - ‘Oh!!!!’ And they clamored at once. You see, I was the 10th Jew (minyan) and they could start praying. It was good that the 10th Jew came, though I was only a boy.

My mother forced me to go to cheder. It was here in Petersburg in 1926-1927. Mother wanted me to study Jewish Tradition, because she was a religious woman. But I haven’t learnt much there: it was not very interesting for me. Later for some reason the cheder was closed. But Mom was very persistent: she invited rabbi from the cheder to come to our place (she paid him).

He came, we read. We read in Hebrew, but I understood nothing! He read and translated. It was Humash or something of that kind: I do not remember. I also do not remember the rabbi’s name, we called him rabbi. I guess he was rather poor: he used to have dinner with us. Rabbi visited us during a year. But I was interested in Russian literature (classical). Therefore I appeared to be an underachiever and he stopped our studies. He was very nice, and I distressed him. At that time I wore tzitzit (Mom forced me). At our school nobody did it, but in cheder there were boys with payes (their parents insisted).

We finished our school in 1930. All my schoolmates started working in different spheres. Some of my friends became turners and mechanics, and I found job of a copyist at a design office.

Here I’d like to tell you that our teachers brought us up ideally: all of us became honest people, nobody of us broke the law. Almost all of my classmates have already died. All of my classmates avoided camps 12 - and it was surprising; because in 1937 13 people suffered much. Several boys served in the army. During the Great Patriotic War 14 one of them was lost.

Our teachers were professionals, therefore fifteen persons from our class (even the most slow ones) graduated from different colleges and became engineers, geologists, meteorologists, etc. And one of us (the 16th one) did not manage to receive higher education, because he was executed by shooting before 1937. Here is the story about him.

That boy was the most intelligent of us, he was from an intelligent Jewish family. His father was a bookkeeper at the Synagogue. His father was one of the Twenty [an initiative group of 20 religious persons got registered and was able to sign contracts on using religious buildings, and solve other problems connected with exercise of religion]. My schoolmate’s name was Emmanuil Kitainov, and we called him Nolik (Zero). He was talented in the humanities.

At our school there were two good reciters of verses: Nolik (he was the 1st) and me (I was the 2nd). Nolik was very good in Russian, but he was ignorant in mathematics and physics. In the 9th form he was asked to count the volume of the cube (its side was equal to ‘a’). Nolik thought for a long time, but managed to answer that it would be ‘а3’. Then the teacher changed the problem specification from ‘a’ to ‘a/2’, and Nolik gave no answer. But! He was the only pupil at our school who knew Hebrew!

His parents were grateful to me, because at school there were savage customs and guys used to play tricks on Nolik. Once they forced him to climb upon a bookcase. The bookcase was not high, but Nolik could not climb down and stayed there. I also remember that they often put Nolik into a garbage box (at school there were special boxes for rubbish), and again Nolik made no attempt to get out. It was me who often came to his succor. His mother was extremely grateful to me.

We finished our school and stopped to be in touch. But in 1934 he was brought to our mind. In December 1934 Kirov 15 was killed; the next day we read in the newspaper that 16 people were shot (in revenge, I guess), and among them we found Nolik’s name. How did he get there?! We lost ourselves in conjectures. By hearsay we got to know that he studied in some library.

We suspected that he was connected with keeping or distributing unauthorized books and in the end of 1934 he was in prison. He was taken among other prisoners. He was innocent.

After school it was necessary to find a job. When a schoolboy, I studied at the art school and finished it. I doubt that I had any creative abilities, but I had been studying drawing for 3 years and received a diploma. I decided to become an engineer, and appeared to be a good draftsman (my studies at the art school helped me much).

But at that time it was very difficult to enter a college: it was necessary to have worked for 2 years before entrance exams. All my classmates (I already told you) found their work at different factories as turners, mechanics, etc. But it was impossible for me because I had only one leg, therefore I found job of a copyist at the design office at ELECTROSILA factory [Electrosila Factory is a Leningrad Corporation for construction of electric machines – one of the largest USSR factories in this sphere.] Half a year later I became a draftsman (designer).

At ELECTROSILA they arranged the first Special Design Office in the USSR. Different people were taken to the office: 6 persons from ELECTROSILA factory, several dozens of arrested doctors and professors. A General was the office chief. For fulfilling ordinary (simple) tasks they sent there a lot of students of Electrotechnical College. [The Electrotechnical College was founded in 1891.]

Those people designed 2 mighty projects. I was so sorry that at that time I had not enough knowledge to adopt their practices and methods.

At that time they also arranged evening courses at ELECTROSILA (a branch of the Electrotechnical College). I had no chances to enter it: my brother was in prison, and Mom was a handicrafts person. At that time my nationality was not an obstacle for entrance; but the facts from my biography were.

Those learned scholars finished their work in 1932 and the Special Design Office was closed. The former chief presented me a set of clothes for my good work. You see, at that time it was a problem to buy clothes (even a handkerchief): everything was on cards 16 and salaries were crummy. And the General gave me a lot of things: from socks to winter coat, caps, suits, etc.

But I thanked the General and said that I wanted to study: ‘You know my biography, I never made secret of its facts. I guess they will not let me enter a college.’ - ‘Why didn’t you submit your application?’ - ‘It is useless.’ He answered: ‘Do it.’ And I handed my documents over to the College entrance examination. Later I did not find my name in the list of new students. I came to the General ‘They did not take me, I told you.’ The General gave me a petition (from GPU 17). It was GPU that killed millions of people under the guidance of Stalin. It was terrible (at that time people used to say that half a country was in camps and half a country was on duty). With the help of that paper I entered the College (evening course).

Soon I found out that our training there was inadequate, therefore I continued as a full-time first-year student of the Polytechnical College. [The Polytechnical College was founded in 1899.] I graduated in 1937 from the faculty of measuring technique and started my labor activity.

At first I worked at LENENERGO [the power company of St. Petersburg]. Graduates had to complete a mandatory 2-year job assignment 18 issued by the college from which they graduated. But I graduated with honors, therefore I was allowed to get employment at my discretion in any town or organization. I chose LENENERGO. They had got no service of measurements, and I started working at the department of automatic equipment.

My future wife came there to work, too. Her name was Gede Israelevna Kaplun. At that time she was 26 years old (she was a year younger than me: born in 1912). Her parents had got 3 daughters: Ida, the youngest (she is still alive), my Gede, and Ella, the eldest (she has already died). It was a Jewish family, they arrived in Petersburg from somewhere, I do not remember the place. I did not know their father (he died earlier), but I was acquainted with their mother.

She had a great deal of personality, was independent and strict. And she brought up her daughters in her own spirit. She was not religious. Their family was of average culture. My wife, for example, was not widely-read. But she was a clear head, a good expert and she was equal to the tasks of mother and wife.

We got acquainted in 1938. She graduated from the Electrotechnical College and was an electrical engineer. She understood that I was an indecisive boy-friend. So one fine evening I heard a doorbell. It was about midnight, and I usually went to bed early. I had a room at the communal apartment and my neighbor opened the door for her.

She understood that I was that sort of idiots whom it was better not to talk to much, she came in, undressed and got to my bed. Our loving relations lasted 66 years, we lived in harmony. Only one misfortune: she passed away before me (several years ago); though women usually live longer than men.

When we got married, my wife was already going to give birth to our first child. LENENERGO gave us a room (5.5 square meters). Can you imagine that I managed to place there a sofa, a large desk, a wardrobe, and 2 armchairs. I visited a furniture store 3 times to measure the pieces of furniture. All my neighbors came to our place to look what I managed to do!

The chief engineer of LENENERGO Sergey Mihaylovich Pussin was one of my benefactors (it happens not often in our life!) - may he rest in peace! When my wife became so great with child that she could not squeeze between the sofa, the wardrobe and the desk, Sergey Mihaylovich gave us charge over the room.

He had no right, because the room belonged to the LENENERGO department! But it happened and we got a possibility to change it for another one. We managed to change it for a room of 12 square meters and it became a little bit easier for us.

By 1941 our son was 10 months old. His name is Erlend. Erlend is a Norwegian name. You see, my wife Gede read a novel by Norwegian writer Sigrid Unset [1882-1949]. She received (to my knowledge) a Nobel Prize. Erlend is a hero of her novel Kristin Lavransdatter. My wife read the book and named our son Erlend. At home we called him Eric. He has got only one name (like the rest of my sons): nobody of them has Jewish name.

One clever famous Frenchman recommended people the following: if you want to know a person, give him 2 sheets of paper and ask him to write down all his good deeds (on the 1st one) and all his clever deeds (on the 2nd one). As for me, I’ll recommend to give a person the 3rd sheet of paper to write down all his silly deeds.

My list of silly deeds would be much longer than 2 previous, I am sure! But one of my cleverest ideas (I am proud of it!) came to me before the war. I analyzed information from newspapers and understood that the war was going to burst out very soon.

• During the war

I worked at LENENERGO, and one of my friends worked at the sales department. They defined quotas, therefore they could get everything by pulling strings. I asked my friend to order tickets for me. So next day (absolutely unexpectedly for my wife) I came home and brought her railway tickets. I saw my wife and our son off on the train. They left Leningrad on June 6, 1941. And the war burst out on June 22 (2 weeks later). I consider that my action to be one of the cleverest or even the cleverest in my life.

I sent my wife to her sister Ida. She and her husband were geologists and at that time worked on construction of some power station (I do not remember what power station).

My wife was very clever and active, while her sister, on the contrary, was not so active. So Gede moved her sister and her family to Tashkent [nowadays it is the capital of Uzbekistan; and during the Great Patriotic War it was a place of evacuation]. There she managed to find job of a teacher at the technical school and  got a room somehow. [Technical school in the USSR and a number of other countries was a special educational institution preparing specialists of middle level for various industrial and agricultural institutions, transport, communication, etc.]

I remained in the besieged Leningrad 19 and suffered from starvation: my weight was 32 kg when I left the city in February 1942. LENENERGO gave us a bus and we moved along the Road of Life 20. I traveled about a month and in March reached Tashkent. When my wife saw me, she nearly fainted: I was a bag of bones. In Tashkent people lived not very well, but they could eat normally. I worked there at the design office of a factory which produced electric lamps. I was a chief designer there.

My Mom, my sister Elizabeth, and my nieces (Elena’s children) stayed here in Leningrad. Elizabeth took care of them.

Elena’s husband was lost during the first months of the war. From rumors we got to know that on the Volkhov River their barge turned over and all passengers were lost. So he did not fight. Later (in 1942) Elena was killed during bombardment. She worked at the Kirov factory (wanted to get a worker’s ration card). She was buried in the Daddy’s grave. No Jewish ceremonies. I was present at the ceremony and I remember that we all were silent. I am distressed with it now.

My brother Solomon was at the front-line twice: he took part in the Soviet-Finnish War 21 and in the Great Patriotic War [WWII]. He fought from the very first day till the very last one. During the World War II he served on the Far East as a lieutenant (though I am not sure). Solomon managed to remain alive, he even was not seriously wounded. He was awarded an Order of the Red Star 22.

I could not take my relatives to evacuation with me: the bus belonged to LENENERGO (therefore only its employees were permitted to go, no relatives). I also was not sure that our bus would be able to reach the continent: I knew about trucks which had broken through the ice on the Road of Life. I addressed the local Communist Party committee and they told me that they were going to evacuate a lot of citizens very soon.

I calmed down my relatives: I told them about their forthcoming evacuation. And indeed, they left the city soon. But unfortunately by that time my mother had died. It happened on March 8, 1942 (therefore March 8, the Women's Day is not a holiday for me, but a dark unforgettable time). And Elizabeth and her nieces left for the Urals. They returned to Leningrad (to their apartment) after the end of the war.

In Tashkent my wife gave birth to our second son. It happened in 1943. We called him Simon. Why Simon? Why not Solomon (in honor of my brother)? You see, we were not sure that my brother was alive. Therefore we wanted to call our baby not Solomon (in case my brother was alive), but we wished the name to sound similar. That was why we called our son Simon. Since that time we called my brother Monya and my son Sima. We returned to Leningrad after the end of the war and in 1946 our third son Boris was born.

My wife refused to have abortions. It was in her character. Therefore everybody around us (including our director and the chief engineer) had got one child, and we had got three of them. They considered us to be crazy. I did not dare to insist: I would have never forgiven myself any tragic mischance with my wife during abortion. And she loved our children very much and devoted her life to them.

• After the war

You know, it was a problem for me to get back to Leningrad after the end of the war 23. My wife returned, but the factory administration did not want to let me go, because I was one of the leading designers. Later I was appointed a shop superintendent. It was necessary to find a replacement, so I managed and then they let me go. I got to Leningrad via Moscow.

We lost our room: leaving Leningrad I simply put my key under the rug near the front door. And when we arrived, we could not get inside the room: it was occupied. Everything was awfully difficult. Some time I worked not in compliance with my profession, and later (in 1948) I found job of designer at the Vibrator factory. I worked there from 1948 till 1984 (36 years).

Vibrator factory produced electrical measuring instruments. At that time there were 5 different types of instruments and I was the chief of design office for one of those types. I had got 18 subordinates. We worked upon a model of the instrument and handed it over to the factory where they produced instruments after our example. I invited hard-working people to the office, all of them were professionals. We were not close friends, but I remember that we celebrated someone’s birthday together (I do not remember exactly).

Jews worked in our office, too. But most of our employees were Russian. We worked and our administration board was satisfied with our work. Our instruments were on sale abroad.

By the way, the factory director and the chief designer were Jews. Our team was very efficient.

I never paid attention to nationality choosing friends. At school my friends were Jewish, because my school was Jewish. At my College there were many Jews. I did not do it on purpose, though I felt some drawn to Jews. But there was no religious aspect in our relations. We did not celebrate Jewish holidays (at school we did, but because our parents attended a synagogue.) All Jews I knew in my life knew nothing about Talmud or something of that kind. Some of them knew about Hummash.

Here are the results of my life activity: 5 books, 19 articles, 32 inventions (for 10 of them I got copyright certificates and received some money).

Using my inventions, 2 persons defended their theses and received 'kandidat nauk' degrees 24. I did not need the scientific degree, because I earned money for my family, working on inventions and books. Using one of my inventions a group of my colleagues received the State (Stalin’s) Prize. But as I was a Jew and not a communist party member, therefore I was not in the list. The same happened with my friend in 1948 and he went crazy. As for me, I did not sleep 3 nights: the situation was so insulting! You see, a good idea comes to you not every day.

One day Einstein was asked about the way he got his brilliant ideas: ‘Do you file them or keep a diary?’ Einstein answered ‘Oh, good ideas appear so seldom!’ You see, those people received the State Prize for the work I was thinking about during 8 years (and it was my fourteenth variant of solution)! But I was easy to get round. When I understood everything and recollected that my friend, I did my best to remain alive: I used yoga exercises to avoid stress results. I think that life is life and the prize is nothing… At present I often watch my instruments on TV (every month in different programs!).

I had got three sons, hence it was necessary for me to have four apartments. I managed. For example, this apartment, I got for one of my inventor’s fees: I solved the problem that people have been trying to solve for a long time (since the 19th century).

A new device I designed in 1956. Once I talked to Americans, and they told me that in their country my invention would have cost half a million dollars! Here I did not received half a million dollars, but I got an apartment: and it was very good (it was extremely difficult to receive a new apartment, I had to become a member of  a building society and pay for the apartment!).

My successful inventions disturbed the good understanding between my brother and me: he was unkind to me… A close friend of mine explained to me that I had hurt the feelings of my brother by presenting him my book with an inscription ‘To my dear brother from one of the authors.’ For me it was normal, but for him it was a misfortune. You see, he never wrote a word, and his brother wrote a book!? I guess if someone somewhere solved a difficult problem and received a million for it, he would not notice it. But if it was his brother, it was a severe hurt to his pride.

Unfortunately my brother hated me. When I visited him, he usually left the apartment supposedly to buy ice-cream. But he did not come back in my presence. I guess after my leaving his wife gave him some signals and he returned. My brother could not forgive me my success. You remember that I had got three children, and he did not have any, I received higher education and he finished only two classes… So I stopped visiting him and he came to my place never more.

My brother died in 2001. His wife died several years later.

Elizabeth, my sister died at the age of 72. She was a decent person: during the blockade she took care about her nieces (orphans) after Elena’s death. Elizabeth went to evacuation with them. After their return to Leningrad her private life was very poor, and the children were very difficult… The elder girl Vera was uncontrollable: in evacuation she tried to commit a suicide. 

Elizabeth got in the hospital and one day they called me and informed about her death. She was cremated, and I buried her near our father’s grave.

My wife died in 2004. We lived 66 years together with her. And I… I feel fine (like a young boy). I guess my heart worked not so hard because I lost my leg at the age of 8. I am able to stay in a steam room for long and do not feel high temperature.

Let's talk about my children. The elder son Eric graduated from the Conservatory, he is a chorister. We meet seldom. His family is not fine: 12 years ago he lost kidneys, his wife is sick with cancer, his daughter is about 29, but not married, his son got divorced and is not happy with his second wife…

My second son Simon left for Israel 11 years ago. Their life in Israel is not so good now. He is an engineer (graduated from the Electromechanical College), but works as a yard keeper. Several years ago he was a worker at a plant. He has got two girls: 20 and 22 years old. They are my pride and happiness, because they are beautiful, good, and talented! His wife is a chemist. Simon never calls me, his daughters or their grandmother sometimes phone me.

My younger son Boris is my beloved boy. Yesterday we visited a steam bath together. He is an engineer, graduated form the Polytechnical College. 23 years he worked in Norilsk. He often goes to business trips to solve different serious problems at different metallurgic plants: people trust him. He has got a daughter Galina. Her first marriage was not successful; and now they live together with a guy and have a child of 4 years old, but they are not married officially. They often visit me.

My children and grandchildren know that they are Jewish, but they do not live Jewish life. Only Daniil, my grandson arranged manufacturing of matzah (he is a businessman) somewhere in the suburb of St. Petersburg. Last year he brought me 2 kgs of matza. Probably my Israeli relatives understand Jewish life more than we do.

And today I’ll soon congratulate some people by telephone: ‘Gut yom tov! Gut yor.’

• Glossary:

St. Petersburg 
Russia 
Tamara Rozanzaft 
October 2001 

Elena Josefovna creates an impression of a self-confident person. Now she is alone, but has many friends.

At her home lives a dog, which alleviates her solitude. Elena Josefovna is occupied with housekeeping.

In the morning you can never catch her at home, as she is a very mobile person. 

Her flat is very clean.

She is vividly interested in the life of the Jewish community.

• My family background
• During the war
• After the war
• Growing up and recent years

• My family background

I, Elena Josefovna Glaz, was born in 1930 in Leningrad. I was the only child in the family. My paternal grandpa, Emmanuel Efimovich Glaz, was a winemaker. He produced wine, cognac, pure alcohol, and champagne. For his champagne he obtained a gold medal in Italy. He didn’t have an estate of his own, but worked as a hired winemaker for German colonists in the village of Dyusseldorf.

It was thirty kilometers away from Gyandzha town [till 1804 and in 1918-1935 it was named Gyandzha, in 1804-1918 – Elizavetpol (when the northern part of Azerbaijan became a part of Russia), from 1935 it was Kirovobad, now (after formation of the CIS) - Gyandzha]; in Azerbaijan. He got there from Odessa, where he also was a winemaker.

In Dyusseldorf his family was renting a big house; they had a leasehold vineyard, a large farm: hens, geese, lambs. Grandpa’s family was large. There were seven children in it: 3 boys and 4 girls. About 1931 my grandpa moved to his son - my father, - to Leningrad, and brought a lot of wine produced by him. The last bottle of his wine we had drunk in 1974, at my wedding.

Grandpa lived with us for two years, died at 62 and was buried in the Transfiguration cemetery (the Jewish one). I was 3 at that time. My daddy told me that grandpa loved me very much.

My paternal granny was a housewife. She was a semi-literate woman. It seems to me that her name was Elka. They said that after the revolution she and grandpa were going somewhere by train, on the way granny fell ill with typhus, at one station she was taken off the train and died there.

There were, as I was told, seven kids. The eldest daughter Eva was married to a man, who for some time was a captain on ocean-going ships and then became a winemaker. He was the chief winemaker in Kishinev after the war and used grandpa’s recipes, which had gotten into his hands in a way obscure for me.

The second daughter Ida lived her whole life in Gyandzha, worked in the post-office as a telegraphist. She had two sons. The name of the younger son was Rudolf, he was a trumpet player (I don’t know where he performed), and the elder was called Boris. I heard Boris was a ruffian. I don’t know whether Ida had a husband. Even Rudolf, when he visited me several times, never mentioned his father. Most likely, he deserted Ida and children.

The third daughter Adele got married being very young - at her 18 - and gave birth to a child and died in childbed. Her daughter, who was also named Adele in her honor, was given shelter by Roza, the younger daughter of granny and grandpa.

Roza had graduated from a high school and was a dentist in a governmental polyclinic in Tashkent. She died being over eighty years old. When she took this baby Adele, she was pregnant herself and soon gave birth to son Evgeny.

The eldest son Efim graduated with honours from the Polytechnical Institute in Rome. Then he lived in Baku and during his whole life worked as a mechanic in Baku oil fields. Efim fluently spoke, read and wrote in Georgian, Armenian and Azerbaijani.

The youngest son Alexander in young age was fond of going to mountains with friends and grilling shashliks [sort of kebab; pieces of beef grilled at a skewer]. His friends were mostly Azerbaijanians. In Dyusseldorf there were a few Jews, but many Azerbaijanians and Germans, because there were a lot of German settlements in the Caucasus.

Alexander was a very good administrator. Before the war, during the war (in 1941-1945), and after the war he worked in some company as a supplier. His wife was called Roza, she was Jewish. They had two sons: Ljonya and Edik. After the war Alexander with his family lived in the town of Chernovtsy.

My father Josef was born in 1892 in Dyusseldorf. He finished a secondary school (common, not Jewish) and, odd as it was, sang in a choir of some Orthodox church. In Russia it was hard for a Jew and, what was more, from the Caucasian region, to enter an institute.

So after finishing of a secondary school father went away to Berlin and entered the Medical Institute there in 1911. As grandpa had a big family, which he could hardly support, my father had to pay both for his living and study. He worked as a bartender; in other words, sold beer in a bar. Unfortunately, father didn’t succeed in completing his study in Germany.

In 1914, as everybody knows, World War I burst out and all Russian nationals were sent away from Germany. My father arrived in Kiev and entered the medical department of the Kiev State University. He graduated from it in 1917.
At that university he met my mum.

My maternal granny’s name was Sofia Samuelovna Landa (nee: Kalihman). She was an uneducated woman, worked as a seamstress in her early years. Granny had two sisters: Ekaterina and Rebecca. Granny was almost twenty years older than her sisters. Most likely, her father lacked money to pay for her education.

When her sisters grew up a little he was rich enough to send the two of them to study. Ithis is the reason why my granny, the only one of the three sisters, didn’t get a higher education. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of what Jewish traditions they followed and of things concerning their Jewish experiences. At the Soviet regime it wasn’t customary to talk about such things, and I wasn’t told a word about this.

Ekaterina was born in 1892. She had graduated from some institution of higher education [I don’t know exactly, which one and when], became a lawyer, went to work to Leningrad. In Leningrad she was a member of the Leningrad Bar of Lawyers and dealt with criminal cases. She was single. She had a lot of gold things and money. 

In November 1941, at the time of blockade, she was murdered by neighbours and they got hold of all her valuables. Rebecca was born in Odessa in 1893. She graduated from a medical institute, in youth worked in choleraic barracks. Then she became a specialist in virology and microbiology, and for many years was a senior scientist of the Institute of Vaccines and Serums in Moscow.

She invented a whole series of vaccines, that saved lives of a great number of people. Rebecca participated in creation of vaccines against spotted fever, typhoid; in the development of of gramizidine, by means of which they cure gas-gangrene.

My maternal grandpa’s name was Josef Landa. He was a steward in some landowner’s estate. He and my granny lived in a village in the territory of Bessarabia [a region, which occupies a part of Moldavia and the southern part of Odessa region] Now it is called Pridnestrovie. Somewhere after 1905, after bourgeois-democratic revolution, peasants rebelled. They scorched the estate, but the landowner accused my grandpa of that. Grandpa couldn’t stand all this disgrace and committed suicide.

He left a widow with four children, who didn’t have any speciality or skills at all. All kids were very small. I suppose, the eldest son was 14 and my mum - 12. However surprising it was, all four children including my mum managed to obtain a higher education. In her old age granny lived at her eldest son Henrik’s in Odessa. Granny died in the 1960s, at a very old age.

She was around 90 years old, but nobody knew her exact age as she kept it back. To what extent my grannies and grandpas were pious, what Jewish traditions they followed, I have no idea. Parents didn’t tell me anything about that.

The eldest son, Henrik Landa, doctor of medical sciences, venerologist-dermatologist, lived in Odessa. His younger daughter died at the age of about twelve because of some disease. His son Garik during the war had graduated from the Military-Medical Academy in Samarkand City, then went to the front and perished. He was buried in the territory of Belorussia in a communal grave.

The youngest son Boris had graduated from a Pharmaceutical Institute, was a pharmacist and worked as a head pharmacist of a large pharmacy in Zhitomir. His daughter Nyura now lives in NewYork. The youngest daughter Zinaida was a highly educated librarian and managed one of the largest libraries in Donetsk. Her daughter Ira has graduated here, in Leningrad, from the Financial-Economic Institute and at present lives in Israel.

At the war time all my aunts and uncles, who lived in Ukraine (particularly in Zhitomir, Odessa), were in Siberia (in Leninsk Kuznetsky) at evacuation and so they didn’t suffer from the Holocaust.

My mum was born in 1905 in a village in Bessarabia. She had finished a secondary school (common, not Jewish one) with honours and entered the medical department of the Kiev State University. As granny was left alone with four children, she was not able to help her daughter. Mum worked in a zemstvo [a local administration body in the 19th – beginning of the 20th centures], in what position - I don’t know.

Mum became a first year student at the time when my father was a third-year student - of the same department, - and in 1917 they got married. At the beginning of 1918 my parents left for the Red Army. The father was already a doctor, and the mother had time to complete only three years and became a military medical attendant. During the whole Civil War my parents fought on the South Front.

In the south they served until 1922. In 1922 my father was transferred to serve in Leningrad. At that time many people left Leningrad as there was not enough food, and there were a lot of empty flats. No one wanted to buy them, because no one wanted to live in a poorly supplied, non-heated city. So flats were easy to get, and my parents were able to get a large flat cheaply. It was more then 200 sq. m. flat on Ryleeva Street (at the corner with Mayakovskaya Street) on the second floor, not far from the caserns, in which my father was serving.

My mum began to work in some organization, I don’t know exactly where. At the same time she had finally completed the medical institute, obtained a doctor’s diploma. Then for 13 years mum worked for free (simultaneously with her regular job, for which she was paid) only in order to obtain good knowledge in biochemistry.

In 1935 mum defended her Ph.D. thesis in biochemistry and became a candidate of medical science. She was one of the first candidates of medical science in the Soviet Union.

My dad served nearly until 1933 or 1934. Then he was demobilized; for a year and a half or for two years he worked in the “Red Vyborzhets” factory [in Leningrad] at a medical and sanitary unit; there he completed courses and became a gynecologist. His further life was connected with the Snegirova maternity hospital. He worked there as a surgeon and before the war was a deputy head doctor.

Legends were narrated about my father. He was a wonderful surgeon: healed patients in absolutely hopeless cases. He performed so difficult operations, as, for example, in the cases of cancerous diseases, and after these operations patients lived for many years. He took them out from the other world. Many women owed him their lives.

Besides, he was a wonderful accoucheur. He was very tall, 185 cm; he had large wide hands and with these hands he took out babies and they survived, were normal. There were no complications, which we can often see now.

• During the war

When the war burst out, the head doctor of the Snegirov maternity hospital left for evacuation in the very first days of the war, so father became the head doctor of this maternity hospital instead of her. Besides, he was mobilized to the Local Air-Raid Defence. There he served in a very high position: he was the chief of medsanservice [medical and sanitary service] of the Central city district. He was engaged in such a work, as, for example, rescueing the people who were stuck under the ruins of destroyed buildings after bombings.

Moreover, he himself took up the spade – he was an untiring person. When it was needed to take out corpses during starvation, he himself loaded them into a truck. When in spring it was needed to clear Leningrad of the mud, he took up crow-bar and worked on the street together with his colleagues, setting them an example; not being afraid to mar his hands (he was a surgeon, you know).

In Snegirov maternity hospital during the war he not only operated, not only cured patients, not only attended at the deliveries (and both women and babies survived, however odd it was, at that starvation period), but also repaired water-supply system and electric wiring. There were no men – they were at the front, and he took the place of all men, who previously maintained the maternity hospital. He worked as an electrician and as a metalworker as well, and as anyone who was needed.

All maternity hospital’s staff had survived in general. The father also organized production of a fir tincture in his hospital, which allowed to avoid scurvy; though he himself did not succeeded to keeping off of it – all his teeth had fully come out. They cooked some nutrient mixtures. This way people survived.

In this hospital there were 200 additional beds for wounded women or those women, who fell sick as a result of overcooling. Father served these 200 patients, treated them, and these people pulled through and recovered. Besides, in all hospitals [in Leningrad] father operated on all women with cavity wounds, in other words, wounds in the abdominal cavity. In 1943 my father defended the Ph.D. thesis, became the candidate of medical science.

My father was more than once recommended for high governmental awards, in particular, for the Order of Lenin. But he finally received only the Medal for the Defence of Leningrad, the one that a lot of people had, too. It was happened so because, first, he was a Jew, and secondly he had a very independent character. As soon as the war ended, the former head doctor of the Snegirov maternity hospital came back and my father was immediately discharged and transferred to the position of Head of department to the hospital named after Kujbishev.

• After the war

After the war my father was very seriously ill. The exertion of blockade days, hard work and his former disease had adversely affected his health. After the war he had, most likely, up to dozen of microinfarcts, a serious insult, after which he, however odd it was, successfully operated for some time. But in 1953 he died. He was buried in the Transfiguration Cemetery, not far from the synagogue.

In 1935 mum defended her Ph.D. thesis and began to work in the Brain Institute (now it is the Physiology Institute) as a scientist. There they were engaged in biochemical investigations, carried out experiments on animals, mostly on rabbits, and thus they worked till the beginning of the war. By that time mother had completed her thesis for a Doctor's degree, but she didn’t have enough time not only to defend it, but even to submit it. The war burst out, and at the wartime all these documents disappeared.

Mum went with me to the evacuation. During the war we lived in Tashkent [capital of Uzbekistan]. There mum started working at a military hospital right away. She was the head of the clinical laboratory and ran the ward with those with cerebral wounds (probably because previously she worked in the Brain Institute).

In October 1943 father sent us an invitation and we started for Leningrad. Without an invitation they wouldn’t let you in Leningrad, especially because the blockade wasn’t called off at that time, it was October. The trip took us a very long time, because it was very difficult to obtain tickets. We arrived on January 30, 1944, in 3 days after breaking the blockade.

Mum got a job in a very high position of a senior scientist at the Medical Science Academy. They set great goals before her, but she worked there not for long – until 1949.

In 1949 they launched the so-called “Campaign against cosmopolitans”, in other words, a state anti-Semitism. Mum was discharged. She wasn’t hired for any job, though she was a prominent researcher. In these two years, when she didn’t work, mum wrote a large quantity of very interesting biochemical research works. Then she got a job of a laboratory technician in the First Medical Institute, in the department of biochemistry. Having been a laboratory technician and getting only 400 roubles, mum had trained several candidates of science.

In 1957 my mum fell ill. She had a very serious insult and after two years’ illness  she died. My mother was awarded with  a great many awards, very few people in the war were honoured in the same way. She had two medals: for the Victory over Germany and for the Valorous Work in the Great Patriotic War. Such a combination was very rare.

• Growing up and recent years

Now I want speak about my childhood. From my 6 years old I had a governess. Her name was Elizaveta Nicolaevna, she was a noblewoman. She taught me to play the piano, to speak and read in French, taught geography and arithmetic, so I went directly to the second form at school. In addition to a governess we had a nurse.

Nurse’s name was Anastasia Alexandrovna Galaktionova, she was Russian, from a rural family. I called her granny, because parents were at work from morning till evening, and she was with me all the time. Parents were very busy with their work and lacked time for me.

We didn’t observe any Jewish holidays. It was very dangerous – for this they could exile a person to a prison camp or simply discharge from work. But we had a neighbor, who loved my mum. His name was Yury Mikhailovich Alshuler, he was a commercial manager in a secret munitions factory, though he was a Jew and not the party member. They didn’t discharge him as he was a very good administrator. He visited synagogue, knew Yiddish. He procured matzo from the synagogue and gave some to mum. At the time it was very difficult to get matzo, and if it was not for our neighbor we would not be able to taste it. I don’t know whether father was disappointed with Yury Mikhailovich paying addresses to her. But mum loved him (I mean Dad) very much, and he knew of it.

My nurse was an Orthodox believer, a very pious person, and she observed all the Orthodox holidays, so we observed them with her as well. Of all Jewish holidays we knew only about Pesach, because our neighbor used to bring matzo on Pesach, and we ate it with pleasure. My nurse knew how to cook gefilte fish, but at that time I was unaware that it was a Jewish dish. I learned about it much later, from some acquaintances, when I was already grown up. And daddy cooked stewed fish in oil with vegetables and called this dish «Jewish fish». Mum didn’t cook anything of Jewish cuisine, she liked to bake biscuits. But she told me about the Jewish dish cymes and explained, of what it could be made. Neither she nor anyone else in our family cooked cymes. Nurse died in 1970. She was 90.

At our home there was a cult of Stalin. Father smoked a similar curved pipe as Stalin did, wore the same army-type jacket, the same whiskers. My nurse didn’t like Stalin, but father liked him very much. We, certainly, knew of repressions, but all the same we trusted Stalin.

Before the Great Patriotic War I had completes 4 forms. At the outbreak of war I was evacuated with mum to Tashkent in 1941. There I entered a local school, and from March 1942 I began to work in a chemistry laboratory in parallel with studying at school. I worked as a junior laboratory technician. My work was to prepare excrement tests, urine tests, that is to say the most dirty work, and washing of the laboratory glassware. I was engaged in it for more than one and a half-year. Though I was a child, they made the same demands of me as of all the others. I had to maintain a severe discipline.

We spent a very hard time there. We lived in a hospital territory in a former room for school zoological circle. It was a 6-meter room, and 4 persons were living in it. There was a roof, but wasn’t any ceiling. Water dripped from the roof and there was neither heating, nor even light. We slept in clothes. To say the truth, we moved there to live in spring and lived there till summer, so we didn’t experience a bad cold. In a few months we were given a decent room, once more for several persons.

Mum for some time was a nutritionist and had to taste food before it was given to wounded men. So she had a right to get the complete dinner of a wounded person. That dinner was quite good: there was soup and small cutlets with macaroni and potatoes or porridge. The patients were given both butter and sugar. Of course, they were very small helpings, but they were given to people three times a day. However, mum couldn’t eat, because she knew I was hungry. It was impossible to carry out something from there. If someone was caught with a single potato or a small cutlet taken out, he would be either put to prison or shot. And according to ration cards we had only some bread – a kilogram of bread a day for two persons. Potatoes were already a delicacy for us. We boiled it and ate with unpeeled.

Later my mum was fired from the position of a nutritionist, because there was a boss who wanted to take her place. Mum was transferred to a hospital near Tashkent. There we remained from the middle of September till the end of October, i.e. about two months. The bread ration we had was, in my opinion, 700 or even 600 grams [per day]. We lived half-starving, though there was a large subsidiary farm and hospital officials were given a ration in water-melons, melons, tomatoes, but when you eat those without bread, you become even hungrier.

For some time I worked in a drugstore there – wrapped powders up, then I was fired out, - a boss saw me and said I was still a child, and children were not allowed to do such a work. The only place, where I was accepted, was that subsidiary farm. The work was to gather remainders of tomatoes. I gathered these tomatoes and for it I was given a big water-melon and some kinds of vegetables. I couldn’t go to school (I needed to go to the seventh form), because one had to go there far enough – well, may be, 5 or 7 kilometres along the irrigation ditch. The attitude there – not only towards Jews, but towards all the evacuees on the whole, - was not very good, so I didn’t go to school.

When we came back to Leningrad in winter of 1944, I went to school again. I was admitted at daddy’s request, he had a great authority in his district. I was admitted into the seventh form. I studied there for three years. It was a very good school, number 189 of Dzerginsky district. We had wonderful teachers, who had stayed there during the whole blockade. This school was operating during the whole blockade; and I was the only person in my 7th form who didn’t stay in Leningrad at the blockade.

While I studied in it I didn’t feel any bad attitude towards evacuees. There were both Russians and Jews. There were two girls – Raya Gulyak and Ahya Lis, who were pure-blooded Jewesses. They attended the school during the whole blockade. There, in school, pupils were fed up, they were given one plateful of soup. I don’t know how many people had died in that school during the blockade.

In 1947 I finished school with a gold medal. I had an opportunity to enter any VUZ [institution of higher education] of the city without any exams and interlocution. At that time it was very difficult to obtain a gold medal. Of our fifty persons [in the two parallel classes] there were one gold medal (mine) and two silver ones. Later that school was disbanded (it was long after; at that time I was already working), and now there is a physics and mathematics lyceum in this school, a very famous one. This school is a very old one, recently they celebrated its 250th anniversary.

I entered the Polytechnical Institute, electro-mechanics department, the speciality “automation and telemechanics”. After the first year I became a member of  a students’ construction brigade (the first in the Soviet Union), I joined it voluntarily, because I was a member of the Komsomol with firm ideological principles. The place we went to was called Alakusa, and now, I believe, it is called Gavrilovskoe [it’s in the Leningrad region]. Alakusa is a Finnish word. And there we built a local electric power station and pulled wires from that electric power station to villages, and also installed electrical equipment in the houses.

I was finishing institute in 1953. We had to defend our graduation theses in December. But they chose 6 persons of our group, one - the son of a person subjected to repressions, and five Jews, and said: “You will defend your theses in February”. The rest of our group had defended their theses and obtained diplomas, and we were put off to February.

Besides, at my pre-graduation practical work I was engaged in automation of one secret engineering procedure, which was called electrochemical treatment of metal. This procedure was a secret one, and I had to defend my thesis in the “closed” meeting [that is to say, that defence of the thesis had to take place under the secret conditions: only a limited number of experts were to attend]. But two weeks before the defence I was told that I would defend my thesis in the “public” meeting, and I promptly had to alter it and to throw away approximately one third of materials. It was done because it was not allowed to give a Jew an excellent mark, and they expressly invented me obstacles. But nevertheless, I defended my thesis with mark “five”.

Because I was Jewish, they deprived me of the opportunity to graduate with honours. My mates, who had the same marks but were not Jews, had obtained red diplomas, and I hadn’t. I had 85% of excellent marks in my diploma and three “satisfactories”: for drawing, sketching and resistance of materials. Though at that time there weren’t any marks for drawing and resistance of materials at all. There was simply the mark called “passed”. And it was an examination for sketching, indeed. But it was permitted to repeat the examination for those who had such good marks as I had.

They generally gave not a very difficult task and good marks for re-examination. But they gave me such a complicated task, that I was not able to fulfil it. As a result three satisfactory marks remained and I was given an ordinary diploma, without honours. Because Jews were not allowed to obtain red diplomas –with honours - and especially in such a specialization as “automation”.

When in the end of February we were given assignments [all high-school graduates were necessarily assigned to work at a certain enterprise], nearly all my institute fellow students got good appointments – in Leningrad, in Moscow region, at plants and institutes. And at the very end we six were called and informed: “And for you we haven’t got any job”. And we went away. I went to Moscow to strive for our assignment, and finally we got an appointment for all six of us. They separated us and sent to different locations. One - to Magnitogorsk, two – to Kansk, two – to Krasnoturinsk.

I went to Krasnoturinsk, it was a wholly industrial town. A large aluminium plant, and around it - a small town, where the managing staff of that plant lived. Convicts from the nearby prison camp and exiled Germans were mainly working at that plant. Germans lived in wooden houses, which one could hardly call houses – it was somewhat between a cattle-shed and a barn. There wasn’t any work at my speciality and I was sent to the Urals Aluminium Plant, to the town of Kamensk-Uralsk. It is 100 kilometres to the south of Sverdlovsk.

Having received the news about my father’s death in 1953, I obtained a transfer to the Leningrad Institute of Aliminium & Magnesium Industry. I began working at this institute. It was very good to work there, we were a wonderful collective. But safety measures were poorly observed there and several times I nearly poisoned myself with quicksilver and chlorine, and once I spilled a titanium solution over myself.

I worked in this Aliminium & Magnesium Institute for three years. It was the period of probation, for which a junior specialist had to work. So after three years I started trying to get a job in some other place. It was already the year of 1956, but all the same anywhere I addressed I was rejected. At first, while I was talking to them on the phone, they said: “Yes, yes, please come, we need such a specialist”. And I must mention that I have a typically Jewish appearance. So when I came, they would say: “Sorry, but we have just taken another person into this position”.

One my very distant relative had assisted me to acquire a job in the Research Institute of Telephone Communications, where I worked for almost 35 years. I started on the job in September 1957 and quit in 1995. I was engaged in electronic telephony and at the same time translated texts from English and French. I was considered a very good translator. My husband and me provided with translations practically the whole department of the scientific and technical information.
My husband worked at the same institute as a translator from German. We got married in 1974. My husband was Russian. He was born in 1940 in Belozersk town of Vologodskaya Region. His mother was an actress, father – a theater producer. His father had perished at the front in 1944 during the offensive at Berlin. My husband was born an invalid, he had a serious form of an infantine cerebral palsy.

After the war my husband studied at the Leningrad State University and lived in the house of invalids. He studied for 10 years, as he was an invalid and could take an academic leave as many times as he wanted. Once he took an academic leave for 3 years and completed the three-year courses of German in the House of Culture named after Dzerzhinsky.

He was very gifted in foreign languages. Though he was an invalid, he didn’t become exasperated and had a very nice character. He was a very kind person.

My husband died in 1991 and was buried in the Transfiguration Cemetery near my parents. We had no children.

My parents and I were very assimilated and my Jewish origin meant very little to me. I was never interested in anything concerning Jewish life. About the end of the 1980s – beginning of the 1990s I was told by some of my acquaintances that they distributed provisions in the Jewish charitable organization on Ryleeva Street. As at that time my financial position wasn’t very good I went to this organization. Soon I got to know of Hesed. For the first time I went there for provisions as well. Now I seldom visit Hesed, mainly for holiday presents or medicines. But in Hesed I learned much about Jewish holidays and traditions and now I don’t feel myself estranged from Jewish life.