Travel

Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: June 2003

Beila is a corpulent woman. She dresses in a nice gown for home. Beila lives alone in a nice big apartment on the first floor of a two-storied house in the center of Ternopol. She has good quality furniture, carpets and fancy crockery. There are inexpensive, but carefully chosen pictures on the walls and intricate vases, napkins and china statues on the shelves.  She appears to be a smart and wise lady. She does all housework on her own. She is a great cook, makes delicious cakes for sales. She has her own clients who are her friends or acquaintances and their friends and acquaintances. Whoever had tried Beila’s pastries call her before holidays to order. Beila enjoys baking and is always ready to make her friends happy making pastries for them for a symbolic price.

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family background

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Growing up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

During the war

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After the war

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GLOSSARY:

Petr Weber
Brno
Czech Republic
nterviewer: Zuzana Strouhova
Date of interview: May - July 2005

Petr Weber is a former president of the Brno Jewish community, and is still an active functionary. He was born to Jewish parents in a concentration camp in Poland, but when he was two years old, a group of fellow prisoners managed to get him out of the camp and transport him to the then Slovak State 1. He thus virtually never knew his parents, as they remained there and later died. He grew up in a Czech Christian family, which however supported his Jewish upbringing. He worked as a nuclear systems designer for Skoda Pilsen, which he had to leave for political reasons, and subsequently worked as a programmer. He is currently retired. He lives in Kyjov with his wife.

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

My family background

I’d say that my life story is a bit on the blurry side. It’s not even completely clear to me, because I got it from various places second-hand, and that only much later. I found out a lot from my uncle, Schlomo Königsberg, who was the brother of my mother, Lola Königsberg, married name Preiss, and from her sisters Toshka and Esther. These three were the only members of my original family to survive. I later met up with them in Israel. I’m also in touch with Tommer Brunner, who’s Toshka’s grandson. From him I got copies of photographs that indicate another branch of the family, a certain Hersh Leib Forman from New York, the son of Rivka Dorman, née Kellman. Likely somewhere in that generation of grandmas, one from the Königsberg family married into the Kellman family, but I don’t know anything about it for certain. Someone by the name of Yehuda Schlomo Kellman is there, apparently the brother of Zissl Königsberg, who was probably my grandmother, the mother of Lola Preiss. So her maiden name would then have been Kellman. According to the same source of information, my mother’s grandmother was named Chana Kellman, née Weiser. Apparently she died in 1929. So that’s perhaps how both families are related. Both families lived in the same small town, Bochnia in Poland, near Krakow.

Growing up

This is how it is, more or less: in 1942, when I was born, my parents Lola Preiss and Aaron Preiss – both Polish Jews – were already imprisoned in the concentration camp in Bochnia. It wasn’t an extermination camp, but likely a certain type of ghetto where local Jews were concentrated before being sent to the places of “final solution”, like Auschwitz and other camps to the east. So that’s where I was born. We were all together until 1944, when a certain group of people managed to escape from that camp, among which was also my uncle [Schlomo Königsberg], at that time a young lad of seventeen. And they took me, a two-year-old child, with them. My parents stayed there. On the way through the Slovak State, my uncle left me in the care of one Jewish family in Liptovsky Mikulas, that was in 1944. There I was discovered by the daughter of my later adoptive parents. My adoptive father was 50 years older than I. That’s why I don’t know much about my grandparents, neither my own nor my adoptive ones.

I know almost nothing about the parents of my real mother and father, not even their names. My grandmother, my mother’s mother, was perhaps named Zissl Königsberg, but I’m not sure of that. She died before the war, in 1931. My grandfather was perhaps Josef Moshe Königsberg, I’ve got a couple of his photographs and a photograph of his sister, Chana Königsberg.

Similarly with the parents of my adoptive mother, Marie Weberova, there I don’t know much either. Perhaps only that her father was something like a government official. He worked, I think, for the police, still during the time of Austro-Hungary, and that they lived in Prague in a rented co-op apartment. Already back then there were co-ops. On the side of my adoptive father, Josef Weber, it’s also hazy, we’re dealing with stories about people that lived 70 or 80 years ago, which is a huge gap in time. I’ve of course got only very, very sketchy memories of it all. My father was from a farming family from around Pilsen. They were farmers, but in a region that is agriculturally very poor. They grew what was normally grown in that region. All four cereal crops. As far as animals go, they certainly must have had a cow, and pigs were also a matter of course. A goat, that I don’t know, and for sure they didn’t have horses. They lived on this little farm, drew water from a well, and in those days there wasn’t any electricity there either.

It’s hard to tell from such a distance how well off both families were, both my father’s and my mother’s. Probably a little below average. Not that they were beggars, but neither were they well-off people. For sure they didn’t have servants. My father’s family must have read a lot; I found entire volumes in boxes. Back then that was literature of very high quality. It was a standard Czech book collection, but my attention was captured by collected volumes of Vilimkovy Humoristicke listy, which in those days was something like Reflex [a weekly magazine dealing with current issues and interesting personalities of our times – Editor’s note], but back in the days of Austro-Hungary. They were this family, bookish as people used to say. Meaning a family with lots of books. They were definitely well-read. What daily papers they read there, whether any at all, that I however don’t know.

My real parents were from Poland, as I’ve mentioned. Their mother tongue was Polish and also Yiddish, because they lived in an Orthodox Jewish environment. I myself don’t know Polish, or more precisely, I know it, or rather I understand it, like every Czech who isn’t illiterate. I don’t know anything at all about my real father, that’s an absolute black hole. All I know is his name, Aaron Preiss. The only information about my real relatives is from my mother’s side, there thanks to being in touch with her siblings I have certain clues, some names.

My real mother was named Lola Königsberg. She was, I think, one of seven or nine siblings, most of which were girls. My mother was the oldest of them all, so she actually brought them all up. She lived with her husband in Bochnia, Poland. Years later, my uncle Schlomo Königsberg, my mother’s brother, told me the address where we used to live, and I even went there to have a look. I can’t say whether my parents dealt mainly with others from the local Jewish community, but one can assume this to be so. It was a traditional Jewish environment, it’s hard to imagine that they’d somehow differ from the rest. But it’s not impossible for them to have had closer friendships with non-Jews as well. I have no clue as to how, where and when they died. As I’ve said, when I was two, my uncle escaped with me and some other people, and I then grew up with adoptive parents, and had no information about the fate of my real parents. My connection to my original family are my mother’s siblings, Uncle Schlomo, who got to the Palestine via the Slovak State, and two of my mother’s sisters, Toshka and Esther, who moved to what was back then the Palestine still during pre-war times, probably around 1935, and thus survived and became this bridge between me and my past. They lived in Tel Aviv. So from the entire Königsberg family, only these three survived, Toshka, Esther and Uncle Shlomo. My mother and her other sisters, by this I mean Dina, Lea, Bracha and another brother David, all those died during World War II.

I was in touch with my uncle regularly, by mail. And then, when there was that short period when things let up, around 1966, 1967, I also traveled to Israel for the first time, to go see him, because his was the only name that I knew. But another two aunts were also there to greet me, so there I found the remainder of my family. But all three of them are dead now. I don’t know of any other relatives that would be this close.

I of course have a few pieces of information about my uncle, but it’s again not all that much. He lived in Jerusalem, and then in Tel Aviv. He was, as I’ve mentioned, a deeply devout, strictly Orthodox Jew, and so also had that sort of family, meaning large. He had at least seven children. His children were of course also religious, so he’s got at least two rabbis in his family. His daughter married a rabbi in England, his son is in New York, and he then moved there to live with him, where he was until the end of his life. But I don’t know any more than that about his children. His wife died a while back, about 4 or 5 years ago, and about a year ago he died as well. He most likely met his wife in Israel, but I’m not certain of that. I don’t even know what nationality she was. But she was definitely a Jew, deeply religious. My uncle was a watchmaker. He made a living more with the repair then with the sale of clocks. He had little shop about the size of this small room (ca. 3 x 2 m). He was never in the Czech Republic, he was back in Poland at least once to have a look, and I’ve got this feeling that he lived with that one daughter in England for some time. But he probably lived most of his life in Israel, except for those final years, that is.

As far as my aunts Toshka and Esther go – definitely the former and perhaps both – after their arrival in Israel they worked in a kibbutz. Then they were both housewives, both of them got married. Ether’s married name was Fleisher, and Tonka’s was Brunner. Her grandson, Tommer Brunner, is very interested in the lives of his ancestors. He still lives in Israel, and his parents live there too; his father is the son of Auntie Toshka. Toshka had a daughter and two sons. As for Esther Fleisher, she’s got two daughters in Israel, both are still alive. One of them is still single, so is still named Fleisher. The other one is married and is named Darewski. She’s a private music teacher. And he, her husband that is, I don’t know, he’s got some sort of managerial job I think. Neither of my aunties is alive anymore. Esther died at home, and died, I don’t remember anymore, sometime between 1993 and 1997. Toshka died in a senior citizens’ home a year and a half ago. Both of them in Tel Aviv.

So that’s about all that I know as far as my real relatives are concerned. My adoptive parents, whom I’m named after, Weber that is, were already of a quite advanced age when they took me in. They must’ve been married sometime long before the war, I don’t know exactly when. They were a Christian, Catholic family, but one can’t at all talk about any great degree of religiosity. I don’t know anything about my adoptive parents’ political opinions, that wasn’t something that was the subject of conversations at home.

During the war

My father Josef Weber was born in a small village by Pilsen named Chalupy, and to this day it’s still a mere hamlet. He was born in 1892, and was 50 years older than me. He had a vocational college education, and worked as a technical clerk. He worked for Skoda in Pilsen. There, he was I’d say a very good, maybe even excellent worker. I recall, for example, his  considerable skill and cleverness in the manufacture of various things, a washing machine for example. After the war washing machines were scarce, but he made one himself. As far as hobbies are concerned, he was a passionate stamp collector. My father worked at the Skoda Works, as the company was then officially named, in the cannon manufacture department, and then worked for a Skoda branch plant in Slovakia, in Dubnice nad Vahom. Skoda was at that time starting up the plant there, and it continued even under the Germans [meaning during World War II – Editor’s note] . My father had already been working there before the war, and also worked there during World War II, which was relatively rare, because as is known, after the Slovak State was declared in March 1939, all Czechs had to leave Slovakia 2. After 1945 he left Slovakia to work for a short time back in Pilsen, and then retired. As far as I know, at one time between the two world wars he lived in Yugoslavia, where he’d been sent by the company, again it was to do with the manufacture of cannons, in Kragujevac. Otherwise he lived mainly in Pilsen, after the war quite certainly only there, and finally he returned to his native village. That’s where he also died, in September of 1959. When he died, only the two of us remained, so I buried him. He was cremated and buried in Prague, the same as my adoptive mother.

My father was relatively strict, pedantic in fact. And very, very clever and skilful. He demanded work and order of me. We didn’t do much together, we didn’t go on trips much, neither did we go fishing, or things like that. I don’t even remember him or my mother reading me fairy tales or something. It was more a case of me reading by myself, and very early on at that. But I don’t remember much of it. But you have to take into account that huge age difference, age-wise he was more my grandfather then my father. I shared his fondness for collecting stamps a bit, as a boy I also collected them, so yes, I guess there was some sort of my father’s influence there. Unfortunately my father’s collection was lost, today it would perhaps even be quite valuable. He concentrated on Czechoslovak stamps. I don’t really know how exactly he came by them. Back then I don’t thing there were trading exchanges back then. He was probably a member of some club, because he used to get those stamps as a normal subscription, that yes, but whether he traded them, bought and sold them, that I don’t know.

His brother, Jan Weber, also lived in his native village, he was older and died before him. As the oldest of the siblings, his brother Jan ran the farm he’d inherited, he was a small-time farmer. He likely had some sort of basic education, but I don’t know any more than that about him.

My adoptive mother’s maiden name was Marie Faloutova. She was born in Prague, in 1896 I think. I think she had a basic education. I don’t know exactly when she married my father, nor where all they lived after that, but I have the feeling that they didn’t move around much, just the places I’ve already mentioned. She never actually held a job anywhere. After the war, when they were let’s say living modestly, economically speaking, she worked as a seamstress at home. She sewed things for factories. She also died in that little village by Pilsen, in Chalupy, in March 1958.

She had both brothers and sisters. I don’t recall much about her brothers. Her sister lived in Prague, she was younger, a lot younger than she was, and survived her by many years. I think that she died sometime after 1970. She was named Bozena. As far as her employment or education are concerned, I don’t know anything. She was married, her husband died before her. They had a daughter, Vera.

As far as my siblings are concerned, I don’t know of any real ones. As I’ve mentioned, when they took me in, my adoptive parents had an already adult daughter, Anna, who was about 25 or 30 years older than I was. So she became my stepsister. I don’t know that much about her, she was born in Prague, her mother tongue was Czech. If I remember correctly, she had only a basic education. After finishing school she went through several jobs. She worked as an office clerk, a saleslady. Most of the time she lived with us in Pilsen, and then in that village, in Chalupy. Just one time, when she got married, which was sometime after the war, she lived in Karlovy Vary 3. She worked there as a clerk for CSAD (Czechoslovak Bus Lines). I don’t know any more about that. We had a very good relationship, she was sort of like my younger mother to me. Back then I even once went to stay with her during the holidays, for about a week or ten days. That was my first encounter with Karlovy Vary.

That was an incredible experience for a young boy, a city like that. I was around 12 or 13 at the time. What captivated me the most there? You know, Karlovy Vary is a nice place in every respect. I for example remember excellent whipped cream ‘rakvicky’ [‘little coffins’, sponge-biscuits with whipped cream] at Elefant, which was and is a renowned coffee and pastry shop in Karlovy Vary. Since that time, this is what reminds me of Karlovy Vary. And especially of that Elefant pastry shop. We used to sit there, though not really regularly, as it was expensive, but we were definitely there several times. The coffee shop is still there, it’s been stylistically renovated, because it’s something akin to Sacher in Vienna. Karlovy Vary wafers,  they’re in  the colonnade, but this is somewhere else. When you walk from the old colonnade and pass through this place where it narrows, by the spring, then a bit past it, about 20-30 meters to the right, is one of the best places in Karlovy Vary, as far as desserts are concerned, the Elefant coffee shop. We also of course made the rounds to see the local sights, from Jeleni Skok, to the springs, the Russian Orthodox church and so on.

But then my sister got divorced, sometime in the mid-1950s, and moved back again, and lived the rest of her life in the village. I actually don’t know anything about her husband, not even what kind of work he did. They didn’t have any children together, she didn’t ever have any children at all. She married only once, after the divorce she lived only with us, and didn’t even have any other partner. She died in that village by Pilsen around 1955, when I began attending high school. She wasn’t very old, though she was already over 40, my whole adoptive family were already older people.

As far as my life is concerned, I was born, as I’ve already mentioned, in a little town in Poland named Bochnia. Bochnia is located by Krakow, which is a region known for salt mining. When I was in school they were still teaching about the Bochnia and Wieliczka salt mines. My date of birth, well, right off the bat there’s the first thing that’s all tangled up. Officially, in my documents, I’ve got 1st march 1942. But because my life, as I’ve already mentioned, is a bit convoluted – I’m actually a wartime foundling, they discovered me at the age of about two – so the doctors, when they were setting the my official date of birth, set it to the date I mentioned. After many and many years, I found out that they’d been mistaken by roughly a month, which I think is not such a bad result. So my real date of birth is March 29th. I got this information from my relatives, whom I got in touch with after the war. My own parents were understandably not alive anymore then. They died early on, in Poland. And I myself of course don’t remember anything from my childhood in Bochnia.

So when I was about two, my uncle took me away with that group that managed to escape from the concentration camp in Bochnia. The whole group went through Slovakia, through the Slovak State, on to the Balkans and to the Palestine, where they, including that uncle of mine, managed to finally get to. They left me, a small child, for reasons that today I can only guess at – perhaps they were afraid, for themselves, for my life, it’s hard to say – in any case, they left me back there in Slovakia. In the hands of Jews, in a Jewish family, which – in 1944 Jews in Slovakia were also in difficult circumstances – at that time was living in one of the collection points before the deportations, namely Liptovsky Mikulas.

A Christian girl used to visit that family to see her love, her boyfriend. That’s where she first saw me, that’s where I apparently first caught her eye, and she took me from that family and brought me to her own family. I don’t know anything about that Jewish family, neither their names nor their employment and so on. That girl, my future stepsister, then found another boyfriend, because this one died. I don’t even know whose idea it actually was to take me in. And why did that Jewish family actually give me to a Christian one? They were in danger, at that time they must have already known... They were actually already interned. So it was exactly the other way around, no that they gave me up, but that she was a way to save me.

My new family was Christian, they were Czechs who had by chance remained in Slovakia, which is a story in itself, because Czechs had to leave Slovakia in 1939. They stayed there because my later adoptive father, thus also the father of the girl that found me, worked in the arms industry and apparently as an expert had an exception and could stay there. So they took me into their family and during the remainder of the war pretended I was a nephew from Prague. For this purpose a cousin from Prague used to even come visit for these camouflage visits, which also wasn’t exactly a simple matter. My adoptive parents knew of my origins – they had my relatives’ trail, as they knew who had left that child in Slovakia. Who he’d been with and where he’d continued on to. So they knew roughly what the deal was.

After the war

After the war, I don’t know exactly when, but for sure very soon after its end, my uncle was looking to re-establish contact, which he succeeded in doing, and tried very vehemently to have me handed over to him, so I could go to the Palestine. But the husband and wife kept the child and then adopted it. So they became my parents. I never knew my real parents, my biological parents. It’s likely that some sort of tension developed between my adoptive parents and my uncle regarding my being handed over, I don’t know, but the family probably simply didn’t want to, they’d already gotten used to the new child. I myself couldn’t have had much say in who I’d be with, at the end of the war I was only three years old. I found out that I was adopted very early on, as soon as I had a brain, as they say. It was completely natural, without any drama or secrecy, it was simply common knowledge. My new parents even supported my Jewish upbringing.

For some time we still lived in Dubnica nad Vahom. That’s a time from which I already have these faint memories. I remember things, like cannon fire, our garden, shelling and things like that, when the front was passing. But that’s already the end of the war, then there are you typical post-war things. So I can’t have my own personal experiences, they’re only second-hand and let’s say gleaned.

After the war my father returned to Pilsen – because he’d been sent to Slovakia from the parent Skoda plant in Pilsen – and worked in the factory until his retirement in 1948. And so we lived in Pilsen for some time. There I also began attending school, which was in 1948. Before and also afterwards, only my mother took care of me, she didn’t have any helper. In 1949, when my father was already retired, we returned from Pilsen to his native village of Chalupy, which is also in the Pilsen region, about 30 km away from the regional city.

It’s a very small village. It’s not an independent municipality, but a mere hamlet. About 40 houses, for example ours had only an outhouse in the yard. The village already had electricity, but during that time there was no running water, only wells. Everyone had his own water. We, for example, lived in this little house on a little bit of a hill, and the well, the town well, was at the bottom. When I was living there, there wasn’t even a paved road, only this better dirt road. And of course, I was also the only Jew there.

While in Pilsen I attended a big school, here in Chalupy I attended a one-room schoolhouse my first year. It was in the closest village, about two kilometers away. Every day we’d walk there. I wasn’t so terrible, but as a six or seven-year-old kid... well, it is a bit of a trudge. I still remember the crackling fire in the stove in the winter, they still heated with coal. The next year, they closed the one-room schoolhouses and put us all into a larger school in a different town. There we were already transported by bus. But the closest stop was again in that village two kilometers away. I then attended high school, one with eleven grades, in a district town, in Stod near Pilsen.

I liked going to school. I was a good, if not excellent student. I liked almost all subjects, but mathematics and physics, those were definitely my hobbies. And that wasn’t anything very common among students back then, and isn’t to this day, as I’m convinced. Among my least favorite subjects were music and art, for reasons of clear lack of talent. I have absolutely no musical hearing, as far as art goes it’s not all that great either, and due to the fact that otherwise all my marks were excellent, this was an irritating blot. So I understandably didn’t participate in any music clubs, nor sports; in any case such things didn’t even exist at our school. On the other hand, I did take German lessons, and quite early on. In the town where the school was, there was this one retired teacher who used to give private lessons. So I can speak decent German, but also English, a very little French and of course Russian, because I studied in the Soviet Union, where I graduated from university as a nuclear systems designer.

As far as hobbies go, already as a child I had this peculiar deviation, I liked to read a lot. Anything and everything. I grew up on everything that was being published back then, especially stories by Verne [Jules Verne]. Balzac [Honoré de Balzac] too, him for example I read quite early on, but I don’t know exactly when anymore, whether already in elementary school. For me the best Christmas present was a book, I used to get 15-20 books under the tree. It’s hard to pick a favorite one, but I think that it could have been Dumas’s Three Musketeers, with beautiful illustrations. And also stories by Verne. I also pored over Jirasek [Alois Jirasek], but that was more because I had to. Jirasek’s Collected Works, which we subscribed to at the time, took up about two meters on our bookshelf. But I liked reading very much, and that’s how I spent most of my spare time during childhood. I also read books from libraries – back then even villages had them – and it’s stayed with me into adulthood. But we had, as far as I remember, our own quite rich book collection. It was my father who mainly read, my mother I’d say for one less and for another a different sort of books, that lighter women’s genre. So we also had some romance novels at home. As far as magazines go, not very much.

I of course also used to have ambitions in sport, but little talent for it, so I used to try running a bit and so on, but it was more of the sort to be doing at least something. I liked short track running the best. As far as ball games, it was soccer, that’s something a village boy always gets around to playing. Surprisingly, back then ponds still used to freeze over, so we also used to like playing hockey. I very much regretted not doing any skiing in childhood, though I had always very much wanted to. And so later – in high school and university – I had a very hard time catching up during ski trips.

So that’s how I mostly spent my free time as a child. Our parents never took us anywhere on trips, neither to go see sights nor into nature. That wasn’t our custom and neither did our financial situation permit it very much. One child, that is I, was in school, so they concentrated mainly on what was necessary from this standpoint. There was no television back then, villages don’t have exhibitions, a mobile cinema used to come around, so that yes, that was an attraction. And I remember for example, when television began in 1953, the one and only television receiver was at the school superintendent’s in the school in the neighboring village. We kids used to go over there to watch it. That was also an attraction. I don’t really remember much of what we used to do on Sundays, most likely  I was running around somewhere outside. And what’s more, don’t forget that our hamlet was a remote hole. Which did have a pub, but didn’t even have a store. So to do some sort of cultural activities there... there wasn’t anywhere to go, even if you wanted to. And the nearest bus stop was, as I’ve said, in the next village. True, occasionally we went to visit relatives, we were in Prague a few times at my mother’s sister’s or in Pilsen. I of course couldn’t go to my grandparents’ during vacation, they weren’t alive anymore. My older sister, who got married and moved to Karlovy Vary, was partially usable as a destination for family visits, but she had a job.

The Pioneer movement 4 already existed at that time, but I didn’t go to any camps. Scouting was stopped I think in 1949 or 1950, and wasn’t restarted until after 1990. So I missed out on that too. What’s more, for me vacations always meant work. Because we had to – or I had to – help pad out the family budget. And so I spent my vacation in the forest picking everything there was, mushrooms, blueberries, cranberries and so on. We would then sell the results at a collection point. That was hard-earned money. I remember that I’d leave for the forest early in the morning, almost crying. I’m not saying that I spent all of summer vacation like that, but certainly a good half fell to that.

As far as friendships from those times go, I’ll mention one thing: recently we had an elementary school reunion – which is in itself quite unusual. Usually people have high school reunions, so it quite surprised me. The reunion was organized by classmates that stayed in the village, who actually during that whole time never got out into the world. They put in the work and effort and invited us all, repeatedly even, as since then the reunion has taken place twice. I of course hadn’t seen anyone during those fifty and more years, but despite that we didn’t have problems picking up the conversation there where we’d interrupted it those many years ago. Even if sitting here was someone who was now a professor, beside him a doctor, across the table a farmer and beside him a caretaker. This didn’t play any role, and I guess that it’s not a bad result. Otherwise I always based friendships more from my working life than my student days; a few friendships also lasted on the basis of my Jewish origin, from the ranks of young Jewish people in Pilsen and later in Prague.

I lived in Chalupy near Pilsen up to my high school graduation in 1959. Our years were affected by the shortening of school attendance, so we graduated when we were already 17. The I went to study in Prague. By coincidence when I was 16 my adoptive mother died, then when I was 17, three months after graduation, my father. So I started my university studies as a youngster of 17, and a complete orphan. A double one, actually. At that time my relatives on both my father’s and mother’s side were of course still alive, but I remained alone and lived alone. I had an orphan’s pension and a scholarship. And I lived at the university dorm. In Prague I studied at the then (today as well) prestigious Faculty of Technical and Nuclear Physics (FTJF), design of nuclear power systems, which was during the years 1959 to 1961. But after two years I left on a scholarship for the Soviet Union, to Moscow, and there I then finished my studies in 1965. I left for there not even so much because I didn’t have anyone here anymore, but because it was a very enticing offer. At that time the Soviet Union was at the forefront of my field.

In Prague I also went through a half year of military service for university graduates, back then I was one of the last ones to manage to still do only a half-year term. I served with the anti-missile defense. We didn’t go to the army to learn something. We were being prepared for officer positions, so we arrived there as deputy officers, not as regular soldiers. And it was quite funny that I, though having basic service rank (they didn’t give us one star and the rank of second lieutenant until we were in our last month), I was one of the platoon commanders and the other commanders were career officers. Many times it happened that I would be signing leave for soldiers that were even of higher rank than I was. Well, but otherwise it was a waste of time, which is a frequent opinion of basic army service to this day.

When I was still in Prague, local young Jewish people themselves approached me, you can say that they found me. And pulled me into the Jewish community of that time, this was during the 1960s. In the Soviet Union I of course also met up with Jews. But general contact was minimal. I was in the synagogue in Moscow several times during holidays, but I didn’t establish wider contacts.

If I was to compare my studies in Prague and Moscow, one could say that what I studied here was more of an academic nature. That is, what I began to study, because right in first year they transferred us from Charles University to CVUT [Czech Technical University]. The studies were more theoretical, even though in the first couple of years that’s hard to discern. Well, and in the USSR I then switched to a purely practical, engineering direction. Plus I’d say that the studies here in Prague were more difficult. Even though again it’s hard to compare, because starting school is always difficult. So from this standpoint, after the initial break-in period, let’s say one year, when language difficulties subsided, it wasn’t anything especially dramatic. And as far as life itself goes, in that there was of course a huge difference, because back then the Soviet Union was at a significantly different point as far as standards go. For example living standards. I lived in a dormitory like all other students, sublets didn’t exist. There were dozens of nationalities studying there with me, Europeans, Africans and Asians. There were also Chinese, Koreans or Vietnamese, a varied international society. But we don’t keep in touch at all anymore.

Back then, we of course traveled around the Soviet Union as much as we could. During vacation I and other students, Czechoslovaks or a lot of Germans too, tried to go on various trips. As far as it was of course possible, it wasn’t at all a simple matter. And so besides Siberia and the Far East, and of the Baltic countries Estonia, we visited all its interesting corners. Back then Estonia was a strategic region, it was simply out of the question. And for many reasons. The conditions in the Soviet Union were a little different, and we had to get used to them. For example – just for interest’s sake, today this is something utterly incomprehensible for us – we didn’t have a visa for the Soviet Union. We had a visa for Moscow. For Moscow and 50 kilometers around Moscow and that was it. Whenever we wanted to travel further on, we always had to have special permission. And getting it was complicated. You had to report it, you had to arrange it. Of course it was possible to embark on a trip even without it, it’s not as if they checked at every station. But if they did find out that you were traveling without a permit, you’d have problems. These trips used to be organized, so they had to be prepared long in advance. The exact route had to be defined, for example. And we of course had a guide with us, a local one. We weren’t allowed to go anywhere by ourselves.

After my return from the Soviet Union in 1965, I got a job in Pilsen. I again worked for Skoda, like once my father had. The company was at that time named the V.I. Lenin Works (ZVIL) and I got placed into nuclear research (Nuclear Power Station Works – ZJE). Thus I participated in the construction and commissioning of the first Czechoslovak nuclear power station, in Jaslovske Bohunice in Slovakia. I was at Skoda for only a short time, a couple of years, so I didn’t work for that long in my original field. I left in 1971, officially because I was laid off because of redundancy. I don’t think that it was due to my Jewish origin, more likely it’s got to do with 1968 5 and what followed 6. Back then the situation progressed differently at different levels, my position was cancelled and the position that was offered to me – because they had to offer me a position – was such so that I would refuse it, or so that I would at least be humiliated as much as possible. I don’t remember anymore what exactly they offered me, something like a warehouse worker, but from a university graduate’s position it was several levels down, so for workers with a basic education. Well, and when I didn’t accept it, I got dismissed. I was unemployed for a long time, about a year and a half. I even decided to take the Skoda syndicate to court, and was even partly successful. Only slightly, but successful. I charged them with unjustified dismissal, and back then I was awarded about three months’ severance pay. The court acknowledged that the dismissal really was invalid on the date that it was issued, and that it wasn’t valid until a later date. I’ve even got an official document that confirmed that I was officially unemployed, so they couldn’t even jail me for parasitism, as was the custom under Communism. Unemployment today and back then are in general “about something different”, as they say today with that ugly modern Czech.

It wasn’t unemployment of the type “lost a job”. It was of course political persecution. While today unemployment isn’t anything unthought-of, it’s a common thing, it isn’t in general demeaning, it can happen to anyone and has happened to many, or happens, back then it was almost a crime in society’s eyes. It wasn’t only about the fact that I’d lost my job, and for me it wasn’t just a job, for me it was a profession that I had myself chosen, which I considered to be a mission and a calling. Because from one day to the next, I found myself at the edge of an economic abyss. A person has to support himself somehow. I may have been alone, I wasn’t yet married, but I had to buy food, pay the rent, take the train... But the fact that I didn’t have a family was an advantage. Maybe it was my only luck, one could say that if I had one, everything would have been much harder. But even so it wasn’t anything simple. I didn’t even have parents, no one. Back then I dealt with it by working under the table for some kind people. But of course work in my field was out of the question, I helped bricklayers and so on. It’s hard to say if I thus learned something new that’s since been useful to me, probably only in a very limited way.

But then I by chance got to a little different profession, in the field of computers, and for the majority of my productive life, actually from 1971 until the end of the century, I spent among computers. That was already in Moravia. Not in Brno, but in Kyjov – I joined my future wife in Kyjov, where we live together to this day. After all, I got my job precisely thanks to her and her friends. As the saying went back then: when will life be good all over the world, well of course when everyone will have connections everywhere. I learned my new profession on the job, I never attended any computer school, everything was self-taught. We did economics calculations, that was still the era of so-called punch cards. I worked as a programmer in Hodonin, in the Computer Technology Company (PVT), which engraved itself into people’s consciousness especially during the coupon privatization of the early 1990s. I was there until 1995, then I underwent a heart operations and after recuperating I left. I worked for another several years in the same field somewhere else, in Veseli nad Moravou. Well, and then began “sweet” retirement.

How I met my wife, that’s a story. I met my future wife because of a trip to Israel. At the time I was going there to meet my one and only relative, real relative. It was my first trip to Israel, and basically also my first trip to the “West”. When I was getting ready for the trip – which was combined, by train to Greece, from Greece by ship – I got a message from one old lady from Prague that she was going on the same ship, and whether we couldn’t travel together. So I said, why not. We met in Prague at the train station, got on the train and traveled to Vienna; in Vienna we were supposed to continue on in the evening by express  - even in a sleeping car – all the way to Athens, to be more precise to the port of Piraeus. The train from Prague was arriving at Franz Joseph Bhf, the train to Greece was leaving from Süd Bhf, we had a bit of a delay and before we transferred to the other train station in Vienna, all we managed to do was to wave goodbye to the last wagon and our expensive sleeping car. And the next train wasn’t until the next day.

My fellow traveler had some friends there in Vienna, and could sleep over at their place. I wasn’t worried about where I’d sleep, I took my suitcase and went to lie down in the park. I did fall asleep beautifully on a bench, but around 4:00 a.m. someone tapped on my shoulder – a Vienna policeman – and courteously, decently but uncompromisingly sent me away. Well, I waited it out somehow, the next day got on the same train, but no longer into a sleeping car, but into a normal compartment, and in the next compartment over there was this group of interesting people. A group of Polish Jews were traveling from Warsaw to Israel and with them a black-haired nurse from Moravia, who’d left Czechoslovakia a day later. And so we met, there on that train. She was also going to Israel for the first time, to visit friends. I was a ripe old 26, she a touch older. We all traveled together, I was the only one who could mangle a bit of English, and so was their tour guide and interpreter in Greece, we slept over one more night in a harbor hotel before setting sail. The next day we then got on a ship to Haifa, and after traveling for a one and a half days, we disembarked and went our separate ways to see friends and relatives. So then we really first met, exchanged addresses and as they say, sparks flew. For some time we were friends, then we lived together, and finally we were married. we had a civil wedding, not in a synagogue.

My wife’ name is Vera, née Baderova, and is Jewish. She was born in Brno in a maternity hospital, but lived her whole life in Kyjov, if we leave out the period during the war when she was in Terezin. Her mother tongue is Czech. She’s a graduate of nursing high school, she’s worked her whole life as a nurse, initially at an ophthalmological ward and then as a scrub nurse during surgery. She’s retired now.

She had only one brother, Jirka [Jiri], who died during the war, the same as her father, Max. Only she and her mother survived. Her brother was older than she, but I don’t know exactly what year he was born, I think around 1930. He died in Auschwitz. When, that would be possible to search out in the transport documents, evidently in 1944. They transported him to Terezin in January 1943, their whole family, and he later went with his father to Auschwitz. At that time he was still a young lad, of school age. Their father was the owner of a store. Back then they called it a wholesaler’s but basically it was a store with mixed goods of all types.

The mother and daughter survived, then lived in Kyjov, and never ever moved anywhere. My wife’s first husband was also of Jewish origin. He was a career soldier, then left the army and worked as a dispatcher at CSAD (Czechoslovak Bus Lines). He then became seriously ill, he had cancer of the pancreas, and died of this disease. My wife divorced him, sometime around 1970. She’s got a son, Jiri, from that marriage. The two of us were married much later after we met. We had a simple civil wedding, with only witnesses, in 1976, after knowing each other for almost ten years.

Her son Jiri from her first marriage is actually my only son, thus my stepson. The two of us never had any children together. Jiri is of course named Süss after his own father, and got his first name in memory of his deceased uncle. He was born in Kyjov on 22nd April 1956. He’s a high school graduate, he studied at economics high school in Hodonin. He held various jobs, both in Hodonin and in Kyjov, but unfortunately the past while he’s been unemployed. As a stepson, he accepted me well, there wasn’t any problem there. There’s a 14-year age difference between us, when I married my wife he was already 20. He’s married, since 1989, and his wife is named Lenka, née Hyskova. She was born in Hodonin. She herself isn’t Jewish, but that’s not a problem. Even as a young boy, Jirka didn’t seek out partners among Jewish women, you see, he didn’t even have the opportunity, there aren’t any girls like that in our town and its surroundings. He and his wife have two children, a boy, Jan, who’s 15, and a girl, Gabriela, who’s 12.

As a family we used to go on vacations more in the winter than in the summer, mainly skiing. Now I go to the mountains only sporadically. Skiing is one of my favorite activities, both cross-country and downhill, I more or less managed to catch up in it. I also like bicycle riding. We weren’t too much into trips around the country, say on weekends, into the countryside or sightseeing. We mostly spent weekends at home. We’ve got a house, a relatively large one, with a garden – that’s actually non-stop work. Occasionally we go to the theater, but not so much to the movies. When I was in university I of course used to go to the movies, especially things that were a little exceptional, a film club and so on. And I used to go to the theater whenever possible. I studied in Prague, and our favorite stage was Semafor.

During Communism I maintained written contact with my relatives in Israel on the whole without problems. I’m sure our correspondence was monitored, but I didn’t worry about it. I don’t know of any problems stemming from it, and otherwise it didn’t worry me. I didn’t travel much to the “West”, one could say almost never. I went on one business trip to London in 1968. So there were no opportunities for problems. I of course listened to Free Europe, the English BBC broadcasts or the Voice of America 7, back then they were the only sources of independent information and by the way an excellent opportunity to learn foreign languages. I wasn’t too familiar with samizdat 8 writing, it didn’t come around to me. I never had the feeling that it was necessary to hide my Jewish origins.

When the year 1989 9 arrived, a fundamental change in our lives was the return of my wife’s house, which was former family property, confiscated by the Communists. That certainly influenced our life in a significant way, and in a good way. During the Velvet Revolution, everything was interesting, but I’ve got a rather guilty feeling that I participated in it only as a spectator. I was no longer able to find the courage and strength to participate in it. I didn’t go to any demonstrations, but that was never something that I gravitated towards. As far as employment goes, I kept working in the same place even after the revolution, and my wife didn’t change jobs either.

My adoptive parents were, as I’ve said, Catholics, but not very religiously active, more lukewarm. Their own parents, a generation back, especially living in a village, certainly must have been religious and attended church. It was unthinkable for it to be otherwise. Religion, the concept of God or so on, wasn’t even a subject of conversation in our home. Nevertheless, my adoptive parents very sincerely supported my religious upbringing, as far as they could, and I’m glad of it. They never hid my origin from me, and themselves kept close and continual contact with the Jewish community in Pilsen, and with my uncle in Israel. I used to go to Pilsen for Jewish religion lessons and I also had my bar mitzvah [bar mitzvah - literally “son of the Commandments”, a ceremony absolved by a Jewish boy that has reached the age of thirteen. In the synagogue he is first called to the Torah, and from that point onwards he is eligible to be part of a minyan, a group of at least 10 men that are allowed to pray, and has all the rights and responsibilities of a devout Jew. This day is considered to be a family holiday – Editor’s note] there. I’d say that it was very noble and considerate behavior on my parents’ part. Due to their non-religious orientation, I didn’t get the roots of upbringing the way others would have, but I’m grateful to them for making it possible for me to live in contact with the Jewish world. That’s probably the main thing. As far as my parents are concerned, my being Jewish probably didn’t have any influence on them. I don’t know why they actually supported my Jewish upbringing, whether the wishes of the Slovak Jewish family played a role, or of my uncle, who must have contacted my adoptive family very soon after the end of the war. That’s something that of course can’t be proven now, none of them can say anything anymore. Abut I think that they felt that they had – and now I’ll say it a very not nice way – that they had something sort of borrowed. A thing for which they were responsible. And with which they couldn’t do completely what they wanted, but had to respect where that thing was from, right? Be it that I’m allowed to talk like that about myself, I’d never dare to designate another human being as a thing.

Pilsen, where I used to go to the Jewish community, was about 30 kilometers from our village via this three-stage method of transportation... first on foot, then by bus, and finally by train. We used to go there for the main Jewish holidays, most certainly at least once a year. Well, and then when I was preparing for my bar mitzvah, I used to go there to study. The lessons lasted several months, and I used to go there once a week. I was of course obliged to learn to read and understand Hebrew prayer texts, but I’ll admit that I learned it primarily phonetically. And since then I’ve again successfully forgotten it. So today I don’t know Hebrew.

My participation in Jewish holidays during my childhood didn’t only take the form of my parents for example taking me to Pilsen, waiting, and then returning back the Chalupy with me. There weren’t again that many of those holidays, that was really usually only that one time a year, Yom Kippur [The Day of Atonement. The most celebrated event in the Jewish calendar. – Editor’s note]. For that holiday were the guests of the Jewish community at their expense, and were put up in at a hotel, because it of course lasted until the evening. So my parents were with me the whole time, that’s self-evident, and as guests they also participated in the celebrations.

Back then the Jewish community in Pilsen still had over a hundred members, but after the war there were only four of us children, with the age difference between the youngest and the oldest being almost 14 years. I was of course the youngest. There was for example a girl about two years older them me, they used to put us together even later, and we’re good friends to this day, though we rarely see each other. At that time I was the only boy of that age, plus an orphan, being brought up in a Gentile family. All this contributed to making the celebrations back then an utterly exceptional event. I would get tons of presents, everyone congratulated me, for a while I was like the child of the whole community. After the service in the synagogue, we’d then all go for a gala supper at a hotel, at the largest hotel in Pilsen, and as a 13-year-old boy, albeit chaperoned, I found myself in a bar for the first time. Later I didn’t absolve any additional Jewish upbringing, that which I know and feel is from my own studies, listening and watching.

I don’t know anything about the religious behavior of my real parents. It’s of course hard to judge from such a distance and through others. My uncle, who survived, was a very deeply religious, Orthodox Jew, however whether from the very beginning or only later, that I don’t know. Both aunts that arrived in Israel still before the war, were on the contrary very liberal, I’d say. And their husbands as well. So both forms of approach to religion exist or existed in our family.

Since childhood, Yom Kippur has been among my favorite holidays, and to this day it’s for me the most significant of all Jewish holidays. But favorite is perhaps not the right expression. It’s the biggest holiday, the main holiday, sort of the innermost one. It’s a day where you do an annual balancing of deeds, when the believer should come to terms with his friends as well as those others. It’s a day of fasting, a day of contemplation and all-day prayers. So that’s why it’s the biggest holiday. That’s how it’s decreed by the Torah. And when I take it personally, it was so unforgettable precisely because it was so demanding. So from this standpoint it was the first and only one with which I became familiar in early childhood. The one I observed, or at least tried to observe. I had this awareness that it was necessary, that it was proper, that it was right. The rest is this maybe yes, maybe no. But this here for sure yes. For example, already from childhood I observed the prescribed fast. And at first sight that looked very difficult, but on second sight already as a child I had this feeling that I was doing the right thing. And surprisingly, which of course I realized only later, it’s also healthy.

Today my wife and I observe the main Jewish holidays, sometimes we also go to synagogue. Most certainly, without any sort of doubt, the most important for us is the celebration of the Jewish New Year [Rosh Hashanah] and the holiday of atonement [Yom Kippur]. We also celebrate the holiday of crossing, Passover. But in first place I put the holiday of atonement, the traditional time of fasting. The nature of the others is of more joyous holidays, they can but don’t have to be observed, now I’m talking for our family. We’re aware of them, but it doesn’t mean that we’d have to do something special right on that day. We don’t observe the feast of lights, Chanukkah, much in our family, but try to pass its tradition on to the next generation, to our grandchildren, but only moderately, soberly. We don’t observe Christian holidays, though we do accept a brief invitation for Christmas Eve because of the grandchildren.

Our son Jiri is another step further along in the sense of more tolerant, more liberal behavior, so he celebrates holidays even much less. On his own, from his own impetus, I’d say, he doesn’t celebrate anything, plus his wife isn’t Jewish. But while his grandma and grandpa were still alive, the traditions were observed more. We don’t observe kosher regulations in any particular fashion, but as far as his grandparents were concerned, they tried to not commit significant offences. In short, let’s say that pork wasn’t served. So our son Jiri was brought up in a Jewish manner when possible. He’s circumcised, had a bar mitzvah. And for the High Holidays the family regularly visited the synagogue. Grandma, my wife’s mother, who after the war remarried and again married a Jew, a devout Jew, she kept the Sabbath relatively strictly. My wife and I less so, I’d say almost not at all.

Our grandchildren are also aware of their Jewish origins, they of course know about them. They both very much like to for example come here to the Jewish community, but it’s more got to do with the fact that they feel a certain importance here, that their grandfather works here and so on. They also come here during the biggest holidays and for memorial ceremonies. I’ve never had a problem due to my Jewish origin. People already knew about it in elementary school, but no one ever looked at me in any negative way. Neither in school nor at work.

Another fundamental change that the revolution brought, this time as far as being Jewish is concerned, was that I was pulled into being a functionary and later also elected president of the community in Brno. I myself would never have thought, not even in my wildest dreams, that something like that could happen. I was of course always in contact with the Brno Jewish community here, but as a regular member, more on the passive side. Well, and back then the head cantor, still alive at the time, the recently deceased Mr. Arnost Neufeld, approached new, until then “unused” functionary cadres, and so invited me to do this work. At the complete beginning I began helping during last farewells for our members, ritual cleansing [the tahara ceremony, which is by the way one of the most honorable “mitzvot”, obligations in Jewish society – Editor’s note], funeral oration, and similar things. Thus I slowly “sunk in my claws” and in the end I ended up with everything.

I commenced this type of public service in 1996, and do it to this day. I didn’t run directly for the post of president, according to our rules a body is elected, that means a group of functionaries called the presidium, and then it picks a president from among itself. I ran for the presidium voluntarily, and more than anything else let myself be talked into the function, there wasn’t and isn’t any excess of candidates, which is too bad. How did they convince me? I don’t know. Objectively, though considerably immodestly put – I was probably the most suitable from the existing “portfolio”. So I agreed, with a heavy heart, but agreed.

Well, and when they elected me in the next electoral period as well, I said that it’s the last time, that if I was to be elected one more time, I’d consider it to be a personal failure, that I didn’t manage to find and prepare a suitable successor. This I more or less adhered to, even though I was still “left with” the function of vice-president. I was president for 8 years before that. My family didn’t look at my presidency very positively, and doesn’t. For one for reasons of time, thanks to it I’m very often away from home and that at the most varied times, and for another my wife has a markedly different opinion from me on a number of things in the affairs of the Jewish community.

I myself felt already back then, and feel to this day, that my work at the Jewish community is a bit like the repayment of an old debt. But it’s hard for me to evaluate something myself. What’s more, it’s also a certain enrichment for me. Perhaps primarily in that a person sees at least some sort if tiny furrow plowed behind him. That yes, let that be my reward. But it’s terribly hard, hard because working with people is hard. And a person perceives that only once when he’s in an executive function and has to make decisions. And he’s got to decide against this person and for this one, and next time the other way around. Truly, especially complex decisions? Certainly there were. And not in all of them am I convinced that I decided correctly. But there’s another thing that’s worse than to decide incorrectly, and that’s to not decide at all.

I visited Israel several times. I was there twice, thrice to see my family, once I stayed with my wife with friends, once I was there on business. Everything in Israel captivated me. Especially on my first visit. And that was right upon entering the harbor, where the passport official addressed me in flawless Czech: “Welcome, Mr. Weber, and you’ll remain here with us, won’t you?” None of my relatives in Israel of course spoke any Czech. But I didn’t experience any long questioning at the border back then, that didn’t exist there yet, in 1966 it as something completely different than today. And then, you know, a young person, who was in the “West” for the first time, gaped with eyes wide open at everything. At gas stations, at roads, at beverages, at advertisements, at nightlife, at food, at whatever. Everything was new, everything was unsoiled, un-shabby, everything was different. I of course also saw the main Israeli sights, I took some tours, I was taken somewhere by one aunt, somewhere by another. Including the Dead Sea, Masada, Eilat, Jerusalem, that especially. It’s hard to say if something there took me aback or if I didn’t like something, definitely positive impressions were the rule during my first visit.

During my first visit I considered very seriously whether I should stay in Israel, but I didn’t find the courage. Mainly I was afraid of the language barrier. Not even later, already with my wife, who doesn’t have relatives there but friends, did we consider it.

My relationship with Israel is of course highly emotional and positive, it’s my second homeland, even though I’ve never lived there. As far as the current political situation is concerned, it’s of course a somewhat different question, that certainly isn’t something open and shut. Like every state, Israel can be criticized, not everything is exemplary there. But as far as I know, none of my relatives had serious problems, neither my uncle not my aunts.

Glossary:

Riva Belfor 
Kishinev
Moldova
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: July 2004

Riva Belfor lives in a nice two-room apartment in a district, constructed in the late 1970s. Riva is a very beautiful slender woman with huge dark-brown, expressive eyes. It looked like she was nervous and ill at ease. As it turned out she was worried about her daughter’s divorce and her immigration to Israel. Riva asked not to take her picture now, as she had changed a lot and grew old because of the latest events. It was a Saturday evening. The candles were burning out in the silver candlestick given to Riva by her relatives. Riva and her husband still observe Jewish traditions. When Riva started her story, her husband Boris, an impulsive, young-looking man, was surprised to find out that our conversation was private. He had to go to the next room. We could hear his exclamations. As per Riva’s request, Boris will be talking about his family himself. I could feel that Riva was the heart and soul of the family. She pampered her husband, who is in fact a big child.

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

My family background

My paternal grandfather, Ihil Soifer, was born in 1860 in the small town Medzhibozh [about 300 km from Kiev], located in South-Western Ukraine [in 1860 part of the Russian empire]. This town is known for being the center of Hasidism 1 [the Jewish community of Medzhibozh is one of the oldest in Ukraine and until 1648 one of the largest in Podolia. The number of Jews grew to 6,040 (74% of the total population) in 1897, then fell to 4,614 (58.2%) in 1926. The community was destroyed after the German occupation in 1941]. My grandfather’s name means ‘a man, who rewrites the Torah’ in translation from Yiddish [Editor’s note: soifer or sofer (Heb.) is ‘scribe for holy books,’ a man especially trained for this holy task]. Men of his lineage were involved in this honorable and complicated matter from the ancient times. My grandfather fixed the Torah, wrote holy scripts, which were put in the tefillin and mezuzah. Apart from this craft, which was similar to the subtle art, Grandfather read the Torah and Talmud – all holy Judaic books and interpreted them. He discussed things that he read with the neighbors and acquaintances. He tried to live and to act in accordance with the Torah. He often told his kin how one was supposed to act in certain cases according to the doctrines of the holy books. In general he was a very religious and literate man. He got married at the age of 18 according to the Jewish rite [The Talmud recommends that a man marry at the age of 18, or somewhere between 16 and 24]. I didn’t know Grandmother Riva. All I know is that she gave birth to ten children, five sons one after another – Abram, David, Monya, Isaac and Jacob, and five daughters – Reizl, Dvoira, Basya, Sima and Lubov. All children got only elementary Jewish education. The girls were taught by melamed and the boys went to cheder.

In the 1910s the large Soifer family moved to Bessarabia 2 – either they were looking for a better living or trying to find shelter for their sons not to be drafted into the army. The peak of the drafting campaign was achieved in 1913, before World War I. All my grandfather’s sons were very religious and the army service was a kind of moral ordeal for them. Three sons – David, Monya and Isaac – found a solution: immigration to the USA. All of them were approximately of the same age – as they were born in the mid-1880s. Their first attempt was unsuccessful - they were arrested at the border and forced to return to Medzhibozh. But they didn’t change their minds and in 1913 they took another attempt and managed to leave for the USA via Hamburg [Germany], where they had to stay for a couple of months. Grandfather gave a bribe, which cost him a lot of money, to get a new passport for the name of Stiepelman so that the Soifers would vanish into thin air. 

So this is how it happened that the whole family acquired a new name: Stiepelman. Thus, my father and his siblings had that surname. The family moved to Kishinev [then Bessarabia, today Moldova, called Chisinau in Moldovan] and settled there in a rather nice house, purchased for the money acquired for the sold house. They got a husbandry – chicken and geese. Ihil kept on religious activity there. After Grandmother Riva passed away in 1929, Ihil got married shortly after her death – according to the Jewish tradition in grandfather’s words a man is not supposed to be alone [Gen. 2:18: ‘it is not good for man to be alone’]. I don’t remember his second wife’s name as they didn’t live together for a long time due to her death caused by some sort of disease. Reizl was grandfather’s third wife. She was his last wife. She was a comfort to my grandfather during the last stage of his life and was doomed like he was. In 1941 the Germans came to Bessarabia. Ihil didn’t want to get evacuated, so he died with his wife in Kishinev ghetto 3. It was a horrible death. Father told me that Grandfather was harnessed in the cart with a huge barrel with water and made to run until he fell dead, while the guards were mocking him. Reizl was shot shortly afterwards. 

My father’s elder brother Abram Soifer, born at the beginning of the 1880s, lived in St. Petersburg with his wife Basya and his children. He got married in Medzhibozh and then moved to St. Petersburg, finished some sort of vocational school. He was involved in commerce. I don’t know the details. Abram died in 1918 during the Civil War 4. I don’t know what happened to him exactly, but his wife Basya always used to cry when this subject was broached. He was killed by some gangsters, which at times came to Kishinev. I remember only Israel, Rahil, and Reizl out of the fourteen children of Abram and Basya. All of them are deceased. 

In America, father’s brothers David, Monya and Isaac changed their last name to Saper. The eldest brother David got married to a rich American lady, the owner of a large store, shortly after immigration to America. David got acclimatized very swiftly – soon he became proficient in English and was able to merge in his wife’s business and make it even much more prosperous. He had a good and worthy life. He never forgot where he came from and he sent money to Grandfather on a regular basis, and Grandfather in turn helped out the rest of the children. In 1939 David managed to come over to Kishinev to visit his kin. I remember how I was rapt by foreign chic – David, dressed in a morning robe, was sipping coffee from a demitasse. It was the last time I saw David. I never saw either his wife or any of his four children. I didn’t know that we didn’t keep in touch after the Soviet regime was installed in 1940 5. The Soviets, putting it mildly, didn't encourage people who had relatives abroad 6. David passed away in the mid-1950s. He died from cancer. 

Monya also became an entrepreneur in America. He started out from a small car repair shop. His business was gradually growing, making him rather well-off. He had a family, but I don’t remember the names of either his wife or his children. Monya died at an old age. before his death we were able to order a telephone conversation, so that Father would be able to hear his brother’s voice, whom he hadn’t heard for many decades. 

Isaac had a tragic fate. He had been a greengrocer all his life, selling plants in the street. His wife died in parturition, leaving a wonderful girl. Isaac had the nanny to raise the girl until she reached the age of seven. The lady didn’t give the girl back and the American court, where Isaac filed a claim against the lady, let the girl stay with the lady by ruling. Isaac was in courts for years trying to have his daughter back. The girl grew up, got a good education and became a lawyer. She saw her father a few times, but she never recognized him. Isaac died in the 1970s in solitude and indigence. I don’t know where David, Monya and Isaac were buried, or whether they were buried in accordance with the Jewish tradition. They were very religious people and it was likely that they were buried at a Jewish cemetery. 

Father’s elder sisters Reizl and Dvoira had fiancés before leaving for Kishinev from Medzhibozh. They didn’t want to walk away from their fiancés and soon got back to Medzhibozh. They got married there. I don’t remember the name of Reizl’s husband. He was killed by gangsters during the Civil War. Reizl remained with two sons – Solomon and Natan. Reizl, who was a housewife before her husband’s death, became a seamstress. During the Great Patriotic War 7 she was in evacuation with her children, somewhere in Central Asia, but she didn’t live long after coming back to her native city. Reizl died in the early 1950s, she was buried at the Jewish cemetery in Medzhibozh. In the 1970s her son Solomon immigrated to the USA with his family. He died there ten years ago. Natan, who is over 80 now, is alive and healthy. He has lived in Israel with his family since the late 1970s. Dvoira’s life is more or less prosperous. Her husband Veiner – I don’t remember his first name – was a successful vendor and lived with Dvoira until getting old. Neither Dvoira nor Reizl had to work. She died in1970 and was buried next to Reizl; the funeral of my father’s sister was carried out in accordance with the Jewish rites. I don’t know what happened with Dvoira’s daughters. They don’t keep in touch, and I forgot their names. 

Father’s younger sisters Sima, Basya and Lubov lived in Kishinev all the time. Sima, born in the late 1890s, was married off successfully. Her husband, Joseph Epelbaum, was a literate, well-educated and religious Jew. He was the secretary and the right hand of the Kishinev Rabbi Zirelson [Zirelson, Yehuda Leib (1860-1941): rabbi, member of the municipal council of Kishinev and its delegate to meetings with government authorities. He yearned for a Jewish state, based on Torah principles. He was killed in a bomb attack on Kishinev]. Joseph made good money and his family – Sima and five children – were well-off. His son – I don’t remember his name – died at the age of 18. His daughters – Mara, Shelya, Susanna and Bella – died at an old age. 

Joseph and his family managed to get evacuated in 1941, I think they were evacuated to the Ural. It was good that he hadn’t listened to Rabbi Zirelson who was talking him into staying in Kishinev. Joseph kept all the Jewish traditions and rites even in the post-war period and after returning to Kishinev. He died in 1961. He was buried at the Jewish sector of the city cemetery of Kishinev. [In the USSR city cemeteries were territorially divided into sectors. Usually all city cemeteries have common land plots, plots for burial of children, sectors for burial of the titled militaries, a Jewish sector, land plots of the political leaders etc. People were usually buried in accordance with the will of the relatives of the deceased or the testament.] Some elderly people recited the Kaddish over his grave. Sima passed away at the age of either 92 or 93, only Bella is alive and lives in Tel Aviv. Shelya lives in the USA. We don’t keep in touch.

Basya, born at the beginning of the 1900s, was married to a Jew, Vertman. I don’t remember his name. He worked as a salesman for some owner of a store.He didn’t make much money, but it was enough to make a living for his wife Basya and their three daughters – Rahil, Lida and Riva. Basya with her husband and children was in evacuation during the Great Patriotic War and returned to Kishinev when the war was over. She died at the age of 80 and was buried at the Jewish sector of the Kishinev city cemetery, next to Joseph. Lida is the only daughter who is alive now. She is currently residing in Israel. 

My father’s youngest sister Lubov, born in 1911, was married to a goldsmith, Aron Dorf. Her husband didn’t have Romanian citizenship and was exiled somewhere for salt processing. When the Soviet regime was established in Bessarabia he stealthily came back to Kishinev. Lubov lived in Kishinev with her sons, Buma and Haim, during that period of time. Their sons had a tragic fate. The younger son, Haim, died at the age of twelve in the train car on his way to the evacuation area. The elder brother, Buma, entered the Physics and Mathematics department of Kishinev University after the war. He ranked as a top student of his course. Buma drowned when he was passing a test in swimming. After Buma’s death, Lubov gave birth to a third son at the age of 41. He was given the name of Ilia, and was as handsome, intelligent and gifted as Buma was. He also entered the university. When his mother got severely ill he devotedly was looking after her. Aron was deceased by that time and Lubov accidentally threw away the jewelry box with precious things, which was stashed away by Aron. She wasn’t controlling herself at that time. After that she had an apoplectic stroke and died in hospital in 1967. Ilia couldn’t get over his mother’s death. In spite of the fact that he got married and had two daughters of approximately the same age, born with just one year difference, he was grieving over his mother’s death so much that he committed suicide. His wife and his daughters immigrated to the USA in the 1980s. 

My father Jacob Soifer, the youngest of the sons, born in the early 1890s, changed his name to Stiepelman. Father didn’t get any education. He even didn’t go to cheder. Grandfather Ihil was his teacher, and he gave all his knowledge to his favorite son. The elder brothers sent an invitation from the USA to my father. And when he decided to join his brother, Grandmother Riva said that she would commit suicide, if he left. He loved his mother very much, so he refused to go. He lived with my grandfather at that time and spent time studying and praying before he got married. He was not that young when he got married. It was a prearranged marriage. His wife-to-be was from the Moldavian [Moldova in Moldovan] 8 village Gura Galbeney. Her name was Haya Feurman.

My mother Haya Feurman came from a large family. She had nine siblings. They lived in the Moldovan village Gura Galbeney [which means Yellow Mountain in Romanian], 40 kilometers away from Kishinev. My maternal grandfather, Velvl Feurman, born in the 1860s, was the owner of a grocery store. Besides, he worked as an accountant for the forestry. Velvl was a highly qualified accountant. One of his job functions was to check the parts of the forest that he was responsible for. Grandmother Sosl was a housewife. She raised the children, did a lot of things about the house. My grandparents were rather well-off and respectable people. There weren’t very many Jewish families in Gura Galbeney. There were about 100 families in the village, and 10-15 out of them were Jewish families. Mother was a very sociable lady who kept in touch with Moldovans and Romanians. The Jews, Moldovans and Romanians had a mutual respect for each other and got along very well. There was a small synagogue in that village and the family went there on high holidays. There was also a cheder in the village. My maternal grandparents weren’t as religious as the paternal ones. They adhered to traditions, observed the kashrut and celebrated holidays, but they didn’t do it as devotedly and properly as my paternal grandparents’ family. Grandfather died at the beginning of 1940. 

I don’t remember the names of all of my mother’s brothers and sisters. I know for sure that they lived in small towns of Bessarabia. Almost all of them had their own families and children. I remember mother’s brothers Shmerl, Haim and Suher, who were drafted into the lines during the Great Patriotic War and were reported missing. Shmerl was a bachelor. Haim had a son. He lives in Israel now. Suher went through the war and survived. In the post-war period he lived in Kishinev. He got married and immigrated to Israel with his wife in the 1980s. Suher didn’t have children. He died in Israel. 

My mother’s eldest sister Hanna was married twice. She divorced her first husband, and her second one, Vasilkovkskiy, had died before the Great Patriotic War broke out. As soon as the war began, Hanna and her two children – son Milya and daughter Lubov – and Grandmother Sosl were evacuated. They went by train and on their way the echelon was bombed. Hanna, Grandmother Sosl and Milya died during the bombing. Twenty-year-old Lubov survived the bombing. She was found in the shambles of the train. Soviet soldiers took her to the hospital. When Hanna was discharged from the hospital, she attended nurses’ courses. Then she went to the front lines as a volunteer. Lubov was in the lines until the victory day. After the war she married a Jew, Shulim Herman, and moved to Western Ukraine, the city of Lvov [500 km from Kiev]. She had a hard life. Her husband was killed in a car crash and Lubov remained with her seven-year-old daughter. They didn’t have enough money to get by. Lubov worked in the hospital as a nurse. Her salary was skimpy, besides she was supposed to be on duty very often, but they managed to go through that hard period of their lives. Now they live in the United States.

Mother’s sisters Rahil and Leya lived in a village not far from Kishinev. Rahil married a lad, whose mother was a Jew and father a German. They didn’t evacuate in 1941. Rahil and her husband hoped that Germans wouldn’t touch them, but they were murdered by the occupants. Leya, her husband and three of her children also perished at the hands of the Fascists. I don’t know anything about the rest of my mother’s siblings. 

My mother Haya Feurman, born in 1895, and her other sisters were educated by a melamed. In spite of her being educated at home, she was a rather erudite person. Yiddish was her mother tongue. She was proficient in Russian and could read Jewish books in Ivrit [modern Hebrew]. Before meeting my father, Haya spent most of the time at home, read books and helped Grandmother about the house. It was considered that she was a spinster, as she was twenty-seven and still single. But my father wasn’t a boy either. A Jewish shadkhan made an arrangement for my parents to meet each other. Shortly after their acquaintance they got married. I don’t know the details of their wedding. All I know is that it took place in Kishinev in full compliance with Jewish rites: chuppah, Jewish music and numerous guests. 

My parents rented an apartment in Kishinev after their wedding. Grandfather helped them out for a while until Father had acquired a profession. Then father learned how to become a shochet. Every week he went to the small town of Khyncheshtch [since 1940 Kotovsk, 30 km from Kishinev], where the butcher who taught him lived. My parents didn’t stay in Kishinev for a long time, and moved to Khyncheshtch, looking for a job. The old butcher, my father’s teacher, sent all his clients to my father. Father became a very skilled butcher. He could cut poultry, and he also knew how to slaughter cattle. In every house we used to live, there was a shed where my father did his job. There were huge hooks where fowl was placed and there were tubs with straw or boxes with sand underneath for the seeping blood. Father was very hard-working. Not every Jew was able to pay my father for his job, but my father couldn’t leave a Jew without a kosher Sabbath chicken. That is why my father worked for free sometimes. Each Friday Father rented a cart to go to the villages, where at least one Jew was residing, to cut chicken for Sabbath. He didn’t want any Jewish family to remain without kosher chicken, but there were families, which couldn’t afford to buy a chicken, and my father came back home empty-handed. 

Father didn’t make much money, but it was enough for the family to get by. Mother was a wonderful housewife, coping with a lot of housework: baking fresh bread, cooking an apple pie, keeping a house in order and taking care of the children. In 1923 my sister Bluma was born, and the next year Rahil was born. My elder brother Motle was born in 1927. Then I was born on 10th September 1934, in the town of Khyncheshtch. I was named after my grandmother Riva. She was deceased at that time. [One of the most common practices is to name a child to honor a relative. Sephardic Jews name their children freely after both living and deceased relatives. However, Ashkenazim rarely name children after living relatives.]

Growing up

Shortly after I was born, Father found a job in the town of Resena [about 80 km from Kishinev], not far from Kotovsk, and our family moved there. I remember myself at the age of two, drinking wine. I was a mirthful and sociable girl. Once I saw Moldovans crushing grapes and dancing. I went in the circle. They gave me some wine to drink. I was dancing so hilariously that everybody burst into laughter. There is another recollection from early childhood, which is embossed in my memory. I remember that Mother taught us not to take anything that belongs to other people, no matter how hard our living was. One of our acquaintances, who was very rich, brought me a little white apron. I was so happy to get such a nice present, but Mother told me to give it back and said that we didn’t want anything that didn’t belong to us. 

I also remember my mother was expecting a baby. I was two, but I was fully aware that I wouldn’t be taken as much care of and I wouldn’t be loved so much when mother would give birth to a baby. It made me sad. The priest’s spouse was the midwife in Rezina and she delivered my mother’s baby. Mother was in the small bedroom, while Grandfather Ihil was making gefilte fish in the drawing-room. I was close to the Primus stove [a small portable stove with a container for about 1 liter of kerosene that was pumped into burners], inhaling a spicy aroma and expecting a delicious dish. Grandfather kept telling me to stay away from the stove. I didn’t understand why Grandfather was cooking fish on the Primus stove, because Mother always used to cook on the Russian stove 9 in our kitchen and used the Primus very rarely. When the cry of a baby was heard from the next room, my father and grandfather rushed there. Then I was shown a small puckered baby. Mother gave birth to a son, who was given the name of Haim. I liked him very much and I forgot all my apprehensions and jealousy. I still love my brother very much. In 1938 Mother gave birth to a girl, but she lived only for a couple of weeks and died.

I vaguely remember the town of Rezina. It was an ordinary Jewish town, where Jews peacefully coexisted with Moldovans and Romanians. I think there were about 500-600 yards in the town, and approximately half of them were Jewish. I remember the synagogue with the separate gallery for women. When Mother went to the synagogue, she took me there as well. She put my breakfast in a parcel: patties, grapes and apples. Usually she left me in the synagogue yard, where I played with other girls. At times we had to wait for a long time until our mothers were through with praying. We also shared food given to us by our mothers in parcels. 

My mother’s family wasn’t as religious as my father’s. Father was a very religious man. He even went to bed in a kippah. Mother also became religious, following Father’s example. She adhered to all the Jewish traditions. Mother covered her head with a dark kerchief, even in evacuation, where it was hard to get any fabric. Before Sabbath our house was thoroughly cleaned and festive dishes were cooked: chicken, challah, cookies, homemade kosher wine [wine made by a Jew from the grape that he planted himself], gefilte fish, all kinds of tsimes 10, beans cooked with sugar and cracklings. Challah was put on the table. Mother lit the candles, sang and read a prayer. Father recited the Kiddush. The kashrut was strictly observed. If there were two cauldrons in the house – one chipped with a knife, for it to look different and not to be confused with the other one, was used for milk, and the other one was used for meat. Knives, cutting boards, dishes and even rags were marked. If a knife fell on the floor on Pesach, it wasn’t used for the entire week. It was put in the earth and was supposed to stay there for a week. 

Jewish holidays were celebrated in our house. We got ready for the holidays beforehand. My father was a shochet. Besides he was a chazzan [back in the time, the chazzan was the head of the community prayer in the synagogue, later he was a cantor, a synagogue singer] in the synagogue, he sang prayers during the holidays. He was supposed to blow the shofar at the end of Yom Kippur. He rehearsed blowing the shofar in the summer before the fall holidays. My parents fasted on Yom Kippur. Father spent the whole day in the synagogue. I began fasting at the age of twelve. [Children under the age of nine don’t fast, then they start fasting little by little. Boys start to fast as long as adults do by the age of 13, girls from twelve.] 

I loved Sukkot very much. Father took some reed and made a sukkah in the yard. The attributes of the holidays – lulav and etrog – were sent from Kishinev. [Editor’s note: the Sukkot attributes are the so-called Four Species (arba minim): an etrog (a citrus fruit similar to a lemon native to Israel; in English it is called a citron), a palm branch (in Hebrew, lulav), two willow branches (aravot) and three myrtle branches (hadassim).] I liked to watch my father say a morning prayer in the sukkah, holding a palm branch and the fruit of the citrus plant Lyonus. After the holiday those plants were put in long boxes and kept for a year. We had dinner in the sukkah in the period of eight festive days, even though it got really cold in fall. 

We had a good time during holidays. My parents’ friends came to us. They were common Jews. We sang songs and danced. I had fun as well, as my parents’ friends used to bring their children with them. I enjoyed playing with them. We liked Chanukkah very much, as we were given presents and money. Purim was spectacular. People in the Jewish houses were cooking and baking all day long. At night they took a walk along the central street in Rezina, lit only by one lamppost, to bring shelakhmones from house to house. At home we gave performances, Purimshpil [traditionally at Purim parodies (Purim Shpil, Yiddish for Purim Play) are performed], and made hoaxes. 

Pesach was the most important holiday. Mother cleaned the house, scraped walls and whitewashed the stove. [The Passover cleaning, the mitzvah of biur chametz – getting rid of chametz – and other traditions described below belong to Pesach traditions according to halakhah.] New outfits and shoes were prepared for all children. There was a clean starched cloth on the table and snow-white napkins on our modest furniture. On the eve chametz was banished. Mother took bread crumbs, put them in a wooden spoon and buried them. [Editor’s note: the described proceeding refers to bedikat chametz, a formal search for chametz in the home, but with slight differences regarding the tradition.] 

Matzah was brought from the synagogue in a large hamper covered with a sheet. Pesach dishes were taken from the garret. Those dishes weren’t used for the entire year. Every child had his own. I was looking forward to getting my pink glass with the picture of a kitten, which was kept in the chest. My father, clad in white attire with a belt and a white festive kippah, was reclining on the sofa with the white cover, carrying out seder. [According to the Jewish tradition the eldest man in the family, the one who made Seder, was supposed to recline on something soft (usually pillows were used for that), which was the embodiment of relaxation and exemption from slavery.] My brother Motle asked him four questions about the origin of the holiday while I was looking for the afikoman. The festive Pesach dish was in the middle of the table. There were all dishes in accordance with the Haggadah. Besides, the table was abundant in Jewish dishes: gefilte fish, chicken strew, chicken broth and tsimes. The goblet with wine was placed on the table for Elijah ha-nevi. There was a certain paragraph in the Haggadah when people were supposed to open the door. We kept the door open until morning for Elijah ha-nevi to come to our house and drink wine. 

During the war 

In 1939 our family moved to Kishinev. There was a vacant position for a shochet. We rented an apartment. It was a small three-room apartment in a private house. There was a shed in the yard, where my father did his job. My elder brother Motle helped my father so he could learn from him. Motle had been prepared for religious activity since early childhood. He finished cheder, which was customary for the boys. Father and Grandfather Ihil spent a lot of time teaching him. My brother got ready for the rite of bar mitzvah. The rite was carried out by Rabbi Zirelson in the central synagogue. After that Motle was enrolled in a yeshivah, where very literate, educated and religious Jews taught, such as Zirelson and Uncle Joseph Epelbaum. 

My sisters didn’t get such a thorough education. The elder one, Bluma, was taught how to read and write by our parents. She thought it was sufficient for a girl like her. She was very good at embroidery since childhood. Later on she started taking orders and earned pretty good money. After finishing school, Rahil went to the technical school of the Tarbut school 11, one of those schools which prepared the youth for repatriation to Palestine. There were very many Zionist organizations in Kishinev, but I couldn’t join them because of my age and I don’t remember their names. 

Pro-Soviet and pro-Communist ideas were also disseminated. I remember how my father was inspired to talk about Russia. He was a real zealot of Soviet power, national equality, propagated by the Communists. Father tried to find out about Russia as much as possible. At that time the USSR was a political enemy to Romania and there was no information about Russia. Father had a friend – a Moldovan, a medical assistant – who also cared for the USSR. He had a radio, which was a rare thing for people of our circle. Father came to him and they used to listen to the news from Moscow surreptitiously. Of course, neither Father nor his friends knew the truth about the USSR, they knew nothing about arrests and repressions of the innocent people 12. 

Back in those times there were Fascist Organizations: followers of Professor Cuza 13, the so-called Cuzists 14, and the Legionary Movement 15. They advocated Fascist ideas of racial and nationalistic hatred and threatened the Jews. Kishinev Jews who survived the Pogrom of 1903 16, dreaded to think that it would recur. Fortunately it didn’t come to that, though anti-Semitism was felt in everyday life. One evening, when Father was on his way home from the synagogue, two gangsters, Cuzists, attacked him and hit him a couple of times, threatening to do away with him. 

On 28th June 1940 an event took place, awaited by many Jews and our family as well. The Soviet Army was marching along the streets of Kishinev in filthy tunics and dusty boots. It seemed to us that they were envoys from a wonderful country and my siblings and I were delighted to meet the soldiers. Then our life started changing, and it wasn’t for the better. First, almost all the products vanished from the stores. Mother complained about it to my father, but he kept silent. The worst things were to come – arrests and exile. The Soviet regime was after wealthy people first, we were safe, because we were not well-off. They were after the activists of the Zionist movement and religious Jews. Father didn’t work as a shochet, he was employed at the railroad department. Sometimes Uncle Joseph came to us in the evening and they were whispering about something. Joseph feared to be arrested even more than my father did. Neither he nor Zirelson were touched, maybe for the lack of time. 

In spring 1941 our family came back to Rezina. Father thought that it would be safer to live here. In the morning of 22nd June 1941 I was in bed, reading a book about Sergey Kirov 17 – by that time I could read in Yiddish and Russian. I was taught by my mother. We lived on the central square of the town. I heard some noise coming from the street. People clustered by the street loud speaker. They were listening to the broadcast very closely. Soon Father came home and broke the news about the commencement of the war. For ten days we lived as if nothing had happened. Some Jews left Rezina, others were on the point of leaving. There were also people, especially survivors from World War I, who were prone to think that Germans would do no harm to Jews. 

At the beginning of July, retreating Soviet troops went along the streets of our town. We were having lunch. My appetite wasn’t very good as it was very humid outside. Somebody knocked on the door. A handsome Jewish lad in the officer’s uniform entered the room. He asked Father to give him a pill for toothache. He went to the next room where Father was. Father rushed from the room in a second. He was really pallid. Father said that we would be leaving at once as Fascists were on their way. Probably the soldier told my father what had happened to the Jews on the occupied territories. It was on the 7th of July. We took off immediately without changing our clothes: my siblings, parents and I. We were at a loss. Mother didn’t even take the documents and the precious things: her and father’s wedding rings. Mother only took some money and Father took tallit and tefillin. When we went outside, a Romanian told my father: ‘Yanku [short for Jacob], where are you taking your caboodle, you won’t make it, let me hide you in my garret.’ But my father only shook his head and we left. 

We walked for a couple of days in the direction of Kishinev. We could feel the panic: the roads were crowded with people, besides they were moving in both directions – from and to Kishinev. Nobody understood where to go, and which road to take. Nobody was told what to do. It was humid and dusty. There was no place to bathe. In a day or two we started to itch, and when I took off my dress I was shocked: I was teeming with lice. I had noticed that it was the same with the others. Those insects always appeared when there was a calamity. 

When we came to Kishinev, the city was on fire. People were panicking and scurrying in all directions. We came to the train station. It was crammed with people, so it was next to impossible for us to take a train. However, luck smiled at us. One of my father’s pals called him. His family was on the open coal carriage. He helped us get there before the train left. We reached Tiraspol and changed the train. The fugitives were put on locomotives, which left for Rostov [today Russia]. Our trip lasted for about two weeks, we went through about 900 kilometers. We tried to get some food and water at the stations. The road was bombed. We were cold and hungry, sitting close to our mother like chickens by the hen. Once, Motle was about to miss the train. We got off the train on one of the stations to fetch water. Father got him on, when the train was starting off. 

In August 1941 we got off the train at the station Belaya Kalitva, not far from Rostov, which was about 1000 kilometers from Kishinev. We were met at the station very ceremoniously and warmly. We were given warm bread with honey, tea and milk. Then they took us to a kolkhoz 18. All evacuated people settled in the houses of the kolkhoznikovs [collective farmers]. We lived in the house of an elderly Cossack 19 and his wife. They treated us very well. We, the children, spent all day long outside in the orchard with apple and pear trees. We ate tasty melons and watermelons. Father and the elder children worked in the kolkhoz. Mother went to the canteen everyday, where she was given warm cooked food and bread. Everyday she brought a full can with food. Then, the cold and rainy fall came. Everyday Father and the host listened to the round-ups on the radio. One November day of the year 1941, the old man told my father that he heard in the news that the front lines were approaching and my father needed to move further to the East. 

And again we went on foot. It was cold. It was sleeting. The roads were crowded by retreating squads of the army and fugitives. On one of the junctions, a handsome Russian officer came to us. I was a pretty little girl at that time. He said to me, ‘My little daughter is wandering on the war roads just the way you are!’ The officer stopped the truck and ordered the driver to take us to Stalingrad. There were fugitives from other cities and districts. They were staying in the fields, and in the stadiums. It was December, but fortunately it wasn’t cold. We were starving. Father bought some rolls, sometimes he managed to get some warm soup. People got lost, and to find each other, they glued the announcements on the fences and on the walls of the stadium. Father wrote such an announcement as well, hoping that he would find somebody from our kin. Mother’s younger brother Suher found us with the help of that announcement. He was mobilized, he was waiting to be dispatched to the front lines. Suher brought a loaf of bread, some canned food and said good-bye to us. 

In about a week we crossed the Volga on a barge. It was horrible as the barge was bombed and people were pushing each other, forcing their way to the barge. We were lucky to get on the barge and stay together. On the opposite bank of the Volga we took a freight car and went to the East. And again we had to starve, being able to find food only at the stations. Sometimes at the substations we boiled potatoes, brought by compassionate local inhabitants. Once, the train was to start off, and Dad grabbed a bucket with under-boiled potatoes, so we had to eat raw and hard potato. Father prayed daily, sitting in the corner of the car and swaying from time to time. There were people of different nationalities in our car, and nobody hurt or offended us in any way. 

It took us six weeks to reach Tashkent [today Uzbekistan], and from there we were taken to the town of Namangan in Ferghana valley [about 3700 km from Kishinev]. For a couple of days we lived in a shed, previously used for fertilizers. There was a hearth in the corner, where women cooked food. There was a sulfur heap next to the fire and we were gasping for air from evaporation of sulfur. Suddenly an earthquake started. People rushed from the sheds half naked and barefoot and cried in panic. When the earthquake was over, the evacuated were brought to kolkhozes. 

We were taken to the kolkhoz Itiphok, which means Union in Uzbek. Houses weren’t heated; there was a hole in the corner of the room where we put cotton waste to warm the premises. My parents and elder sisters gathered cotton, and my brothers and I stayed at home. We were also given some work to do: they brought us unopened cotton bolls for us to work in the shed. Our nutrition wasn’t very good. Each family was given daily one glass of semi-rotten wheat or barley. We made porridge out of it. In spring 1942 Father was taken to the labor front 20. 

It was a very hard period for us. Mother was hypertonic, and was unwell rather often, she couldn’t work. We were famished. One rich Uzbek offered Mother money under the condition that I would marry him. I was only eight years old. Of course, Mother didn’t agree to that. She sent my brother and me to Kasansay [today Uzbekistan], where the family of Father’s sister Sima lived. Her husband Joseph was working at a tobacco factory as a book-keeper, and her daughters were also working. They lived comfortably, but there wasn’t enough food for everybody. My brother and I were sent to an orphanage, but we were even more hungry there than in the kolkhoz. At that time, Mother received a letter and a package from Father, who worked at a military plant in Chelyabinsk [today Russia]. Mother took us back. Our living was better when Father was sending us money and provision. We weren’t able to receive the money, as the Jewish postman embezzled it. At the end of 1943 Father came back. He demanded money that belonged to him, and he was given it. In evacuation and at the labor front Father observed Jewish traditions. He didn’t work on Saturdays, he worked on Sunday instead. On Friday he lit a candle. On Pesach he sold his bread ration and bought corn flour to make some scones similar to matzah. His comrades respected my father’s religious belief.  

After the war

At the end of 1944 Father took us to Chelyabinsk. We shared the apartment with one Russian woman. Father worked at the plant and when he had spare time he sawed felt boots. Our life was getting better. Then we were struck by sorrow. Late in the evening our neighbor rushed to us, screaming that our father was lying on the railroad. When he was brought home, it turned out that on his way from work, late at night, he was hit by the train and his leg was cut off. Father was in the hospital and came back with a crutch and an empty trouser leg. Father said that God had rescued him taking only one leg, not his life. He became a cobbler, working near the market. Since childhood he was good at it. Thus he made some money and we came back to Namangan. It was warm there. I went to school in Namangan. It was a Russian school and I became an excellent student within a year. Then Aunt Sima sent us an invitation from Kishinev. In August 1946 we came back to Bessarabia.

The city was devastated. We had to walk for a long time and finally we reached the house of one of Sima’s daughters, my cousin Shelya. Mother thought that we would be able to move to some of our relatives but then we understood that we shouldn’t rely on anybody as everybody had their own problems. Father on crutches went to look for lodging in the city. Some Russian lady was very sorry for him when he told her our story. She showed us an empty basement. We moved to the basement. We stayed there until 1956. There were two dark rooms and a corridor, where Mother made a kitchen. We were happy to have a roof over our heads. At that time many families were trying to find a shelter in the basements and sheds. Father remained a cobbler for a short time. There was a shochet in Kishinev, when we returned, but when he left abroad in 1946, Father was offered by the community to take the position of the shochet. Father processed a patent, equipped his working place and became a butcher again. Father worked for many years duly paying all taxes. He regained his footing when he came back to his favorite synagogue and became a chazzan. 

I went to school. After the Uzbek school I was admitted in the fourth grade. I stuck to Jewish traditions having been observed in my family since childhood even after I became a pioneer 21 and Komsomol 22 member. I had to conceal my true religious belief. During the first years of hunger we ate only mamaliga [polenta, crushed cornmeal]. Once I was treated to a tasty roll with a nice smell. It was during Pesach, I didn’t eat that roll and hid it under the bed. Of course, I had to throw it away as it got moldy. I remember once on Friday night my Ukrainian friend knocked on my door. She was a real Soviet person. Her father was the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. The candles were lit in our apartment and I didn’t want to let Larissa in. She was persistent, so I had to open the door. She was surprised to see that our electric lamps were switched off and candles were lit. I said that our fuses had burned out, and when she told me to repair them, I said that only adults could do that. I don’t know whether Larissa guessed that we were celebrating Sabbath. She never even made a hint. I was friends with Larissa for many years. Both of us were sobbing when Stalin died [1953]. My parents were laughing at us. I think that at that time they understood that the great leader was responsible for all our tribulations. 

I finished school with the golden medal [with highest level of honors] and was supposed to enter the institute without taking exams [pupils that graduated with golden or silver medals had the right to enter the university only by passing entrance interview 23. That was the first time when I came across anti-Semitism. I applied for the Chemistry Department of Kishinev University. The dean said that I was supposed to take exams, because it wasn’t known where I was during the war and how I got my certificate. The director of my school, a Russian lady, stood up for me. She came to the dean and made him get me accepted the way it was supposed to be: without the entrance exams. I was a good student at university. I didn’t feel any inequality there, the atmosphere was rather pleasant. In those years Father was able to save some money and in 1956 he purchased a two-room apartment. In the end, we moved out of the basement. I got my diploma with distinction, which meant that I might expect the best positions after the mandatory job assignment 24. As a rule Jews didn’t get good jobs. I was sent to the city of Chernovtsi [today Ukraine] to teach chemistry. My parents didn’t want to let me go and Father found a way out with the help of his pal. He gave a bribe and I got a job at the chemical laboratory of the jewelry plant. It was my first job.

In 1958 I met a Jewish lad, Boris Belfor. We began to date and fell in love with each other. Boris introduced me to his parents and proposed to me. His father, Abram Belfor, born in a town close to Lvov [today Ukraine], moved to Bessarabia before the revolution [Civil War of 1917-18]. He was a hatter ‘s apprentice. He was married to a Jewish girl, Mintsa. Boris, the fifth baby in the family, was born Kishinev in 1932. The family of Abram and Mintsa wasn’t religious, but their children adhered to Zionist ideas. The eldest, Alexander [Jewish name Ziska], a convinced Zionist, left for Palestine at the age of 18. He lived in a kibbutz, where only Bessarabian Jews were. Alexander became a respectable man, got married. His death was tragic: he drowned in the sea in 1959. 

My fiance’s sister Broha Belfor joined an underground Zionist group [which wasn’t an organization; the Jewish youth just got together to talk about Israel, read Jewish literature, discuss the prospects of life in Israel], after coming back from the evacuation in Central Asia, where she was with her parents and younger brother. Broha, along with fifteen other women was arrested in 1950. She was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment and was released from prison only after Stalin’s death, in 1956. Broha got married and left for Israel. Now Broha Basman lives in Israel. Boris’s elder brother Nusim perished in Königsberg [today Kaliningrad in Russia]. His second brother Moishe lived in Kishinev. He was a common worker.

By the time of our acquaintance Boris had served the full term in the army, which was two years at that time, and graduated from the Lvov Polygraphist College. He was an extramural student of the Ukrainian Polygraphic Institute. In 1958 we got married. In spite of the fact that we both were Komsomol members, we had a traditional Jewish wedding. A chuppah was placed in the yard of Uncle Joseph Epelbaum. The rite was carried out by him. Then the crystal goblet was broken, Klezmer music was played. All our relatives and friends had fun.

By that time my sisters Rahil and Bluma were already married. They married the Gershengolts brothers. Bluma’s husband Motle worked as a salesman in Kotovsk [former Khynchenshtch]. Bluma worked as an outworker knitter. She died in 1988. Her son Vladimir lives in Kishinev, and her second son, Boris, lives in Israel. 

Rahil’s husband Mehl Gershengolts was also involved in commerce. He built a nice private house in Kishinev where he lived with his wife and daughters – Sonya, and Edit. Rahil died rather young, in 1968. Her husband and children left for Israel. The daughters are currently residing there.

My eldest brother Motle worked as a foreman after finishing vocational school. He also immigrated to Israel with his family –wife Sofia, children Anna and Yuri. Motle died at the beginning of the 1990s. His children are currently residing in Israel. My younger brother Haim was involved in commerce after finishing school. He got married and immigrated to Israel in 1990 with his wife and daughters. He and his daughter Irina are currently living in Israel. 

In 1958, after our wedding we moved to Rahil’s house. We were given a separate room there. In 1959 I gave birth to a girl. Our daughter was given thename Zinaida, after the recently perished brother of my husband, Zinka. We got an apartment in a couple of years. We still live in this apartment. We had a good life. My husband worked as a chief engineer of the large typography house. Soon I went to work there as a chemistry expert-production engineer. We made pretty good money and we had a lot of friends at work. We celebrated Soviet holidays together, took part in festive demonstrations in spite of the fact that the Jewish traditions ands holidays were a major priority to us. 

I cannot say that we had a luxurious life, we didn’t have a car or dacha 25, but we had enough money for food and recreation. Almost every year we went to the seaside spas. We also went to the theaters, cinemas. Sometimes, we went to the restaurants with friends. We enjoyed reading. We had a full-fledged life. I went on business trips to large cities rather often. I went sightseeing there, attended museums and theaters. Our daughter was nurtured in kindness and care. My mother helped me raise a good daughter, a true Jewish lady, who observes traditions. 

My parents lived in the same two-room apartment, purchased by my father. In 1975 Mother passed away. Father died in 1983, eight years after mother’s death. They were buried in the Jewish part of the cemetery in compliance with the Jewish rites and traditions. Unfortunately, Uncle Joseph, who carried out all the Jewish traditions in the family, didn’t conduct the funeral rites, as he died in 1961.

Zinaida finished school, then the Economics Faculty of the Agricultural Institute. She was married to a Jew called Vadim Donets. They lived together for many years. In 1983 my granddaughter Marina was born. My daughter fell in love with an Israeli citizen and divorced her husband, when her daughter came of age so she could understand her. Zinaida left for Israel a year and a half ago. She has a happy marriage. She lives in Haifa. Marina lives in Kishinev with her father. She entered the university. Marina came to Zinaida for a visit. 

I am suffering because of the collapse of my daughter’s family, though I shouldn’t. Everybody is free to choose his own fate. I regret not leaving for Israel, when our relatives and acquaintances were leaving. We were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to find a job. Besides, we had a good life in Kishinev. Now we go to Israel on a frequent basis. We are considering immigrating to Israel.

We have always observed Jewish traditions: lighting Sabbath candles and celebrating all holidays. The synagogue was always open in Kishinev and Jewish traditions never ceased. Now after the breakup of the Soviet Union, independent Moldova created conditions for national revival making Jewish life more active. We are community and Hesed members 26. We attend different events, Jewish performances, read Jewish newspapers. Along with other community members we come to the monument of Holocaust victims, built at the place of the shooting of Kishinev Jews. Grandfather Ihil and his wife Reizl died there as well. One of the positive things brought by perestroika 27 is the revival of Jewish life. But it is not enough. I am missing the huge Soviet Union, where I could go to any city with historic sites, where I felt needed by people, where I could meet my friends. Now I am not needed by anybody, but my husband. Maybe I am just getting old.

Glossary:

City: St. Petersburg Country: Russia Interviewer: Olga Egudina Date of interview: April, 2007

Igor (Israel) Efimovich Lerner is a short person with kind eyes and still voice. The WWII burst out when he was a schoolboy. He was its participant from the very first till the very last day. 

After the end of the war he received a good education and became a person in high position. Igor Efimovich shares his memoirs willingly: he is often invited to deliver lectures at schools. 

Mr Lerner is a person of settled convictions, and though we are not always able to agree with him, his adherence to principles commands respect.

My family background

Growing up

Durinng the war

After the war

Marriage life and children

Glossary

My family background

Unfortunately I remember absolutely nothing about my great-grandparents. And all my grandparents came from Ukraine. My both grandfathers perished during the WWI and I never saw them. But I remember my grandmothers well. Both families of my parents lived in Krivoe Ozero village of Odessa region. My grandmothers lived in their own houses and managed a household. Their houses were typical Ukrainian huts. [Ukrainian hut is a house made from clay or wood covered with clay, it is usually thatched with straw.] Grandmothers kept cows, a lot of hens, had large vegetable gardens. So they worked without a break since morning till late at night, because they had to produce foodstuff for themselves and also to help our family with food. Leye, my maternal grandmother was very religious and brought her daughter (my Mom) up on the same lines. Grandmother always visited synagogue in Pervomaisk and in Uman. My paternal grandmother Haya was thriftier and much less religious. Leye was more kind than Haya: her relations with grandchildren were much better than Haya’s. Some time Haya lived at our place, and they not always reached mutual understanding with my Mom. You know that a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law are seldom in tune with each other. But Daddy was very wise: he always managed to smooth away conflicts.

Both my grandmothers died in Ukraine during starvation of 1932. [In 1932 the authorities in many instances exacted such high levels of procurements that starvation was widespread. In some places, famine was allowed to run its course; and millions of peasants in Ukraine starved to death in a famine, called the Holodomor in Ukrainian. An estimated 3-6 million people died in this horrible manmade famine.] In the heat of famine we lived already in Leningrad, we got to know about events in Ukraine from rumors. We sent grandmothers food packages, but later we found out that they had not received any.

Our village in Ukraine was large. There was a beautiful small river (I do not remember its name). For the most part my memoirs refer to 1939 when we arrived there already from Leningrad. It was then when I saw straight streets with ruinous huts: almost all population of the village died out during famine of 1932.

My parents lived in the former priest’s house. It was the only house in the village with iron roof. My parents had got a large vegetable garden. It was necessary for the family: vegetables helped to survive all the year round.

Now I’ll tell you about my parents.

My father Haim Davidovich Lerner was born in Krivoe Ozero in 1896. In his childhood he attended cheder, and that was all regarding his education. Father participated in the World War I and got into the phosgene area. [Phosgene is the highly toxic gas gained infamy as a chemical weapon during the World War I.] After that he got asthma and coughed all the time. Having returned from the front, Daddy at first worked in the field, but later became a shop manager. The shop was situated in our house (I told you that the house was very large). I guess that parents paid some rent for it. At the shop they sold mainly fabric, which was in short supply at that time. I had a photo showing my father with a folding rule in his hands, he was standing in front of the shop (unfortunately I lost the photograph). At that time our financial situation was not bad.

Here I’ll tell you about my father’s life. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War 1 he was already 40 years old, therefore he was not drafted. But he served as a hospital attendant in a hospital in Leningrad. He left for the hospital and we never saw him any more. We sent numerous inquiries and they answered that father was registered neither among victims, nor among reported missing. Many years later I got ill with dermatitis and went to the nearest polyclinic to visit a dermatologist. She looked at me attentively and asked ‘Are you a son of Haim Davidovich?’ It turned out that during the war she worked in the hospital together with my father. From her I got to know that one day all men who worked in the hospital were sent to the front line, presumably to Tikhvin region. Most likely he perished there.

My Mom’s name was Hayka Borissovna (nee Fleymboym). She was born in 1896 in Krivoe Ozero, in the same place where my father was born. I do not know for sure, but I guess that my parents knew each other since their childhood. I do not remember when they got married, but I know for sure that they were married under chuppah.

Mom also studied only in cheder, but she was much more educated than father. She knew Hebrew very well and was interested in Jewish history. Many interesting facts from the history of our people I got to know from her in my childhood. Yiddish was my mother tongue, mother tongue of my parents, and of my grandparents, too. Before the war we spoke only Yiddish at home. 

Father was not very religious, but till the very beginning of the war he kept tefillin and tallit in the special trunk. Mom kept 2 thick prayer books (in Hebrew) till her death. She also did her best to observe kashrut. Even in Leningrad she managed to buy kosher meat somewhere. When she was about 70 years old, she decided to live separately from my family. I guess that one her reasons was her wish to eat according Tradition. All her life long she celebrated Sabbath, made matzot herself (when it was not possible to be bought). I remember that we moved to Leningrad on Saturday, and not all her belongings had been transported: Mom’s candlesticks were absent. She cut a potato in two and attached candles to the halves. Mom died in Leningrad in 1983. She was never sick; she even never visited a doctor.

Here I’ll tell you about brothers and sisters of my parents. My Mom had got 4 brothers and a sister. Brothers’ names were Abram, Moyshe, Haim, Benye. The sister’s name was Buya. They lived in different cities: Tashkent, Kuybyshev, Leningrad, Kiev, and Odessa. Mom corresponded with all of them. According to Jewish Tradition all elder boys in their families were named in honor of my Mom’s father who was lost during the World War I. His name was Boris, therefore I had got 5 cousins named Boris each. All of them (except my elder brother) were killed at the WWII front line.

Father had got a sister, her name was Hinye. She lived in Ukraine. She had got a husband and a daughter Rivva. Rivva was married to a Ukrainian guy. After the end of the war she worked as a school director. During the war relatives of Rivva’s husband hid her from Germans. Unfortunately Germans executed Hinye and her husband by shooting.

Growing up

I am the youngest son in our family. I had got 2 elder brothers: Boris (born in 1921) and Jacob (born in 1923). I was born in 1925 and my parents called me Israel. Later I changed it for Igor (I’ll tell you about it a little bit later).

It was Mom who kept the house. Besides the vegetable garden, we had an orchard with big plum and apricot trees. I remember the sound of ripe apricots falling down upon the roof of our house…

We kept a cow, a calf, a lot of hens. We also kept pigs, but only for sale. Mom managed not only to keep the house, but also to help father at the shop. Regarding assistants, we had only a nurse: she was invited when the 3rd child (me) was born. That nurse sewed a toy dog for me (using a sheepskin) and called it Bobik. It was the only toy I had at that time; therefore I remember it till now (80 years passed!).

We did no electricity supply and used kerosene lamps. In the house there was a large stove of Russian style 2. There was no water supply, too. But in the yard there was a deep well with cold and tasty water. The cellar under the house seemed to me very deep. Each time I got there I considered a real adventure. We cellared food there (it must last us the winter). I remember huge bright pumpkins (they remained fresh very long). Mom cooked very well and taught me to cook. She also taught my wife to cook traditional Jewish courses.

At home we celebrated all Jewish holidays. We observed strict kashrut.

In our village there was a school, and a teacher of the primary school rented a room in our house. When I was 6 years old, she noticed that I read very well and suggested to send me to school. That was the way I became a schoolboy a year earlier than it was necessary. At school they taught us in Ukrainian language (at that time I did not know that there were other languages except Yiddish and Ukrainian). Later at Leningrad school children laughed at me when I spoke Ukrainian. So in our village I finished the first grade and my brothers finished primary school.

In the beginning of 1930s authorities started struggle against homebrewing. [Brewing relies on the conversion of sugars into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide by yeast through fermentation. In the USSR it was considered an administrative offence.] It was the beginning of struggle against kulaks 3. Soviet representatives used to say ‘The citizens starve, and you spend grain for brewing.’ I remember well that from the city there came sailors girt about with cartridge belts. They used to come to our house and say to my father ‘Munchik (they called him Munchik for some reason), show us who is engaged in homebrewing here? Who has got a lot of bread?’ You see, my father was one of the activists, therefore all hooch stills deforced from its owners were stored in our yard. In the hooch stills the sailors found some raw stuff, managed to finish the process, bottled the brew and forced my Mom to butcher and grill a ram. You understand that those sailors spent their time very well.

Later struggle against homebrewing gradually transformed to subtraction of peasants’ grain. Peasants tried to hide grain underground, but in vain. Sailors came again and again. Father invented the following trick: he put me (a child) upon a bag of wheat and instructed me the following way: ‘When they start taking the bag away, cry loudly and don’t give it away!’ Sailors tried to pull the bag out from under me, I cried and held on to it. The sailors said to father ‘We know you to be a conscientious person, you understand that we cannot fight against the child, give us your grain in an amicable way.’ Father gave them MY bag, and they left very pleased (they did not search any more). In 1932-1933 authorities took away ALL grain they found: they did left grain neither for eating, nor for the following sowing. Therefore I am sure that that terrible starvation in Ukraine was caused not by natural phenomena (i.e. bad harvest), but by the communist party line.

So, we understood that starvation was beginning. It became difficult to find food. Father went to Caucasus. There he changed carpets from our house for corn meal, butter, and millet. It gave us possibility to hold out for some time. But it became clear that our family had no chance to survive. Old and weak people died. Mom cried and begged father to leave. At last he made his decision: Mom together with children went to Tashkent (to her sister), and father together with his brothers moved to Olgino (a settlement near Leningrad) to mother's brother Abram. About 2 months later we also arrived in Olgino. First winter we lived at the place of my uncle. I went to the 1st grade (I had to study in the 1st grade twice, because I did not know Russian). In Olgino I had to live very long: till 1963. My uncle was engaged in bookselling. I remember well that at home he had a grand piano, and there were a lot of children's books on it. I drenched myself in them to my heart's content.

Here I’ll get back to our trip to Tashkent. It was then when I traveled by train for the first time in my life. For some reason I remembered Kharkov railway station very well. There I saw a big overhead road and it impressed me much: I guessed how it was possible to build such a construction. We spent a lot of time moving to Tashkent with changes. After our arrival in Tashkent I was so tired that felt tinnitus and my legs trembled. I also remember a huge bridge across Volga. And my 1st trip by automobile happened in Olgino: our neighbor took us to the river by a small lorry.

I attended a school in Olgino. Elementary school was situated in the red wooden house, and the secondary one - in the white house. People used to say that in Olgino there were 2 schools: red and white. I studied very well. But it happened that I had to study twice not only in the 1st, but also in the 10th class. I’ll tell you about it later.

So, we (my brothers also) studied at school. Daddy worked as a worker at a factory. Later he met a friend who helped him to get a job of a seller at the market. 2 years later my father was appointed a deputy director at a grocery store. Very soon he became its director and worked there till the beginning of the war. At first Mom did not work, but soon authorities introduced food cards into practice 4. They gave more food for worker’s food card, therefore Mom went to work at a knitting factory Krasnoe Znamya [‘Red Banner’ in Russian] in Leningrad. She worked there 2 years, and then began sewing at home. Mom was a very good milliner and a seamstress: in Ukraine she made clothes for all village inhabitants. When I came to my College wearing a jacket made by Mom, students joined the queue wishing to have jackets similar to mine. Mom needed neither fashion-magazines, nor patterns. She fearlessly brought in new styles.

We could not live together with my uncle’s family very long. We handed in an application about separate place of residence. As a result we got a small room and a very large kitchen (the most part of it was occupied by a huge stove). It was impossible to live five together in that small room, and my elder brother wrote a letter to Stalin (so resolute he was!). As a result, a local official came to us and ordered to replan our kitchen and change the stove. After it there appeared 1 room more. The situation changed for the better, though still we were cramped.

We were not rich and not poor. At first we bought food in the shops. We did not starve, but later there appeared a card system (I already told you about it). You see, even before introduction of that system, our life was getting worse and worse: in shops there was nothing except pickles, sauerkraut, kvass and black bread. After introduction of food cards there appeared long lines near the shops. Sometimes Mom worked late in the evening and came to Olgino by last train. We waited for her, because at her factory mothers with many children received meals. Therefore sometimes we waited for her till 1 o'clock in the morning. Beginning from 1935 (when father became a deputy director at the grocery store), we lived better.

We never left such a good place as Olgino for vacation.

In Leningrad region Olgino was a very prestigious place for vacation. In summer a lot of Leningrad citizens came to Olgino with their children to spend summer holidays. I had many friends among those children, but we met only in summer. I swam perfectly (mastered all styles). In winter I skied much. At school I attended a historical circle. I was fond of history, and our teacher entrusted me with making lectures for my schoolmates. I also attended a photographic circle. Behind the staircase in the small lumber-room I used to process my films.

I liked to go to different parties arranged at school. In Olgino there was a good library. In the former times there lived many Finns, Poles and Germans. During the Great Terror 5 all of them were arrested, and their books were collected into library. Therefore the library was very rich in books. I read much, I always liked reading very much. At home we subscribed to newspapers. We were great friends with my brothers all our lives long. We gave no troubles to our parents. Only Jacob liked to fight sometimes. Several times Mom was invited to school because of it. It seems to me that our parents brought us up properly. They never beat us, but achieved much using words, suggestions, and serious talks. They served as an example to us: father never smoked or drank vodka. When he got ill, doctors recommended him to smoke special cigarettes for asthma. Till now I remember my sincere surprise: Daddy smoking a cigarette!

Political life of the country did not avoid us. At school we (schoolchildren of the 4th grade) voted for execution of Nikolaev, the murderer of Kirov 6. Parents never talked about politics in our presence.

Steam locomotive connected Olgino with Leningrad. We used to go to Leningrad to a bath-house (there was no bath-house in Olgino).

During the war

War burst out when I finished the 9th grade.

My elder brother was a professional soldier and served in the Far East. Jacob was drafted in 1942. I joined a volunteers battalion. Those battalions were created for struggle against saboteurs, spies, and gunlayers which launched signal rockets near the military objects, etc. They gave each of us a rifle, 120 live cartridges, a gas-mask. We kept it at home. We lived at home and studied at school, but at any time on a signal we had to run fast to the alarm post. Officers from NKVD 7 waited for us there. Usually we searched the district. 2 or 3 times paratroopers touched down nearby and we managed to neutralize them. Sometimes we were on duty near important objects (it was called to stay in secret). After a while we were lodged in barracks in Pargolovo, near Olgino. There we stayed till January of 1942. We were very hungry. I realized that it became useless to study at school and handed in an application of an army volunteer. They sent me to a military camp. So I became a real soldier.

But they had no right to send me to the front line: I was under 17. Therefore I served in the horsed antitank regiment. I took care of the mare. By the way they gave me a sabre, I teetered after belting it on: I was very thin. The mare needed care like a child. Each morning before washing myself, I started cleaning my mare. In the afternoon they usually carried out mock battle: 4 mares did their best to pull an antitank gun. One day we came back a mock battle, but were not allowed to get into barracks: they read out surnames of soldiers with secondary education. My name was in that list, too. The commander told us that Germans racked Leningrad with fire using long-range artillery. At that time we had no opportunities to stop it, but it was necessary to do something. Reconnaissance units went searching those guns, but did not come back. Therefore they created a special unit (top secret) for detection of those guns. Members of that unit had not to search those guns in the woods and ravines, but to find its location by means of certain calculations (basing upon sound-waves of the guns). They moved us to a separate barrack with real beds: it was good to stop sleeping on plank beds. [Plank bed is a primitive construction for sleeping: some sort of duck-boards fixed perpendicular to the wall.] They fed us well, but we had to study 8 hours a day. Leningrad was already in blockade 8. My ration saved both my and my Mom’s life.

Every third day she came to me and I gave her my bread and that of my 3 comrades. The next 3 days I had to give my bread to my friends. Soon I managed to persuade Mom to evacuate, and she left for Altai region. 2 years later my brother Jacob was wounded, and after hospital treatment he went to Mom’s place.
We studied rather difficult subjects: besides knowledge it required intuition.

Three months later our skill was checked up near Kolpino. I managed to find two big guns and was awarded a medal For Military Merits 9. I understood that I had the only chance to survive in this war: to continue my service in that unit. We studied three months more and were sent to the Finnish front. Soon we were taken back to the Leningrad front. At the end of December 1943 they alarmed us and sent to the Oranienbaum Pyatachok (across the Gulf of Finland). [Oranienbaum Pyatachok was a small sector of the front near the Gulf of Finland. It became an impassable obstacle to fascists and did not permit them capture Leningrad.]
One day in the morning we were told that a great offensive would happen soon. We had to find location of all guns around us. It was not so easily because (for example) tanks changed their place after a shot, so it made it impossible for us to define their location. Fascists hunted for us, therefore we were specially guarded and always took up position in the most safe dugouts. But on the other hand we were rather defenseless, because it was impossible to place any guns near our dugouts: fascists could try to destroy them by bombing and the bomb could accidentally find us. One day connection with one of our receivers was broken and I (together with 2 submachine gunners) went to search for the break. We found it: the wire got fouled up in the big bush. We came closer to unhook the wire and suddenly saw Germans sitting under the bush. They saw us and rushed away, but we managed to seize one of them. Those Germans attached explosive to the wire, hoping to blow up us in case we pulled the wire.

In the morning of January 13, 1944 artillery preparation fire was started. I never saw such number of military weapons and equipment. They roared so loudly that I could not hear my voice. During 3 hours everything around us was booming and burning. Pandemonium! We went forward and found out with great surprise that we met with no resistance. We stopped trying to understand the reason. And we saw only bodies of German soldiers torn to ribbons - and that was all. The first armed conflict happened about 10 kilometers farther (near the Koporye village). There was an ancient castle occupied by Germans. Our commanders ordered not to shoot at the castle in order to keep it undamaged. Certainly we managed to dislodge the enemy, but suffered heavy losses. I was also impressed much by the cemetery of German military equipment. By the way, I often deliver lectures at schools. I like to tell schoolchildren about the war I participated in. I noticed that boys and girls frequently consider our allies to be the winners (not us!). Therefore I told them how often I saw twisted wreckage of English and American tanks we received according to lend-lease. [Lend-lease was a system of loaning or renting arms, ammunition, strategic raw material, foodstuffs, goods and services to countries - allies.]

Those tanks were very bad: bulky and slow. When I saw our tank T-34 for the first time I felt pride in it. [The T-34 was a Soviet medium tank considered to be the best one on the front lines of the WWII.] Airplanes of our allies were so-so, too. In general, I think that by the end of the war our army was armed and organized so well that we could reach Gibraltar if they did not stop us on Elba.

Here I am back to my narration. From Koporye we advanced with fights through Pskov, Gdov and Slantsy. Up to Narva we were not bad, but later everything became hard. Narva River had got a slight and a slope banks. Germans occupied the slope one. We had to force a crossing over the Narva River suffering heavy losses, but after that we chased Germans up to Tallin. There Germans fortified their position again and again we had to start heavy fights.

Here I’ll tell you about one incident which happened to me near the Narva River. You see I had several photographs of my relatives (the dearest ones) with me and kept them in the breast pocket of my soldier's blouse. The equipment I worked with required accumulators, so we always held them in stock. One day we came short of accumulators and I (together with a group of support) went to the charging station. I made our way along the Narva River. A member of our group suggested to move on the ice, because the road was occupied by moving armies. Well, we started, but the front part of the lorry fell into the scour (fortunately only the bumper went down). We managed to jump out, but certainly got wet through. By the way, it was very cold: 20 degrees centigrade below zero. We started shooting in the air. Soldiers ran up and brought us to the hospital, where nurses (young girls) stripped us naked, took methyl alcohol, worked it in and gave us some spirit to drink. In the morning we felt having no cold, but a part of my photos got slightly wet. Later I got to know that all photos of our family burned down together with our house in Olgino.

Near Narva we had got a small territory (about 20 square kilometers) under our control. We were surrounded by Germans, and received foodstuffs parachuted from airplanes. About a month we ate millet and American slab bacon. I remember myself going to my unit, watching girls in soldiers’ blouses dancing and listening to accordion. Sometimes I danced too, and then did not sleep at night: I tried to imagine my future peace life.

Later we chased Germans to East Prussia. Therefrom we moved to the Oder River by train. Near Oder a lot fell to our share. Oder was a very wide river, it was very difficult to force a crossing. Our group was up to the mark: according to our information all German weapon emplacements were neutralized. Soldiers made new bridge of boats instead of the old one fired by Germans. After that we turned to Berlin. There I saw a superhighway for the first time in my life: it differed sharply from our roads! Suddenly we received another order: move to Prague! There Czechs excited rebellion against invaders and we had to help them. It happened on May 2. Our next point was Silesia where fascists still showed resistance. Therefrom we moved to Vienna. In Vienna we welcomed the Victory Day.

After the war

Now I’d like to tell you about the life of my family after the end of the war. Mom wanted to return from evacuation to our place immediately after the war, but our house was burned to the ground. Both Mom and my brother wrote letters to different higher echelons asking to help them with lodging. And she asked me to interpose in the matter. I wrote an official report to the chief of our political department. Later I got his answer from Leningrad: everything was all right and Mom had already returned to Olgino. During my leave I visited Leningrad and found out that Mom lived on the ground floor in a very cold and uncomfortable room. I had to take up this case again and at last Mom got decent warm room on the second floor. Jacob lived together with Mom, but soon he married a girl from Olgino and left for her place. Jacob was a disabled soldier: he had a bad limp because of the wound and shell-shock. It was difficult for him to get used to the new life. But soon authorities arranged special courses for disabled soldiers. Jacob finished courses for rate-setters and worked at a factory. He died in 1989.

Boris, my elder brother also lived at Mom’s place. Before the war he finished a military school and became a specialist in radio communication. He worked much, raised the level of his skill and became a well-known person in the sphere of electronics. He worked in Leningrad, and got an apartment there. Boris traveled much all over the country and equipped new television centers together with a group of coworkers. He even reached the Novaya Zemlya. [Novaya Zemlya (New Land) is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia.] Besides he took part in electronic reequipment of the largest ships of our fleet. Boris died in 1998.

Now about me after the end of the war. Headquarters started the process of disbandment of military units. Our regiment became a reconnaissance battalion. A part of our battalion moved to Germany, and I remained in Vienna (at the army staff). I became a chief secretary responsible for confidential documents. I worked there till 1950. I recollect my service with pleasure. At first our command aimed us at rapprochement with population: they waited what political party of Austria would gain advantage. And while there was a hope that local people would follow the leaders of the Communist Party of Austria, we arranged parties for them. Courting the local girls and even marriages were encouraged. But soon it became clear that People’s Party of Austria gained the upper hand and everything changed: we were closed inside our military units and could watch the local life only through the window. Even dismissals were forbidden. As for me, I was striving home eagerly: I wanted to receive good education. Besides I was responsible for maintenance of new strict rules. To tell the truth, it was not pleasant. In our team there was Kostuchenko, a scout (chestful of decorations). He ran away. We had to set out in search and found him in Czechoslovakia. He was given a trial and sentenced to 25 years of forced labor camps for parricide 10.

In fact I studied in the 10th class not long (before the beginning of the war) and received a paper about finishing school. But it was not a school-leaving certificate of official standard. And I had a dream to receive higher education. After 5 years in Austria I came back to Leningrad. I managed to retire only with assistance of the chief of our political department.

My family members were friends with Natalya Sergeevna Michurina, my former teacher of history. My father was a shop director and helped her with food. She worked as a teacher at the Pedagogical College. I told her that I would like to become a student of her College. She answered that it was impossible without a school-leaving certificate and I had to go to Moscow and change my paper for the certificate. I did not want to go there (I realized that I forgot everything during 8 years of my military service). Therefore I decided to enter the 10th class of an evening school. [Evening schools in the USSR were institutions of general educational for working people.] I became a schoolboy again, but they made it imperative that I should be employed.

Here my tortures started. About 2 months I ate nothing and could not sleep: I tried to find job, but they looked into my passport, saw the item 5 11 and used to say the following: ‘No vacancy’. They did not permit me to become even a pupil of metalworker at a factory. But I was a very good rifleman: during the war they used to invite me to adjust captured weapon. At last I got fixed up in a job of shooting club instructor. I finished my school with a medal, i.e. I had the right to enter a college without entrance examinations (it was necessary only to pass an entrance interview 12.) I decided to enter the College for film-engineers.

I called them and asked if they took in medal winners. They said yes, I came and showed my documents. They said ‘You know, we have no vacancies’. The same happened in many other colleges. One day I called a college entrance examination from telephone box situated close to the College door. They said ‘Come to us please!’ I appeared 5 minutes later and heard the following: ‘Sorry, we have no vacancies’. At last I decided to make no more telephone calls and went to the Technological College. [The Technological College prepared specialists in the chemical sphere]. I showed them my documents ‘You won’t take me in, will you?’ - ‘Why? Leave your documents here and come tomorrow morning’. I came next morning, and they said ‘You are accepted, but it is provisional. Tomorrow come to take part in the entrance interview’. Having come for the interview, I found out that all medal-winners were Jews.

So I became a student of the Technological College. I graduated from it with excellent marks. Besides I was an editor of the College newspaper, a former front-line soldier, a communist party member. Therefore notwithstanding the generally accepted mandatory job assignment, they suggested me to choose a place where I would like to work 13. There were 2 good places to work at and one of them was GIPH (the State Institute of Applied Chemistry). Everyone knew that at GIPH they never employed Jews, therefore I chose the 2nd one (not to receive refusal!). And what a surprise: I got to know that they invited me to GIPH! 2 weeks later I started working there. My first chief was a Jew, too. There I worked 42 years (from 1956 till 1998). I liked my work and was one of the top experts of my profession. My first position was a mechanic of experimental workshop. Later I became its chief and worked till I retired on pension. Nobody forced me to retire, on the contrary: they tried to persuade me to go on working.

Till now I keep in touch with my former coworkers: I am a member of the local veterans council. I share my memoirs about war with schoolchildren. I aim at putting new heart at their patriotic spirit, because in my opinion at present patriotic education at school needs to be up to higher standard. When I talk to children, I understand that they lack it, too. They usually ask many questions and listen very attentively. Boys are interested it military questions, while girls ask about love during the war. I had a look at school textbooks of history and it seemed to me, that war is covered there insufficiently. In particular well-known 10 Stalin Blows are described badly. [10 Stalin Blows or 10 blows Soviet Army gave to fascist troops in 1944. They were strategically important for the military campaign of 1944.]

During my work in GIPH I came across no manifestations of anti-Semitism. I had got an access permit and held high positions. To tell the truth, in the beginning of my work there were several very elderly women (Communist Party members since pre-revolutionary times). My nationality gave them no rest. They considered me to be responsible (for example) for Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973 [14, 15]. They asked me every minute ‘What do you want to achieve there in your Israel?’ But GIPH administration put no pressure upon me. When I came to GIPH, there were many Jews. Later their number decreased and during the period of state anti-Semitism GIPH was one of the most closed for Jews institutions. We worked upon very important projects connected with defense industry (till now I can tell you nothing about them). I keep good relations with my coworkers till now. I am allowed to keep my let-pass and can enter the Institute whenever I want. I receive medical treatment at the Institute polyclinic. My former coworkers invite me to all holiday parties and ceremonial meetings. By the way, some day soon I am going to take part in the preparatory meeting for the Victory Day celebrations 16.

In 1963 being a workshop mechanic, I made my mark during assembling of a very important equipment. I was offered to become a shop superintendent. And I wanted to remain a mechanic. You see, mechanics had the right to retire on pension at the age of 50 (before the appointed age of 60), while a shop superintendent had no privilege of that kind. But my coworkers asked me persistently, therefore I specified that they would give my family an apartment in Leningrad. And we moved from Olgino to Leningrad.

Marriage life and children

I got married in 1954. My wife’s name was Etella Yosefovna Lipina. She was born in Leningrad in 1928. She graduated from the Conservatory and worked as a teacher at a musical school. We got acquainted the following way. Once I felt severe pain in my coccyx. Doctors told me that an operation was necessary. I was in a hospital and my girlfriend visited me. One day my girlfriend could not come and sent her friend instead. We liked each other, started to keep company with each other and got married later. In 1955 our son Alexander was born. First time after our marriage we lived at her parents’ place in the city center. It was very convenient for me, because at that time I was a student of the Technological College and my way to the College took not much time. 

The family of my wife had relatives in Germany. In 1972 my wife’s uncle, who lived in Germany died. He bestowed a fortune upon the family of my wife and she went to Germany to come into the inheritance. But the uncle’s German relatives managed to evict the most part of property, therefore my wife received only a one-room apartment. During all these events my wife suddenly died and was buried there in Germany.

My son Alexander graduated from the Shipbuilding College in 1977. [The Leningrad Shipbuilding College was founded in 1902.] He worked at the design office of the factory producing escalators for underground. I wanted him to work in GIPH, but he refused flatly. At that time I did not understand him, but later I realized that he planned to emigrate to Israel, and his possible work in GIPH could become an insuperable obstacle. He knew that GIPH employees had a let-pass and were permitted neither to go abroad, nor to communicate with foreigners. Alexander took it into account.

But there was another difficulty. I had to grant him an exit authorization. Alexander brought a paper for me to sign. I realized that the next day after signing the document, I should be fired. Therefore I refused. Then my son sent me an official certified document by mail. It read the following: I was obliged to list (in written form) my claims to my son. If I failed within 2 months, it meant my consent automatically. I addressed some people in GIPH (experts in such affairs). They confirmed my fears saying that if my son left, I would be fired immediately. OK, I listed my claims. Several years later (already under Gorbachev 17) the same people said ‘Now let him go’. I signed all the papers, and my son left. At present he lives in Chicago. He has got a daughter.

After my first wife’s death I thought I would never marry once more. But I was carried along by my destiny. My second wife also worked in GIPH, she also held a high position. We got married in 1965, and in 1967 our son Oleg was born. We did our best to give Oleg everything possible: when he was a boy, I went with him to hockey and figure skating training groups; he studied at a musical school and finished it successfully. We visited puppet theaters, and usually bought season tickets to the Kirov Opera and Ballet theatre. I think we put our souls into him and he grew up a very good person. He does not smoke, does not drink, he has got a good family: 3 children. All his children are girls, therefore I think they will give birth to more and more children, waiting for a boy. Oleg graduated from the Technological College (like me). At present he is a businessman.

Here I’ll get back a little. When Oleg was 16 years old, he had to receive his passport. His patronymic was Izraelevich. I went to the local civilian registry office and asked to change my name Israel for Igor (on account of disharmony). They examined my application very long, but after all they complied with my request. I changed all my documents. Oleg got patronymic Igorevich, but Alexander did not want to. My old friends call me Israel (of course), but I introduce myself to new ones as Igor. I already got accustomed 18.

My both sons studied at school very well, and gave us no troubles.

We lived OK and had many friends, but unfortunately most of them are already not with us.

After my second wife’s death in 2000, I consumed away with grief. And now it is very difficult for me to speak about her. Don't hold it as a grievance against me, but I still cannot speak about her, it still hurts me.

Almost every year we together with children went to the Black Sea to spend summer vacations. We used to rent a room at the same owners. They said that we became more than their relatives.

I always worked much. Besides during my life I had to go through 2 periods of great starvation (I guess the worst ones in the history of mankind): starvation in Ukraine and blockade of Leningrad. Of course they had an effect on my health: I had problems with my gastrointestinal tract. I started treatment in sanatoria 19. At first I went there alone. When I became older, I asked for 2 permits: for me and for my wife. After sanatorium I always felt much better. In addition to it we had got a dacha near Leningrad. Now I sold it: without my wife it was unbearable for me to stay there. I also sold my car: at present I want to go nowhere.

I’d like to tell you about my granddaughters separately. I think that they saved my life. After my second wife’s death I was completely confused, I did not know how to go on living. My son took me to his place, not listening to my objections. When the girls were born, my life gained sense. My heart went out to these children, and they loved me too. During celebration of my 80th anniversary I said that Oleg and his wife took care of me, and my beloved granddaughters made me happy. It’s true!

Here I’d like to tell you about my attitude to events in Hungary in 1956 20 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 21. In fact during the war I was in both countries, and in Czechoslovakia I left a very close friend. We gave up so many lives for liberating of those countries from fascists and I agree with reaction of the USSR to events in those countries. I was often asked about my attitude towards fall of the Berlin Wall. [Berlin wall was erected in 1961 to divide Western part of Berlin from the Eastern one. It was demolished in 1989. It was symbolical that its concrete was used to construct highways of the united Germany.] I’ll tell you the truth though it will sound indecently: I have no respect for the Germans. I think that fascism in Germany is ineradicable. If I were in charge, I would have not pull out our armies from Germany.

As far as Perestroika 22 is concerned, I guess it was not necessary to break communistic system abruptly. I think that we would have come to democracy anyway, but it would help us keep moral, intellectual and other values. I always remember that by the end of the war there was no country in the world stronger than the USSR. We could have occupied the whole Europe easily.

I attend Hesed Center 23 and take part in events they arrange.

Glossary:

Frieda Rudometova
Kherson
Ukraine
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: September 2003

Frieda Rudometova lives in a two-bedroom apartment in a standard 5-storied khrushchovka [1] built in the1960s Kherson. Frieda is a nice looking dark-haired lady with a short haircut. She is wearing a fancy blouse and a skirt. Her apartment is clean. There are flowers on the table and embroideries and copies of pictures on the walls. Frieda invites me for a cup of tea in the kitchen. The kitchen is also shiny clean. During our conversation the hostess gets often distracted: her neighbors or the girls who rent a bigger room from her come by. Frieda explains that she needs some additional earnings to her pension that is too small for her to make ends meet. However, she talks about her problems with a smile and she does not complain.

My farthest ancestor whom I knew was my paternal great grandmother Etl Berliand. I didn’t know her maiden name, though. Since the early 1920s our family has lived in Kiev. I often visited my great granny. Basically, the families of my parents came from Murafa, a small Jewish town in Vinnitsa region, about 300 km from Kiev. I visited Murafa in the middle 1930s and I liked the town. The nearest town to Murafa was Zhmerynka and there are other towns like Murafa in the nearest vicinity. Murafa is on the bank of the river with the same name, very picturesque, with green banks and reeds. Before the revolution of 1917 [2] 70% of the population consisted of poor uneducated Jews. They were craftsmen and had big families. Jews lived in the central part of the town. There was a market in the center where they had their shops and stores. There were tailors, shoemakers, carpenters and glass cutters. My grandmother told me there was a synagogue and cheder in the town, but this was before I went there. The soviet power destroyed [3] all religious buildings in the 1920s. After the Pale of Settlement [4] was canceled the family of my great granny Etl moved to Kiev escaping from never ending pogroms [5]. I don’t know where my great grandmother studied, but now I understand that she was a very educated woman – she read the Torah, Talmud and other books in Hebrew and Russia classics. Only few Jewish women knew Hebrew and could write in Russian. My great grandmother told me about Jewish traditions and religion and explained about the tallit and tefillin. She was too old to go to the synagogue, when I knew her. She was a housewife her whole life. When I remember her, she was about 100 years old, but she kept the apartment ideally clean and always cooked something delicious, when I came to see her: cookies or strudel. She stayed in bed most of the time in the last years of her life, but she had sound mind. My great grandmother died in the late 1920s at the age of 102. She was buried in the Lukianovskoye Jewish cemetery in Kiev according to the Jewish tradition.

My great grandmother had many children – eight, I guess, but I didn’t know them: after getting married they moved to other towns with their spouses. My great grandmother moved to Kiev with her younger daughter, my grandmother Pesia Ladinzon (nee Berliand) and her family. Grandmother Pesia and my great grandmother Etl lived in a small one-bedroom apartment in Krasnoarmeyskaya Street in the very center of Kiev.

My grandfather Yefim Ladinzon, born in Murafa in the 1860s, belonged to the Jewish intelligentsia: he was a pharmacist like his father. He owned a pharmaceutical storage facility supplying medications to the pharmacies of Murafa and other towns. He also owned a pharmacy. I don’t know whether my grandfather had special education or learned the pharmaceutical business from his father, but I know for sure that he was a well-educated Jew. He knew Hebrew and read the ancient religious books: the Torah and Talmud that he always kept with him. My grandmother Pesia, born in the early 1870s, was a housewife and took care of the children. Staying at home was customary with Jewish families before the revolution and some time after. There was one daughter and four sons in the family. The boys got a traditional Jewish education: they studied in cheder and a Jewish elementary school. Later they gave up observing Jewish traditions, but they all had Jewish spouses.

The oldest of the children was Malka, or, Manyusia, as she was affectionately called in the family. She was born around 1890. Malka helped her father in the pharmacy and married her second uncle Pinhus Schneider, who also worked in grandfather Yefim’s pharmacy. After the revolution of 1917 and the Civil War [6] they moved to Sevastopol and worked in a state owned pharmacy. Malka and Pinhus had the only son. His name was Yakov. He was born in Murafa in 1913. There is a common prejudice that children from related spouses are born with physical or mental defects, but Yakov had none. He studied successfully at school, finished the Faculty of Economics of a higher educational institution and worked many years as chief of the department of labor and salary of the Black Sea Fleet. Aunt Malka died in the middle 1960s. She had blood poisoning that resulted in psoriasis. Yakov died in Sevastopol recently at the age of a little under 90.

The next after Malka my father Samuel was born, and his brothers Abram, Grigoriy and Naum followed him 1-2 years one after another. Abram, Jewish Avraam, born in 1896, married the daughter of a rich merchant in Kiev Fane and lived in Kiev where he owned a restaurant before the revolution in 1917. After the revolution and NEP [7] Abram got adjusted to the new regime and gave his property away to the people’s power that appointed him director of the restaurant. Abram had a wife and two children: Lev and Lisa. They were very wealthy. In 1932 there was an audit at his work. This audit discovered some violations, and Abram’s family left Kiev in a rush without telling anybody. Only a year later they wrote us from Leningrad. During the Great Patriotic War [8] Abram, his wife and Lisa evacuated to Samarkand. Continuous dust storms aggravated his chronic lung disease. Abram died in 1943. Lev was recruited to the front in the first days of the war and perished. I had no information about Lisa for many years. Only a year ago I heard that she lives in the USA. I wrote her, but there is no reply.

The next after Abram was Gershl (in the Soviet time he was called Grigoriy), born in 1898, took part in the Civil War and joined the communist party. After the war uncle Grigoriy also moved to Kiev. He was director of a restaurant at one time, then the party organs appointed him director of the first bakery factory. When the Great Patriotic War began he sent away his family – his wife and daughter Musia, while he himself stayed in Kiev at the assignment of the town committee for underground activities. He perished in Kiev few days before the Soviet troops entered the city in 1943, a former bakery employee, a policeman, reported on my uncle seeing him in the street. Grigoriy’s daughter Musia and her family live in Germany.

The youngest was my uncle Naum, born in 1900. He got a higher education finishing Kharkov Polytechnic College. His wife Anna was an obstetrician. When the Great Patriotic War began, Naum was recruited to the army and his wife Anna and their children Ada and Yefim, born few months before the war, evacuated to Kazakhstan. Grandmother Pesia was there with them. Naum perished in Byelorussia at the very beginning of the war. Ada lives in Germany; Yefim lives in Kharkov.

My father Samuel was born in Murafa in 1895. He was named Shloime at birth, but later, before obtaining a Soviet passport he changed his name to Samuel that sounded more familiar to him. Being the oldest son in the family he went to work after finishing the cheder. First he worked as a loader at my grandfather’s storage facility while gradually he studied the pharmaceutical business. My father was subject to military service during WWI, but grandfather Yefim didn’t want his older son to go to the war and paid for him to be released from service. My father grew up in a very religious family. He went to the synagogue with his father and at the age of 13 he had a bar mitzvah. Therefore, when the Civil War began, my father, being a religious man, strongly believed that it was against the human nature, something that his character and education could never agree to. Many other young men including his brother Grigoriy joined the revolutionary activities, but he stayed with his parents. Somehow he met my mother, and I think they met with the help of matchmakers, and they got married in 1918.

As for my mother’s parents, I know even less about them than about my father’s parents. My maternal grandfather Berl Winner was born in the small Jewish town of Krasnoye near Murafa in the 1860s. He got married and the young couple lived with his wife’s parents. Berl had two children in this marriage: Berla, the daughter, lived with her husband in Vinnitsa region. She died in the 1930s. Then a boy was born. He was retarded and suffered from acute schizophrenia. He died before turning 13. Shortly afterward Berla died, too. My grandfather remarried, and his second marriage was more fortunate. In the 1890s he married Feiga, a young girl from Murafa. They had two girls, born one after another. My mother Revekka, was a younger daughter. My mother’s older sister Maria, born in 1899, lived in Kharkov after the revolution. She was director of a kindergarten. I didn’t have any contacts with them and don’t know what happened to her or her son during the Great Patriotic War , Berl was a craftsmen, but I don’t know what exactly he was doing. His family was rather poor: they rented two little rooms. Berl and Feiga raised their girls Jewish. They observed Jewish traditions, followed kashrut, celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays and fasted on Yom Kippur.

My mother Revekka Winner was born in 1900. She helped her mother Feiga about the house before getting married. My mother had no education: my grandfather could not afford to pay for a teacher, but she studied in an elementary Jewish school for a year or two. Revekka was very quiet, even phlegmatic. She was a very tight-lipped person. I am sure that her marriage was prearranged by shadkhanim considering her personality.

My parents got married in 1918. Of course, there was a chuppah at the synagogue, but there was no big wedding party due to the hard times: this was the period of the civil war, when the power switched from one group to another resulting in pogroms. After the wedding the newly weds settled down in grandfather Yefim’s house that was bigger and more comfortable than my mother parents’ apartment.

Here, in the basement of my grandfather’s house I Frieda Ladinzon, was born on 17 June 1919. At this time there were Petlura troops [9], in the town and Jews were hiding away. Our family and few neighbors’ families were hiding in the big basement of my grandfather’s house. My mother’s neighbor Hilia was a midwife for my mother. The woman had many children and was quite capable of helping my mother. In early 1920, when I was a little over six months, my parents, my grandmother and grandfather Ladinzons and my father’s brothers left the house and all their belongings to move for Kiev escaping from continuing pogroms. Actually, by this time the family of my grandfather and father was miserably poor after so many pogroms and robberies.

Uncle Abram lived in Kiev. He was rich and bought a two-bedroom apartment in the center of Kiev in Shota Rustaveli Street for us, and a good big room in an old building in Krasnoarmeyskaya Street. Our family was very poor and if it hadn’t been for my uncle Abram’s support we wouldn’t have survived the famine in the 1920s. My father didn’t have a job. I remember that one time he unloaded buns in the private bakery in the yard of our house. I often came to the bakery and occasionally I got a hot bun – this was a delicacy.

One of my earliest memories was my grandfather Yefim’s death and funeral. He died in January 1924 around the time when Lenin died [10]. I remember my father and his brothers discussing that they could not make arrangements for my grandfather to be buried due to Lenin’s death. My grandfather’s body was lying on the floor wrapped in cerements. I remember my mother and other women sitting on the floor in torn clothes wailing. A rabbi and cantor from the Brodskiy [Brodski family – Russian sugar manufacturers. They started sugar manufacturing business in 1840s. Organized the 1st sugar syndicate in Russia in (1887). Sponsored construction of hospitals and asylums in Kiev and other towns in Russia, including the biggest and most beautiful synagogue in Kiev] synagogue located in Shota Rustaveli Street came to recite the mourning prayer after my grandfather. My grandfather was carried to the cemetery wrapped in cerements. The other children and I stayed at home.

My next memory is the birth of my sister about two months later in 1924. She was named Yelizaveta after our great grandmother – only I don’t remember whether it the grandmother on my mother or father’s side. Everybody called her Lisa. My father had a permanent job at the ‘Tochelectropribor’ (electric devices) plant. My mother was a housewife. After Lisa was born, and her delivery had complications, my mother became weird. She could sit idly staring into one point for hours. She didn’t cook. She happened to suffer from schizophrenia from her teens, but it was kept a secret from my father, but he would have never married her had he known. My mother had to stay in mental hospital for long periods. My father and I visited her on Sundays. She was quiet and looked enlightened when we came to see her in the hospital located on a high hill and it was hard to believe that mother was ill.

My grandmother Pesia took care of us. She either stayed with us or we went to her house to stay there a week or so. We went to the synagogue for women near the Brodskiy synagogue with my grandmother. On Jewish holidays uncle Abram and his family and we went to the Brodskiy synagogue. Uncle Grisha was a communist, and his family did not celebrate Jewish holidays. We often celebrated Sabbath in our grandmother’s home. There was a freshly baked challah, wine and delicious food on the table. Uncle Abram’s family also celebrated Sabbath with us. My great grandm9other Etl lit candles and later my grandmother took over this duty. We celebrated all holidays with my grandmother: I remember fancy crockery on Pesach, my grandmother kept it in a box, delicious potato pancakes on Chanukkah and hamantashen on Purim. We didn’t have any of these at our home because our mother was ill. Our family was much poorer than my father brothers’ families.

Grandfather Berl from Murafa visited us twice, when I was a child. He brought us cottage cheese and sour cream and ‘rooster-shaped’ lolly pops for Lisa and me. He visited us last in 1926. He died a year later.

I went to the Russian school on the fifth floor of a standard apartment house near our houses in 1927. After finishing the third form we were taken to a big school in Vladimirskaya Street. There were many Jewish children in my class. I had Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish friends. We got along well and I never heard ay abusive words against Jews from my classmates. The teachers also made no segregation among us. As for me, they were particularly sympathetic. During the famine in Ukraine in the early 1930s [11] our family was probably in a more miserable situation than the others. In summer 1932 my father moved to his sister in Balaklava (a town near Sevastopol). He explained that he wanted to find a good job there to support us better, but when I grew up I realized that just left my mother; he got tired of her disease, fault-finding and of the misery of life. He probably intended to support us, but he couldn’t find a decent job there. My mother, during intervals between attacks of her disease and her retirement to the hospital worked in a cafeteria washing dishes and peeling potatoes and vegetables. We probably wouldn’t have survived the hungry years, if it hadn’t been for my father brothers’ support. I often ran to uncle Grisha’s beautiful 3-storied house in Kreschatik Street [Kreschatik is the main street of Kiev]. They always had a good dinner at home. Uncle Abram sent us dried brown crust that my mother soaked in water for us. Our everyday food on these days was plum jam made from the plums that I picked from trees in summer and soup with a bit of flour.

It was hard for my mother to raise the two of us and I went to live with grandmother Pesia. I liked it more with my grandmother, she was very kind to me. I remember that she took some spoons to the torgsin store [12] to buy me food. Once she bought me a fancy red beret that was in fashion then. My grandmother also cooked for my mother and Lisa and I took the food to them. We exchanged our two-bedroom apartment for a room in Krasnoarmeyskaya Street near where grandmother lived.

Despite difficult circumstances, I was a cheerful and pretty girl. I studied well at school and took an active part in Pioneer and Komsomol [13] activities: I mainly helped those who had problems with their studies. I also participated in preparations to the school meetings dedicated to anniversaries of the October revolution and 1 May. I liked going to parades with my classmates. We didn’t celebrate revolutionary holidays at my grandmother’s home, but I knew all Jewish holidays. She celebrated Sabbath and this was sacred for her, and other holidays, and I went to the synagogue with her. However, sometimes I became naughty and brought home the pork sausage that my friends treated me to. My grandmother got angry with me and I laughed.

I finished my 7th form in 1935. I could continue my studies, but I knew I had to go to work to support my mother. My grandmother’s neighbor working in the security of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR, took me there to get an employment. I talked with Satin, a Jew, who was business manager. I worked as a courier and then went to the school in the Central Committee. I completed my secondary education. When they asked me what profession I wanted to study I almost pronounced that I wanted to be a cook. I was always hungry and my strongest desire was to eat my fill, but I was ashamed to say it and said that I wanted to be a telephone operator. I finished a course of few months and began to work as a telephone operator in the communications department of the central committee. These were the happiest years in my life. I knew all party leaders: Kosior [14], Postyshev [Pavel Postyshev (1887-1939), political activist. In 1926 he became secretary of the Central committee of the Communist party (of Bolsheviks) of Ukraine. In 1930-1933 secretary of the Central committee of the Communist party (of Bolsheviks), 1933 2nd secretary of the Central committee of the Communist party of Ukraine. Arrested in 1934-38. Rehabilitated posthumously], and I knew the voice of Stalin: I connected him through the governmental communication equipment. They were great people and they treated me, a poor Jewish girl so well giving me an opportunity to study. I received food coupons, garment and shoe coupons. I gained some weight, grew prettier and made many friends. My close friend Lenochka, the daughter of a frontier colonel, and I often went to walk on the Dnieper slopes where there was a brass orchestra playing. I loved dancing and often went to the dancing ground. The horrific 1930s [15] were on their way. I never thought why the boards on the party boss’ offices were often replaced and the people working in them disappeared to be later declared ‘enemies of the people’ [16]. Kosior and Postyshev disappeared, and so did humble human resource manager Satin and many others. Once I asked Lena’s father about it, and he advised me to never ask these questions, so I didn’t. I was young and didn’t want to think negative: we believed in communist ideas and credibility of everything happening in our great country.

In 1936 I had my first vacation. I took half of it: in May I went to my hometown of Murafa – I felt like visiting the town where I was born. My grandmother Feiga, whom I had never seen before, lived in Murafa. I plunged into the Jewish way of life that still existed in the town. We went to the synagogue, celebrated Sabbath according to all rules, went to the cemetery where grandfather Berl was buried. I was young and wanted to go to the new club to dance. There was an amateur orchestra playing: two Jewish violinists, a pianist and a drummer. The public also danced tango and waltz that had recently become in fashion. However, when they played Jewish music, everybody joined in dancing: freilakh in the circle and other dances. I met my distant relatives: uncle Grigoriy wife’s sister and her children, and we became friends. They all perished in Murafa during the Great Patriotic War. As for my grandmother Feiga, I saw her for the first and the last time in my life. She died in 1939.

That same summer I visited my father in Balaklava where he lived in a small room in the basement. When we met, we both cried: I forgave my father for having left us. He was not happy. He worked as a night man: he never managed to get a job in a pharmacy by his specialty. I spent two weeks with my father. I never saw him again: he was arrested in 1937. Even night men could be declared enemies of the people or spies at the time for a joke told at the wrong time and at the wrong place. This happened to my father. My father was taken to a camp in Komi ASSR. My grandmother Pesia wrote him letters, but I was afraid of corresponding with him, and asked her to not even mention anything about me. I understood that I would be fired if this happened. My father started work at the wood cutting ground, but later he was transferred to the pharmacy in the camp. In 1938 my grandmother went to visit uncle Abram in Leningrad, but then she stayed to live there. From there she sent my father my photograph in 1940. I was immediately invited to the human resource office where they offered me to resign. They never explained for what reason, but it was clear that it happened because of my father. What was surprising was that I had worked three years before they disclosed this information about my father: a daughter of an enemy of the people could not be allowed to work in party organs. My father died in 1940. My grandmother and I got to know this after the Great Patriotic War, when my father was rehabilitated posthumously in the 1950s.

I went to work as a telephone operator at the shipyard and repair shop ‘Leninskaya Kuznia’. My mother often went to hospital. My sister Lisa went to work at the registry office in a big polyclinic after finishing the 7th form. Lisa’s dream was to become a doctor or at least, a medical nurse.

I lived in my grandmother’s room, but I often went to visit my mother and sister. Life was gradually improving: Lisa and I earned our salaries and my mother didn’t have to peel potatoes to earn her living. On 22 June 1941 the Great Patriotic War began. Kiev was bombed on the very first day. We woke up hearing a distant roar, but it could never occur to us that these could be fascist aircraft. In the afternoon Molotov [17] spoke on the radio about the treacherous attack of Hitler armies. It was a complete surprise for me. In early July 1941 the shipyard where I was working began to prepare for evacuation: its equipment was shipped to Zelenodolsk Tatar ASSR by train. The management and engineering staff also went by this train, but there was no organized evacuation of workers or such common employees as I was. Basically, nobody ever mentioned that Jews were to evacuate in the first turn. The district Komsomol committee sent my sister Lisa to dig trenches in the Western area.

I continued going to work, helping to load the equipment and being on duty at the telephone station of the plant. In middle August, before the last train with employees was to depart, my boss, a Jew, said to me: ‘If you want to leave the town, run home to pick your documents and come back – the train is leaving soon’. I rushed home. I only had time to grab my passport, my Komsomol membership card and a change of underwear and clothing. This was all I had with me: no warm winter clothes or bed sheets. I didn’t go to see my mother: I could not take her with me and I didn’t have time to say ‘good byes’. Besides, like everybody else, I thought we would be back in two months’ time. As for me sister, she wasn’t at home: she was at the digging of trenches.

I ran back to the railway station and boarded the train. It was a freight train and we slept on plank beds. When the train was crossing the Dnieper over the railroad bridge, it was bombed for the first time. It was stupid, but I got so scared that I climbed under the plank bed. The train often stopped to let the troops going in the western direction pass. There was a fierce bombing near Bahmach. Half of the train was destroyed and we had to wait for a replacement of the damaged railcars. I met my distant relatives in Bahmach: Musia, uncle Grigoriy’s daughter. She told me she was evacuating with her mother, and her father stayed in Kiev. Few minutes late I met Zhenia Kligman, my grandmother’s cousin sister, with her family. They were surprised that I managed to leave Kiev, but neither Musia nor Zhenia offered me to join them. All other plant employees were with their families, but nobody suggested that I took my family with me. I felt bitter and hurt. Besides, I didn’t even have food with me. The other shared their food with me, however. My boss whose name I don’t remember regretfully, and his wife Sonia were particularly kind to me. They had no children and they cared about me. We occasionally had soup and porridge at bigger stations and at times we only managed to get some boiled water and some junk food.

In about 3 weeks we arrived at the point of destination: Zelenodolsk town, 2000 kilometers from home. Zelenodolsk was a small town on the steep bank of the Volga in about 40 km from Kazan, the capital of Tataria. I was accommodated in a dormitory where thanks to my boss’ arrangements, I could have a little 6-square meter room for myself, and went to work as a telephone operator. There was a bed, a table and chair in my room where I stayed till 1943. However hard yeas these were I recall them with warmth. Firstly, this was my youth. Secondly, through all these years the Soviet people were united with their common trouble. People were kind to one another and treated me well. We worked 3 shifts, and at pressing moments I went to work as a worker and I did it believing that it was my duty to work where required. I also had a big workload at my place receiving telephone messages from the center, making reports of work completed and connecting bosses with the Kremlin since our plant worked for the front. Of course, life was hard, but I was used to hunger and endured it easier than those having a good life and plenty of food before the war. I had many friends and there were Jews among them. I was particularly close with Sonia and her husband. They tried to celebrate Jewish holidays even in the evacuation. They fasted on Yom Kippur and celebrated Pesach. They always invited me to join them on holidays. Though I was not religious, I began to fast on Yom Kippur. By this time we already knew about fascist atrocities against Jews and about Babi Yar [18]. I knew that my mother and sister perished most likely. I wrote them many times, but never got their response. Of course, I blamed myself that I didn’t say good bye or take them with me, but what could I do? It was a miracle that I managed to leave. Well, what do I say? I was young and my friends and I often went to the club and cinema and dancing.

On 2 May 1943 my friend and I went to dance at the plywood factory club. I put on my new dress made from the cut of fabric that the trade union department gave me as a gif. A tall slim sailor invited me to a dance. We met: his name was Pyotr Rudometov. We dated few months and he proposed to me on 6 November 1943. This was a double holiday for me: our army liberated Kiev and also Pyotr and I entered the local registry office at 5 o’clock before it’s closure. The registry clerk was hurrying home and didn’t want to register our marriage, but Pyotr convinced her to do it telling her that on this day Kiev, the town of his beloved girl, was liberated. We got married and celebrated the wedding in the dormitory.

My husband Pyotr Rudometov, Russian, was born in Kharkov in 1918. His parents lived there. Pyotr’s father perished during the Civil War and his mother and little Pyotr moved to Arudovo village near Kalinin where she came from. After finishing school Pyotr entered a Navy school in Leningrad. When the Great Patriotic War began, Pyotr was sent to a short-term course in Batumi and then – to the ‘Stremitelniy’ cruiser ship. Pyotr was wounded and sell-shocked near Sevastopol. After recovery he was sent to serve on ‘Ohotnik’, a small boat in the rear Navy unit in Zelenodolsk. Shortly after we got married Pyotr was sent to Batumi and our wanderings began. In 1944 Pyotr was sent to Poti where I met aunt Manyusia, who was in evacuation there. In a month or two Pyotr was sent to serve in Kronshtadt. I was pregnant. Our trip lasted about three months. I started labor when we were approaching Kronshtadt. The medical nurse of the crew got scared. He said he had just finished his medical school and had no idea of deliveries. The wife of commanding officer tended to me, when my first girl was born. I had mastitis and puerperal fever, and other sailors tore beds sheets to make bandages. In Kronshtadt we were taken to hospital. I recovered, but my girl Luda died. The personnel bathed her in cold water and the girl died from pneumonia. My second baby was born in Arudovo village where my husband’s mother lived, in December 1945. I named the girl Lisa after my sister. Pyotr was serving in our army in Germany at this time. I need to say that Pyotr was very good to me. My nationality didn’t matter to him. His mother also loved me. I tended to her better than her own daughters, but Pyotr’s older sisters Vera and Tania, in particular, continuously wrote him letters trying to convince him to part with the ‘zhydovka’ [kike], setting him against me. Pyotr came to take me with him and I was beside him ever since. Pyotr served in Liepaja, Latvia, 15 years. Our daughter Nathalia was born there in 1951, and in 1956 our son Sergei was born. We had a good life. My husband supported the family. I also worked as a telephone operator few years. The anti-Semitic campaigns of the late 1940s [19] had no impact on me; firstly because I was at home and secondly, because nobody ever asked me about my nationality while I had my husband’s Russian surname. Latvia was like a foreign country for the rest of the USSR. There were many goods quite inaccessible in other towns. And Pyotr’s sisters took to liking me all of a sudden. I sent them nice clothes. Upon demobilization Pyotr’s older sister Tania living in Kherson invited us there. She wrote about nice climate and plenty of fruit, and after demobilization we moved to Kherson.

I visited Kiev, my hometown, in 1948. Our neighbors told me that my mother was taken to Babi Yar on the 2nd or 3rd day of shootings: the janitor gave her away. Sister Lisa hid at her friend’s for few days, but then she went home to find out about her mother, and the same janitor reported on her. Lisa perished in Babi Yar in early October. They also told me about the tragic death of uncle Grigoriy: the loader who recognized him in the street reported on him in early November 1943, few days before Kiev was liberated. Grigoriy was also executed. For many years I used to visit Kiev almost every year to go to Babi Yar where my dear ones were lying, I went to Kreschatik and Shota Rustaveli Street where we lied. I still believe Kiev to be my home town. I am so happy that the Brodskiy synagogue where my grandmother and I used to go has been reconstructed and is a center of the Jewish life in Kiev.

Now about my grandmother Pesia. After the war she lived with aunt Manyusia in Sevastopol. I visited her several times. Sometimes I went to see her with my children. I felt myself Jewish in my grandmother’s house recalling Jewish traditions and customs. I could not celebrate holidays or observe Jewish traditions at my home: my husband Pyotr was a military man and a party member. With all his love to me he would not have allowed this. Grandmother Pesia died in the early 1960s at the age of over 90.

After we moved to Kherson my husband sailed on civilian boats for 11 years and later he worked at a factory. I stayed at home. Then my husband had a stroke and he was bedridden and couldn’t move for 3 years. Pyotr died in 1990, 3 years before our ‘golden wedding’ anniversary. Since then I’ve been alone.

My daughters have Russian spouses. My older daughter Yelizaveta Zakurakina finished the Pharmaceutical Faculty in Kherson. She has worked as a pharmacists in Chermon for 3 years. Her daughter Ludmila named after my first daughter finished a college, worked as a teacher at school, and now she works for a commercial company. My second grandson, Yelizaveta’s son Alexei, also works for this company.

Nathalia finished a Trade School and works in a big shopping center. Her marriage to Titkov failed. Her son Andrei from her first marriage died of sarcoma, her husband took to drinking and they divorced. Now she is married for the second time. Her surname is Harlova. Her daughter Tatiana finished a college and also works for a commercial company. She is single.

My youngest is my poor son, I don’t feel like recalling him. He is a finished alcoholic. He lives with his mistress and they both drank away everything he had at home. He has tuberculosis and on top of it all he broke his femoral neck bone and he is bedridden. He lives in terrible conditions and misery.

My husband died at the time of revival of the Jewish life in Ukraine and Kherson. I began to socialize with Jews, go to the synagogue. I observe Jewish traditions and light a candle on Sabbath. I’ve got new friends among the clients and employees of the Hesed in Kherson. I attend the Day Center in Hesed every week. I get to know about the Jewish history, culture and about Israel. After a recent surgery I have problems with my right hand, and a visiting nurse from the Hesed helps me around. While my husband was working, I had a good life. I only traveled to Kiev or Sevastopol to visit grandmother, but I couldn’t afford a vacation on the seashore or a health center. After perestroika [20], I receive a small pension for my husband since I hadn’t worked enough to have my own pension. I also lease one room to students. My daughters are well provided for, but they need to support their children. I like today’s living, when Jews have opportunities to live community life and they are not ashamed of their nationality and do not fear to hear the word ‘zhydovka’ like I did. My granddaughter Tatiana studied in Israel under an educational program. She likes this country and is eager to go there. She and Nathalia go to the synagogue on holidays. Therefore, the perestroika is good, for it supported restoration of the Jewry in the country and in my family.

GLOSSARY:

[1] Khrushchovka: Five-storied apartment buildings with small one, two or three-bedroom apartments, named after Nikita Khrushchev, head of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death. These apartment buildings were constructed in the framework of Khrushchev’s program of cheap dwelling in the new neighborhood of most Soviet cities.

[2] Russian Revolution of 1917: Revolution in which the tsarist regime was overthrown in the Russian Empire and, under Lenin, was replaced by the Bolshevik rule. The two phases of the Revolution were: February Revolution, which came about due to food and fuel shortages during World War I, and during which the tsar abdicated and a provisional government took over. The second phase took place in the form of a coup led by Lenin in October/November (October Revolution) and saw the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

[3] Struggle against religion: The 1930s was a time of anti-religion struggle in the USSR. In those years it was not safe to go to synagogue or to church. Places of worship, statues of saints, etc. were removed; rabbis, Orthodox and Roman Catholic priests disappeared behind KGB walls.

[4] Jewish Pale of Settlement: Certain provinces in the Russian Empire were designated for permanent Jewish residence and the Jewish population was only allowed to live in these areas. The Pale was first established by a decree by Catherine II in 1791. The regulation was in force until the Russian Revolution of 1917, although the limits of the Pale were modified several times. The Pale stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and 94% of the total Jewish population of Russia, almost 5 million people, lived there. The overwhelming majority of the Jews lived in the towns and shtetls of the Pale. Certain privileged groups of Jews, such as certain merchants, university graduates and craftsmen working in certain branches, were granted to live outside the borders of the Pale of Settlement permanently.

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

[6] 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.

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

[8] Great Patriotic War: On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

[9] 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.

[10] Lenin (1870-1924): Pseudonym of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the Russian Communist leader. A profound student of Marxism, and a revolutionary in the 1890s. He became the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Party, whom he led to power in the coup d’état of 25th October 1917. Lenin became head of the Soviet state and retained this post until his death.

[11] Famine in Ukraine: In 1920 a deliberate famine was introduced in the Ukraine causing the death of millions of people. It was arranged in order to suppress those protesting peasants who did not want to join the collective farms. There was another dreadful deliberate famine in 1930-1934 in the Ukraine. The authorities took away the last food products from the peasants. People were dying in the streets, whole villages became deserted. The authorities arranged this specifically to suppress the rebellious peasants who did not want to accept Soviet power and join collective farms.

[12] 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.

[13] 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.

[14] Kossior, Stanislav (1889-1938): One of the founders of the Communist Party in Ukraine and General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1928-1938. He was arrested in the course of The Great Purges of 1936-38, known popularly as the Yezhovshchina (after NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov who conducted them), and executed.

[15] 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.

[16] Enemy of the people: Soviet official term; euphemism used for real or assumed political opposition.

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

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

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

[20] Perestroika (Russian for restructuring): Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s, associated with the name of Soviet politician Mikhail Gorbachev. The term designated the attempts to transform the stagnant, inefficient command economy of the Soviet Union into a decentralized, market-oriented economy. Industrial managers and local government and party officials were granted greater autonomy, and open elections were introduced in an attempt to democratize the Communist Party organization. By 1991, perestroika was declining and was soon eclipsed by the dissolution of the USSR.

Rimma Leibert
Ternopol
Ukraine
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: September 2003

Rimma Leibert met me at the railway station in Ternopol where I arrived from Kiev. She came there with a group of ladies, activists of the Jewish community of the town. They were to help me find those who would agree to give me an interview. Rimma is a short round and very sweet lady radiating warmth and kindness. She showed me her family photos. She asked me whether I could interview her – though is relatively young, she said she wanted to have the history of her family written.  Rimma really did make an effort to convince me. Her only request was to not do it at her home – for some reason she didn’t feel comfortable about it. We had a meeting in the Ternopol hotel where I was staying. 

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

My maternal great grandfather Zalman Blumenzweig, an outstanding strong redhead man, was a loader in the Odessa 1 dock. My great grandfather was very religious. He prayed every morning, went to the synagogue, though it didn’t keep him from using ‘juicy’ jargon of Odessa dockers. He had three sons: I don’t know the name of the oldest one, the middle son’s name was Haim and the youngest son was my grandfather Abram. They went to cheder and this was all education they got. The two older sons followed into their father’s steps working as loaders in the dock. I don’t know anything about the life of my grandfather’s older brother – he must have died before the revolution of 1917 2. As for Haim, he lived as long as the beginning of the Great Patriotic War 3. He, his son, daughter-in-law and his little grandson Monia perished during the German massacre of the Jews of Odessa in 1941.

My grandfather Abram, born in 1880, went to study vocation after finishing cheder. He became an apprentice of a blacksmith. Grandfather Abram was also a big strong man and did well in his vocation. Abram married Riva, a Jewish girl, and this is all I know about my grandmother. After the wedding the newly weds moved to Kerch town in the Crimea, in the east of the Crimean peninsula, where my grandmother’s distant relatives lived. This town recently celebrated the 2600th anniversary of its foundation. It was founded by ancient Greeks and was called Panticapea. There was a big fish and trade dock in Kerch. The population dealt in fishing and fish industries. The population was Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, Turkish, Crimean Tatar, Karaim and Jewish, of course. The Krymchaks and Karaims belonged to the Judaic faith like Jews. There were Christian churches, a Muslim mosque, six synagogues, a Karaim kinasa and a Krymchak synagogue in Kerch. There was a Jewish school for boys and girls in the town. The biggest synagogue was attended by Jewish doctors, lawyers and wealthy merchants. There were two synagogues for the military: there was a garrison in Kerch. One was for officers and another one – for soldiers. There was a craftsmen’s synagogue and two smaller synagogues. My grandfather Abram went to the craftsmen’s synagogue on Friday, Saturday and Jewish holidays. On weekdays he prayed at home with his tallit and tefillin on starting his days with a prayer. Grandmother Riva was also very religious. She was a housewife, as Jewish traditions required.

According to what my mother and older sister told me, my grandfather lived in a small house whitewashed from the outside in the suburb of the town near the seashore. In the evenings my grandfather went fishing to provide additional food for the family. My grandparents kept chickens and even a cow at one time. However, later, when the children grew older, they had to sell the cow. It was hard to get cow food in this steppe part of the Crimea where there was little grass.  After my grandmother Riva died my grandfather remarried. My grandfather earned his living by making iron beds. He even made me one, when I was a child. My grandparents were poor and my grandfather could earn as much as was necessary to survive. My grandmother Riva was a kind woman. My mother’s early childhood was fair and happy. My mother told me she liked helping her father in the forge. On Friday my grandmother cleaned the house for Sabbath and cooked dinner leaving it in the stove till Saturday. There was plenty of fruit, watermelons and melons in the south. My grandparents grew grapes and had their own wine for adults and juice for the children on the Sabbath table. In 1920, during the Civil War 4, the time of devastation and epidemics, my grandmother Riva contracted cholera from her neighbors, whom she was trying to help, and died within few days leaving five children behind.

Grandfather Abram remarried, but his second wife, whose name I don’t remember since my mother didn’t even want a mention of her, happened to be a poor replacement of the mother of the children. My mother’s older sister Lusia, born in1903, got married and moved to live with her husband. Her husband Yefim Tsyrulnik, a Jew, worked at the mill. In the early 1930s he became chief engineer. Lusia had three children: sons Mikhail and Ruvim and Alla, the youngest, born in 1938. When the Great Patriotic War began, Lusia’s family decided to evacuate, but since Yefim was busy with supporting evacuation of other employees, they failed to leave.  Kerch was invaded from the sea and the power in it switched from one side to another several times. Many Jews failed to leave Kerch. Grandfather Abram and his wife also stayed in Kerch.  They were killed during the first anti-Jewish action. During the second action the Tsyrulnik family was killed. According to what our neighbor, whom my mother met with after the war, said, Galifa, a Tatar woman reported on them to Germans. They were neighbors and Lusia and her husband had helped her a lot before the war. Galifa had many children, and my aunt gave her children’s clothes and supported her with money before the war. 

My mother’s brother Boris, born in 1905, finished a rabfak 5 and entered Odessa Polytechnic College. He became an engineer. He lived in Odessa with his wife Polia, a Jew, and their daughter Bella. Boris was recruited to the army and perished near Sevastopol in 1941. Polia and Bella were in evacuation. Polia never remarried. She died in the early 1990s in Odessa. Her daughter Bella and her family live in Australia. I have no contacts with her. 

My mother’s sister Ola (Jewish Golda), born in 1910, my mother Reizl, born in 1912, and the youngest Tsylia, born in 1915, had the hardest life with their stepmother. Actually, I don’t know what was so bad about this woman. Perhaps, she just failed to win the girls’ love. My mother didn’t like her whatsoever. My grandfather’s brother Haim came to Kerch to take my mother to Odessa, when she was 14. This happened before she finished the 7th form at school.  Ola stayed in Kerch. In the late 1920s she married Adolph Vakerman, a Jewish man from Odessa, and moved to Odessa. In the late 1930s Ola’s daughter Galina was born. Tsylia never got married and lived with Ola’s family.

Haim’s family lived in two little rooms near the dock in Odessa. However, Haim’s wife welcomed Reizl, Haim’s niece, warmly and never caused my mother’s any discomfort about her living with them. Thus, my mother understood that it was hard for them to support her. Shortly after ward she went to work at the food preserve factory where she worked few years. Then she went to the cable factory. Having no education my mother worked as a laborer at both factories. In Haim’s family my mother slept in a folding bed in the corridor. She gave her earning to Haim. She made friends in Odessa and they went to dancing parties, to the cinema and theater. When obtaining the passport, my mother changed her name to Rosa, a more convenient name at the time. My mother got fond of communist ideas like many young people of her time. She joined Komsomol 6 and started a new life. In Haim’s family Jewish traditions were still strong. They celebrated Jewish holidays, bought matzah on Pesach and conducted seder. However, things were changing. Haim worked in a dockers’ crew on Saturdays and could not celebrate Sabbath any longer. When famine began in Ukraine 7 they gave up kashrut eating whatever they could get to survive. 

My mother was an active Komsomol member. On weekends she traveled to villages with a group of other activists to propagate kolkhozes 8. These groups arranged meetings and made concerts singing revolutionary songs, reciting poems for the communist regime. For her activities my mother was awarded a stay in a recreation center in Odessa in 1932. That was where she met my father, who was there on vacation.

I don’t know anything about my father Boris Leibert’s parents. All I know is that my grandfather’s name was Iosif. They said my father, his brothers and sister grew up in a children’s home in Odessa.  My father didn’t tell me anything about it. My mother mentioned once that grandfather Iosif was a craftsman. I don’t know how the children happened to grow up in the children’s home.  Aron, born in 1903, was the oldest in the family. The next was Sima, born in 1905. My father Boris was born in 1907, and Mikhail, the youngest, was born in 1911. I don’t know my father brothers or sister’s Jewish names. I give their names as I heard them from my mother. It goes without saying that these children did not get any Jewish education.  I don’t know whether the boys finished cheder since I don’t know at what age they became orphans. After the children’s home they went to the army, finished military schools and became professional military. They were members of the Communist Party and were far from religion.  This was the best way possible for the poor and orphaned: they were provided meals and uniforms in the army. Besides, they had a place to leave since after the children’s home those children hardly ever had a place to go to. So, the army came to my father and his brothers’ rescue. 

My father’s brother Aron finished a political military school in Leningrad and stayed to serve there. He also finished the Military Academy. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War he was a colonel and lectured at the Academy. His wife Sonia, a Jew, came from the town of Mirgorod in Ukraine. They had two daughters: Lidia and Rita, born in the middle of the 1930s. They have a prewar photo where the girls were photographed with their friends. In early June1941 Sonia and the girls went to Mirgorod to visit Sonia’s parents. When the war began, they failed to evacuate and perished in Mirgorod. They and Sonia’s parents were killed by fascists. Aron went to the front on the first days of the war. He was commander of a regiment. He perished near Kharkov in 1941. He didn’t know what happened to his family. He was probably hoping they had survived.

My father’s younger brother Mikhail also became a military. He was at the front during the Great Patriotic War. After the war he settled down in Ufa, Bashkiria (today Russian Federation), where his wife, son and daughter, born in 1941, were in evacuation. I know that my mother corresponded with uncle Mikhail, but I never saw him. I don’t remember my cousin brother or sister’s names. Uncle Mikhail died in the middle of the 1990s. I have no contacts with his children.

Sima, my father’s sister, her husband and daughter lived in Odessa. I don’t remember her husband’s name. I know that he was a barber and earned well. Aunt Sima never had to go to work. In 1937 her daughter Nora was born. During the war Sima and her daughter were in evacuation some place in the Ural. After the war they returned to Odessa. Aunt Sima died about 20 years ago. Her daughter Nora and her children live in Israel. 

My father Boris Leibert finished a political military school and served in Tbilisi, Georgia, where he was chief of political department of the garrison in Tbilisi. In 1932 he went to a military recreation house in Odessa. He met my mother and proposed to her almost two weeks after they met. My mother returned my father’s feelings. They went to grandfather Abram in Kerch where they had a small wedding. They registered their marriage in a registry office in Kerch.  My father didn’t even want to hear about any Jewish wedding or traditions: he was a convinced communist.  After the wedding my father and mother went to Tbilisi where my father was on service. 

They lived in a good two-bedroom apartment in the apartment building for officers near the center of the town. My mother fell in love with Tbilisi, one of the most beautiful towns in the world, a warm hospitable town, with the beautiful thoroughfare of Shota Rustaveli, the Mtazminda Mountain dominating over the city and the narrow streets running down with two-storied houses in them, the laundry lines running across the streets. It was a multinational city. The population was Georgian, Armenian, Russian, Greek, Turkish and Jewish. There were Christian churches – Georgians are Christian, and Armenian Gregorian churches. There was a Jewish community in the city, but they led a very isolated life. My mother didn’t have any Jewish acquaintances in Tbilisi. She socialized with other officers’ wives and there were no Jewish women among them. My mother took an active part in public activities and was continuously elected to the women’s council [editor’s note: Women’s councils - departments, included in Party organs at the direction of the party Central Committee in 1918. Their members were women activists and their tasks included ideological work with women industrial employees and peasants with the aim of their socialist education. Reorganized in 1929] of the military unit.

In 1934 my sister Maya was born named after the 1 May holiday. She likes recalling her childhood in Tbilisi. She had many friends. My parents’ friends often got together in our house. They celebrated Soviet holidays – the October Revolution Day 9, 1 May [‘International Day of Workers’ Solidarity’, now Labor Day]. My sister told me that they sang Soviet songs and danced waltz – the room was big enough for them to dance. Since my father was a military and a convinced communist he didn’t want a mention of Jewish holidays or traditions. He believed them to be the vestige of the past. My mother also adopted communist ideas and had no urge for Jewish traditions.

In 1939 my mother and sister went to Kerch for the summer. My sister often told me how she was struck by the Jewish life and the traditions that my grandfather and his wife led and observed. There were no bigger Jewish holidays in summer, but she enjoyed Sabbath, delicious challot that my grandfather’s wife baked, the ceremony of blessing the bread, wine and lighting candles.   My mother said that after they returned to Tbilisi my sister cried and asked our father to allow us celebrate Sabbath at home, but he just laughed waving his daughter away.

Growing up

I was born on 27 October 1939. Even my name reflects the contradictions that existed in the family. My mother wanted to name me Riva after her mother, but my father was dead against this Jewish name. The only thing my mother managed to beg from him was to leave the first letter of my grandmother’s name: the letter R. They named me Rema – an acronym of ‘revolution’ and ‘Marxism’. This name was put down in my birth certificate. At home, though I was called Rimma and I only heard the name of Rema for the first time, when it was time for me to obtain a passport. It was then that I changed my official name of Rema to Rimma.

I don’t remember about my childhood years in Tbilisi before the war, naturally. In summer 1941 our parents were planning to take my sister and me to our grandfather in Kerch. As for them, they wanted to visit my father’s brother Aron in Leningrad. My father had train tickets to Kerch for 21 June, but he had some things to do at work and returned the tickets. On 22 June 1941 the Great Patriotic War began.

During the war

However little I was I remember how my father went to the front. Of course, these are dim memories. I remember us all going to the railway station in a car. Many people came to see my father off. My mother and I stayed in Tbilisi. My mother went to work at the army headquarters. She didn’t know anything about grandfather Abram, his family or her older sister Lusia. There were no letters from them and my mother realized that they either decided to stay in Kerch or failed to evacuate. We lived in Tbilisi during the wartime. My mother received cards [the card system was introduced to directly regulate food supplies to the population by food and industrial product rates. During and after the Great Patriotic War there were cards for workers, non-manual employees and dependents in the USSR. The biggest rates were on workers’ cards: 400 grams of bread per day] for my father who was at the front for herself and two children. I don’t know how she managed to get food for us, but I don’t remember being starved. I remember the market in Tbilisi where my mother often took me. I remember Georgian vendor women giving my mother discounts seeing her with two children. They gave me fruit and put more in my pockets. So I remember how kind these people were. I remember the feeling of shared disaster and sympathy. In 1942 there were air raids in Tbilisi and we had to go to bomb shelters. I even remember a plane with two fuselages flying over our yard. Before running to the bomb shelter my mother used to take the laundry off the line and we were helping her. Often after work my mother went to help in the hospital in half hour drive from our house. My mother spent most time away from home. My sister looked after me and gave me food. Every now and then a neighbor would have come by to see whether everything was all right with us. Sometimes my sister and I took an old tram to go to the hospital. We recited poems and sang songs to patients. The wounded military laughed and looked happy. They gave us chocolate. This chocolate was so very delicious that I still seem to feel the taste of it on my lips.

My mother often wrote my father. I contoured my hand on a sheet of paper and put it in the envelop. My mother also corresponded with her sisters: Ola, her daughter Lidia and Tsylia were in evacuation in Kazakhstan. In 1942 Ola’s husband Adolph Vakerman disappeared. My father, hearing about it, wrote Ola a letter stating that he would take care of Ola and her daughter and promised to take them to live with us after he returned from the front, but my father never returned. He perished during the liberation of Western Ukraine on 16 August 1944. I remember my mother turning into stone, when she received the death notification holding it in her hand.  We were assigned to receive a little pension for our father.

In early 1945 the military unit where my mother was working in the headquarters, relocated to Western Ukraine. My mother decided to move with them.  She didn’t want to stay back. So we arrived in Lvov in January 1945 in a military train. My mother went to work in the officer’s restaurant. There were many vacant apartments in Lvov and my mother received a posh two-bedroom apartment in the center of Lvov. There were furniture and household utensils in it. Its owners must have perished in the ghetto. My mother understood that they were Jews, when she saw a silver ritual dish for Pesach in the apartment. My mother sent an invitation letter to her sisters in Kazakhstan, and in autumn 1945 Ola, her daughter and Tsylia joined us. We lived together in our apartment. My mother brought food leftovers from her work, so we tried to manage through those hard postwar years.

After the war

Once a military man came to the restaurant where my mother was working. He liked my mother and began to come there more often. So my mother met Boris Evenchik, who fell in love with her and proposed to my mother. My mother invited him to our home. He spent this evening with us and told us his story. Boris Evenchik was born to a common Jewish family in Minsk. His older brother’s name was Iosif and his sister’s name was Hana. Boris’ mother died in the early 1920s and Boris went to work at an early age. He got fond of playing the tuba at the house of pioneers, when he was a child. Later he learned to play other musical instruments. He turned out to have a talent for music and entered a military music school. After finishing it he became a military conductor. Before the Great Patriotic War Boris, his wife Sonia and their daughters Maya and Lilia lived in Minsk. Boris was conductor of the military orchestra of Byelorussia. On the first days of the war Boris’ military unit relocated to the frontline area. I don’t know how it happened that his family failed to evacuate. I know that his wife, their two daughters, Iosif, his wife and two children, Hana, her husband and their three children perished during the first actions in Minsk.  Boris was at the front through the whole period of the war. He was in Prague, when the war ended.   He was awarded an order of Lenin 10, Combat Red Banner 11 and Red Star 12, and had numerous medals. When he returned to Minsk, he found the ashes of his home: a bomb hit the house directly. His friends Yakov and his wife Maria, who were in Minsk during the occupation, told him about the tragedy of his wife, children and relatives. Boris had a hard time telling us his story, but he wanted to tell us all about his background. Mama and Boris got married soon and he moved into our apartment.

What do I say – Boris charmed me at once. It probably happened because I was growing without my father and I must have missed him a lot. I began to call my stepfather ‘papa’ almost at once and I never ever regretted this. He loved me as his own daughter and spoiled me even more than he probably would have spoiled his own daughter. But Maya did not accept the new father. She was older than me. She remembered and loved papa. She was even childishly cruel to mama reminding her of how she was sobbing after receiving the death notification and how wonderfully we lived before the war. However, my mother’s sisters were very bad to Boris. Only when I grew up I understood this was simple women’s jealousy on their part: they were alone while my mother had a handsome caring and loving husband.  

For a few moths we were living in the atmosphere of hatred that Ola and Tsylia created, and my sister Maya was with them. Tired of all this Boris (I will call him stepfather for convenience, though he was the father for me) requested his management to give him an assignment some place far away from Lvov. He got an assignment to Zholkva town in Lvov region in autumn 1946. My sister refused to come with us. My mother only packed whatever clothes we had and we left without taking a cup or any other thing from the apartment in Lvov. Now I understand how hard it was for my mother to leave Maya behind, and I still have a hard feeling about Maya for this matter. We lived in Zholkva for less than a year before my stepfather got an assignment in Yavorov where we received a good four-bedroom apartment. Our life was gradually improving.

I went to a Russian school in Yavorov in 1947. There were no Jewish children in my class. I remember how the children in another class teased Valia Finkelstein, a Jewish black-haired curly girl. I had fair hair and didn’t look like a Jew, but I became very quiet fearing being insulted. I clearly identified myself with the Jewish nation since my early childhood and not in association with Jewish holidays or traditions. I didn’t have these, but I caught hostile glimpses and heard whispers, sometimes direct insults. To make the long story short, I never felt one of them among Russian and Ukrainian children. I always felt inferior about it and tried to draw no attention to my person. In the course of time this type of conduct became my way of life and I’ve remained quiet and distant. I wasn’t the best student at school, but I wasn’t among the worst either. I didn’t take part in any public activities and was always eager to come back home to enjoy the warm and cozy atmosphere of my family. 

In 1950 my brother Eugeniy was born. My mother was a housewife. Boris earned well and we were doing rather well in this regard. In summer we went on family vacations to the Crimea. We rented a little hut at the seashore and enjoyed the sun and the sea, each other and doing nothing for few weeks in a row. These were the happiest moments of my life. I remember everybody’s concern in the early 1950s, when the state anti-Semitic campaign called ‘the doctors’ plot’ 13 began. My stepfather was very nervous. He smoked a lot reading newspapers with all those articles accusing rootless cosmopolites and poisoning doctors. However, this campaign had no impact on out family or acquaintances. The town was very small and there were not many Jews in it. In 1957 my stepfather got a job in Ternopol. I finished the 10th form in this town. 

I liked chemistry and was attracted by medicine, when at school. After finishing school I tried to enter the Medical College for two years, but… it was next to impossible for a Jewish girl to get there. On the third year I submitted documents to the Faculty of Chemistry of the Polytechnic College. Some time before I went to work at the chemical laboratory of the sugar factory – this was the vocation I was going to learn. However, I failed to enter the college again. They reasoned this by saying that I didn’t have sufficient work experience. I worked at the sugar factory some time going home after night shifts across the dark town. It was next to impossible to get another job. Only on the fourth year I entered the Lvov Technical School of Cinema Logistics only because they didn’t get sufficient number of students against their requirements. After finishing it I got employment at the Ternopol Department of Cinema Logistics where I worked as an engineer/economist till retirement. I also entered the extramural department of Kiev College of Public Economy and finished it. I had no conflicts or problems at work. Everything went quiet. I dutifully did my work as an engineer of the cinema physical plant. I got a small salary that was only enough buy sufficient food, necessary clothes and spend one week per year in the Crimea. I’ve never dreamed of having a car, a dacha or traveling far away. However, the majority of people in the USSR lived like this, and I never felt uncomfortable about it.

My sister Maya lived in Lvov with our aunts. However, in the course of time she made it up with my stepfather. She visited us and spent weekends or vacations with us. Ola’s daughter Galina also visited us. My aunts never got married. All I know about Galina is that she started drinking vodka at the age of 16 and left her home with some gypsies. Ola fell ill from suffering and died in the late 1950s. Tsylia passed away in 1961. Since then Maya has lived alone in Lvov. She also finished a technical school and worked as an economist. Unfortunately, she and I are single.

It’s hard for me to tell about Maya, but as for me, I’ve never met a man, whom I might fall in love with and who would be close spiritually to me. Firstly, there’ve never been Jews in my surrounding, and I’ve felt antagonism from others. Generally, I’ve been humble in life and it’s been hard for me to make a closer acquaintance with somebody. It seems to me, I’ve grown up in the warm atmosphere of our home and was afraid that I would not love or be loved. I had friends and we went to the cinema and theaters and on tours together, but there was nobody with whom I might want to live my life. At work I was an active Komsomol member and even applied to the party, but the party district committee invited me there telling me that I wasn’t mature enough to join the party. This was another demonstration of anti-Semitism. My stepfather felt so sorry for me. He told me to not reapply to the party. I became even quieter, worked mechanically and tried to not stand out. So I kept living in the apartment with mama, stepfather and my brother’s family. 

In 1984 mama got paralyzed, but she managed to recover. She died in 1991. A year and nine months later my stepfather passed away. Since then I’ve lived with my brother’s family. My brother Eugeniy finished a music school and worked as a music teacher for some time, but later he began to play in restaurants and organized his own band. His wife Galina is Ukrainian. Boris, Eugeniy’s only son, born in 1977, is my joy and delight. I helped to raise him and I feel happy for his successes. After finishing school Boris moved to Israel under a students’ exchange program. He now studies in the University in Karmi’el in Israel. Galina has visited him there and now my brother’s family is going to move to Israel. I will probably go with them. Traveling will be hard and I will have to cope with the hot climate in Israel, but I am so eager to see Israel. I dream of approaching the Wailing Wall and visit towns in Israel and I hope to be needed in Israel and if not – I will come back here.

I loved my parents dearly and it was very hard for me, when first my mother and then my stepmother passed away. Besides, a short time after my stepfather died, I was forced to retire before time since I was the only Jewish employee at my work. I was having a hard time, but it happened so that at that time I came to the newly founded Jewish community in Ternopol. I felt myself at home and among my own people. I became an activist in the community. I go there for Sabbath every week, I help them to prepare for Jewish holidays, enjoy their celebration and study Yiddish in the community. I like everything about it. I feel that I missed a lot, when I was young. My mother or father were far from the Jewish life, but now I feel like discovering the Jewish world.

This is exactly why I am grateful to independent Ukraine. It gave the Jewish communities and traditions a chance to develop and prosper. Ukraine, almost the only one among the former Soviet Union republics, peacefully builds up a democratic society and I like it, because many other republics are at war – this is horrifying. In 2002 I visited Kerch, my mother’s hometown. I was struck by its contrasts: ruined plants and mines, half-ruined dock and the shining sea, ancient fortresses and plundered burial mounds. It will take time and effort to make Kerch and Ternopol developed town. What else struck me in Kerch was the reconstructed synagogue in a beautiful street with young cypress trees, nice Hesed and the Jewish community. This wasn’t possible during the Soviet rule, and I am happy that the Jewry has revived in my grandfather and mother’s hometown. I also went to the common grave outside the town where my grandfather and his family perished. The community installed a modest monument on the spot where the Jews of Kerch were killed (later Krymchak and Karaim people were killed here), where the mortal remains of my kin lie.

GLOSSARY:

Yelizaveta Zatkovetskaya
Kherson
Ukraine
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: September 2003

Yelizaveta Zatkovetskaya lives in one half of a private house built in the 1950s in a sunny street in the suburb of Kherson. She opens the gate for me and I see a nice old woman with young eyes wearing a kerchief, a modest dark blue dress. We enter the house: nice clean rooms with the 1960-70s furniture and a kitchen on the verandah. We make ourselves comfortable for our conversation on the verandah. There are onions, garlic and pepper drying on the walls. The hostess grows them in her little garden near the house. There are also jars with freshly made jam and pickled cucumbers, tomatoes and paprika that she preserves for the whole family. There are hens and a turkey cock walking in the garden, and every now and then there is a friendly little dog running around the yard. Her neighbor drops by to borrow some salt and her son Alexandr comes to see his mother few times a day. On this lovely sunny day this old woman’s house is warm and cozy: the hostess seems to emanate this warmth, and it makes one feel like staying longer in her home.

My parents’ families come from German colonies south of Russia where in the Azov region, in Kherson steppes [present southeastern Ukraine, about 500 km from Kiev] during the rule of Catherine the Great [1] settlements of the minorities, so-called colonies were established on rich fertile lands. In the middle of the 18th century the tsarist government of Russia sent Polish, Greek and German minority groups to populate the areas that previously belonged to the Cossacks [2], who were actually exterminated. Later, in the middle of the 19th century, they deported Jews to this area. They took to farming. I didn’t know my maternal grandparents. They died before I was born. I became an orphan when I was just a baby. My mother, dying from puerperal fever asked to name me after her mother, my grandmother. Therefore, all I know about my grandmother is that her name was Yelizaveta like mine, and that she and my grandfather died during an epidemic in the 1910s. I don’t know my grandfather’s name or what he did for a living. I think that he dealt in farming, like the majority of colonists in the Jewish colony of Ingulets [450 km southeast of Kiev], in Yekaterinoslav [present Dnepropetrovsk] region. [Editor’s note: Ingulets, a big Jewish colony; its population in early 1900 2700 residents and 2600 of them were Jews. There were two synagogues and a Jewish elementary school. Now it’s a small industrial town. After WWII there were hardly any Jews left in the town]. My mother’s brother Zalman Miller, about 10 years older than my mother, lived in Ingulets. Zalman was married twice. His first wife Tsylia died leaving him with four children. He didn’t have children with his second wife, and they were raising those four children. During the Great Patriotic War [3] Zalman and his family were in evacuation somewhere in Siberia. He and then his wife Lubov died shortly after they returned from the evacuation. Zalman’s older son Moishe, born in about 1912, finished a college and lived in Dnepropetrovsk [450 km from Kiev]. His wife’s name was Rosa and their son’s name was Rudolf. During the Great Patriotic War they evacuated to Siberia, Novosibirsk town [about 6000 km from Moscow] and stayed there after the war. Moishe died in the middle 1960s. This is all information I have about his family. Zalman’s second son Israel, born in 1915, perished at the front at the very beginning of the war. Zalman’s daughters Yelizaveta, born in 1913, and Riva, born in 1919, had education. Yelizaveta became a zootechnician and Riva finished a teachers’ college. Yelizaveta married a Ukrainian name, and the family kept it a secret from Zalman for a long time. She and her husband went to work in Yama, a miners’ town in Stalinsk [present Donetsk region in about 700 km from Kiev]. Yelizaveta named her daughter Tsylia after her mother. Yelizaveta and her husband passed away a long time ago, and Tsylia lives in Yama. Riva married Yan Usviatov, a Jewish man. They settled down in Krivoy Rog [about 400 km east of Kiev], where she lives now. She has a son and a daughter. As for my mother’s brother Benyum Miller, a lame man, I saw him few times. He was single and died long before the Great Patriotic War.

My mother Mirl Miller was born in Ingulets in 1898. I don’t know anything about her childhood. She got a Jewish education at home, finished two or three forms of a Jewish elementary school and could write and read in the Jewish language. Before she got married she was helping her father with farming and about the house. From what my uncle Zalman says, my grandmother and grandfather were very religious. They observed all Jewish traditions and celebrated holidays. I don’t know how my mother met my father. Probably they met through matchmakers that was customary with Jewish families. She got married in early 1916.

My father’s parents lived in Sagaydak, a Jewish colony in Nikolaev region. It was a small colony: there were 2 or 3 streets in the settlement. (Editor’s note: according to the census of 1897, the population of Sagaydak constituted 770 residents and 760 were Jews). The Jews dealt in farming in the colony. It was a green town and there were gardens and vegetable gardens near each house. Villagers lived in plain clay houses with ground floors and thatched roofs. My grandfather and grandmother Etah were born in Sagaydak some time in the 1860s. My grandfather was a farmer and my grandmother was a housewife taking care of the house, the garden and raising seven children. They got Jewish education and were raised in accordance with Jewish traditions, but when they grew up and left their parents’ home moving into bigger towns, they lost their religiosity. However, they had Jewish spouses, but their families did not observe any traditions.

Feiga, the oldest of the children was born about 1885. Feiga’s husband Abram Lubashevskiy perished during a pogrom [4] during the civil war [5] leaving Feiga with three children: sons Mosia and Semyon and daughter Olga. During the great Patriotic War Feiga’s sons were at the front, and Feiga and her daughter were somewhere in the Ural in evacuation. Feiga lived a long life. After returning from the evacuation Feiga lived with her younger son Semyon in Odessa [6]. She died in 1980. Semyon and his family live in Germany now. Mosia became an invalid at the war and died shortly after the war. Olga, whose family name was Zeldina, finished a college and moved to Zhdanov (present Mariupol in the east of Ukraine, 670 km from Kiev). She died in the middle 1990s.

My father’s second brother Motia , born about 1888, lived and worked in Kirovograd [about 260 km from Kiev]. I don’t remember his wife’s name, but his children Yura and Asia and I were friends, when we were children. During the Great Patriotic War they were in the evacuation. Motia and his wife died in 1946, shortly after they returned from the evacuation. Yuriy became an engineer. He lives with his family in Dnepropetrovsk. Asia and her children moved to Israel in the middle 1990s. I have no contacts with her.

My father was the next child in the family and then came his brother Berl, born in 1892. Berl married his friend’s widow whose husband perished during a pogrom in the middle 1920х. She had a child, but Berl didn’t have children with her. In the early 1930s he and his family moved to Krivoy Rog to work in a mine. They lived there until the great Patriotic War. During the war he evacuated with his mine and after the war he moved to Kirovograd. He died in the middle 1970s.

My father’s youngest brother Duvid lived in Dnepropetrovsk. I don’t remember about his education. He worked as assistant accountant. His wife Olga came from Sagaydak. Duvid perished at the front during the Great Patriotic war. I lost contact with his wife and two children afterward. I know that they moved to USA in the early 1970s.

My father’s sister Manya. Born in 1898, was an elementary school teacher. Her husband Abram Schwartzman was a musician. Before the revolution he played at weddings with his orchestra and after the revolution he worked at the philharmonic. They lived in Kirovograd. Manya and Abram had one daughter whose name was Clara. She finished a Medical College after the war. She lives in Odessa now. Manya and Abram died during the evacuation.

My father’s youngest sister Yelizaveta, born in 1902, didn’t get a higher education. She married Yontl Paikin, a Jewish man from the Jewish colony of Romanovka. She and her husband worked in a Jewish kolkhoz [7]. During the Great Patriotic War Yelizaveta, her husband and their son Mikhail were in the evacuation, and stayed in the Ural after the war. Yelizaveta died in the middle 1980s. Mikhail lives in Israel now.

My father Haim Zatkovetskiy was born in 1889, I don’t know the exact date of his birth. My father got an elementary Jewish education. He studied in cheder till the age of 13 and then he followed into grandfather Benyum steps taking to farming. This is all I know about his childhood. I know that shortly after he married my mother, and they had a traditional wedding under a chuppah at the synagogue, my father was recruited to the army during WWI. My mother was pregnant with me. I was born on the 2nd day of Chanukkah in December 1916. My mother had mastitis that resulted in blood poisoning. She died in winter 1917 when I was one and a half months old. My grandmother Etah was looking after my mother, when she was ill. When my mother was dying, she took grandmother Etah’s hand and asked her to name me Yelizaveta after her mother. Besides, my mother made grandmother Etah promise that she would never allow me to be raised by a stepmother. My mother said that my father would get married. He was young and handsome, she said, and asked my grandmother to raise me in her house. Grandmother Etah became my mother from then on, and I called her ‘Mama’ till the last days of her life.

My grandmother’s neighbor Sarrah Nikitina, who also had a baby, gave my grandmother her breast milk once a day and I also had cow milk. About 1919 my father returned from the war. He came to live with us. He loved me dearly and my first memories are associated with him. He spent all his leisure time after working hard as He played with me, carried me around and made plain toys for me: straw and cloth dolls. The first years of my childhood passed in the atmosphere of love and care. Everybody loved me: grandmother Etah, who gave me the most delicious food, though the family was poor, grandfather Benyum, who always told me interesting stories about Jews before bedtime, and my father’s sisters and brothers. Uncle Motl, who was young away from him hiding under the table and he caught me, held me in his hands and kissed. When I was asleep by the time he returned from his outings, he en over grandmother (I slept with my grandmother) to kiss me. My aunts Manya and Yelizaveta always argued about whose turn it was to bathe me and comb my hair. They loved me so dearly that they enjoyed taking care of me. My father’s younger sister Yelizaveta loved me the most. During pogroms, when gangs broke into Sagaydak, Yelizaveta grabbed me telling them I was her daughter. Bandits used to rape young girls, but they didn’t touch those who were married and had children. Pogroms stayed in my memory as one of my first childhood memories. I remember that my father’s brother Duvid was ill, when a pogrom began, and my father took him to the attic fearing that bandits might kill him. Then my father grabbed me and ran into a field where we were hiding in high sunflower plants. I remember that I was thirsty, and he went to pick a watermelon in the adjoining field and there bandits captured him. My father begged them to allow him take me from the field or I would get lost in the field of sunflowers that were 3 times higher than me. They ordered him to take off his boots, and made him run across the fields holding me to the village. At home bandits turned our wardrobes upside down looking for good clothes, but we were poor and there was nothing to take. My father often hid me and other children in a haystack during pogroms and at times we spent few days there. My father brought us water and food and ordered to be quiet. I remember some military staying in our house. They made my grandfather unharness horses, water and feed their horses and told grandmother to bake bread for them. I have this vivid picture before: my grandmother Etah kneading dough in a big kneading trough with her sleeves rolled up, and tears falling from her eyes into the trough.

Those were horrifying years. When pogroms were over, another disaster began: famine in the early 1920s. Aunt Yelizaveta and uncle Boris gathered everything there was in the house including a Zinger sewing machine and went to sell them or change for food in a town in the north of Ukraine or in Russia. I was almost 5 years old, and I remember well the feeling of hunger. Our neighbor, my wet nurse, whose family was a little better off than ours, brought us potato peels, and my grandmother made Saturday challah bread with them. Our family was very religious, and celebrated Sabbath even in those hard years. My grandfather, father and his brothers went to the synagogue on Friday. There was a big beautiful two-storied synagogue from red bricks in the town. When they returned, the family sat down to dinner. There was challah bread, salt in a salt-cellar covered with a clean napkin and at least some wine on the table. My grandmother lit candles, and my grandfather said a prayer. Then he took a piece of challah, dipped it into salt, and the meal began. In those hungry years there was nothing, but challah baked from potato peels on the table. I remember celebration of Sabbath after the famine was over and life improved. The family was big: Feiga and her children also lived with my grandparents after Feiga’s husband was killed during a pogrom. There were 13 of us sitting at the table. All adults worked in the field. On Friday Feiga stayed at home to help grandmother prepare for Sabbath. My grandmother cooked in the Russian oven [8], and needed help with handling heavy casseroles and frying pans. My grandmother and Feiga always covered their heads: with either a plain kerchief on weekdays or a lace shawl on holidays. Men also covered their heads and always had a kippah on sitting at the table. They followed kashrut, and grandfather even forbade his sons to smoke inside.

I remember preparations to Jewish holidays. Before Pesach kosher crockery was taken down from the attic. As a rule, there was more needed and grandmother koshered everyday utensils in a big trough. The walls were whitewashed and the floors clayed and painted on edges to imitate carpeting. All children had new clothes made for them before Pesach. I remember dresses made for Yelizaveta and Manya from gray sack cloth with colorful edging, and grandmother made a dress from the remaining pieces for me. My grandfather usually conducted seder reclining at the head of the table: with his big beard, tallit and fancy kippah, posing questions and one of the older boys answering them. I also liked Sukkoth, when the family had meals in the sukkah near the house installed by grandfather and his sons. Chanukkah was my favorite holiday since it was my birthday. On Chanukkah every day another candle was lit in a special chanukkiyah candle stand. My grandmother made delicious dough nuts and potato pancakes. The children were given some money. The family bought another dress for me and there was a birthday cake made.

When I turned 6, my father remarried. His wife Esther came from Bobrinets, a Jewish town in Kirovograd region. She didn’t have children, and my father wanted to take me with him moving to her town, but my grandmother didn’t let me go: she promised my mother that she would not let me grow up with a stepmother. She promised my father that I would visit them. Once every few months my aunts Manya or Yelizaveta took me to Bobrinets. I didn’t like it there: my stepmother, who actually wasn’t a wicked woman, was cold with me. She wasn’t bad, but probably having no children of her own, she didn’t have any motherly feelings. My father loved me dearly and missed me a lot. Therefore, one or two years later he insisted that they sold their house in Bobrinets to buy one in Sagaydak. My father bought a small house across the street from where my grandmother lived. From then on I sort of lived with my father, though I spent all of my time with my grandmother. My father bathed me and washed my hair. I remember that once he decided to rinse my hair with kerosene solution. Some women advised him that it made the hair grow better. He did something wrong and burned my skin. He almost cried from annoyance applying some herbs on my head. He combed my hair plaiting in ribbons and putting fancy combs into my hair. My stepmother only cooked food and set the table for me. I was used to loving care in my grandmother’s house and I often ran into the field crying. Once my aunts Manya and Yelizaveta found me there. They insisted that I told them the reason, but I never confessed that it was because of my stepmother. I felt sorry for my father.

There was a 4-year Jewish school in Sagaydak. I studied very well. I even remember that I helped my cousin brothers and sisters with their studies. On winter evenings we all sat by the stove nibbling seeds and read books. I only went home to sleep, but often stayed in my grandmother’s home overnight. My teachers thought I was the best in my class recommending my father that I continued my education. After finishing the 4th form in my school in 1928 a group of my classmates and I went to Israilevka, a Jewish colony [editor’s note: in the late 1940s this village was either renamed or became a part of the nearest town; it didn’t seem possible to identify its present status] near Sagaydak, to continue our education. Israilevka was bigger than Sagaydak. There were twice as many residents and there was a 7-year Jewish school in the village. We, children from Sagaydak, were accommodated in an abandoned house that formerly belonged to a Jewish family declared to be kulaks [9] and exiled to Siberia. Fortunately, residents of Sagaydak didn’t suffer from this dispossessment, so poor they were. Boys accommodated in one room and girls – in another. I studied in Israilevka for a year. When my uncle Zalman got to know that I lived in a hostel, he came to pick me up and take to his house in Ingulets colony, my mother’s home town.

My life in Zalman’s house was very good. His wife Lubov treated his children like her own, and I was like their third daughter. I even envied my brothers and sisters for having never enjoyed so much warmth from my stepmother. My brothers Moishe and Israel had left their parents’ home by then. I became lifelong friends with my sisters Yelizaveta and Riva. Uncle Zalman was a grain procurer. He traveled on business a lot and the family always looked forward to his return. Zalman wasn’t a truly believing Jew. He had to work on Saturday. However, they celebrated holidays, symbolically, though: Pesach, Rosh Hashanah and Chanukkah. I studied in the 6th and 7th forms in Ingulets. I studied well and was a pioneer and an activist. I was usually responsible for helping pupils who were not so good with their studies. I liked it and decided to become a teacher.

In 1932 I finished this 7-year school. Two of my friends also wanted to become teachers and convinced me to go to the Pedagogical College in Kiev. Uncle Zalman tried to talk me out of traveling so far, but I was eager to see a big town, live and study in it. Besides, I had never seen a train before. Everything seemed interesting to me, and I was not afraid of anything. In Kiev we accommodated with a distant relative of one of the girls. Her husband was a Party official, and they lived in a big apartment in the center of the city. There were rabfak schools [10] in colleges – faculties preparing workers for colleges. The girls and I submitted our documents to this school. There were interviews and exams, and I was the only one of the three of us who was admitted. The girls left home ad I stayed in Kiev. I became a student of the Jewish Faculty of Kiev Pedagogical College. This faculty trained teachers of the Jewish literature and language for Jewish schools. There were many Jewish schools in Ukraine at that time. We studied in Yiddish. I lived in a hostel. There were huge rooms. There were 16 tenants in my room. We got along well and had a lot of fun together. Then the period of famine [11] began. Our stipends of 24 rubles were only enough to buy tea and sugar plums. So we had sugarplums with boiled water. In the college canteen we got thin soup with a bit of cabbage or beetroots. Many girls quit their studies. There were military schools in Kiev where cadets received rationed food. The girls were eager to meet cadets and many of them got married and quit the college. Some left home. Once I missed two days of classes looking for some work to do for money in Kiev. The dean asked me why I missed my classes. He started telling me that I should continue my studies in college for whatever it cost me, that I was a born teacher and had to study regardless any problems. I wasn’t going to quit the college. I even wrote my father that everything was fine and that we had good stipends. He wrote back that he was happy for me. In summer 1934 I visited my father, and he proudly walked with me around the town brabbing of my successes. My stepmother also gave me a warm reception. She even wanted to give me her suit since I hardly had any clothes, but I refused understanding that my stepmother wouldn’t manage to make another outfit for herself. I only took a skirt and later my co-tenants borrowed it from me to wear to a date or to the theater.

I also became a Komsomol member [12], when I was the first-year student and took an active part in public activities. Again I was responsible for helping other students with their studies. We were to study four years, but there was a need in teachers, and they reduced our course to three years. After the second year of studies this Jewish Faculty moved to Odessa to be farther from the capital. We didn’t understand then that it was a beginning of a slow attack on the Jewish culture and education. I lived in a hostel in Odessa. We celebrated all Soviet holidays, went to parades and festivals, but I also remembered the Jewish traditions. Being a Komsomol member, I couldn’t openly celebrate holidays or go to the synagogue, but I tried to observe traditions quietly. I tried to do no hard work on Saturday and fasted on Yom Kippur without mentioning it to anyone. Of course, following the kashrut was out of the question since we were always hungry and ate whatever we could get.

In the late 1920s – early 1930s new Jewish settlements were established in the south of Ukraine with the help of AgroJoint [13]. Some villages had names and some – Numbers: 16th, 17th, 23rd sites. AgroJoint helped poor Jews with moving to new locations and built houses and schools for them. There was also a need in Jewish teachers, and I received a job assignment [14] to a 7-year school in the 17th site in Kherson region. I am sure that this village is no longer there. It probably became a part of the nearest town. I rented an apartment from the logistic manager of school. Her family treated me like their own daughter. I made friends with doctor assistant Fira who came there from Gaisin Vinnitsa region after finishing a medical school. She worked in the laboratory where we received two rooms where Fira, sanitary assistant Nina, Russian, and I were accommodated. We got along well and had lots of fun. We made a communal budget putting our salaries together spending it for food. We also shared clothes, and my stepmother’s skirt became a popular outfit for my friends. The 17th site was a small settlement with a railroad station. There were trains to and from Kherson stopping there. Local young people used to walk along the platform at the station. There was a custom to dress up and go there at the time when a train arrived, walk along the platform nibbling sunflower seeds making comments about boys. Fira dated a zootechnician from the farm. Once we invited him to our home. That evening we made macaroni for dinner and the moment we served the table there was a knock on the door. We put our dinner under the table, just in case, having no intention to share our dinner with anybody and opened the door. There was Fira’s friend and an interesting young man with him. It was his friend, senior zootechnician. Fira’s friend wanted us to meet. They stayed for quite a while, and we were only concerned that one of them didn’t turn our dinner upside down. When the guys left we burst into laughter, but I didn’t really feel like laughing. I liked the guy very much. We began to see each other and few months later he proposed to me. I wrote my father (my grandmother Etah and grandfather Benyum had passed away by then) that I was planning to get married, described my fiancé and he gave me his blessing. Then my father and uncle Zalman visited us to meet my husband to be. In late 1936 we got married. We just had a civil ceremony in a registry office. Traditional Jewish weddings were not practiced at that time. We were both Komsomol members and might be expelled from Komsomol or even fired from work. Besides, there was no synagogue in our village.

My husband Peretz Freidkin was born in 1910 in Kalinindorf, a Jewish colony in Kherson region. His parents Zalman Berl and Rasia Freidkins also dealt in farming. Besides, my father-in-law was a shoemaker and it made his additional earnings. My husband’s family was a traditional Jewish family. He studied in cheder and then finished a Jewish elementary school. He also finished the Agricultural College in Kherson and became a zootechnician. After the wedding we lived in a small room of a three-apartment house in the 17th site. Our co-tenants were few other newly wed couples. We had a common kitchen and ‘comforts’ in the yard. Then we moved to the Jewish colony of Seidemenucha where I got a job assignment from the regional department of education half a year later. My husband worked as a zootechnician there as well. In 1937 our son was born. I named him Mikhail, by the first letter of my mother’s name. After our son was born we moved to my husband’s parents in Kalinindorf. We had a good life together. My husband’s parents had a nice big house and a garden. I worked at school. We hired a baby sitter for my son and my mother-in-law was helping me. She observed Jewish traditions. On Saturday our Ukrainian neighbor came to set the table for our family and feed our livestock. My mother-in-law made matzah and we celebrated Pesach. We usually spent vacations with my husband’s sister Tsylia in Kherson where she lived with her husband and two daughters: Yenia and Genia. Tsylia and I became friends, though she was significantly older than me.

My husband was a zootechnician in the kolkhoz [15] ‘The way to communism’. It was a very rich Jewish kolkhoz, a ‘millionaire’, adjoining to Kalinindorf. It was an advanced kolkhoz in the district, and in the late 1930s my husband and his crew were invited to the Exhibition of Achievements of Public Economy in Moscow. He took his pedigree cows and bulls to the exhibition and received a diploma for participation in the exhibition. I still keep this diploma and the photograph of my husband’s crew at the Exhibition in the fair memory of Peretz. By that time I had lost my job: the Jewish school was closed. Many teachers got training to become teachers of Russian, geography or history, but I couldn’t afford any training having to take care of our son.

This was a concerning period. In 1939 Jewish refugees from Poland appeared in our area escaping from fascists. At that same time my husband’s older brother on his father’s side Moishe Freidkin, his wife Kleina and their five-year-old daughter and little son Mosia arrived at Kalinindorf from Bessarabia [16]. We began to receive letters and photographs from him after Bessarabia was annexed to the USSR. Of course, we knew about Hitler and fascism, but we didn’t have thoughts about a war: it all seemed to be so far away. The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact [17] made people think that there was going to be no war. I shall always remember the day of 22 June 1941, when the Great Patriotic War began. It was a warm sunny day, Sunday, and we were at home. My husband was cutting wood in the yard and I was playing with my son nearby. It was about noontime and we were going to rest in the garden after lunch, when our neighbor ran in screaming ‘It’s the war!’ We ran into the house: we were the only owners of a radio. We listened to Molotov [18] who spoke about the war and perfidious attack of fascists on our country. Mobilization began. My husband obtained a military service release certificate. He was responsible for evacuation of the livestock. He went to Lvovo colony with his crew where they arranged transfer of the cattle. He stayed there few weeks. I and other residents were digging an anti-tank trench. If only we had known how easily Hitler’s tanks overcame those funny obstacles for them while we believed that this trench would stop fascists and they would not invade our home town.

My husband returned in late July. There was panic and people tried to escape wherever they could manage. On 8 August my husband went to a meeting in the district party committee. Although he wasn’t a member of the party, they invited all managers of the kolkhoz to this meeting. They said at this meeting that fascists would not come to this area and that it was necessary to stop those defeatist moods and tell people that everything was all right and that they had to go back to work and stop panicking. My husband returned late. Our neighbors waited for him at the gate. He told them what he heard at the district committee. We went to bed. At 2 o’clock in the morning somebody knocked on our window. It was Gudkovich, chief of the district chemical department, who was on duty at the district executive committee. He said Germans were bombing Kherson and that we had to leave. He managed to keep two good horses and now he harnessed them. His wife and four children were already sitting in the wagon. They were small children: the youngest was a 2-week-old baby. Gudkovich offered us a ride. We packed whatever we could grab in a basket and a bag, locked the house – and left. In all this chaos I didn’t take warm clothes, but I grabbed white bed sheets for my sonny: I couldn’t imagine that Mikhail could sleep without white sheets. We didn’t have any money. The day before we left my mother-in-law wanted to take our savings from the bank, but they told her there was no money available. I didn’t say ‘good bye’ to my father. I never saw him again. It turned out that his wife refused from evacuation and sent back the wagon that uncle Boris sent for them from Krivoy Rog. Like other Jews she believed that Germans were not going to do anything bad to Jews. My father obeyed her thinking that I was staying in Kalinindorf and he would be there to support me. Besides my husband’s parents, my husband, my son and me, there was my husband’s niece Genia, a ten-year-old girl, his older sister Tsylia’s daughter, with us. She was spending her vacation with us and since we didn’t where her mother was at the moment we had to take her with us. Besides, there was senior accountant of the district chemical department with his wife and daughter in our wagon. Gudkovich also rode with us as far as the river crossing. On our way a wheel broke and while the men were fixing it, local boys were running around shouting ‘zhydy [kike] are running away!’ It was the first time in my life that I heard an abuse of this kind. I had always lived among Jews before and I don’t think I even suspected existence of anti-Semitism.

So we reached Lvov where there was a crossing on the Ingulets River. There were masses of wagons, horses and cattle near the crossing and the crossing was closed following the order of authorities who were concerned about possible panic. While we were there waiting we heard that my husband’s sister Tsylia and her younger daughter Genia came to our home and were looking for us. My husband and father-in-law took one horse and rode back home to pick her up. They were also concerned about the older brother. It turned out that Moishe and his family also made an effort to evacuate, but the crossing was closed and they were told to go back home. This family perished in the occupation.

A messenger from the town came to the crossing telling people to go back home. I still don’t know whether he represented some authorities or he was a saboteur. There were many sent by fascists. .The crossing was often bombed. During an air raid people around began to yell at me demanding that I took away my son’s white sheets and our white horse that might be a guiding point for German bombers. I took the horse to the bushes. There was screaming and groaning, cows and bull mooing and horses shying. After the bombing about ten people remained lying on the ground. This was terrible! In the morning my husband and father-in-law returned with my husband’s sister Tsylia and her daughter Yenia. My husband made arrangements for us to cross the river. People knew him since he had been involved in evacuation of the cattle some time before. Gudkovich said ‘good bye’ to us and we agreed to keep in touch via his relative living in Kazan. When we crossed the river my husband said that thought he was released from military service he could not be an outside observer in this blood shedding war and that he had to fight fascists. Peretz hugged and kissed me and said he understood that I would have a hard time having to take care of our son and old folks. He gave me his watch to sell it for money. I begged my husband to stay, but he was inexorable. In the morning he left with the accountant’s son. I never saw my husband again. There was no military registry office in Kalinindorf and the accountant’s son returned, but Peretz went on looking for our troops. He must have perished on his way: there were violent battles in this area at that time.

We went on. My father-in-law was riding the wagon and Tsylia and I walked behind it. There were few bombings on the way. We reached Rostov region having covered over 250 km. We spent the nights in the woods. Local villagers gave us some food on the way. We stayed in a kolkhoz. There was an order issued to kolkhozes to accommodate the newcomers and give them jobs. We rented a room in a house. Tsylia and I worked in the kolkhoz. My father-in-law was a shoemaker and my mother-in-law looked after the children. Tsylia and I went to the railroad after work every day: there were trains passing to the front or to the rear with the wounded. We were hoping to find our husbands or hear something about them. Tsylia’s husband was recruited on the first days of the war. We were standing there giving bread or crumbs to the soldiers: whatever we had with us. We never heard anything about our relatives or acquaintances. My father-in-law’s brother Gershl Kalman found us in the kolkhoz. He had evacuated with his daughter, a lame and sickly girl, and his wife. His wife died on the way and his daughter got lost. Gershl stayed with us. His daughter found us few days later: somebody told her where we were.

In late October the management of this kolkhoz notified us that we had to leave urgently: fascist troops were approaching Rostov. There were no horses available. Chairman of the kolkhoz had left on them. We got two bulls. My father-in-law was angry: how was he going to manage them? But what could we do? So, we harnessed them and started on our way. My son fell ill with measles on the way, he had fever of 39 degrees lying in the wagon in the rain. Tsylia sprained her joints jumping off the wagon. I walked after the wagon carrying my son. Every night we asked villagers to let us in to stay overnight. There was so much trouble. Once the hostess’ husband wanted to rape me and we had to pack and escape. Once I left my son lying on the floor and went out to unharness the bulls, when the hostess ran out of the house screaming: she decided that I left a dead child in the house. I told her that my son had measles. She started fire in her oven to warm up my son, gave him a hot drink and tried to help me. I was grateful to this woman and felt like staying in her warm house. But we had to move on. Winter began. We were cold having no warm clothes. Gudkovich’s wife came to our rescue. She shared her warm clothes with us. In the daytime fascists were bombing roads and villages and Tsylia suggested that we traveled on forest roads that were quiet. She said we had to stay near rivers so that if fascists captured us we could rush into the water and get drowned. The bulls were very good especially considering that ground roads became muddy and they were very enduring. We often unharnessed them to help to pull other wagons out of the mud. I liked these bulls and tried to gather more grass or hay to feed them.

In late November we reached Elista town, the capital of Kalmyk ASSR in 900 km from home. It was a small town. There were mostly private houses in it. There were bigger houses in the center of the town: the Supreme Soviet, Party Central Committee, central post office and a theater. There was a kolkhoz in the suburb where we left our hardworking bulls. A Kalmyk family gave us shelter. We slept on the floor in a big room. I was sleeping near the door and every morning I found a piece of bread or a lump of sugar by my side. The host of the house left them feeling sorry for us, but keeping it a secret from his wife. His wife also sympathized with us. She gave food to the children till I went to work. I began to work at the post office and Tsylia got a job of a cloakroom attendant at the theater. We received bread coupons for us and the children. My father-in-law worked as a shoemaker and his customers paid him with food: milk, eggs or read. Gudkovich arrived shortly afterward. His relative from Kazan told him our whereabouts. I asked him whether he knew anything about Peretz, but he didn’t. He left with his family. We lived there till summer 1942.

When fascists approached the Volga, we decided to move on to the east. Again we harnessed our bulls and went to the railway station. We left our bulls with some people. We kissed the animals thanking them for rescuing us and asked their new owners to take care of them. We boarded a freight train. Our trip lasted about ten days. We didn’t know where we were going. My mother-in-law Rasia fell severely ill on the way. She got poisoned and had high fever, vomiting and bloody flux. We got off at a station. It turned out to be inviting people to come with them. Our family left for a kolkhoz and I stayed with my mother-in-law. Rasia was taken to hospital. My son and I spent the nights at the railway station. I exchanged some clothes for food and cooked in a casserole on stones and visited my mother-in-law in hospital. Rasia recovered: she had good treatment and food in the hospital. We stayed at the railway station ten days more before I found out where our family was. We got a ride there. I remember an Uzbek girl kissing me ‘hallo’: this turned out to be Genia’s daughter wearing an Uzbek gown. We were accommodated in a nice house. The kolkhoz provided wheat grains to us. Tsylia and I took it to the mill to have it ground. We worked in a cotton field. It was hard work. Misha and I were allergic to cotton. We decided to leave this sovkhoz. We took a freight train to Begovat station near Tashkent where we met a Russian woman from Nikolaev. We started talking to her at the station. She helped us a lot. She found accommodation and paid for us, lent us some money and helped me to find a job. She also helped us to obtain a residential permit [19] through her Uzbek acquaintance working in the militia. We lived in a small room in the basement. Tsylia and I went to work at a shop manufacturing ropes for the front. Mikhail and Yenia went to a kindergarten and Genia went to school and helped her grandmother about the house. Tsylia received letters from her husband. I wrote many requests searching for him, but it was in vain. One of commanders wrote me that my husband may have perished never reaching our troops. I was ready to do any work to support my family. After work I made jam from cherry plums or apples – whatever I could pick in the streets, and ran to the market to sell it. I sold jam in glasses and then bought food for the money I got. I was surprised that locals didn’t make jam, but willingly bought it from me. My father-in-law fixed shoes sitting and working on his box outside. He earned a little, when a financial inspector [state officer responsible for identification of illegal businesses], a young and strong Uzbek man demanded that we paid him 10 rubles per day. My father-in-law didn’t have this much. Once this inspector pushed his box throwing his tools about the street and told the old man to stay away from the street, if he didn’t have money for him. When we came back from work, my mother-in-law and father-in-law were crying. I wrote a letter to the Ministry of defense in Moscow. I wrote about our life, about having to escape from our home leaving all our belongings behind, and that our husbands had perished and the old man was trying to earn some money to support the family and we didn’t beg the state to help us, while this young strong inspector was not at the front for some reason. Two weeks later a commission came from the executive committee. They inspected our room, saw drying bread on the stove and allowed my father-in-law to do his work without fearing anyone. . The financial inspector, his offender, never showed up again. I don’t know what happened to him. In early 1944 my father-in-law died. Local Jews buried him wrapping him in his tallit and recited prayers. They buried him on planks in the grave. There was no coffin.

On 14 March 1944 Kalinindorf was liberated. I submitted a request for going back. We received permission for reevacuation only in November. I wrote to the village council that we were returning and asked them to inform me on what happened to our relatives. They wrote me back that Moishe and Kreina Freidkins and their children were shot by fascists in Kalinindorf. I received the same notification for my father and stepmother in Sagaydak. I was eager to go back to my home place. Our return trip lasted for about a month. The trains were passing by without stopping, so overcrowded they were and we had to wait at stations for a long time before getting on another train. Finally in late December 1944 we arrived at Kalinindorf. I hired a wagon to take us home. Our house was there, but the door was locked. A Ukrainian woman and her son had moved into our house. She came back in the evening with a friend of hers and chairman of the village council. They allowed us to live in half of the house, but we were happy about it. Hungry and exhausted, we fell asleep on the floor. In the morning we found out that there was nothing left in the house: this woman had taken our belongings away. Our Russian neighbor Maria came to see us. She was very happy that we were back. She gave us stools, dishes, buckets and casseroles: everything we needed to start with. That same day the Ukrainian woman moved into another Jewish house. Its owners had perished. There were many empty Jewish houses in Kalinindorf and other colonies. Tsylia and I went to work in the kolkhoz. People were helping us giving us whatever they could. I remember how my son got severely ill. I found the apartment of an assistant doctor, but he wasn’t at home. When I returned home, my son was almost fainting from pain and I burst into tears for the first time in the past years. I felt so unhappy that I rescued my son in Asia and in the hard conditions when we were evacuation, but now my son was dying. At night the assistant doctor knocked on the door. He examined my son, gave him some medications and stayed beside him through the night till my son got better.

In January 1945 the Supreme Soviet issued an order about opening children’s homes for all homeless children. In Kalinindorf a children’s home was opened in the building of the Jewish school built before the war. The executive committee [20] authorized me to take the responsibility for restoration of the building and opening of the children’s home. We gathered bricks to make a stove and washed and cleaned the walls and windows, bought beds, desks, blankets and bed sheets. The villagers also donated whatever they could. On 16 March 1945 I conducted the opening ceremony. At first there were six children in the home. Four of them were German children, whose parents had been deported from the colony before fascists came to the village. The children stayed in a Ukrainian family. At first I was acting director of this home till they appointed a nice man for this position. He returned from the front where he had lost his arms. I became a teacher. I assisted director with everything. We celebrated 9 May 1945 – Victory Day, in the children’s home. God, it was happiness!

Some time later men began to return from the front. In early 1946 Abram Aral, our neighbor, returned. We were friends with his family before the war. Abram had a wife and two children: Sonia, 6 years old and a baby son. His older brother Shmilyk lived in this same house. When the war began, Abram was recruited to the army and Shmilyk took his time considering whether they should evacuate or stay home. When they finally decided to move, it was too late. There were Germans all around. They were shot by fascists in 1941. Abram’s sister from Zaporozhie, whose husband perished at the front, came to live with him. Abram and his sister often came by to see us and Tsylia visited them. We were sad about our deceased dear ones often talking about them. In summer 1946 Tsylia’s husband Avrum returned from the front. They moved to Kherson, and my mother-in-law Rasia went with them. My mother-in-law sold the house under condition that my son and son would live there as long as we needed. Some time later Abram and I felt that there was more to our relationship than just the memories: our late and much suffered for love came to us. I moved in with Abram and we got married in 1947.

We got along very well. My husband was good to Mikhail and my son began to call him ‘papa’. In 1948 our son was born. I named him Alexandr after Avrum’s brother Shmidyk. I worked in the children’s home and my husband worked as a storekeeper in the military registry office. In 1956 our second son was born. I named him Yuriy after my father (Yefim is ‘Yuhym’ in Ukrainian, and I found the name with the same first letter). My mother-in-law Rasia visited us every summer.

My older son Mikhail finished school in 1956 and went to take exams to a military college in Tambov. It was his dream to become a military. They didn’t admit him without explaining the reasons, though it clearly had to do with his nationality. He went to work at the mechanic plant of Perovskiy in Kherson. He lived with Tsylia’s family. Then he went to his mandatory service in Azerbaijan and then in Moscow region. Mikhail’s dream was to study in college. He wanted to become a doctor and he studied a lot when in the army. After the term of his service was over Mikhail entered Moscow Medical College and after finishing it he became a physician. He married Galia Aronina, a Jewish girl from a traditional Jewish family. I often visited my son in Moscow and went to the synagogue with her parents. I always brought matzah for my family from Moscow. Mikhail had twin boys: Pyotr (after his father) and Ilia, born in 1964. Ilia and his wife live in Israel and Pyotr lives in Moscow.

My middle son Alexandr was very fond of history. After his service in the army he submitted his documents to the Historical Faculty of Simferopol University. They didn’t admit him explaining that there was a quota for Jews. He returned home and went to work as a mechanic. He finished Machine Building College in Kherson. He married Sopha Yudich, a Jewish girl from Kherson. They have two children: son Yevgeniy and daughter Alla.

My younger son Yuriy also got a secondary technical education. He married Yelena Zeiger, also a Jewish girl and they moved to Kherson. Yuriy and Yelena have two daughters: Lilia, born in 1980, and Anna, born in 1984. Yelena’s parents went to Israel telling their daughter to come with them. My son Yuriy didn’t want to leave me here. So his wife and the girls moved to Israel and Yuriy lives alone in Kherson. They get along very well. Though they are officially divorced Yuriy visits them once a year and my granddaughters visit us here. My sons Alexandr and Yuriy are in computer and software business and so is Yevgeniy: he has a store in Kherson. Alla is a 5th-year student of University. She wants to move to Israel upon graduation.

I retired from the children’s home in 1972. Abram and I often visited our children in Kherson, and our children and grandchildren came to see us. We had a big and close family. Abram was always interested in the situation in the world, particularly in Israel. He bought a good radio listening to the Voice of America and Free Europe [The Voice of America and 'Free Europe’ were popular radio stations broadcasting from America and Germany in Russian. They were thoroughly jammed in the Soviet Union so that Soviet citizens couldn’t hear the truth about life in capitalist countries and actual state of things in their own country], Freedom [21], in the evening discussing their programs with his Jewish neighbor. He was particularly concerned when there was a war there and the Soviet propaganda throwing mud at Israel. However, none of us wanted to leave the country where our dear ones perished. We tried to observe Jewish traditions and teach our children to remember them. . Abram knew when it was a holidays. Of course, we didn’t follow kashrut, but we never ate pork or mixed meat and dairy food. On holidays we had festive meals with traditional Jewish food: chicken necks and gefilte fish. We invited friends and neighbors. On Yom Kippur my husband and I fast and so do our sons and their wives. That’s mandatory.

We never traveled on vacations: at first our children were small and there was nobody to look after them and later we were hard up and couldn’t afford a family vacation, though my husband and I worked and had a garden and a vegetable garden where we grew vegetables and fruit, but we lived on our salaries. We were doing well and our children had all they needed, but we never afforded any luxuries. We lived like everybody else: from one pay day to the next one.

In 1982 Abram died. I lived 7 years in our house and then gave up to my sons’ requests to move closer to them. They sold my house and bought half a house for me in Kherson in 1989. My sons support me and I have everything I need. I know that many people are unhappy about perestroika [22] and the resulting changes in the country, but I feel content as long as my sons are happy. They manage well in life and support me. My grandchildren often visit me. They treat me with great respect and love.

In 1962 I decided to visit Sagaydak to bow to the land where my father perished. I went there by bus. When it stopped in the square an old Ukrainian woman met me. She was our neighbor. She said she recognized me and that I was Haim Zatkovetskiy’s daughter. We went to the suburb and she told me how they were shot: children by the edge of one pit and adults – another. The earth was stirring for a long time afterward. There were human remains on the ground. After the war the chairman ordered to plough the field and forget the deceased. It was an insult. It was terrible that people didn’t install a monument to honor the deceased. I left that same day so hard it was for me.

There was a monument to the deceased installed in Kalinindorf. My sons and I attended the opening ceremony in 2001. Two old women approached me there, too: they were daughters of the storekeeper of the school. Back in 1936 I rented a room from them. Their father also perished, and we recalled our dear ones with grief. The opening ceremony was grand. There were administration representatives and veterans of the war present. After the opening ceremony Jews and a rabbi recited the prayer. My sons recited the words of prayer with them. They observe Jewish traditions, go to the synagogue on Sabbath and celebrate Jewish holidays. It was Rosh Hashanah recently, and my sons and their families came for a festive dinner with us. I attend the synagogue once a year on Yom Kippur. I am not religious, but I always remembered Jewish traditions. I do my best to observe the rules: I light candles on Sabbath and give my grandchildren Chanukkah gelt on Chanukkah.

GLOSSARY:

[1] Catherine the Great (1729-1796): Empress of Russia. She rose to the throne after the murder of her husband Peter III and reigned for 34 year. Catherine read widely, especially Voltaire and Montesquieu, and informed herself of Russian conditions. She started to formulate a new enlightened code of law. Catherine reorganized (1775) the provincial administration to increase the central government's control over rural areas. This reform established a system of provinces, subdivided into districts, that endured until 1917. In 1785, Catherine issued a charter that made the gentry of each district and province a legal body with the right to petition the throne, freed nobles from taxation and state service and made their status hereditary, and gave them absolute control over their lands and peasants. Catherine increased Russian control over the Baltic provinces and Ukraine. She secured the largest portion in successive partitions of Poland among Russia, Prussia, and Austria.

[2] Cossack: A member of a people of southern European Russia and adjacent parts of Asia, noted as cavalrymen especially during tsarist times.

[3] Great Patriotic War: On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

[4] 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.

[5] 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.

[6] Odessa: The Jewish community of Odessa was the second biggest Jewish community in Russia. According to the census of 1897 there were 138,935 Jews in Odessa, which was 34,41% of the local population. There were 7 big synagogues and 49 prayer houses in Odessa. There were heders in 19 prayer houses.

[7] Jewish collective farms: Such farms were established in the Ukraine in the 1930s during the period of collectivization.

[8] 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.

[9] Kulaks: In the Soviet Union the majority of wealthy peasants that refused to join collective farms and give their grain and property to Soviet power were called kulaks, declared enemies of the people and exterminated in the 1930s.

[10] Rabfak (Rabochiy Fakultet – Workers’ Faculty in Russian): Established by the Soviet power usually at colleges or universities, these were educational institutions for young people without secondary education. Many of them worked beside studying. Graduates of Rabfaks had an opportunity to enter university without exams.

[11] Famine in Ukraine: In 1920 a deliberate famine was introduced in the Ukraine causing the death of millions of people. It was arranged in order to suppress those protesting peasants who did not want to join the collective farms. There was another dreadful deliberate famine in 1930-1934 in the Ukraine. The authorities took away the last food products from the peasants. People were dying in the streets, whole villages became deserted. The authorities arranged this specifically to suppress the rebellious peasants who did not want to accept Soviet power and join collective farms.

[12] 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.

[13] Agro-Joint (American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation): The Agro-Joint, established in 1924, with the full support of the Soviet government aimed at helping the resettlement of Jews on collective farms in the South of Ukraine and the Crimea. The Agro-Joint purchased land, livestock and agricultural machinery and funded housing construction. It also established many trade schools to train Jews in agriculture and in metal, woodworking, printing and other skills. The work of Agro-Joint was made increasingly difficult by the Soviet authorities, and it finally dissolved in 1938. In all, some 14,000 Jewish families were settled on the land, and thus saved from privation and the loss of civil rights, which was the lot of all except for workers and peasants. By 1938, however, large numbers left the colonies, attracted by the cities, and most of those who stayed were murdered by the Germans.

[14] Mandatory job assignment in the USSR: Graduates of higher educational institutions had to complete a mandatory 2-year job assignment issued by the institution from which they graduated. After finishing this assignment young people were allowed to get employment at their discretion in any town or organization.

[15] Collective farm (in Russian kolkhoz): In the Soviet Union the policy of gradual and voluntary collectivization of agriculture was adopted in 1927 to encourage food production while freeing labor and capital for industrial development. In 1929, with only 4% of farms in kolkhozes, Stalin ordered the confiscation of peasants' land, tools, and animals; the kolkhoz replaced the family farm.

[16] Bessarabia: Historical area between the Prut and Dnestr rivers, in the southern part of Odessa region. Bessarabia was part of Russia until the Revolution of 1917. In 1918 it declared itself an independent republic, and later it united with Romania. The Treaty of Paris (1920) recognized the union but the Soviet Union never accepted this. In 1940 Romania was forced to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR. The two provinces had almost 4 million inhabitants, mostly Romanians. Although Romania reoccupied part of the territory during World War II the Romanian peace treaty of 1947 confirmed their belonging to the Soviet Union. Today it is part of Moldavia.

[17] Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact: Non-aggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, which became known under the name of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Engaged in a border war with Japan in the Far East and fearing the German advance in the west, the Soviet government began secret negotiations for a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939. In August 1939 it suddenly announced the conclusion of a Soviet-German agreement of friendship and non-aggression. The Pact contained a secret clause providing for the partition of Poland and for Soviet and German spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.

[18] 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.

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

[20] Ispolkom: After the tsar’s abdication (March, 1917), power passed to a Provisional Government appointed by a temporary committee of the Duma, which proposed to share power to some extent with councils of workers and soldiers known as ‘soviets’. Following a brief and chaotic period of fairly democratic procedures, a mixed body of socialist intellectuals known as the Ispolkom secured the right to ‘represent’ the soviets. The democratic credentials of the soviets were highly imperfect to begin with: peasants - the overwhelming majority of the Russian population - had virtually no say, and soldiers were grossly over-represented. The Ispolkom’s assumption of power turned this highly imperfect democracy into an intellectuals’ oligarchy.

[21] Radio Liberty: Radio Liberty, which started broadcasting in 1953, has served as a surrogate 'home service' to the lands of the former Soviet Union, providing news and information that was otherwise unavailable to most Soviet and post-Soviet citizens. During that time, the station weathered strong opposition from the Soviet Union and its allies, including constant jamming, public criticism, diplomatic protests, and even physical attacks on Radio Liberty buildings and personnel. In 1976, Radio Liberty was merged with Radio Free Europe (RFE) to form a single organization, RFE/RL, Inc.

[22] Perestroika (Russian for restructuring): Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s, associated with the name of Soviet politician Mikhail Gorbachev. The term designated the attempts to transform the stagnant, inefficient command economy of the Soviet Union into a decentralized, market-oriented economy. Industrial managers and local government and party officials were granted greater autonomy, and open elections were introduced in an attempt to democratize the Communist Party organization. By 1991, perestroika was declining and was soon eclipsed by the dissolution of the USSR.

Irina Lopko
Chernigov
Ukraine
Interviewer: Ella Orlikova
Date of interview: May 2003

Irina Lopko is a well-known person in the Jewish community of Ukraine: she was head of Hesed in Chernigov for many years. Now she is a pensioner. She had a surgery recently and is on the way to recovery.  Irina lives with her husband in a small two-bedroom apartment on the first floor of a 5-storied house, khrushchovka 1 built in the 1960s. There is a quiet green yard near the house. Their apartment that was recently repaired is also quiet and cozy. There are many books in their apartment. There are Russian and Ukrainian classical books and many books on the Jewish history. There are bookmarks in some of them. This means their owner works with them. There are cushions in nice knitted pillowcases on the sofa. Irina is fond of knitting.  There is nice crockery in the cupboard and beautiful pictures on the walls. There are two beautiful gobelin pictures on the walls: this is the memory of her mother.  There are many items with Jewish symbols on them. One cannot resist the charm of this lady. She is very friendly. One cannot help enjoying working with her. During our interview Irina’s acquaintances dropped by to ask her how she was feeling. Someone gave her a bouquet of flowers through the window.  Later Irina’s husband Stanislav came home and began to set the table for dinner. They always invite their guests to share a meal with them. This is what they are used to.
I saw Irina again two months after the interview in Kiev institute of social and community workers. She is as full of new plans as usual and as friendly as we know her. Now she shares her experience with heads of Heseds and other Jewish organizations. She is a great authority among them. 

My family backgrownd

Growing up

During the war

After the war

Glossary

My family backgrownd

All my maternal and paternal ancestors were born in this green town of Nezhin on the Ostyor river in Chernigov region in about 100 km from Kiev. My mother and father’s families always supported each other at hard times and were friends. There was Ukrainian and Russian population in Nezhin and there were numerous Jewish and Armenian communities. The Greek community was the biggest. Greek merchants were the richest.  In 1815 one of three Russian lyceums was established in Nezhin. This was a school for the children of nobility. Later, during the soviet regime, a Pedagogical College was formed on the basis of this lyceum. Nezhin was not within the Pale of Settlement 2, but there were many Jews in the town before the revolution. They lived among other nationalities. There were three synagogues in the town.

My maternal grandfather Isroel Silin’s family had many children like all other Jewish families.  My grandfather was born in 1881. He owned a small haberdashery store in the center of the town. He worked alone purchasing and selling his goods. My grandfather was an educated man. He always had some club gatherings at home and my mother laughed that my grandfather was a member of Bund 3, and my grandmother was a member of another Jewish party and they always had arguments at home. They were a religious family. My grandfather’s friends were religious Jews who finished a yeshivah school like my grandfather. My grandfather also studied in a grammar school. The family observed all traditions and my mother knew about all holidays. My grandfather died at the age of 44 (in 1925), leaving his widow with six children. After he died the family did not observe traditions any longer, but my grandmother remained religious for the rest of her life. 
 
My grandmother Basia, born in 1886, was a religious woman for her time. She studied in a grammar school, but I don’t know whether she finished it. She was religious and observed all Jewish traditions and customs. They followed kashrut strictly and lit candles on Friday before Saturday. There was a Ukrainian cook who knew Jewish cuisine well in the house. My mother could make Jewish food and I learned from her. We didn’t make traditional gefilte fish, for example, but we stewed it with vegetables (carrots, beetroots and onions), cooked beans in a specific manner and made chicken stew with stuffed necks. They often made strudels and pudding with honey and poppy seeds. My grandmother spoke Yiddish in the family, but she could speak fluent Russian and knew Ukrainian like everybody else in Nezhin. My grandmother was interested in politics and read books and newspapers. It’s hard for me to tell about her political preferences before the revolution of 1917 4, but I know that she was interested in Jewish movements and parties. My grandmother wore clothes that were in fashion in the early 20th century. She wore her hair popped up and she always went out with a hat on, which wasn’t based on her religious convictions, but was a trend of the time. It was improper for ladies of all religions to go out without a hat.

After my grandfather died most of the children moved to Moscow looking for a better life and they took my grandmother there.  She tried to observe at least main traditions living with her children in Moscow. She asked them to make her a special dinner on Saturday and when her son died she demanded to have him buried in the Jewish cemetery according to traditions. She didn’t go to the synagogue, but she gave those who were going to the synagogue some money to order memorial prayers for her gone dear ones on her behalf. When she evacuated during the Great Patriotic War 5 to Petropavlovsk in Northern Kazakhstan she was desperate that there was no place to order prayers. We continued lighting candles on a memorial day in our family.  She celebrated all holidays and when there was no way to have a celebration she always remembered about a holidays and observed at least what she could.  She taught her children to be this way. They were far from religious prejudices, but they always remembered they were Jews. My grandmother passed away in Moscow in 1973. Her daughters looked after her until she died. They buried her in the Jewish section of a town cemetery. 

My grandfather and grandmother Silin had seven children. The children were born every year and a half. The oldest girl Mehama was born in 1905. She studied in a grammar school and in 1917, at the age of 12 she died of an infectious disease.  
         
Then my mother Fania Silin was born in 1907. She also studied in grammar school for few years and she often recalled this time in her life. Here is an episode from her school life: on a Christian holiday all children lined up to come to a priest to kiss his hand. My mother knew she couldn’t do it and if she did her mother wouldn’t let her enter her home. She worried a lot when her class tutor came to her rescue. She said ‘Jewish girls won’t kiss the hand’. In the future she bowed when she saw a priest, but she didn’t kiss his hand. My mother did very well at school, but in 1818 the grammar school was closed and later it was reopened to be a labor school. My mother continued studies in an accounting school. After the Great Patriotic War my mother finished extramural Moscow Financial College.

The third daughter Olga (her Jewish name was Golda) was born in 1909. She also studied in grammar school few years. After  school she moved to Moscow where she went to work as a draftswoman at a plant. She married Ziama Alpershtein, a nice Jewish guy, a worker. They received a room in a communal apartment 6 where their daughter Lena was born. In summer 1941, at the very beginning of the war, Ziama perished at the front.  Olga died in Moscow at the age of 44. Their daughter Lena worked at a post office. She passed away in Moscow in 1998.

The next daughter Manya was born in 1911. She followed into her sister’s steps moving to Moscow. She became a highly qualified marker at a plant. Her husband Nikolay Zaitsev was a highly qualified worker. He came from Klin in Moscow region. They said that when Nikolay married my aunt Manya his father came to visit them from Klin. He asked Nikolay ‘Son, there are no icons in your room. How am I supposed to pray?’ and Nikolay replied ‘Father, I have a Jewish wife. We do not pray’.  The old man was full of respect. He said ‘Jews are special and important people. There was a Jewish pharmacist in our town: he was a well-respected person'.  The Russian son-in-law respected my grandmother very much and she lived with them. Regretfully, Manya had an invalid baby. She spent all her time looking after the child, but the child died. Manya was a housewife. She also took care of my grandmother. Manya died in 1978.

My grandmother’s favorite son Avraam, born in 1912, was a very decent, smart, talented and a very handsome man. He worked as a joiner at the same plant in Moscow where his sisters were working. He met his future wife Frieda at the plant. Avraam died of some infectious disease in 1929. They have lived only a few months together, unfortunately, they did not have children. This was a terrible loss for his family and for the collective of the plant. My grandmother never recovered from this tragedy.

My mother’s sister Rieva, born in 1913, didn’t complete her education. She followed her sisters moving to work in Moscow. She was a draftswoman and later she went to work at the aviation plant where she worked at the design office. Her husband Ruvim Gitiz, a Jewish man, worked at the same plant. Rieva was called with the Russian name 7 Rita (Jewish names were not popular at the time.) I don’t think they had children. She died in Moscow about 10 years ago.

Malka, the last one, born in 1915, followed her sisters to Moscow. She worked as technician at a big plant. She met her husband Polosin at the plant where he was an engineer. He was Russian. The Silin family were very proud of Malka. She was a champion of Moscow in swimming. Malka died in 2002.

The sisters were very close. They spoke Yiddish, cooked for holidays, always celebrated holidays together and supported each other. Although they moved to Moscow when they were young they kept their identity of provincial Jews from Nezhin.

My grandfather Mindel’s branch of the family originated from Lithuania. Our ancestors moved to Nezhin in the late 18th century and we don’t know any relatives in Lithuania. Grandfather Simon Yankel Mindel was a shoemaker. He was born to the family of Moisey Mindel, a shoemaker in Nezhin, in 1874. He kept hitting his little hammer sitting on a small shoemaker’s stool all his life. My grandfather was very religious. He was a senior man at the synagogue and the Jewish community of the town respected him very much for his honesty. He was a wise and reserved man. My grandfather Simon Yankel sang beautifully. He was a tenor and sang at the synagogue. Now I understand that he was a cantor. I remember my grandfather singing children’s songs in Yiddish. One of them was about a tailor singing a song and his needle followed his song. Sometimes he sang Ukrainian songs. He didn’t know any Russian songs. My grandmother had strong will and was a very determined woman and my grandfather always obeyed her.

I often recall my paternal grandmother. I took from her all human values that I have. My grandmother Masia was born to the dynasty of butchers named Lempert in Nezhin in 1878. They were not just butchers. They purchased cattle across the province, slaughtered it in Nezhin and then sold meat in their shop.  My grandmother was a butcher. She cut meat in her shop and then sold it. She had housemaids to help her with housekeeping. She observed traditions, lit candles on Friday and cooked a substantial kosher dinner. My grandmother adored her husband who sat there hitting his hammer while she was the breadwinner. She gave birth to eight children: three daughters and five sons, whom she was very proud of and adored them.

In 1919, when my grandmother was 40 years old, my grandfather’s brother Haim Iosif Mindel came from the front of the Civil War 8. He had typhoid. She isolated him from her family and shut herself in a room with him to nurse him. She brought him to recovery and died saving her husband and children’s lives. They survived. She was the only one who passed away. The rich and the poor of the town took part in the procession following her casket at her funeral. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery. All beggars and handicapped came to the funeral. She always helped and supported them. My father worshipped his mother.

My grandfather was very religious and was to remarry according to the rules. Four months later a shadkhan sent him to another town where he met a Jewish woman, a widow with four children.  Her name was Miriam. She was big and beautiful. She suffered from diabetes. The children got along well and we all loved her. We called her ‘grandmother’ and she loved us, too. Only my father was devoted to his mother. It upset him that she slept in his mother’s bed and he also saw her wearing his mother’s shawls. Everything she said or did exasperated him. In 1919, when my father turned 18 he overtook responsibility for the family. My father joined his Lempert uncles’ business. I remember Barko Lempert, a huge fat man. He always spoke Yiddish using many Ukrainian words.  

The most wonderful and close of my grandmother’s relatives was her tiny sister Haya. She didn’t have any children of her own and she just adored her deceased sister’s children. When she was very old and had poor sight my father always gave her money when they met. He gave her all he had at such moments. And their meetings were all alike. My father said ‘Hallo, grandmother Haya’. She pretended she didn’t recognize him and replied ‘Hallo, and who are you?’ My father had a sense of humor and continued her game ‘Well, then if you don’t know me, may I bid you good bye’. Haya screamed ‘Don’t go, you tramp!’ fearing that he wouldn’t give her an allowance. Another thing about Haya: when a relative visited Nezhin my father harnessed a horse and took the family to the grave of grandmother. Haya approached her sister’s grave and said ‘Masia, can you hear me?’ My father said from behind ‘Yes, Haya, I hear you’. She turned and said ‘Shut up, you tramp. Do not let him spoil the whole thing’. And she started again ‘Masia, hallo, can you hear me? Here is this and that one. They‘ve come here. Of course, David brought them here. David is a graf (‘count’ in Russian). His wife Fania is a real grafinia (‘countess’ in Russian) and they’ve brought two grafinchiki [Editor’s note: this is a word game. ‘Grafinchiki’ means ‘water bottle’ in Russian], so she reported standing by the grave. On the way to the cemetery my father was trying to persuade Haya: ‘Haya, please don’t act like this’, but it was impossible to stop her. She used to say about my father’s younger brother Pyotr: ‘Your son is a pilot, He is your ‘little finger’, he is so famous’.  He was 24 at that time and he was a lieutenant and was not famous yet. She said ‘You will be proud of him and the whole country will know him, the whole ‘mishpukha’.  She loved and cared about her nephews, Masia’s children.

Unfortunately, all I know about my father’s brothers and sisters is what he told me. They kept in touch and visited one another. I know that they were not religious and they did well in life. I have no contacts with their children.

My father’s older sister Lisa (her Jewish name was Livsha), born in 1899, was a terrific person. She married Solomon Levin, a Jewish man. Before her marriage she knew she would never have children like Haya and her fiancé knew about it, but he married her anyway. He loved her so. Solomon perished at the front and Lisa remarried twice. She over lived two husbands. She moved to USA with the children of her third husband in the 1990s. She died at an elderly people’s home there at the age of almost 100 years. She was a nice lady, very sweet and pleasant and everybody loved her.

The next sister Sima, born in 1900, was lame from birth. She was amazingly smart and attractive. Yevsey Levin, Lisa husband Solomon’s brother, a Jewish man, very handsome, had to compete with other men to marry Sima, so beautiful and smart she was regardless of her handicap. They moved to Moscow where they both worked at a plant. They named their daughter Masia after my grandmother. During the Great Patriotic War Yevsey had an affair with a young girl at the front. He didn’t even think of leaving his family, but aunt Sima didn’t forgive him: she cut him off once and forever. After the Great Patriotic War Sima and her daughter stayed in Moscow. Sima died at the age of 74. She went to the kitchen to have a glass of kefir when her daughter was at a concert. She fell with this glass and died. Her daughter was smart and educated. He was an economist. She moved to USA in the 1980s. She died in New York.

My father David Mindel, born in 1901, was the oldest of his brothers. He was tall and swarthy and had fair eyes, but everybody thought he had dark eyes. My father went to cheder while the rest of his brothers studied in a Soviet Jewish school.

After my father uncle Shaya (Esaih) was born in 1905. He was different from my father. He could sing and dance well. When he was young he used to run away to gypsies.  He loved women and they loved him. He was a cattle dealer and at times he got engaged in swindling and put in prison. The family was sort of ashamed of him. After his last time in prison Shaya changed dramatically. He became very religious and reserved and led a very quiet life. In his last years of life Shaya was head of the Jewish community in Nezhin. He made arrangements for funerals. Shaya died in Nezhin at the age of 86. His two daughters live in Los Angeles, USA, and his son lives in Nezhin.

The next two children had one date of birth written in their birth certificate, but they weren’t twins. My grandfather was too lazy to go register his baby and waited until another was born a year later. He registered a brother and a sister at the same time. So it happened that Rosa and Yuzik were like twins, though they were not born at the same date. Rosa was born in 1908 and Yuzik was born in 1909. Aunt Rosa was a professional singer. She had a dramatic soprano, a very strong voice. It was too loud to listen to her singing in a room. She studied in a music school that taught all soloists of the Bolshoi Theater 9 and she entered it without any problems. She also danced beautifully and wanted to sing in musical comedy, but her voice fit in opera well. Her first husband was from Dagestan. He was a Party member, but she was his fourth or fifth wife. It was impossible to live with him. He was a despot and she ran away from him. She returned to Moscow and was in hiding there. This Dagestanian man happened to be terribly jealous and promised to kill her. Once in Moscow Rosa met her acquaintance from Nezhin Nikolai Zhuravlyov.  He was Russian. He had finished a college and was to go to work in Kursk.  He had been in love with Rosa for a long time and proposed to her right away. A few days later they arrived in Kursk. Some time later he became director of a factory and Rosa organized a choir of Russian folk songs. She became its director and a soloist. She frequently got invitations from the best choirs in Moscow, but she didn’t want to stay away from her husband and refused these job offers. It was her dream to form a Jewish choir. She and her husband moved to Lipetsk. He was director of a big plant. He was a wonderful person. During the Great Patriotic War he was a private at the front. Rosa died in Moscow in 1987. Her only son Vladimir Zhuravlyov lives in Moscow. We are friends. 

Yuzik, born in 1909, worked as a joiner in Moscow. He had a Jewish wife. During the Great Patriotic War he was at the front like all brothers. He lost a leg at the front.  After the war he worked with logistics. He became obese and suffered from asthma. He died in Moscow in 1973. His son Mikhail lives in Moscow.

My father’s next brother Mikhail, born in 1911, studied in a Jewish school and served in the Navy. Only tall and athletic young men were selected for this service. There is a family legend related to Mikhail’s service on a cruiser. The legendary military commander Voroshilov 10 visited his cruiser and there was an amateur concert. Mikhail sang wonderfully. He was a tenor like grandfather. He sang a Jewish song at the concert. Voroshilov liked the song very much. He asked ‘Is it a gypsy song?’ ‘No’, said uncle Mikhail, ‘it’s a Jewish song’. Voroshilov gave my uncle a guitar. He kept it for many years, but it was lost during the Great Patriotic War. The family tried to persuade Mikhail to study music and singing, but Mikhail didn’t have education and he was used to manual work. In his employment record book he had only one entry working as a car mechanic in a garage in Moscow. Like his five brothers Mikhail was in the army during the Great Patriotic War. He served on the ‘Road of Life’ 11. He supervised transportation of half-dead people from Leningrad. He had awards for his service. Mikhail had a Russian wife. I don’t remember her name and I don’t know whether they had children. Mikhail died of cancer at the age of 60 in 1971.  

The family was very proud of my father’s younger brother Pyotr (Jewish name Pinia), born in 1913. He studied in the Soviet Jewish School in Nezhin. At the age of 16 he moved to Moscow   where he worked at a plant and later entered an Air Force School. Uncle Pyotr was a pilot and in July 1941 he was awarded an Order of Lenin 12 for a heroic deed. He was a hero, but he was a humble person and didn’t like talking about his heroic deeds. After the great Patriotic War he finished Military Academy and served in civil aviation. He flew across the country in emergency situations. He had many awards. He was a very decent and interesting man. He was the most educated of Mindel brothers. Pyotr’s wife Yelena was Russian. She lived in Moscow. She merged with our family and adopted all our traditions like nobody else. She had a good voice and sang Jewish songs. It was funny when Yelena started Jewish songs at our family gatherings.  She didn’t know Yiddish, but she learned lyrics of Jewish songs. Pyotr died a sudden death from a heart attack when he was on vacation in Yevpatoriya. He was 67.  His daughter Tamara was an aviation design engineer in a design institute in Moscow.

In this big family my father David always had a deciding word since he was the oldest son. My father was well shaped and strong. When a circus came on tour into the town my father’s relatives tried to persuade my father to stay aside from its performances. My father gave his word, dressed up and went to the circus. When wrestlers came onto the stage and invited volunteers from the audience to take part in their performance the audience began to call ‘David! David!’ and my father went onto the stage against his relatives’ objections. He often won. My father used to say that he had an incomplete lower education. He was a cattle driver since childhood and he even had a certificate of ‘cattle driver’. Later he became a cab driver when he met my mother.

My parents met when standing in line to pay fees: my mother came to pay a fee for her dying father and my father came to pay tax for his horses. My mother didn’t have enough money and my father came and said ‘I will pay for you’.  She was confused. My mother was tiny and shy. She asked ‘How do I pay you back?’ and he replied ‘I will find you’. My mother studied in an accounting school and other boys she knew were not at all like my father. He was a big man with a whip (now they have keys from their cars with them, but at that time they had to take their whips with them) and he made a great impression on my mother. My mother told her friends about this man. She didn’t know how he would find her.  Everybody knew Mindel brothers in Nezhin. When there were girls on the beach they used to gallop their horses into the river. They were athletes and absolutely adored horses. Once my mother was dancing at a party in her accounting school when her friends said ‘Fania, there is a man standing in the doorway gazing at you. He looks like the one you described’. My mother looked back. It was him, but he disappeared. After the party my mother went out and my father stopped her. He said ‘Hallo, I’ve come to pick the debt’. She felt confused again. She never had any money. He said ‘In that case marry me’. My mother and her friends burst into laughing and got on his sledge. There was no space left for my mother and then my father grabbed her with his hand and put her on the seat beside him wrapping her in his winter coat.  My mother recalled later ‘I felt like fainting. I thought I could ride in his embrace for the rest of my life’. Such was a beginning of this great love. My mother’s father died shortly afterward. Her father died young and my mother told me later that she had my father in her dreams, although he kept his distance, but she already was tying her life to his. After the funeral he took all children home on his wagon. He took responsibility for their family.

They got married a year later in 1826. I know for sure that there was a chuppah on their wedding. It was customary for the time that bridegrooms borrowed somebody else’s clothes for a wedding. My father had someone else’s coat on to have better looks. This was the coat of Yevsey, my father’s sister Sima’s husband. When it was over my father was looking for his coat. My mother whispered to him: ‘David, you’ve come wearing Yevsey’s coat and he left in yours’.  They often recalled this episode laughing. 
 

Growing up

I was born in 1931. I was their second child. Their first girl died of some disease at the age of three and a half years. I was a white-skin baby with no eyelashes. I was very quiet. Before I was born my parents rented apartments in various parts of the town, but when I was born they bought a house in the center. It was a big house that belonged to a landlord in the past. As I understand now they bought it almost for nothing. This house was bought for three families: my grandfather Mindel, our family and my father sister Sima’s family. Sima and her family moved to Moscow some time later and our family lived in this house until my father died. I was brought to this house from the maternity hospital where I was born. I was named Sarra after my maternal grandfather Isroel. These two names sound similar. My grandfather Mindel insisted on giving me this name. He respected my mother’s father who had died by then very much. He saw that I wasn’t a pretty baby and to console my mother he said: ‘The girl looks very intelligent’.

My mother often recalled the period of hunger in the early 1930s 13, there was nothing to eat and they ate potato peels and other junk food, but my mother had a lot of breast milk and she breastfed me until the age of two. My mother had sufficient milk to breastfeed another baby. He was a Ukrainian boy from a dispossessed family 14 of Petriks who lost their home. My parents gave shelter to a few dispossessed families and they were grateful to my parents for the rest of their lives. I was very fat in my childhood and everybody thought I was swollen from hunger.  My mother always said: ‘I survived the periods of hunger in 1931-1932 and during the war and I don’t want to be hungry ever again’.  When the period of famine was over my father took a cow into the house and it stayed with us until the end of his life. It was a deity of the family. The family worshipped it and we had a housemaid who milked the cow. If the housemaid was away my father put on her apron and kerchief to milk the cow. My mother never came close to the cow. She was a softie and my father never allowed her to do physical work to preserve her appearance.

My brother Yefim was born in 1936.  I remember sitting on my mother’s lap and she had such a big belly and there was something stirring inside. Then this crying and screaming nubbin came into the world. He was big and beautiful. Eight days later my brother was circumcised. I remember this well. The baby was whining there were old people around him doing something to him and I was very worried and horrified thinking that they might harm this little baby and they were trying to calm me down. 

Something happened in 1936. This incident made me grow mature and feel for the first time in my life that we were Jews and that we were different from all others. My mother went to work two months after Yefim was born. She was a highly qualified accountant. She worked all her life. My parents hired a Ukrainian girl from a village to look after the baby. She also helped my father to look after the cow and milk it. My father’s stepmother looked after the whole household. All of a sudden this girl disappeared on the eve of Pesach. My father contacted her family, but she was not there either. Her sister came from the village, we searched for the girl, but she was not found. She was missing for three days. The whole town came to our yard. My father and grandfather were sitting on a bench and there were militiamen beside them on both sides.  Actually, they were about to take my father and grandfather to prison. There was a rumor that they killed the girl to make matzah. People were yelling ‘They always kill girls to add their blood into matzah’. We had never heard anything like that before. The girl’s brothers didn’t say anything. They kept looking for her. They looked in the river. This river was sparrow knee deep. Other people held torches for them and they searched the bottom with hooks. She was found suddenly. It turned out that she suffered from mental disorders since childhood. She suddenly fell into depression and then she found shelter where she could sleep for days. She removed a plank in the chicken house and slept there, warm and healthy, all in her urine. She was taken to hospital. There was one ward for patients with mental diseases in the hospital in Nezhin. Her sister replaced her and stayed with us until the war. Everything ended well, but we had a bitter aftertaste. We faced anti-Semitism. I kept asking ‘Who was killed when matzah was to be made?’. I couldn’t get rid of this horror for a long time.  

My grandfather and grandmother Mindel only spoke Yiddish. I visited them for a cup of tea  after kindergarten every day and they spoke Yiddish in my presence and once my grandmother commented ‘I think she understands’ and I nodded my head ‘Yes, yes, I understand’. Then my grandmother and grandfather began to speak Yiddish to me and I enjoyed talking with them in Yiddish. There we sat at the table having tea and jam, my grandfather on my right and my grandmother on my left quietly talking in Yiddish. My grandfather taught me everything Jewish I know: Jewish songs, traditions, dishes, Jewish warmth and Jewish soul. Matzah was made in his home and Jews got together to pray in his home when there were no synagogues left in the town after the Great Patriotic War as a result of titanic efforts 15 of the Soviet regime.

We always had housemaids before the war. My mother worked a lot as deputy chief accountant of the municipal trade department. This was a very important position. In late 1930 my father also changed his job. I liked the horse smell in our house, but my mother rebelled against his profession. However, my father adored horses and went to work as horse dealer at a military registry office. My father was responsible for providing horses for the needs of the army and he often went on business trips. Every spring he went to military camps where he stayed through summer.

Arrests in 1937 16 did not reflect directly our family, but my father had adamant anti-Soviet  ideas. He could speak out his ideas and my mother was very concerned about his safety. There was fear in our family when my mother was interrogated about Ms. Grudina when my father was in a military camp.  My mother said she didn’t know anything about the woman. Nothing good or bad, although she actually knew this woman very well, she was our neighbor. I do not know in what she was guilty and what incriminated to her.  My mother was kept there until morning. My grandfather was waiting for her sitting on the bench. My mother always mentioned this bench where grandfather waited for her 24 hours without any food or water worrying about her. He said ‘Fania, if they arrest you I will come there in the morning to tell them to take me instead. David will not forgive me if they arrest you’. My mother recalled that when she came home my grandfather couldn’t stand up from the shock, although he was not old then. Later this Ukrainian woman about whom my mother was interrogated was arrested anyway.

I went to school in 1939. There were no Jewish schools left in Nezhin by then and I went to a Russian school. My mother always wanted to give me good education. I studied German with a governess and had music classes at home. My grandmother and grandfather taught me Yiddish. I did very well at school. I had all excellent marks and I and my friend Yasha, a Jewish boy, were the best in our class. There were many Jewish children in my class. I was a very quiet child.  My first teacher who also knew my mother since grammar school used to say ‘Why doesn’t she speak louder? How will she live?’  

During the war

I remember some vague alarm that everybody felt at the beginning of war on 22 June 1941. My father was immediately called to the army. Before he left he managed to make some arrangements for my mother to go to work at the military hospital. She worked as an accountant and document assistant. My father thought it was better this way and he was right. The hospital evacuated to Astrakhan [a town in Russia in 1200 from Moscow where the Volga flows into the Caspian Sea] and we evacuated with this hospital leaving our home and belongings. Our housemaid took our valuables to her home in a village. We had beautiful carpets and old gobelin pictures. She kept them in a cellar where the carpets got rotten. The pictures were all right and I have them in my apartment now. Our dog, a beautiful pedigree spitz, perished. Germans killed it. They knew who the dog belonged to. They said ‘Jude’ and killed it. 

In Astrakhan we were accommodated in an apartment. My mother wasn’t on military service, but she wore a uniform with no badges of rank. On 1 October 1941 I went to school and my brother went to a 24-hour kindergarten. There was one such kindergarten for evacuated children whose mothers had to work long hours. At that time I faced anti-Semitism again, although there were no Jews in Astrakhan before the war and there could be no roots for local anti-Semitism. We lived in a terrible neighborhood for exiled enemies of the Soviet regime. They were mainly former kulaks and wealthy families from Ukraine. Their anti-Semitism went back to pogroms in the 1910s 17. Their children must have told their parents that there was a girl with a very strange name of Sarra [Editor’s note: Jewish names were targets of mockery, vulgar jokes and abuse at the time]. Their parents probably explained what it was about and they beat me brutally saying that they were beating me for being a ‘zhydovka parchataya’ [kike]. I was a weird child. I was very quiet and never fought back. I came home and told my mother: ‘Mom, take it easy, but I shall never go to school again and I shall never go out to play with children’. I didn’t go to school for a year. Teachers from school came to talk me out of it and commissar of the hospital came to talk with me, but I didn’t change my mind.

About half a year passed when the owner of the apartment Lutikova said: ‘I am so lucky that you are not Jews. Other apartment owners have Jewish tenants’. Actually, 75% of hospital employees were Jews. My mother slept overnight and in the morning she packed and said: ‘I need to tell you that I am a Jew’. The hospital sent a truck to pick us and we moved to the hospital. I didn’t go to school. I studied at home, helped in the hospital, did housework and went to help an old woman, our neighbor, to water her vegetable garden and she gave us vegetables from her garden.  I remember that this old lady gave me five apples on my birthday.

In autumn 1942 there were frequent bombings of Astrakhan. There were oil tanks burning around. Fuel was shipped to the front from Astrakhan. It was not safe to stay there. My father’s brother Pyotr was commanding officer of a squadron and teacher at a pilot school after he was wounded. The school was in the Ural, in Chkalovsk town (present Orenburg) in 2000 km from Kiev. He sent us documents to move to him. I remember that we traveled across the Caspian Sea on a bare to Gurievsk in 720 km from Astrakhan and from there we took trains to get to Orenburg. We stayed with uncle Pyotr’s family and my mother went to work as accountant.

Here was the issue of my going to school again. I said: ‘I am not going to school’. Pyotr’s wife Yelena had a strong character. She attacked my mother ‘What kind of a name is this?  Sarra is written on all fences. This doesn’t make other children feel friendlier’. She asked me ‘What name do you like?’ and I said ‘Irina’. I knew Irina in my former school and she had such beautiful plates. Yelena went to school and said ‘You’ve got the wrong name of a girl. Please change Sarra to Irina. Sarra is a mistake’. They changed my name and my family convinced me that nobody would know I was a Jew. I studied very well and got along well with my schoolmates. We received letters from my father and always waited for them. He was 40 when he went to the front. He had gout and after a year of service he was released from his front line service. He had lost many friends and grieved after them a lot. He was a great person with a great heart. He was very kind. He continued his army service as cattle supplier.  

My mother corresponded with her former colleagues from hospital.  By the end of 1943 the hospital moved to Taganrog, a Russian town on the border with Ukraine, in 800 km from Kiev. My mother got an offer to return to the hospital and she accepted it gladly. We returned to Nezhin in 1944. About this time my grandmother and grandfather returned from evacuation in Tatarstan. Our neighbors and acquaintances were happy to see us again, I recall.  They helped us with food, although they didn’t have much. I gratefully recall a bag of beans and some potatoes that our acquaintances brought from a village. There were Assyrian tenants living in our house since wartime and my grandfather thought it was not proper to make them move out. They lived in a wing of the house. It didn’t make us very comfortable. They were noisy people with their own traditions, but my grandfather and father were patient with them. I received my first lessons of humanity and tolerance. Nobody ever told them to get out. 

Shortly after we returned, in 1944 my grandfather Mindel’s second wife Miriam died of diabetic coma. The war was still on, our house was cold and she didn’t survive. I remember her funeral in the Jewish cemetery. She was buried according to Jewish traditions. She was wrapped in white cloth. There were four planks, on top, at bottom and on each side and the cloth was wrapped around. I was terrified to see my grandfather doing this. Then men took this out of the house and then to the cemetery. I stayed at home. My grandfather then sat on the floor taking off his shoes and the others were cutting his clothes. There was no synagogue in Nezhin. On Friday and Saturday old men gathered in my grandfather’s room to pray.  Matzah was baked in our house and we, children, took part in the process. Then matzah flour was made from matzah and there were dishes with dumplings. 

After the war

My father returned in summer 1945. It is such happiness when the family is together. He continued his work as cattle supplier. He never joined the Party and had anti-Soviet convictions, but he had to keep this a secret from others. His stay in Germany at the end of the war convinced him stronger that he was right. He used to say ‘How did we manage to win a victory, when there is such good order there and everything is such a mess here?’ He felt happy when Israel was established in 1948. Everybody thought that we would move there right away knowing the attitudes in our family, but this was impossible to do and my father didn’t dare. Graves were more important to him than anything else. It was his dream to get to a Jewish state. He was a real Jew.

My mother was an apologist of the landlord nobility way of life. She admired their education, culture and literature. She stressed that the Russian classical literature was created by the nobility. She hated it that all cooks, housemaids and laborers were trying to come to power. My mother hated their lack of culture, their manner of speaking. She was hurt by this lack of culture while they felt masters of this life. 

In 1945 I fell severely ill with tuberculosis of glands. My relatives from Moscow took me to Moscow. I studied at school and stayed with my father brother Mikhail’s family. All relatives took part in arrangements for my medical treatment. I was taken to an institute and then I was taken to a healer, an old man in Moscow region where I was to go once a week. I left school and missed almost a year of studies. I recovered and returned to Nezhin a year later. I went to school with another class. However, another severe illness began: psoriasis.

In 1946 a teacher of Hebrew named Ash came to our house. I don’t have the slightest idea where my father found him. My father hired him for my brother. He was a poor man, one of emigrants from Russia. He came from America and somehow happened to arrive at the provincial town of Nezhin. Five other Jewish boys came to his classes in our house and he taught them by wonderfully beautiful books. My father arranged these classes for him since he wouldn’t accept alms, but he had to support his ill wife. He taught the boys Hebrew and Yiddish, but my brother was no good at languages. The teacher used to say to my brother ‘Fima, can’t you hear one word when your parents talk?’ and my brother replied ‘I can, but talk so that I didn’t understand anything’. Other boys were as dumb as my brother. Ash didn’t accept money from widows’ children. Then my father doubled his payment to keep this teacher working. Ash lived in Nezhin several years until he disappeared. Nobody knew where he went. When I was in Israel at the 65th birthday of my brother in 2001 I met rabbe Ash’s former pupils. They spoke of him warmly. They remembered his first name, but I only remembered his last name of Ash.  

When I returned from Moscow I became more active at school. I was an active pioneer and then Komsomol 18 member. I am a funny person. I yield to convictions.  My parents were not quite happy with my fervor, but they didn’t interfere. I became a leader at school. I was Komsomol organizer and chairman of the pupil’s committee.  I devotedly participated in all activities. I conducted Komsomol meetings speaking for better studies, was eager for our school to win the first place for gathering waste paper, convinced schoolchildren to join Komsomol and was responsible for admission. I quit music school where I was very successful for the sake of Komsomol.  I studied brilliantly, but another period of wild anti-Semitism called ‘struggle against rootless cosmopolites’ 19 began. I remember cold suspicious attitudes of my classmates. There were few Jewish pupils in my class. Those girls and I felt something and tried to stay closer to one another. Many years later I analyzed why Jewish children are so active and study so well. Jewish children has always had a feeling of inferiority and they took every chance where their talents could develop.  

I didn’t have ant document proving that I was Irina. When I turned 16 my mother went to the passport office and said that her girl would have a terrible stress if they wrote the name of Sarra in my passport. She said I already got used to the name of Irina. Everybody knew and respected my mother. They knew that her daughter was Irina and that I had psoriasis. So nobody argued. They just wrote the name of Irina in my passport. 

I finished school in 1950 and had huge plans. I was going to enter the Faculty of Philosophy and Children’s Psychology in Moscow state University or Polygraphist College to study children’s publication business. My parents knew where I was going and they also knew that it didn’t make sense trying to make me change my mind.  They were very worried. The family didn’t have money to support me and they didn’t want to let me go alone to cold Moscow where I would not have enough food. We heard rumors from Moscow that Jewish children were not appreciated in higher educational institutions. It was the period of struggle against cosmopolitism. There was a very good Pedagogical College in Moscow. One day my parents came home and I said: ‘I’ve submitted my documents to the Pedagogical College’. They were so happy. I passed all exams with ‘5’ marks and was admitted. My specialty was Russian philology. I had problems with the Ukrainian language, but I studied it with such effort that before graduation I knew it perfectly.

In 1951 my grandfather passed away. My father arranged Jewish funeral for him, only there was no cerement, but a casket, I don’t know for what reason. There were older Jewish men at the funeral. My father and father’s brother, those of them who managed to come to the funeral, were not supposed to walk after the casket and had to take another road to the cemetery. Again clothes were cut and the funeral prayer recited. This was another day when our family began to light candles. 

In the early 1950s I studied in college. Since I had all excellent marks at the age of 18 I was photographed with Stalin’s portrait on the background. I brought this picture home, but my father said: ‘Throw away this photo’. He understood very well what was going on in the country and that Stalin was aware of everything and he was the one who issued orders. He often said ‘Beast, what a beast’. The drama called ‘doctors’ plot’ 20 was played in the country.  Wonderful doctors who worked with us in the hospital didn’t have patients any more. There was doctor Khizes. There were rumors in town that he instilled some throat diseases in his patients.  This situation drove my father mad. My father said: ‘Here, I told you he is a beast’. I hate those memories of this horror and all those terrible articles in newspapers.  

There were few Jewish lecturers and students in our college. They pestered us at Komsomol meetings for little things. There were village wenches and demobilized military in their uniform coats and they couldn’t forgive us for our successful studies and intelligence when they were dumb and uneducated. However, there were nice Ukrainian and Russian girls and teachers, but there were so few of them. I am sure that anti-Semitism is based on jealousy.  I remember two senior Jewish students: Bishler and Braier. They were two years senior. They were intelligent and talented guys. They were criticized at every meeting. Once I spoke in their defense. Later they said that these ‘zhydy’ [kikes] were all the same. I was the best student. I liked studying and everything was interesting for me, including the Russian and Ukrainian languages and literature and there was nothing to reproach me with.

However, I was naive like everybody else and I believed in justice. When Stalin died in 1953 I thought I was going to die too. Life seemed to have stopped.  My father felt different. He didn’t say anything and one could see not joy, but gloating delight in his eyes. He was hoping that the chief’s death would change the situation. It was true. Some time later talks about doctors came to an end.

When I was a student I became interested in the Jewish subject and began to make a log of outstanding Jewish people. I consulted assistant professor Polonski, a Jew. Then I became obsessed with it. My acquaintances always called me when they wanted to find out information about Jews. Everybody knew that Irina knew everything about all Jews. I didn’t keep it a secret that I collected information about Jews, but only Jews took interest in it. Polonski was fired from our college. He worked in Tyumen and sent me letters with new information.

I got married in 1953. I met my future husband at a Komsomol conference in Chernigov [200 km from Kiev]. His name was Boris Lopko and he was born in 1927. He studied in a technical college after serving in the army for seven years. In 1944 he was sent to the Far East. He had a hard life. His mother Mera Barkan was an assimilated Jew. His father Fyodor Lopko was Ukrainian. During the war Boris and his mother were in occupation. The burgomaster rescued her giving her a Ukrainian passport. He rescued several Jews. We met and I felt sorry that he had to serve seven years in the army and that his 20-year-old sister died and that he suffered so much in occupation. He was in love with me, but I was feeling sorry for him. His Jewish mother was not happy that her son married a Jewish girl. She feared everything Jewish and tried to conceal her Jewish identity. We registered our marriage in a registry office in Chernigov.

After graduation I taught the Russian language in a school in Nezhin for two years. On days off I traveled 90 km to my husband in Chernigov by bus. Boris worked as an electrician. Later I convinced him to enter extramural department of Polytechnic College in Chernigov. I helped him with his studies and did tests for him. When he received his diploma he said ‘I can give you this diploma. It’s yours’, but I said ‘Thanks, I already have one’. It was hard for us to be together. We were different people. He got irritated at my attachment to books and my inclination for going into the depth of things. During the period of anti-Semitism his instincts told him that it was better to conceal that he was a Jew and he never objected when somebody spoke against Jews. I was different and the first thing I said when meeting people was that I was a Jew. 

There was a vacancy in a children’s library in Chernigov and I appealed for it. I wanted to be with my husband in Chernigov. I worked in the reading hall first and later I became director of this library when my predecessor retired. I had to be on guard all the time: if a writer got arrested and there were articles in central newspapers we had to remove his books from our stocks. I had to enter the Party to keep this position and I did. It was a formal and routinely ceremony. 

At first we lived with my husband’s relatives in Chernigov. Later we rented an apartment. When our baby was due my husband worked as an engineer and received a nice room in a communal apartment in the center of the town.

Our son was born in 1957. We named him Fyodor. My husband’s father died shortly before our son was born. He was a very nice person and we named the baby after him. About five years later my mother-in-law moved in with us. Life became unbearable and I left my husband taking my son with me. I received a room and later an apartment. I had a small salary and asked my acquaintances to find me a better job. I got an offer from a geological organization. I worked there as an editor for five years. I finished editor’s training course.  Later I went to teach at the Advanced Teachers’ Training College. 

My father was a very important person in my life. My life is divided into two parts: before and after my father died. When my father died in 1967 old Jewish men came to me and said: ‘You must give your consent for us to make all necessary arrangements’. I replied: ‘My father never went to the synagogue. I think you are wrong. My father wasn’t really religious’.  They said: ‘Your father always gave money to Jews and to the underground Jewish community’.  If he met a money collector he gave his contribution and then when he met another he gave him money, too. It didn’t matter whether he was hard up at the moment or not he knew that he had to make contributions to the community and that was it. Faithful Jews washed his corps and buried and recited a prayer. His colleagues and our Assyrian tenants came to the funeral, but faithful Jews played the main role. I couldn’t allow my mother to walk 3 km to the cemetery alone, though. We were told to wear old clothes to the cemetery. They told us they were going to cut our collars. My brother and I did as we were told, although we were both communists.

After my father died I took my mother to Chernigov. She worked as an accountant until she turned 70. I was raising my son and my mother was helping me.

My brother Yefim finished a school of civil aviation in Moscow region. Later he worked as a technician in Vinnitsa, a regional town in Ukraine in 200 km from Kiev. There he married a lovely Jewish girl. However, he always missed me and wanted to live in my town.  He moved to Chernigov where he served in a military school. He was promoted to the rank of captain. He has two children: daughter Arina and son Oleg. When Chernobyl disaster 21 happened in 1986 Arina prepared to move to Israel. In 1990  my brother and his family moved to Israel. My mother thought their departure was my father’s dream coming true.  She said: ‘He couldn’t move there in 1948. Now that he died let his son go there’. My brother’s daughter is 43. She had divorced her husband before. She doesn’t want to remarry. She lives for her child. In Haifa, Israel, my brother’s wife and my niece learned Ivrit. My brother’s wife taught mathematic in Ivrit for 11 years. Arina works as an office administrator in a legal advice office. My brother didn’t want to study. He worked as a welder. My nephew moved to Eilat where he works in tourist business.  He is very happy. My brother and his wife are pensioners. They have a good live and like Israel. They’ve bought an apartment facing the sea. I’ve visited them twice.  

My son Fyodor graduated from the Faculty of Indo-European Languages in Kiev University. He is a Spanish and Portuguese translator. Now Fyodor owns a woodwork company in Moscow. He likes this business and is successful. He was married three times. There is something wrong with his marital life. His wives were non-Jewish. His older son David, named after my father, lives with his wife and mother in Kharkov [450 km from Kiev],  and his 14-year-old daughter Dasha lives in Moscow. I hardly know her.

My son knows that he is a Jew. When I ask him: ‘Who do you feel you are?’ he replies “I am who I am’.  He loves his relatives, our big family, but I didn’t develop the love to Judaism and everything Jewish in him. My grandson David is different. After I retired at the age of 55 I raised him. Later he went to live with his mother in Kharkov, but he never forgot about me and visited me every time he got a chance. He often called and wrote me.  We are very close. He even has absolute hearing and a wonderful voice taking after the Mindel branch of the family.  Recently David married Lena, a lovely Jewish girl. Now we have another dearest creature: David’s daughter, my great granddaughter Katia. She is only 2.5, but I can tell that she understands me completely. David and Katia live in Kharkov. They often come to see me on holidays and days off.

Over 20 years ago I met my current husband Stanislav Martynenko, born in 1935. When we met I was eager to keep or acquaintance, but I said: ‘I am a Jew and you must think about it’. He didn’t think. He just said he loved me and didn’t care about it. We registered our marriage and began to live together. Stanislav is a box trainer, a champion in the past.

His first family is in Kharkov. His first wife took every effort to separate the children from him. My grandson and granddaughter love him. He married me when little David was with me.  His mother feared that he might marry a woman with small children and when little David and I came to meet her she almost fainted seeing my grandson. Stanislav said: ‘Mother, you’ve always told me about a woman having small children, but you never mentioned grandchildren’. He has a terrific sense of humor.

Beginning from 1986 I dedicated myself to my family looking after my mother, my mother-in-law and raising my grandson. I lived the life of a pensioner. My mother had a poor heart. She died before Pesach in 1992. There was a prayer recited at her funeral. Not many people in town did this. There was a Jewish community formed in Chernigov. Chairman of the community was looking for a place to celebrate the holidays. He came to me and said: ‘The best memory of your mother would be if we start preparations for Pesach here’.  We prepared everything for Pesach  and celebrated it in my apartment without hiding. This was the first Jewish holidays celebrated in Chernigov after many years of oblivion. There was something subconscious in me. I began to read about it and I read about commandments, it was such a discovery for me. There is an inner voice in people and I was proud of my Jewish identity, but I wasn’t aware what exactly I was proud of.  When I began to read more I opened a whole world for me. We’ve always had many books at home and we liked to give books as presents.  My mother had a wonderful collection of books before the Great Patriotic War. She had many wonderful pre-Revolutionary books. During the war this collection was gone.  I gave my son my collection of books that I collected after the war.  Now I have another collection. I’ve always read a lot. 

I was very happy and enthusiastic about perestroika 22. I believed in Gorbachev 23. If I ever liked any politicians at all he was the one.  The independent Ukraine gave Jews an opportunity to develop our national self-consciousness. There were cultural and community centers opened.  I liked it very much. Once I attended a seminar of the women’s international association. There was a woman rabbi of progressive Judaism of USA. She said: ‘Those of you who haven’t had  bat mitzvah can have it now and adopt Jewish names’.  I decided to have my name of Sarra back. She had a form with an emblem. I was given the name of Sarra-Haya. This may seem a miracle, but I recovered from my diseases that I suffered from all the time when I was Irina.  I understood that I haven’t exhausted my potential yet. I became one of activists of the Jewish live in Chernigov. When my mother was ill I was terrified thinking ‘How do women who have no daughters leave this life? If they have nobody who takes care of them?’  My mother had friends who had nobody to help them. They were nice people. In 1996  Hesed was organized in our town with the help of Joint 24. I was offered to get involved in this. I met in Kiev with Yakov Blaich, a young rabbi, and we set priorities. He said we had to meet with old Jews.  We talked with nurses and doctors in clinics to get information. We visited our first clients at home. We saw so much grief, diseases and poverty. I am a squeamish person, but suddenly I managed to overcome this. I found the love of people in me. I do not mean material support. Moral support and human dignity are of the utmost importance. My husband supported me in everything. He helped me to go through hard moments. My husband is my happiness. People around ask: ‘How can he stand it all?’ He was the first volunteer in Hesed. He delivered food products to old women, helped them and was patient and friendly. In the first years after Hesed was established we didn’t have an office faculty. My mother’s apartment was vacant and we used this small two-bedroom apartment for the Hesed office. Nobody paid me for it. This was my contribution into tzdoka. Later, when Hesed acquired a nice new facility we made a storeroom in this apartment. Work as director of Hesed is complicated. There is a lot of pressure and it takes a lot of effort to work there, but it is a wonderful job. I met many interesting people and filled myself needed. I had a full life. I can say proudly that our Hesed was one of the best in Ukraine. We spent a lot of time to restore the Jewish cemetery. I was also involved in restoration of the Jewish cemetery in Nezhin where my father was buried. I’ve always thought that a cemetery is as important as everything else. We also installed a memorial gravestone at the place of mass shooting of Jews during the war.  I spoke at a meeting.  I was also involved in the establishment of a Jewish men’s choir in Hesed. I always recalled grandfather Mindel and his sons singing when I listened to the choir. 

Later I needed to have a surgery. I needed to have my hip joint replaced. I had a surgery in Kiev. I felt the warmth and care of my friends, employees of Hesed in Kiev. I had David’s psalms with me before the surgery. I have my prayer. I was a public person and I didn’t like it that people would see me lame, and I quit my position in Hesed. Now I learn to walk at home. I do not give up and have many plans. I have an idea of establishing a fund for the children who have no fathers and ill children. There is a synagogue I know in USA and a committee. They promised to help. I would also open a synagogue of progressive Judaism here. I’ve been a member of the community for ten years and always contribute the tenth part of my income to tzdoka. This corresponds to Jewish commandments.

I’ve visited Israel several times. I’ve been to synagogues. I’ve felt and fell in love with this country. I am eager to go to Israel. I see it my dreams. My husband also wants to go there, but I have the only son and I cannot part with him.  Besides, we can only be pensioners in Israel while I have many plans here. It is very important to realize that people need you. 

GLOSSARY:

Maya Pivovar
Kiev
Ukraine
Interviewer: Oksana Kuntsevskaya
Date of interview: December 2003

Maya Pivovar is a nice short lady with a short haircut. She lives with her second husband in a small two-bedroom apartment in a remote district in Kiev. She is a very lively woman with a great sense of humor. Maya is a good housewife. Her apartment is in ideal order. She manages all housework by herself despite her age of 76 years. She does the cooking and often bakes pastries – her husband is a hearty eater. She has no children and has dedicated herself to her husband and his children. Maya speaks very correctly and with a good rhythm. She willingly told us about the events of her life.

My mother came from a small town of Narodichi [about 150 km from Kiev] Kiev region. My grandfather’s, my mother’s father, name was Boruch-Benicion Freidman. He was born in 1878. I don’t know where he was born. My grandfather was a teacher of the cheder in Narodichi. My grandmother Malka Freidman, her maiden name was Chuzhaya, was born in 1876. I don’t know where she came from. I don’t know how or when my grandmother and grandfather met. They had nine children: three sons and six daughters. My grandmother was a housewife. My grandmother and grandfather spoke Yiddish. They probably celebrated Jewish holidays, but we didn’t know about it.

I know little about my mother’s brothers. They left Narodichi in the 1920s. –One of my mother’s brothers lived with his family somewhere in the Krasnodarskiy Kray in Russia, another brother was an agronomist and lived in Kherson region, and the third brother lived in the Crimea. They all perished during the Great Patriotic War [1]. We have no information about them.

My mother’s older sister Sophia Min’kovskaya (nee Freidman), was born in Narodichi in 1901. She was the only one of all children to learn Hebrew from her father, my grandfather. She moved to Kiev in 1921 and began to teach Hebrew as a private person. Sophia didn’t have a higher education, but she was well-read. In Kiev she met a Jewish man named Yefim Min’kovskiy and married him. After getting married Sophia was a housewife. Yefim must have had a higher education in economics. Before and after the Great Patriotic War he worked as chief accountant of the Darnitsa railcar repair depot. In 1924 Sophia’s son Alexandr was born. During the Great Patriotic War Min’kovskiy, his wife and son evacuated with the depot to Omsk [Russia, about 3400 km from Kiev]. After the war Sophia continued to be a housewife. She died in Kiev in 1980. Her husband Yefim worked as chief accountant at the plant till he retired. He died in Kiev in 1975, it seems. Their son Alexandr finished a therapeutic Faculty of the Medical College and became a doctor. He lives n Kiev and works in a town hospital now.

My mother’s another sister Ida Freidman was born some time in 1904. I don’t know whether she had any education. In the 1920s she left Narodichi for Kiev and settled down not far from where her sister Sophia lived. Ida went to work as a seamstress at the garment factory. In the late 1920s she married one of my maternal grandmother’s distant relatives. His name was Solomon Chuzhoy. Ida had a Jewish wedding with a chuppah. My mother laughed talking about Ida’s wedding. She said Ida was already pregnant, when she was getting married, and either my mother or Sophia were standing under the chuppah on her wedding since it was an unsuitable situation with this pregnancy. In 1939 Ida’s husband was sent to work in Rovno [324 km from Kiev], when after the division of Poland [2] the Western Ukraine was annexed to the USSR. He was chief of the trade department in the regional executive office [3]. After moving to Rovno Ida was a housewife. They had two children: a son and a daughter. Ida’s husband was a soldier at the front line during the Great Patriotic War, from the first to its last day, and was at the avenue of approach to Berlin, when the war was over. Ida and their children evacuated somewhere to the Volga, to the town of Engels, I guess. She worked at a bakery there. After the Great Patriotic War her husband, Ida and the children returned to Rovno. He continued to work as chief of trade department. Ida was a housewife taking care of the children and the house. Her husband died in 1977. Ida died at the age of 89 in 1993.

Ida’s son Alxandr and I were of the same age and we were close friends before the Great Patriotic War. Our relatives even wanted us to get married, but I didn’t want to marry him. He finished a college in Rovno, I don’t remember, which one. He worked then as chief of the inter town telephone station. Now he lives in Germany with his family. They left in 2002. His younger sister Bronia finished the Polygraphist College in Kiev and stayed to live here. She was chief of technical editor office of some magazine. She didn’t have a family. She died in April 2003.

My mother’s sister Fania Freidman, born in 1910, also left Narodichi some time in the 1920s. Se went to work at the knitwear factory in Kiev. She was a common worker there. Later she entered and finished the extramural Faculty of Economics of the Textile college. She was chief of the planning department of the knitwear factory. She was single. She died in Kiev in 1990.

My mother’s sister Genia Freidman, was the prettiest. She was born in Narodichi in 1912. She was an accountant. Genia didn’t have a higher education. She finished a secondary school and a course of accountants and worked as an accountant, but I don’t know where she worked. Genia got married before the Great Patriotic War. Her husband’s name was Yakov Gol’man. He had some medical education, since when the Great Patriotic War began, he was mobilized to a hospital. Shortly afterward Genia and her husband followed the hospital to Kharkov. Then my mother’s younger sister Lisa joined them there and they all evacuated to Krasnoyarsk in late 1941.

From Krasnoyarsk Yakov was sent to a training course in Omsk and he was supposed to go to the front. My mother’s older sister Sophia and her family were in the evacuation in Omsk. Before departing to his military unit Yakov visited her and complained to her of a pain in his stomach. Sonia advised him to go to see a doctor, but he replied: ‘You know, I am about to be sent to the front, and if I start complaining, it will look as if I am trying to get out of it’, and from them he left for the unit where he was to take a course of training. Some time passed and there was no news from Yakov. Sophia was worried and went to his military unit somewhere in the suburbs of Omsk. When she arrived there they said: ‘He died and we buried him’. What happened there was that Yakov had a ulcer and there was another attack of it and he was operated on. It was cold in the hospital and he was coughing, at least, this is what they told, and his seams opened. Some time later Genia and her younger sister Lisa moved to Omsk to Sophia. After the Great Patriotic War Genia returned to Kiev and worked in the regional committee of trade union of builders in Kiev. She was agreeable and pretty and everybody liked her, but she never remarried and she had no children. In the early 1950s she fell ill and died in 1953.

My mother’s youngest sister Lisa was born in Narodichi in 1918. She moved to Kiev with her parents in the late 1920s. My grandmother and grandfather moved in with their oldest daughter Sophia and her family. When in 1939 Ida and her husband moved to Rovno, grandmother and grandfather and Lisa moved into her apartment and lived there before the Great Patriotic War began. In Kiev Lisa finished a secondary school and entered the Faculty of Economics of the Light Industry College. She defended her diploma on the second day of the Great Patriotic War, on 24 June 1941, and got a job assignment to [3] Poltava. She didn’t work there long since the Germans were advancing. Genia was in Kharkov with her husband. Genia convinced her to evacuate to Krasnoyarsk with her family. After her husband perished Genia and Lisa moved to their older sister Sophia in Omsk. About 1942 their cousin brother on my grandmother’s side. I don’t remember his name, but his surname was Chuzhoy. Later he married Lisa. In Omsk Lisa’s son Arkadiy was born in 1943. After the Great Patriotic War Lisa, her husband and their child returned to Kiev and lived with us for some time. Lisa had a hard life. Her husband finished an extramural department of a Law College and worked as a lawyer at the Darnitsa railcar repair depot, but he must have had a mental disease since he committed suicide in the 1960s. Their son Arkadiy had poor sight since childhood. His parents decided that it was best for him to become a teacher of history. Arkadiy graduated from the History Faculty of the University, when he was totally blind. Lisa and other women, whom they paid, read to him, and they mainly read the first sources to him. Arkadiy was well developed. He taught in schools at first, but then he fell mentally ill. He had all diseases imaginable: schizophrenia, diabetes, anything one could imagine. He died in 1999, I guess, and then Lisa died in 2000.

My mother Buzia-Rivka Freidman was born in Narodichi in 1902. She left Narodichi at the age of 17 looking for a better life. I don’t know what she was doing before her departure to Kiev. My mother hardly told me anything about her life. In Kiev my mother entered the rabfak [5]. She worked as a tutor in Kiev Jewish children’s home and later she went to work at the garment factory in Podol [6]. My mother met my father at the rabfak.

My father’s name was Mikhail Pivovar. He came from Kornin Zhytomir region [about 160 km from Kiev]. My father’s parents died from some disease and hunger in 1919. I don’t know exactly where this happened. All I know about them is that my grandfather’s name was Yakov. My father had eight brothers and sisters, but I have no information about them and don’t even know their names. My father was the youngest. He was born in 1904. He finished four years of the Russian state school in Kornin. There was an annual quota in this school for one Jew to be admitted each year. My father managed to enter this school and finish it. My father was 15 years old, when his parents died. He had to earn his living somehow. He became a teacher. So, in 1919 he was a teacher. My father traveled from one village to another where he had pupils who were children of wealthier farmers, or kulaks, [7] as they were called at the time. He taught them to read and write in Russian. Then he moved to Kiev. I don’t know how it happened or why, he probably told me, but I don’t remember. My father entered a rabfak school and worked as a clerk in the regional pharmacy department. My father was a very nice person and a very sociable one. Everybody liked him. He met my mother in 1925 and they got married. They didn’t have a traditional Jewish wedding. They were the children of their time and didn’t observe any traditions. My parents lived not far from where my father was working, in the center of the city, in a communal apartment [8] with neighbors.

My father worked in the regional pharmacy department till the middle 1930s, I guess, before he went to work at the Kiev experimental institute of endocrinology. He was production manager. In Ukraine, and probably in the USSR there were two such institutes: one in Kharkov and one in Kiev. My father finished the extramural department of the Pharmaceutical College in Kiev. In 1941 he failed to take state exams due to the war and he never obtained a document about graduation from this college. My mother continued to work at the garment factory where he was promoted to the position of a forewoman and she earned well already. My parents earned well and we were a family of an average wealth. We didn’t live in luxury, but we were not needy either.

I, Maya Pivovar, was born in 1927. I was born and grew up in Kiev. I didn’t have a nanny. I went to the kindergarten, but there was a period of time, when I didn’t go to the kindergarten, and my mother and father had to go to work. There was a woman in our house, who had a group of 5-6 children in her care. She told us something, I don’t remember. She was called ‘frebelichka’ tutor and she had finished a Frebel school [9].

Our family didn’t celebrate Jewish traditions. My parents were members of the party and atheists. In 1926 my father joined the Communist Party. My mother was a member of the communist Party since 1932. Our family spent our leisure time like many other Soviet families. My mother’s relatives visited us – they were a big family. We got together on birthdays, on Soviet holidays and new Year. Of course, we went to the theater and to the cinema. I remember the theater of Red army in Merngovskaya, present Zankovetskaya, Street, and the Children’s Theater in Karl Marx Street. Once all school children went to the theater. I don’t remember what we watched, but I remember having bought an ice cream during an interval. It was wrapped in cellophane paper. I didn’t finish my ice cream during the interval and was still having it, when the performance started. I was a brought up child and couldn’t throw the cellophane under the chair, so I ate it slowly…

My father took me to the first form: my mother was working. This was an ordinary Russian school, the nearest to our home. There were no school uniforms. I remember as if it were happening now – I was wearing a white dress in blue polka dots. The desks were freshly painted, and the paint had not got dry. I sat down in my white gown and stuck to this chair! Fortunately my father was still there and brought me another dress to change. I studied well and enjoyed it. I was good at all subjects. There were 40 children in my class, there were also Jewish children, but we never gave it a thought then, we were friends, ran to the beach in summer, played with a ball and there was no segregation before the war.

We lived with our parents in a huge communal apartment before the Great Patriotic War. There were five other families living there. There was a big kitchen in the end of a long corridor. There were six tables in the kitchen, one table belonged to each family living in the apartment. There must have been a stove, but I don’t remember. Each family had a primus stove [Primus stove - a small portable stove with a container for about 1 liter of kerosene pumped into burners]. There was no gas then. Gas appeared after the war. We had two rooms in the very beginning of the corridor. There used to be steam heating in this house in the past, but when I remember, for example, in 1932, there was no steam heating. There was a small stove and smoke from it was crawling to a neighbor’s apartment across the room: there were no chimney flues that were not necessary for steam heating. Probably, there was a smoke duct in another apartment, there was a tube going there and it dipped, this was such nuisance! I remember somebody brought potatoes to my father and it was dropped on the floor. I and our neighbors’ children used to bake these potatoes in a small oven. We had plain furniture: a desk, a divan with a high back and a cupboard. There was plain crockery. There was a plate-shaped radio hanging almost under the ceiling on the wall. We liked listening to the radio: there was always merry music on it. The desk was right beneath this radio plate and when there was an interesting program, I got onto this desk to be closer to radio to listen to the program.

I remember famine [10]. Our family hardly suffered from the famine. My parents received some miserable food packages each on his work. There was no sufficient food, but enough to not die from hunger. In 1932 starving people were escaping to towns from villages. There was bread sold at markets in towns, but it was impossible to buy any food in villages. Somehow those people managed to get some money to buy bread, they ate it and were dying in the streets. I remember I was 5 in 1932, I was sitting on the window sill in our apartment and saw how they were loading something on a truck. There was a club of homeless children across the street from our house. I didn’t understand then what they were loading, but now I know those were corpses. Starved exhausted people came to this club where they could get some food. They ate it and died. From overeating.

I had finished seven forms before the Great Patriotic War. As far as I can remember, my parents were talking about a war somewhere abroad, but this seemed to me to be far away from where we lived and was not going to happen to us. I don’t think my parents realized how serious this was, or they wouldn’t have allowed my grandfather and grandmother (on my mother’s side) to stay in Kiev when Germans came. I remember well beginning of the war on 22 June 1941, I was already 14 years old. We were on vacations and were walking with our neighbor in a park, it was in the morning and she said: ‘They say, they were dropping bombs at night on the Post-Volynskaya station out of town’. His was something wild to me: bombs in peaceful time! We went home, and at 12 o’clock in the afternoon Molotov [11] spoke on the radio, he announced that the war began. My father was a reserve officer and he had to make his appearance at the military registry office in case of war. He went to the registry office on Monday and they told him to pack his luggage and come to an induction center. Then somebody told us that the recruits had not been sent to the front and were waiting at the railway station. My mother and I took his coat, it was still cold at night, and went to see him. We met with him. My mother was working at the factory round the clock. She sent me to my grandmother and grandfather since I was on vacations. When the time came for my mother and me to evacuate she was trying to convince her parents to come with us. My mother and I were the last of the family to leave Kiev. But they didn’t want to leave. My grandfather as ill. He seemed to be old to me, but he was only 63 years old. He said: ‘I am going to die on the way. I want to die in my bed’. If only we had known that our army would leave Kiev. We would have been more insistent, but since we weren’t, they stayed and perished in Babi Yar [12], but we only heard this from our neighbors in 1944.

My mother and I evacuated with my mother’s factory where she was working on a barge in July. The factory products were dumped into the hold of the barge and we were sitting on those bales. We were heading to Dnepropetrovsk [500 km from Kiev]. It was believed that Germans didn’t bomb Dnepropetrovsk as much as our town and that factories could operate there. To describe our trip on those bales in the hold, I would give an example. One night I woke up having the feeling of suffocation. Somebody’s leg in a boot was on my chest. I tried to throw down this leg, when a man’s voice said: ‘Why are you pulling my leg?’ This happened to be a man stretching his legs to feel more comfortable.

When we arrived in Dnepropetrovsk, we were not allowed to get off: there were two lines of military men, and they made us board some freight railcars for transportation of coal – there were no roofs in them. We moved on we didn’t know where. It was pouring with rain, we got black from coal dust all over. I don’t remember how long the trip was: two or three days… At night we were told to get off. In the morning we were taken to a kolkhoz [13]. It turned out we were in Krasnodarskiy Kray. Starominskaya village [over 1000 km from Kiev]. We worked in the kolkhoz there till another party of workers of the factory evacuated to Zlatoust town [about 900 km from Kiev], and we were taken there. We changed few freight trains for transportation of cattle to get to Zlatoust. The conditions were terrible. Our trip probably lasted five days. This was a beginning of the winter 1941.

In Zlatoust we were accommodated in local apartments. The owners of the apartment where we accommodated, an elderly couple, were nice people, and they treated us kindly. My mother continued to work at the factory that worked for the needs of the front: they made military overcoats, uniforms and tents for the front. I went to the local school but gave up my studies very soon to go to work at my mother’s factory. We didn’t hear from my father and were very concerned about him at the time.

My father was in the 5th Army. At the very start of the war he was wounded and sent to a mobile field hospital. In the fall this Army got in encirclement somewhere near Kiev. When it became clear that they were in encirclement chief of the hospital said to the patients and personnel of the hospital: ‘Drift apart! By whatever means drift apart!’ My father told us later that he was in a field with a group of military. They were lying in hiding. Germans encircled the field and shouted: ‘Russ, surrender!’ Someone lying beside my father said: ‘Why lying here, I will surrender!’ My father didn’t know what happened to him. Then Germans sent tanks onto the field. My father said one tank drove beside him on one side and another tank – on his other side, in few centimeters that saved his life! He stayed in the field till dark and then he came to a village where people gave him some civilian clothes. He was 37 years old, but the children in the village said: ‘God, what a scary looking old man!’ He wasn’t shaved and he was thin after he had been wounded. My father was going from one village to another till he reached the front line that was along a river. One villager was bringing soldiers from encirclement across the river on his boat. The boat was small and they were taking turns to go across the river, when somebody ran from the village shouting that German troops were already coming to the village! ‘You may be punished for this!’ but the villager said he would remain till he transported all those waiting for his help. And indeed, he transported all troopers.

My father was in encirclement 18 days. Later he had problems in this regard. Near Kharkov. He was looking for a toilet at the railways station. He went to and fro once, then another time, when somebody paid attention to him. They took him to the commandant’s office. My father didn’t have any documents with him and had civilian clothes on. They decided he was a spy, but he managed somehow to get out of it. The group of military who had been in encirclement with my father gathered in Kharkov. They were sent for retraining in the Ural. Then my father was sent to the Moscow Front and was wounded in January 1942. His right arm didn’t function and he had lost thee fingers on his left hand. My father was sent to a hospital in Novosibirsk [about 3000 km from Kiev]. When he was released, he decided to look for my mother and me. From my grandmother and grandfather’s letters my father knew that we were in Krasnodarskiy Kray, but we had moved to Zlatoust before then.

When my father was being released from the hospital in Novosibirsk, the chief doctor of the hospital, hearing that he had worked in the Institute of Endocrinology before the Great Patriotic War, advised my father to go to Biysk town where the Kiev and Kharkov institutes of Endocrinology had evacuated. But my father decided to first go looking for my mother and me and asked that they gave him a ticket to Krasnodarskiy Kray. Biysk town was near Novosibirsk and my father visited it on his way. There he was told that his Institute had moved to Frunze [about 3000 km from Kiev]. My father went to Buguruslan where there was an evacuation information agency where he submitted the information about his and my mother’s relatives. Of all our family he got the address of my mother and me in Zlatoust from this agency. He came to Zlatoust and we all moved to Frunze. In Frunze we first accommodated in a club building till my father rented an apartment for us. Our main food was bread and vegetables, but we didn’t starve, actually. I hardly saw any local residents there. It happened so that in the center of Frunze where we lived, there were mainly those who came in evacuation. Several times we, schoolchildren, were sent to pick potatoes where I aw the locals. They could hardly speak Russian, those, whom I saw, but they were quite friendly.

In Frunze my father was chairman of the local committee [14] of the institute trying to make the life of employees of the institute easier. For example, he found a jobless shoemaker and the management of the institute managed to get pieces of leather, and this shoemaker fixed employees’ shoes. It was important during the war! My father also made arrangements for opening a canteen for employees at the institute, and my mother went to work there as a cook.

I finished the 8th and 9th forms at school in Frunze. I hope you don’t think that we, school children, didn’t do anything during the war! One day a week at school was a work day. We worked at the construction of a railroad spur. Military plants were evacuated to Frunze. Of course, we were silly. I remember competing who carried more soil on a barrow. Two girls, besides, we were 15-16 years old, carrying this heavy barrow curving under the heavy load. A man passing by said: ‘Girls, what are you doing? You better take two trips than carrying such heavy barrow!’ And then construction of the Chuyskiy channel! The builders were preparing the pit for concreting – this was going to be the Chuyskaya hydro power station. There was not enough workforce, and the construction management organized a Komsomol group of young people. We, school children, were sent to the construction of this channel for 10 days during vacations. We were to carry soil up the slope. I remember working with a teacher. She was probably about 5 years older than me. She, poor thing, was not used to this kind of work. And I got angry with her, it was hard for me to work with her! So, when we had the barrow loaded I was dragging it along with her. I thought, the quicker I got to the top, the easier it would be for me. Later I carried the barrow with a boy from the tenth form. He was pushing the barrow and me up the slope – this was better.

In 1944 my parents and I returned to Kiev, but we had no place to live. Kiev was liberated on 6 November 1943 and our house got burned on 5 November. It was hard. Though my father was an invalid of the war and had the right to receive a dwelling, he was not that kind of a person who knew how to get what was his due. The institute of Endocrinology helped us. When the institute received a building from the town authorities, we also got a little place there. There were two rooms where two families lived. In the late 1940s the institute restored a small house near the Victory Square. Director of the institute received two rooms in a communal apartment in this house, but he got another apartment in a short time, and let my father have these rooms.

My father worked at the Institute of Endocrinology, and my mother worked at the factory. They worked from morning till night, left home early in the morning and came back late at night. My mother also had to cook. There were no fridges. She cooked soup or borsch in the morning and left the pot in the corridor, in the darkest, and coolest spot accordingly, and our old neighbor fished for pieces of meat in it.

In the late 1940s – early 1950s almost all of my mother’s relatives went through our apartment. They were returning from evacuation and didn’t have a place to live. Lisa, her husband and child lived with us, then Genia, and Fania. Later they all received some kind of dwellings, but they continued to keep in touch and meet like they did before the war. My parents got along well. Though they didn’t observe Jewish traditions, they spoke Yiddish among themselves. I can say this was their native tongue. I understood what they were saying. I feel ashamed though, that I still cannot write or read in Yiddish. Maybe it’s my fault, maybe theirs. Even though my grandfather was a teacher in the cheder. Though we lived separately from my grandfather and grandmother.

In the early 1950s gas piping began to be installed in Kiev. My mother’s sister Genia lived in the center of the city, and they had gas supplies before it was arranged in other districts of Kiev. I remember her telling excitedly: ‘You take a pot off the gas stove and can put it right on a white tablecloth – and it won’t get dirty!’

When we returned to Kiev from the evacuation I entered a preparatory course at the Polytechnic College and concurrently I was finishing a secondary school. In 1945 I received my school certificate. We took exams upon finishing school and the results were accounted for during admission to colleges. I entered the Chemical Technological Faculty, department of paper and cellulose, of the Polytechnic College. I didn’t have any problems with admission. I was just lucky. It was quiet in 1945. Since I had finished a preparatory course, I was admitted to the college almost automatically. In this regard everything went well. I remember how we, students of the preparatory faculty had to work at making wood stocks near Kiev for a month. I have no idea, whose direction this was. We cut trees, sawed them and stored in the store metering boxes. The most ridiculous of this was that all students of the preparatory faculty were supposed to go there, but they didn’t actually. Those who stayed in college continued having classes and when we, the enthusiasts, returned, we had to catch up with those who were staying. However, I recall this time as a very romantic period. We lived in tents, baked potatoes in the open fire in the evenings, it was fun. Then it seemed there was going to be nothing bad in life, and the most scaring thing – the war – was in the past. I was the only Jew in my group and in college. Still, everybody treated me well and we still call each other and meet with my fellow students. I had Russian and Ukrainian friends. It took me a short time to catch up with my fellow students after this event with making the wood stocks. I cannot say that I had only excellent marks, but I wasn’t among the worst students. I liked to go to the cinema and theater and I particularly like the Russian Drama Theater. I often went there with my parents and friends. I read a lot. I read classics and modern Soviet literature.

After I finished the college in 1950 I got a job assignment to the Kamskiy cellulose and paper factory in Perm region Krasnokamsk town [over 3000 km from Kiev]. I worked there 7 years. I took part in public life. In Krasnokamsk I joined the party. It somehow happened there. I knew this was good for my career, but I actually didn’t have anything against the party. We were raised patriots and we piously believed in communism and its ideology.

The events in the early 1950s, the doctors’ plot [15] had no impact on me whatsoever. I was in Krasnokamsk and things were quiet there. Well, actually, there was chief engineer, a Jew, Rappoport, in 1952 they reduced him in his position appointing him production manager, and the former production manager was appointed chief engineer. I think they did it for a show to demonstrate that they responded to the events happening at the time. At meetings this new ‘chief engineer’ was sitting beside the new ‘production manager’ asking him one ach issue ‘What’s your opinion?’ Since Rappoport was more qualified, of course.

The echo of the doctors’ plot had its affect on my father at the institute of Endocrinology. My parents never told me what actually happened. I only know that there was a big problem, they had fabricated a case and my father didn’t work for a year and a half. Then he went to the pharmacy department where he had worked in the 1920s asking for help. They employed my father in the prescription department in a pharmacy. My father retired in 1970.

I liked working in Krasnokamsk very much. There were common nice people there. I made many friends. We had a good time together, went to the woods to pick berries and mushrooms, baked potatoes, sang songs to the guitar, but my mother rebelled and said: ‘That’s enough. A little bit of good at a time is enough. Resign and come to Kiev’. In 1957 I quit and returned to Kiev to my parents, but here I faced a problem: I couldn’t obtain a residential registration [16] in our apartment. I couldn’t get employed since I was not allowed a residential registration and couldn’t obtain this residential registration without having a job.

Somebody mentioned to me that a friend or a relative of my deceased grandfather lived in Boyarka near Kiev and I could get a residential registration to live in his house. We went to Boyarka and I had this registration there. We paid a monthly fee for this registration, but I still couldn’t find a job. I kept looking for a job for a year. Once my co-student’s mother came by, her husband worked in the Polytechnic College, he was chief of department of organic chemistry. The Soyuzreactiv office rented a facility on the territory of this department. They organized a laboratory of reagents and my friend’s father said to his wife: ‘Tell Maya if you happen to go past their house to come over here’. He introduced me to the future manager of this laboratory. The manager took me to supervisor of the Soyuzreactiv office and I became his first employee! I had absolutely nothing to do with organic synthesis: I had finished the chemical technological faculty, but I dealt with paper! I remember this supervisor taking my passport looking at my residential registration in Boyarka. He said: ‘So what, your Mom and Dad could not arrange a registration for you in their home?’ I said: ‘No, there was no permission!’ Basically, he employed me. At first I worked in the laboratory of reagents and when the factory of reagents was built, I went to work there.

My parents and I went on living in our apartment in Decabristov Street till in 1970, in summer during a terrible rain storm the Victory Square was flooded and there was water in our apartment 60 cm deep. I woke up hearing the water babbling in the room. I awakened my parents, they got up and their sofa sailed across the room. Then we received a three-bedroom apartment in Borschagovka (the most remote and the least prestigious district in Kiev) and lived there.

My mother retired in the late 1950s. She became a housewife. She was ill for a long time. I had to retired in 1982 due to my mother’s illness, or I would have continued to work. My mother died in 1983, but I never returned to work. My father’s sight got much worse when he grew older and he felt ill from his wounds, but he was a sociable man and had to do something. My father asked chairman of the Party veterans association to give him a task to do. Being an invalid of the war, my father could do his shopping for food in a special store for invalids of the war [in the USSR there was a network of special stores for veterans of the war, and veterans having a special certificate could do their shopping there. Once a month they could buy a food package including deficit products such as: mayonnaise, buckwheat, tinned fish, smoked sausage that were not available in ordinary stores]. Veterans of the Party also did their shopping there. Chairman gave my father the list of veterans, their phone numbers and authorized him to make phone calls to tell them when food packages were ready. My father could receive his package before everybody else being an invalid of the war, but since he was blind, I was his ‘secretary’. Father died in 1996.

I got married at the age of 59. My husband Yefim Karpinskiy, a Jew, was born in 1916. Before retirement he worked in the Institute of Electric Circuits. He was chief specialist in power supply network in the town. Yefim became a widower few years before we met. We had no wedding party, we just decided to register our marriage in a registry office and began to live in my apartment, in perfect harmony, and we never said a rude word to one another. I hardly knew anything about my husband’s family. We lived together for too little time, only a year and a half. He died from stroke in 1988. I didn’t remarry for two years, but I had a very good husband and I liked being married. I talked to my friend. Her husband had many friends. I said to her: ‘Perhaps, there is some product in no demand around?’ (laughs). The wife of my current husband, a Jew, Yefim Volodarskiy, had died. My friends introduced us to one another. She is now in Germany. When she writes me, she always reminds us who we owe for our happiness. I liked Yefim. He was a very sensible and educated man. He had worked as leading engineer at different plants. By the time we met, he was a pensioner. We had a lot of free time and we walked and went to theaters. We lived together for three years before we decided to get married. Thank God, we’ve been together for ten years already. We live in harmony and even merrily. Yefim has a wonderful sense of humor, he has a joke for each unpleasant event in life and then we stop brooding and begin to laugh. This helps very well in life. I wasn’t good at cooking before, but now I can cook gefilte fish and sweet and sour meat. It is for my husband. I try to cook something of Jewish cuisine every Friday. We don’t observe any other traditions. Every week my husband’s younger son Alexandr and his family visit us. They live nearby. My husband and I worry about them when they have problems and try to help, and share their joy when they tell us about their successes. We used to have guests go went out to see my husband’s colleagues and my colleagues. We got together on Soviet holidays, New Year and birthdays, but for the recent six years our life has quieted. We and our friends have grown older. My husband and I hardly go out, but we stroll around the house every day. We rarely read fiction. Yefim occasionally quotes a poem in Yiddish, he know Jewish literature wonderfully. We mainly read Ukrainian newspapers, like to watch news on TV and discuss this for sure. We occasionally play cards. I’ve never been abroad or considered emigration, and I would like to visit far away countries, but we cannot afford it. There is much interesting on TV, so we watch it. I wouldn’t want to depart for good. However bad it may be here, but it’s best at home. Who needs us elsewhere?

I didn’t quit the Party. When I was a pensioner, I continued to pay monthly fees. Some time in 1990 I guess, our, former already, Party unit secretary brought me my record book – the Party was dismissed. My membership was over, but I do not consider myself a real communist. Now I am aware that I had joined the Party since it was believed to be an outstanding deed, it was good and prestigious for a career. It was my father who was a real communist. He piously believed in the bright future for all workers and tried to do only good. At first I wasn’t quite enthusiastic about perestroika [17]. Everything seemed to be ruining. The first thought was – that’s it, I will not travel to the Caucasus since it’s a different country now. Then this confusion in the economy! But now – I don’t know, as long as the children will get used to the new system, as for us – as long as everything is fine with them!

Of course, I can feel that I belong to the Jewry. It’s bad that I didn’t know anything about our culture and traditions. I feel sorry for not having talked with my grandfather, my mother’s father, about the history and the Torah. I was too young, but I still remember how carefully my youngest aunt Lisa’s friends were listening to him. Now there are many Jewish organizations arranging interesting lectures about the Jewish people and traditions, and my husband and I can borrow books and read them with interest about our people from whom we’ve been apart for so many decades. Hesed provides assistance to us, giving food and providing medications, it’s sufficient assistance. Now, of course, we know more about our culture and holidays, but my husband and I do not celebrate them strictly following the rules, but we sometimes light candles on Friday and we know about holidays and are sure to give our grandchildren coins on Chanukkah.

GLOSSARY:

[1] Great Patriotic War: On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

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

[3] Ispolkom: After the tsar’s abdication (March, 1917), power passed to a Provisional Government appointed by a temporary committee of the Duma, which proposed to share power to some extent with councils of workers and soldiers known as ‘soviets’. Following a brief and chaotic period of fairly democratic procedures, a mixed body of socialist intellectuals known as the Ispolkom secured the right to ‘represent’ the soviets. The democratic credentials of the soviets were highly imperfect to begin with: peasants - the overwhelming majority of the Russian population - had virtually no say, and soldiers were grossly over-represented. The Ispolkom’s assumption of power turned this highly imperfect democracy into an intellectuals’ oligarchy.

[4] Mandatory job assignment in the USSR: Graduates of higher educational institutions had to complete a mandatory 2-year job assignment issued by the institution from which they graduated. After finishing this assignment young people were allowed to get employment at their discretion in any town or organization.

[5] Rabfak: Educational institutions for young people without secondary education, specifically established by the Soviet power.

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

[7] Kulaks: In the Soviet Union the majority of wealthy peasants that refused to join collective farms and give their grain and property to Soviet power were called kulaks, declared enemies of the people and exterminated in the 1930s.

[8] Communal apartment: The Soviet power wanted to improve housing conditions by requisitioning ‘excess’ living space of wealthy families after the Revolution of 1917. Apartments were shared by several families with each family occupying one room and sharing the kitchen, toilet and bathroom with other tenants. Because of the chronic shortage of dwelling space in towns 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.

[9] Froebel Institute: F. W. A. Froebel (1783-1852), German educational theorist, developed the idea of raising children in kindergartens. In Russia the Froebel training institutions functioned from 1872-1917 The three-year training was intended for tutors of children in families and kindergartens.

[10] Famine in Ukraine: In 1920 a deliberate famine was introduced in the Ukraine causing the death of millions of people. It was arranged in order to suppress those protesting peasants who did not want to join the collective farms. There was another dreadful deliberate famine in 1930-1934 in the Ukraine. The authorities took away the last food products from the peasants. People were dying in the streets, whole villages became deserted. The authorities arranged this specifically to suppress the rebellious peasants who did not want to accept Soviet power and join collective farms.

[11] 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.

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

[13] Collective farm (in Russian kolkhoz): In the Soviet Union the policy of gradual and voluntary collectivization of agriculture was adopted in 1927 to encourage food production while freeing labor and capital for industrial development. In 1929, with only 4% of farms in kolkhozes, Stalin ordered the confiscation of peasants' land, tools, and animals; the kolkhoz replaced the family farm.

[14] Mestkom: Local trade-union committee.

[15] 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.

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

[17] Perestroika (Russian for restructuring): Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s, associated with the name of Soviet politician Mikhail Gorbachev. The term designated the attempts to transform the stagnant, inefficient command economy of the Soviet Union into a decentralized, market-oriented economy. Industrial managers and local government and party officials were granted greater autonomy, and open elections were introduced in an attempt to democratize the Communist Party organization. By 1991, perestroika was declining and was soon eclipsed by the dissolution of the USSR.

Aron Rudiak
Ukraine
Ternopol
Interviewer: Zhanna Litinskaya
Date of interview: September 2003

Aron Rudiak is full of charm. He is a slim dressed to modern fashion man. His wife Lubov offers me a cup of coffee. I knew their age, but I was surprised to see that they don’t look it: they make a beautiful couple and have young shining eyes. They live in a big apartment in the very center of Ternopol. They have new modern furniture, music devices in their apartment and the latest design electric appliances in their kitchen. One can tell that they are wealthy. During our interview Lubov comes into the room every now and then sympathizing with her husband and his life story. Therefore, I give her an opportunity to talk about herself at the end of our interview. Meeting with this couple makes a good impression on me. I feel like seeing and talking to them again, so comfortable they make me.

My family came from Zhabokrich village, Kryzhopol district, Vinnitsa region [300 km from Kiev]. I have dim memories about Zhabokrich since I only lived there in my early childhood and when at school I visited my grandmother once or twice. I don’t have any information about the village before the revolution of 1917 [1]. I only remember it in the middle of 1930s. This was a picturesque village with a big park and a lake in the center. There was music playing and young people rowing, playing volleyball and football on the sports grounds in the park. We, kids, liked to lie in children’s playground. Zhabokrich was a village, but it was more like a Jewish town since Jews constituted 80% of the whole population. Like everywhere else within the Pale of Settlement [2] they lived in the center of the town and dealt in crafts and trade. Some had kitchen gardens and kept livestock. The rest of the population – they were Ukrainians, lived in the outskirts. They were farmers. I don’t remember a synagogue in the town, but I believe there must have been one since my paternal grandmother Chaya attended a synagogue.

My father’s parents Chaya and Aron Rudiak were born in Zhabokrich in 1860s. The family name of my ancestors sounds like a Ukrainian name and this shows how deeply intertwined were Ukrainians and Jews that had lived together for centuries. I don’t know what grandfather Aron was doing before the revolution of 1917. He had died long before I was born. All I know is that his family was poor. Grandmother Chaya lived in a small house with thatched roof. Most of Ukrainian population lived in such houses at that time. My grandmother had a kitchen garden and kept poultry and a cow. Grandmother spoke Yiddish at home and switched to Ukrainian when talking to her Ukrainian neighbors. She spoke Ukrainian with a strong Jewish accent. She was religious and didn’t work on Saturday. Her Ukrainian neighbor came to look after the cow and poultry on Saturday. I have dim memories about us, grandmother’s children visiting our grandmother on Friday and sitting on a small wooden coach. Grandmother lit candles to greet Saturday and gave us delicious fresh milk. By 1941 all children had left their home and only came to visit their old mother occasionally. When Germans came to the village our poor grandmother tried to leave the village, but it was hard for her to walk and she returned. Grandmother Chaya and other Jews in Zhabokrich were shot in late July 1941. My grandmother’s neighbors told us this story at the end of the war.

Grandmother Chaya had practically no education. Like many Jewish girls she didn’t study, but she knew her prayers and could read in Hebrew. She got married at a very young age. My grandparents had 14 children. Only five survived: the others died as infants and two or three perished during pogroms [3] during the Civil War [4]. I only know the name of my father’s favorite brother Menachem of those that perished. He was one year older than my father. My father was wounded when they were attacked by some bandits, but managed to escape. His brother Menachem died. I also knew my father’s three sisters: Chana, Rosa and Buzia and two brothers: Isaac and Yudko. All boys finished cheder and went to a primary school for few years, but girls didn’t study and were actually illiterate. When they grew up they gave up observing Jewish traditions.

The oldest of my father’s living sisters was Golda, born approximately in 1880s. She didn’t get any education. She was married. Her husband’s [family] name was Novak. Her husband died before I was born. I don’t know what caused his death. Golda and her four children lived in Zhabokrich . In early 1930s they moved to Odessa. Golda was a housewife and her children worked to support her. During the Great Patriotic War [5] Golda was in evacuation. After the war she returned to Odessa. She died in early 1960s. Her older son Lev, born in 1900s, his wife and son were in evacuation and lived in Odessa after the war. I don’t know when Lev died, but his son works as a construction engineer in Odessa. Golda also had three daughters: Chana, Rosa (her Jewish name was Reizl) and Buzia. Chana was married, but didn’t have children. She had a problem with giving birth to her first baby and could not have children afterward. However, she got pregnant again and during her second childbirth she lost her speech ability and it took her few years to resume it. In evacuation during the war Chana’s husband left her and she lived with her sister Rosa since then. Rosa’s husband David whose last name I don’t remember perished at the front in 1941. Rosa’s daughter got pregnant after the war having no husband and Rosa was so affected by this disgrace that she died from heart attack. Chana raised Rosa’s granddaughter that was illegitimate. The younger daughter Buzia didn’t have children. Chana and Buzia died in Odessa in the middle of 1970s.

My father’s sister Ghenia was born approximately two years before my father was born, approximately in 1895. Her husband Elia Gershgorn was younger than aunt Ghenia and for this reason my aunt always kept her age a secret. She didn’t have any education and was a housewife. Ghenia and her daughter Anna were in evacuation and Elia was at the front during the Great Patriotic War. He returned home, but died shortly after the war. Ghenia died in early 1950s. Their older son Aron studied in a military medical school and when the war began he went to the front with other cadets of this school. Aron worked in a field hospital during the war. After the war he finished a Medical College in Odessa and became a surgeon. He had a Moldavian wife. They had two children: a boy and a girl. Aron went to work in the north to earn money to buy an apartment. By a wicked twist of fate he died from appendicitis there in the middle of 1970s. He saved hundreds of lives, but there was nobody available when his life was at risk. I have no contact with his family. Aron’s sister Anna, born in 1928, married a Jewish man from Zhabokrich. After finishing Technological College of Flour Grinding Industry in Odessa they worked in a Baltic Republic, I don’t know where exactly. Anna died from kidney cancer when she was young.

My father’s brother Isaac, born in 1905, worked at Vapnyarka railway station near Kryzhopol in Vinnitsa region. About two weeks after the war began Isaac, his wife Malka, their children Betia, Rosa and Aron were evacuated from the town. After the war they lived in Zhuravlyovka station, in Vinnitsa region where Isaac died in a train accident in 1953. I didn’t grieve after him. The reason is that I couldn’t forgive Isaac that he didn’t pick grandmother Chaya when going in evacuation near Zhabokrich. It was an exaggerated attitude that young people often have. I have no information about Isaac’s children.

I don’t remember Yudko, my father’s youngest brother, ‘the little finger’ so much loved by grandmother. He went to the front in 1941 and disappeared.

My father Duvid Rudiak, born in 1897, finished cheder and a primary school, I guess, since he could read and write. My father worked at an agricultural cooperative that later became a kolkhoz [6] in the village.

As for my maternal grandmother Frieda, born in early 1880s, I didn’t know her. All I know is that she died at childbirth at the age of 33. I knew my grandfather Nuta Grievski very well. He was born in Zhabokrich in middle 1870s. Of my grandfather’s relatives I can dimly remember his brother Leiba who was a carpenter. Nuta worked in an agricultural cooperative like my father. I don’t know exactly how he earned his living before the revolution of 1917, but I think that he made his living as a carpenter. His family lived in a big wooden house that Nuta built himself. I don’t think they were poor.

My mother was the oldest child in her family. Her younger sisters Sonia and Ghenia only studied in a primary school for few years. They were workers at a wool factory in Odessa. Sonia, born in 1907, married Efim Balin, a Jewish man. He was production engineer at the wool fabric factory in Odessa. Efim perished in Odessa on the first days of the Great Patriotic War and Sonia refused to evacuate after he died. She and her two children: Yura, born in 1938, and a week’s old baby boy perished in the first days of evacuation in Odessa. Sonia’s younger sister Ghenia also perished because Sonia refused to evacuate. Ghenia’s husband Michael whose last name I don’t remember was at the front during the war. When he returned to Odessa he got to know that his wife and their two children Alexandr and Emma had perished. My mother’s younger brother’s (Grigori) wife also perished in Odessa. Grigori, born in 1915, perished at the front. His young wife that gave premature birth to a baby on 22 June 1941 caused by the stress also perished with her baby and her old father.

My mother Ruchlia, she was called Rachil at home – also a Jewish name sounding alike - was born in 1900. This was her actual date of birth, even though in her passport the date of birth was 1902. When my mother was to enter a grammar school in Odessa she was overage and her parents subtracted two years to make her admission possible. My mother was the only one in her family to finish a grammar school. After finishing school she returned home to Zhabokrich.

My parents knew each other since their childhood and decided to get married when they came of age. They got married around 1922. My mother’s family was rather religious and they had a traditional Jewish wedding with a chuppah arranged by my mother’s distant relatives in Odessa [7].

In 1923 my older sister Frieda named after our grandmother was born and I was born on 13 November 1925. I was named Aron after my father’s father. I need to mention here that all first sons in my father sisters and brothers’ families were named Aron. I spent the first years of my childhood in grandfather Nuta’s house in Zhabokrich. One of my first childhood memories is of the children’s room with drawn curtains where my sister Frieda is lying with measles. I stayed in the same room with her since doctors commonly believed that if somebody in the family had an infectious disease the others had better had it, too. However, I didn’t contract measles from my sister, even though we were staying in the same room. I remember swinging in the park. My grandfather’s Leib made me sleighs and I skated down a hill in winter. There was a big veranda with stairs leading to it in my grandfather’s house. I often played there with my cousin brothers and sisters. I remember getting scared of a calf that probably wished to play with me. I hid in a puddle near the house with my head under the water. Everybody burst into laughing and my father got me out of the puddle and took me into the house to wash me. I also remember a small square near our house where there was a market once or twice a week. We liked going there after it closed to pick up corns, sunflowers and other leftovers.

I cannot remember any details of the Jewish life of our family. I remember that grandfather wore a kippah at home and a big hat to go out. I also remember that my parents attended a synagogue, but I don’t remember the synagogue in the village. I remember Chanukkah when all grandchildren came to grandmother Chaya. We received treatments of sweets and few coins as a gift. I don’t remember other holidays since I was too young.

In 1929 our family moved to Odessa. Our mother’s distant relatives gave us accommodation in a small dark room with no widows. As soon as we moved in I opened the door from where light could be seen. I saw a big brightly lighted room where the family of our relatives was sitting. A dame at the table said strictly ‘Boy, you can’t come in here!’ I was used to warm and affectionate attitude of my family and this comment hurt me. However, I got used to our small room where we lived for over seven years. This apartment was near the synagogue that our relatives attended in the very center of Odessa.

My father went to work as a fat loader at a buttery. My mother went to work as an assistant accountant at a garment factory. My sister Frieda studied in a Jewish school in Zhabokrich . Our parents submitted her documents to a Ukrainian school in Odessa. Children were admitted to schools based on their national origin and special commissions made inspections to identify any Jewish children in Ukrainian or Russian schools. Our parents decided to send my sister to a Ukrainian school. My mother instructed my sister to not react to any Jewish words that she might hear at school. We understood Yiddish. Our parents often switched to Yiddish at home. Once Frieda came home from school with tears in her eyes. She said that she incidentally answered a question in Yiddish and was afraid that they might send her to a Jewish school, but nothing happened. She remained in her school.

I hardly remember my kindergarten. I didn’t care about children’s ways of spending time. I liked counting and arithmetic that my sister was teaching me. I liked being at home and was glad to stay at any occasion, even when I fell ill and didn’t have to go to kindergarten. Once my father had to go to hospital with stomach ulcer. He was prepared to a surgery. Grandmother Chaya somehow got to know about it. She came to Odessa when I was at home. We went to my mother’s work and from there we went to the hospital. My grandmother had an appointment with the chief doctor and refused to give her permission to the surgery. She took our father to her home in Zhabokrich and a month later he returned looking healthy and strong. He had tests made and there was no ulcer identified. My father gave up smoking when staying in the village and I decided for myself that smoking was bad and never ever had one single cigarette.

In Odessa our parents didn’t celebrate holidays or observe traditions. My mother fasted at Yom Kippur while my father said that since he had to work hard physically he could allow himself to not fast. This was the only tradition mother observed. My father wasn’t a Komsomol [8] or Party member, but he was a real patriot and piously believed everything the Party or Government promised. Even famine in 1932-33 [Famine in Ukraine] [9] when there was a food coupon system, but it wasn’t always possible to receive bread per bread coupons didn’t shatter his belief in socialism and communism that our propaganda proclaimed. At that time my sister or I stood in long lines to get some bread. When a shop opened in the morning a crowd broke inside the shop and children climbed on heads to get to a counter. There was not enough bread in stores. I remember homeless children stealing bread, running away with it biting off big pieces and swallowing them. Once our mother paid a lot of money for a loaf of bread at the market. When she brought it home it turned out to be a baked in brick. Our mother took her few pieces of jewelry to a Torgsin store [10]. I hadn’t been there, but I know that one could buy food products for gold or hard currency. I didn’t suffer from hunger. I was a tiny boy and didn’t have a big appetite. I remember our mother bringing home a chicken in 1933 when the period of famine was almost over, but a celebration didn’t work out. My sister decided to cook chicken and burnt it. We were very upset: we hadn’t had chicken for years and looked forward to have a piece.

I went to school in 1933. At first I went to the school located in few blocks from our house, but then a new school was built in our yard and my mother brought my documents to this school. This was a Ukrainian school. There were Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Bulgarian and Greek children in our school. Odessa is a multinational town. I never faced any national segregation or abuse at school. We didn’t care a bit about nationality. We were Soviet children. I became a pioneer at school and had some chores related mostly to helping other children to improve their studies. I had all excellent marks in the course of my studies. I was short, but I went in for track-and-field events, but I was mostly fond of mathematic. I managed to find mathematical dependences in everything: in biology and in everyday life.

My classmates and I were friends. We celebrated 1 May and October Revolution Day [11] in autumn. We went to parades and then walked in the town. At home my family had a festive dinner on these days. We sometimes visited my mother’s sisters that also celebrated Soviet holidays. As for Jewish holidays, I didn’t know any at that time. Grandfather Nuta living with his daughters taking turns to look after him celebrated Sabbath and went to synagogue on holidays. We didn’t have guests since we lived in such small room until 1937. In late 1937 my father received a one-room apartment. There was one big room and a kitchen in it. Since then guests began to visit us. In 1939 our father was injured at work: he had his both legs fractured and after he recovered he was appointed to a position of production engineer. There was not a word said about arrests of late 1930s [Great Terror] [12] in our house. Our father believed that everything happening in our country was correct and was not subject to discussion. Nobody of our relatives or acquaintances suffered.

In May 1941 I was awarded a second prize at the Odessa regional Olympiad in mathematic. I was supposed to receive my award in late June, but I never received it since the Great Patriotic War began. At that moment I was visiting my aunt Sonia. Since 14 June she had been staying in a maternity home where she gave birth to a boy on 15 June and I was staying at her home looking after my 3 or 4-year-old cousin brother Yuri. On 22 June I gave my cousin breakfast as usual and sat down to do my mathematic. In the after noon my father came. He was supposed to go on business trip on Friday and I was surprised to see him. He said ‘Aron, get ready to go home. A war began’. At that time Efim and Sonia and the baby came home from hospital and I could go home with my father without worrying about Yuri. My father and I took a tram home. Usually it took twenty minutes to get home, but this time it took us about two hours. There was air raid announced several times. People didn’t know what to do, but there were no bombs dropped yet. The enemy’s planes just flew in the sky ringing panic. At home I heard that the outskirts of Odessa were bombed and the radio announced that Kiev was bombed, too.

Efim Balin, Sonia’s husband, was an officer in a military unit near Odessa. He went to his unit, returned home a day or two later and then we went to see him off to the railway station where he was to take a train to go back to his unit. This was the last time we saw him. It turned out that he failed to get to his military unit. He must have perished during an air raid. We knew that Germans were dropping bombs on strategically important facilities: the harbor and big plants and during air raids we were trying to find shelter at some distance from those facilities.

About ten days after the war began my father’s brother Isaac arrived. He was evacuating with his family and for some reason came to Odessa. I don’t know how he failed to take grandmother Chaya with him: whether he was pressed for time, or he didn’t have a chance. Isaac told my father to pack and evacuate as soon as possible. My father had a ‘white card’ [this was a release from military service in the army issued by a medical commission that determined whether a man was fit for military service] due to his injury, but he said it was a disgrace to flee in evacuation rather than defend Odessa and the country from the enemy. He didn’t believe that the enemy would come to Odessa. Isaac tried to convince our parents to agree to send the children or at least my older sister with him, but our mother said we would be together whatever happened.

The first massive bombing occurred one moth after the war began. We children began to play war games forgetting about horrific reality. Children are children. During air raids we found shelter in a nearby trench. Our mother made us bags where she put dried bread, underwear and soap in case we lost each other. Many people carried such bags in the town. After this bombing there were bombings at night. We were getting used to them and didn’t even bother to hide. Our father didn’t even want to hear about evacuation. On 27 July 1941 he went to a military registry office. He was an invalid with his one leg shorter than another, but he volunteered and was recruited in the army. We went with him to the gathering point. When saying farewells our father kept saying that Odessa would not be occupied. Our mother didn’t even try to discourage him since she understood that he was so dedicated to defend his Motherland that there was no chance to talk him out of it.

Soon refugees from Bessarabia [13] began coming to the town. They slept in parks, gardens and even in the yards telling people about fascist atrocities on occupied territories. We felt worried and our mother also began to consider evacuation. There were battles near Odessa. Germans drowned a raid ship and the front was actually open for several days. The front was very near. It was strange to see the military going to the front by trams. Ghenia’s husband Michael was recruited on one of those days. He had a ‘white card’, but nobody cared about such things: they recruited everybody who was able to hold weapons. I remember a governmental appeal to residents of Odessa that said ‘Boiling water poured on occupants’ heads and a stone thrown on them shall help us to forge victory’. At the beginning of siege Kuban and Don Cossacks [14] came to the town riding their horses and beautiful uniforms. They carried their swords and posters ‘Kuban – Berlin’ and ‘Don – Berlin’. They were full of patriotism in their determination to defend their Motherland, but what could they do with their bare hands? Few survivors, wounded and bleeding came back to town soon. They had no horses or swords with them. A human being gets used to everything. We began to live a routinely life in siege. There were lines to buy fruit, vegetables, fish and watermelons. During air raids people hid in shelters and after it was over they returned to their lines. Our battleships were close to the shore shooting across the town and it might have made a beautiful sight for boys had it not been acute risk to life.

We spent most of the time with aunts Sonia or Ghenia – it was easier to be together. One day Michael came home. He was wounded in his jaw. He had his head bandaged and bloodstains on him. He told his wife to pack and evacuate with his hospital. There were 120 slightly wounded patients that were going to a rear hospital. Ghenia refused saying that she was staying with her sisters. Michael had to go since there was a bus waiting for him. He left. I kept telling my mother and aunts that we needed to evacuate. Boats transporting the wounded and evacuating people were sinking one after another. The ‘Lenin’ boat transporting all higher Party officials and elite – actors and scientists – drowned. There were only few survivors and the rest of them perished. Couriers from our district executive committee [Ispolkom] [15] were bringing us evacuation tickets almost every day, but our mother and her sisters were afraid of getting aboard ships. I insisted that we had to evacuate. I was convinced that we would manage all right. Finally, mother agreed and on 28th September she received two evacuation cards: one for herself and one for my sister. I didn’t need a document.

On 29 August early morning we packed our belongings and went to the harbor. I was carrying a bag with our biggest value; sewing machine ‘Singer’. There was a log line to get on board a ship. There were air raids and bombings, but nobody left the line. Grandfather Nuta and my mother’s sisters came to see us off. Sonia probably felt sorry that she refused to evacuate and her sisters, children and grandfather were staying because of her. She said they were evacuating with a next boat. People dropped their suitcases and bags in a huge net container that was loaded on the boat with a crane. The crane operator missed the boat several times dropping bags into the sea. We were among the last passengers boarding the boat and got on an upper deck. Grandfather came to the boat with us and our mother asked him to stay with us, but he said he couldn’t leave his daughters Sonia and Ghenia and Grigori’s wife with the baby behind and promised that they would leave Odessa on the next boat. We said our good byes. German planes began shooting at the boat, but our antiaircraft guns kept the enemy off. The ‘Dnepr’ boat was slowly moving away from the berth. In my thoughts I was saying ‘good-bye’ to my hometown and wondered whether I would ever see it again.

The boat was under shooting several times, but on 30 we successfully arrived at Novorossiysk 300 km to the east from Odessa. Few passengers formed a commission that released the luggage to others. We were glad that our luggage was not lost. On 4 September we boarded a freight train for cattle transportation heading to the east. It went across the Northern Caucasus, Penza, Kuibyshev, Cheliabinsk, Sverdlovsk [today Yekaterinburg] and few other towns until we arrived at Kustanai in Northern Kazakhstan, 2000 km from home. Kustanai was a regional town. I was used to living in a big and beautiful town and was surprised to see small houses made of saman – airbricks. They were cold houses and I slept in my winter coat. We arrived on 17 October. During our trip I wrote letters to my aunts telling them what they needed to take with them for the trip, but they never left Odessa. We didn’t have any information about my father. In late September 1941 we received a letter from him from Mariupol on the Azov Sea. He wrote he was sorry for having told us to stay in Odessa and that he wished we had evacuated. I guess he had had his share of grief and ordeals.

We were accommodated in a school building. Few days later chairmen of Kazakh kolkhozes came to select groups of people. They were wearing big fur hats and winter coats: it was already cold at this time of year in Northern Kazakhstan. Frieda had finished school with honors before the war. She entered the State Teachers’ College in Kustanai. I didn’t have any documents from school with me since my school had closed before we left. I only had an award of honor for finishing the eighth grade. I entered a Medical School with this honor. I attended classes and two or three days later I told my mother that I couldn’t study medicine since there was no mathematic or physics that I was fond of. The only word I learned in this school was ‘defecation’. I was admitted to the third year of Teachers’ School, but it was closed a month later and senior students including me were transferred to the college where Frieda studied. They formed a Natural Geographic Faculty of ten students: two guys and eight girls. We had wonderful lecturers that were professors from Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad colleges. My mother and sister rented an apartment and lodged a girl that studied in college. I went to live in a hostel. I passed my first exams with only excellent marks. I also worked in ‘Trudovik’ shop. We made gloves and foot wraps for the front and received food products for our work. I studied there during 1942. In late December recruitment of the young men, born in 1925, was announced. Being a disciplined young man I went to the recruitment office, although I didn’t get any summons. When they measured my height it turned out to be 149.5 cm while they only recruited men of at least 150 cm height. An officer making measurements wrote 150 cm in my certificate. When somebody mentioned to him that second-year students were subject to delay of recruitment he waved his hand and said ‘He will finish his studies after he returns from the front’. The shop where I worked gave me a winter jacket, a hat, fur boots and a vest. I gave these to my mother leaving only a vest for myself. After the medical examination we waited for another month: we stayed in the recruitment office overnight going home in the morning. On early morning 12 February we were woken by alarm, marched across the central street of the town and got on a freight train that headed to the north. We moved 700 km to the east from Tyumen where we were assigned to 2nd Aviation School of Tyumen. A doctor of the medical commission of the school didn’t approve me due to my height and complained of the doctor in Kustanai for having sent them such poorly weak fresh forces. Ten other recruits were disapproved. We were taken to a station from where we walked 25 km to Krivosyolki, [about 3000 km to the north-east from Kiev] village. I was assigned to accompany of gunmen of the 2nd reserve riflemen battalion. We were to take a 6-month training studying battles, attacks, defense from tanks, etc. I didn’t have any problems with my training. We got sufficient food. I didn’t eat much and even managed to send a parcel to my mother and sister in Kustanai. From my unit I mailed a search request about my father and received a response. It said that my father Duvid Rudiak disappeared near Mariupol in October 1941. He must have perished when fascist troops landed in Mariupol. I didn’t inform my mother or sister that father had perished, but I gave an oath to myself to take revenge for my father. Once, when we were lined up my commanding officer, a senior lieutenant, found my student’s record book. Commanding officer of our regiment called me to his office. He said that since I had education he wanted me to speak about fascist atrocities in front of the regiment. We were aware of mass shooting in occupied territories. I prepared a speech and spoke in front of my fellow comrades. I had to stand on a box to be seen from behind a stand, but I made a very good speech. In 1944 I became a member of the Communist Party. There were no special ceremonies, it became a routinely procedure, but I believed it to be my duty to be in the first rows of fighters for the victory over fascism. I received my Party membership card at a meeting few months later.

I requested to send me to the front several times. My cousin brother Aron wrote me from the front to try to be no fool, if possible, but I was a patriot and was eager to take revenge for my father. One day my commanding officer told me that I was to go back to my studies in college according to another order issued to confirm that students were to get a delay from service in the army. He asked me ‘Well, will you go back to college now or after the war?’ and I responded bravely ‘We need to beat fascists first’. After our training was over my commanding officer tried to convince me to stay at school. He said I was needed there and I agreed to stay and work in the regiment office.

My mother and sister returned to Odessa after it was liberated in 1944. They failed to get their apartment back, even though authorities were to support the needs of those whose relatives were at the front. Our neighbors – a Bulgarian family – took them to their apartment. They also told them that grandfather and my aunts with their children had perished in Odessa in late October. Fascists burnt several hundreds or a thousand Jews in a barrack.

In late 1944 I was offered to accompany a group of recruits, born in 1930, to Donetsk region. They were too young and their commandment decided to let them go home. I agreed to go with them under condition that I could visit my family in Odessa. On our way to Donetsk we changed 5 trains. From Donetsk I went to Odessa. Entrances to houses in Odessa were kept locked and when I knocked on the door and the concierge opened the door she didn’t recognize me. I grew up 20 cm in half a year. My mother didn’t recognize me either thinking that it was one of her nephews coming home. There was a lot of laughter, joy and tears when she finally acknowledged her son. It turned out that my mother and sister knew about my father, but didn’t want to let me know protecting me from grief. I stayed a week in Odessa, received my food ration and left it to my mother and sister: they became very thin during the war. I returned to my military unit. In summer 1945 I came to Odessa on leave.

I demobilized after the decree issued on 25 October 1945 for wounded veterans, specialists, teachers and 2nd-year and senior students were subject to demobilization. I arrived in early October and submitted my documents to Odessa Construction Engineering College. Rector of the College was telling me to take a year’s leave to take a rest, but I was eager to go back to studies. I was admitted and a month later I passed my half-yearly exams successfully. I had only the highest grades and could apply for Lenin’s stipend [the highest stipend in higher educational institutions in the USSR awarded to the best students for special merits. Maximum 10 students in each institution could be awarded this stipend], but it was awarded to a Ukrainian student that also had all highest marks. In late 1940s state anti-Semitism was at its height and struggle against cosmopolites began [campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’] [16]. A few Jewish professors were fired from our college. I even remember that one of them – Professor Trubianski – died from heart attack and his wife refused to accept assistance from the college. I finished my college with honors and had the right to take my post-graduate studies, but I didn’t get an offer. Probably it was due to my Jewish nationality. I was a proud guy and decided to ask nobody about it. I got a job assignment [Mandatory job assignment in the USSR] [17] in Ternopol, a regional town in Western Ukraine, and in September 1950 I got off the train in this small half-ruined town in 500 km from my hometown.

In the first years I was chief engineer at a maintenance construction company. I had a low salary. I received a one-room apartment [people could not own apartments, so they were “given” apartments by the government]. In 1951 when my first year at work was over, I went to a recreation center near Odessa on vacation. On my way back I visited my family in Odessa. I visited my relatives when I met a lovely Jewish girl. She was my wife to be. Her name was Lubov Bruches. I fell in love with her at first sight and took her home on that day. We began to correspond and sent photographs to one another. I saw her again on October holidays [October Revolution Day]. I came to Odessa and we met at a party. Lubov came to the party with somebody else, but left the party with me. We met again on New Year’s day and on 30 April 1952 I came to Odessa and proposed to her. We had a civil ceremony in the registry office and a small wedding dinner at Lubov parents’ home in the evening. Shortly after we got married Lubov finished a Pedagogical College in Odessa and joined me in Ternopol.

Lubov was born in Proskurov town [Khmelnitskiy at present] in 1929 in the Jewish family. Her family moved to Odessa. Lubov’s father worked at a confectionery. Her mother Edes Bruches [nee Levit], born in 1902, got a good education. She finished grammar school, could play the piano and knew French. Lubov’s mother was a housewife before the war raising her two daughters: Lubov and her older sister Maria. Lubov’s family wasn’t religious. They evacuated from Odessa in 1941. It turned out that we left Odessa on the same ‘Dnepr’ boat and they were in evacuation in Northern Kazakhstan. During the war Lubov’s mother was director of a children’s home and after they returned to Odessa she went to work at a children’s home. Her daughters followed into their mother’s steps: they studied languages and were intelligent people. My wife’s sister Maria married a Jewish man from Odessa in 1950. In late 1970 they moved to USA. Maria’s husband died a short time afterward and she was raising her daughter. They live in New York. We didn’t have any contacts with them for a long time and in late 1980s we began to receive letters from them. They write that they are doing well and are happy.

In 1953 our elder son Gennadi was born and in 1960 our son Yuri was born. Gennadi was born when Stalin died. I didn’t cry, but I was terribly concerned about the future of the country and was very sorry that Stalin died. I was a patriot like my father. Denunciation of Stalin’s cult in 1956 was like a bolt from the blue – it was hard to believe that we had lived under the power of tyrant for so many years.

We had a good life. I held a managerial position at work, but I wanted to go back to Odessa. When I told my boss that I was going to quit he told me to obtain our minister’s permission from Kiev. I didn’t go to Kiev, but I continued looking for a job. When I found a suitable job my management approved my choice since I was staying in Ternopol working in the same branch. In 1953 I went to work at a design institute with the salary three times my previous salary. It was a lot of money at that time and our life was improving. I found my work interesting. I was responsible for development and implementation of designs for restoration and reconstruction of the town, parks and gardens, buildings and even an artificial lake in the center of Ternopol. I worked as director of a design shop for many years and then – chief of Ternopol regional department of the design institute. I wasn’t promoted for a long time afterwards, after the first promotion, because I was a Jew. Nobody told me openly, but this was evident since there were no other reasons for not promoting me. My management knew about my skills and qualification. Once secretary of the town Party committee asked me to solve a problem for his son that about twenty people before me failed to resolve. It took me an instant to give him the right answer after I read the problem. However, they were in no hurry to promote me since I worked hard anyway. They were very well aware that Jews didn’t have many choices with getting an employment. I worked 43 years and retired in 1993. I didn’t participate in any public activities. I had to attend Party meetings and pay my monthly fees, though.

My wife worked as a teacher of the Russian language and literature in a school in the center of the town. Our children finished this school. There were only two Jewish teachers in the town and Lubov faced prejudiced attitudes. She wasn’t awarded the title of honored teacher for many years and when educational authorities were awarding medals at the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s birthday in 1970 she didn’t get one. The wife of secretary of the regional Party committee was surprised to hear that my wife didn’t get a medal and when she asked her ‘Why?” my wife told her frankly ‘Because I am a Jew’. Soon she got an invitation to pick up her medal, but she insisted that they should award it at a public meeting. We live in a small town where she taught many children. For her kind heart and readiness to come to help at any moment people call her ‘Bureau of good services.’ We often had her pupils that had problems with their parents stay with us. Once Lubov’s friend left her husband and stayed with us for some time and children of our acquaintances that came to town to enter a college lived with us. We kept our door open. We had a difficult, but interesting life. We went to the cinema and Russian and Ukrainian Drama Theaters and never missed a performance of Kiev or Odessa theaters when they came on tours. We had many friends. Lubov’s friends were her colleagues and my friends – my colleagues at work. There were few Jews among them, but there were no anti-Semites for sure. We celebrated Soviet holidays together: October revolution Day and 1 May. We often had guests. Lubov is very hospitable. She likes cooking and having guests. Before our children got married we spent vacations together at recreation centers in the Crimea and Caucasus. When I bought a ‘Zhiguli’ [Lada] car we traveled by car. We often spent vacations in Odessa where my sister Frieda lived. Frieda married Lev Tsugel, who is Jewish, in 1946. He was a military officer. They lived in Odessa where Frieda worked as a teacher. Frieda and her family often visited us in Ternopol. Lev died in 1995 and in 2002 my sister passed away. They were buried at the Jewish section of the town cemetery in Odessa without any tradition observed. Her son Duvid named after our father lives in Odessa. He often calls and visits us. We cannot travel now due to poor health condition.

Lubov’s mother died in the middle of 1960s. My mother remarried very successfully in 1957. Her husband Iosif Poltorak, a Jew, was many years older than my mother. Iosif had four sons from the first marriage. One of them – Arkadi Poltorak - was senior researcher of the Institute of State and Law in Moscow. Iosif was a very intelligent and – a rare quality at the time – very religious man. He retired and held some important position in a synagogue. He had a tallit and tefillin and started every day with a prayer. When I visited my mother he told me the Jewish history and about Exodus. I celebrated Pesach and Rosh Hashanah with him several times. Unfortunately, I visited them rather rarely and cannot tell any details, but I know that he was very religious and observed Jewish traditions strictly. I respected his faith, but since I was a member of the Party I was far from religion, but my mother resumed observing Jewish traditions and followed them until the end of her life, she began to follow kashrut and on Saturday they went to the synagogue. My mother lit candles on Sabbath and prayed. She cooked traditional Jewish food on Sabbath. Iosif died in 1977. All members of the Jewish religious community of Odessa came to his funeral. They buried Iosif with prayers following all Jewish rules. My mother died 10 years later in 1987. She was buried near Iosif, but we didn’t follow any Jewish traditions at her funeral.

We have wonderful children. They both studied very well, but Yuri, the younger one, was particularly gifted. They were the only Jewish children in their class and if it hadn’t been for their mother working in this same school they would have faced open anti-Semitism. Only occasionally they felt that they were followed with wicked glances and they were called ‘zhyd’ [kike] a few times. Both sons made good careers. Gennadi finished Belgorod all-Union Tecnological College. He is a builder. Many Jews entered colleges in small Russian towns at that time. There was low competition that made it easier for a Jew to enter a college. He worked as construction engineer for many years.

Yuri finished Polytechnic College in Ternopol and post-graduate studies at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematic in Kiev State University. He defended his candidate’s dissertation and was awarded a title of candidate of physics and mathematic sciences [Soviet/ Russian doctorate degrees] [18].. He returned here and worked as a lecturer. He was also a member of the Scientific Council where applicants submitted their candidate’s dissertations. In 1993 he entered the Doctorate department in this College with competition of 14 applicants per one vacancy. He prepared a dissertation of doctor of science. He worked on many works, was invited to conferences in Poland, Lisbon in Portugal and Oxford. There are references to my son’s works in many scientific publications abroad. Both sons married Ukrainian girls. We are very happy with our daughters-in-law that came from very intelligent families.

Perestroika brought many changes. Our salaries devaluated rapidly and my sons didn’t receive salaries for months. We couldn’t afford any traveling that we were used to. We could hardly make ends meet with our earnings. In 1994 Yuri quit his job. He dealt in small businesses. He took the risk of selling his apartment to invest the money in business. He lived with his family in our apartment. Gennadi joined him in the course of time. Now they own a network of big pharmacies ‘Gedeon Richter’ in Ukraine. We can call it a family business. Gennadi’s wife Galia and Yuri’s wife Vera have medical education and are involved in this family business. Our children and their families are wealthy. They have luxurious apartments and cars and they can afford to give our grandchildren good education. We have four grandchildren: Gennadi’s children are Denis, born in 1987, and Natalia, born in 1989, and Yuri’s children are Tamara, born in 1988, and Alexandr, born in 1995. Our grandchildren are very gifted and they love us.

Of course, I feel upset that Yuri gave up his scientific work. A real scientist cannot abandon his science and Yuri finds time to write articles. He has publications abroad. I think our family has reached everything one could dream of. We’ve never considered moving to another country: Germany was out of the question. The wounds of the Great Patriotic War are still fresh in our memory. I’ve been attracted to Israel, but I’ve always been a patriot. I’ve given much to Ternopol that has become my hometown. I am a happy man. I’ve lived with the best woman ever in the surrounding of loving children and grandchildren. We are members of the Jewish community and often visit Hesed. My wife is a great cook. She is head of the national culinary club in Hesed. We haven’t become religious, but we began to celebrate Jewish holidays. What is interesting – our Ukrainian daughters-in-law Galia and Vera also enjoy celebrating Jewish holidays. Our children support us. We have a wonderful apartment and a dacha. We are fond of growing vegetables and flowers. I gave my car to my older son in 1990. Gennadi and Yuri have nice foreign made cars now. Few years ago our children bought us a trip to Cyprus. We often get together to celebrate Jewish holidays. Our children always cover all expenses. In 2002 we celebrated our ‘golden wedding’ in an expensive restaurant. Our beloved children and grandchildren were with us. ‘Of course, we are the lucky few: many people lost their savings at the beginning of perestroika. Independence of Ukraine is a complex issue. On one hand, Jews and other nations were given a start for development. On the other hand, we’ve lost a lot: a huge country where we grew up and our friends living in other countries, but we are happy regardless.

GLOSSARY:
[1] Russian Revolution of 1917: Revolution in which the tsarist regime was overthrown in the Russian Empire and, under Lenin, was replaced by the Bolshevik rule. The two phases of the Revolution were: February Revolution, which came about due to food and fuel shortages during WWI, and during which the tsar abdicated and a provisional government took over. The second phase took place in the form of a coup led by Lenin in October/November (October Revolution) and saw the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.
[2] Jewish Pale of Settlement: Certain provinces in the Russian Empire were designated for permanent Jewish residence and the Jewish population (apart from certain privileged families) was only allowed to live in these areas.
[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] 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.
[5] Great Patriotic War: On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.
[6] Collective farm (in Russian kolkhoz): In the Soviet Union the policy of gradual and voluntary collectivization of agriculture was adopted in 1927 to encourage food production while freeing labor and capital for industrial development. In 1929, with only 4% of farms in kolkhozes, Stalin ordered the confiscation of peasants' land, tools, and animals; the kolkhoz replaced the family farm.
[7] Odessa: The Jewish community of Odessa was the second biggest Jewish community in Russia. According to the census of 1897 there were 138,935 Jews in Odessa, which was 34,41% of the local population. There were 7 big synagogues and 49 prayer houses in Odessa. There were cheders in 19 prayer houses.
[8] 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.

[9] Famine in Ukraine: In 1920 a deliberate famine was introduced in the Ukraine causing the death of millions of people. It was arranged in order to suppress those protesting peasants who did not want to join the collective farms. There was another dreadful deliberate famine in 1930-1934 in the Ukraine. The authorities took away the last food products from the peasants. People were dying in the streets, whole villages became deserted. The authorities arranged this specifically to suppress the rebellious peasants who did not want to accept Soviet power and join collective farms.
[10] 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.
[11] October Revolution Day: October 25 (according to the old calendar), 1917 went down in history as victory day for the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia. This day is the most significant date in the history of the USSR. Today the anniversary is celebrated as ‘Day of Accord and Reconciliation’ on November 7.
[12] 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.
[13] Bessarabia: Historical area between the Prut and Dnestr rivers, in the southern part of Odessa region. Bessarabia was part of Russia until the Revolution of 1917. In 1918 it declared itself an independent republic, and later it united with Romania. The Treaty of Paris (1920) recognized the union but the Soviet Union never accepted this. In 1940 Romania was forced to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR. The two provinces had almost 4 million inhabitants, mostly Romanians. Although Romania reoccupied part of the territory during World War II the Romanian peace treaty of 1947 confirmed their belonging to the Soviet Union. Today it is part of Moldavia.
[14] A member of a people of southern European Russia and adjacent parts of Asia, noted as cavalrymen especially during tsarist times.
[15] Ispolkom: After the tsar’s abdication (March, 1917), power passed to a Provisional Government appointed by a temporary committee of the Duma, which proposed to share power to some extent with councils of workers and soldiers known as ‘soviets’. Following a brief and chaotic period of fairly democratic procedures, a mixed body of socialist intellectuals known as the Ispolkom secured the right to ‘represent’ the soviets. The democratic credentials of the soviets were highly imperfect to begin with: peasants - the overwhelming majority of the Russian population - had virtually no say, and soldiers were grossly over-represented. The Ispolkom’s assumption of power turned this highly imperfect democracy into an intellectuals’ oligarchy.
[16] Campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’: The campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’, i.e. Jews, was initiated in articles in the central organs of the Communist Party in 1949. The campaign was directed primarily at the Jewish intelligentsia and it was the first public attack on Soviet Jews as Jews. ‘Cosmopolitans’ writers were accused of hating the Russian people, of supporting Zionism, etc. Many Yiddish writers as well as the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested in November 1948 on charges that they maintained ties with Zionism and with American ‘imperialism’. They were executed secretly in 1952. The anti-Semitic Doctors’ Plot was launched in January 1953. A wave of anti-Semitism spread through the USSR. Jews were removed from their positions, and rumors of an imminent mass deportation of Jews to the eastern part of the USSR began to spread. Stalin’s death in March 1953 put an end to the campaign against ‘cosmopolitans’.
[17] Mandatory job assignment in the USSR: Graduates of higher educational institutions had to complete a mandatory 2-year job assignment issued by the institution from which they graduated. After finishing this assignment young people were allowed to get employment at their discretion in any town or organization.
[18] Soviet/Russian doctorate degrees: Graduate school in the Soviet Union (aspirantura, or internatura for medical students), which usually took about 3 years and resulted in a dissertation. Students who passed were awarded a 'kandidat nauk' (lit. candidate of sciences) degree. If a person wanted to proceed with his or her research, the next step would be to apply for a doctorate degree (doktorantura). 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.

Mikhail Leger
Mogilyov-Podolskiy
Ukraine
Date of interview: July 2004
Interviewer: Ella Levitskaya

Mikhail Leger and his wife Yelena live in a two-bedroom apartment in a 5-storied apartment house built in 1965. They keep their apartment clean and cozy. Their furniture is not new, but it’s been well-maintained. Mikhail still works in the design office at a plant, though he had reached the retirement age a while ago. Mikhail looks young for his age. He is of average height, thin and quick in his movements. He has thick dark wavy hair with few grey streaks. Mikhail is very vivid and energetic. He is charming and has a sense of humor. Mikhail willingly agreed to tell me about his family and his life. Mikhail and his wife Yelena are friendly and amiable. They make one feel as if you’ve known them for a number of years. Their daughter and her son also live in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. They visit their parents almost every day. Mikhail spends a lot of time with his grandson and knows all about his life and hobbies.

I didn’t know my father’s parents. My father’s family lived in the town of Ozarintsy Vinnitsa region not far from Mogilyov-Podolskiy. My grandfather’s name was Mihel Leger, and my grandmother’s first name was Gita. I don’t know my grandmother’s maiden name, or my grandparents’ date of birth. I guess they both came from Ozarintsy and were born around the 1850s. Ozarintsy was an old Jewish town. There were few synagogues and cheder schools and a Jewish cemetery in the town. There were hardly any newcomers in Ozarintsy, unless somebody brought a spouse from another village or town. There was a shochet in the town. Jews were all religious, and my father’s family was no exception.

I don’t know what my grandfather did for a living, but my grandmother was a housewife like all married women at the time. They had many children. My father Gilel Leger, born in 1902, was the youngest. Of all his numerous brothers and sisters I only knew his sisters Rosa – Reizl was her Jewish name, and Genia. The rest of them moved to America during the Civil War [1] escaping from pogroms [2], and looking for a better life. I have no information about them. All I know is that my father’s brother Shmil died young in the USA and I was named after him. My father corresponded with him before the war, when I was very young. We had a picture of my father’s brothers and sisters that they had sent us from the USA. Some of them moved to Brazil later. During the Soviet period they terminated their correspondence since it was not safe to have or correspond with relatives from abroad [3].

My father and his brothers must have been raised religious and must have finished a cheder school. My father could read and write in Hebrew. He knew prayers and Jewish traditions. My father’s mother tongue was Yiddish. My father must have got some secular education. He worked as an accountant after getting married. My father went to work, when he was young. He never told me about his youth.

My father’s both sisters married Jewish men from Mogilyov-Podolskiy, and moved to live with their husbands. My grandfather and grandmother and my father followed them to Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Rosa’s husband Motl Voloshyn was a clerk in an office. Rosa was a housewife. Her only son Mikhail was born in 1925. His Jewish name was Mihel. My grandfather died in Mogilyov-Podolskiy in 1924. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery of the town according to the Jewish tradition. Mikhail was the first baby born after grandfather died. He was named after my grandfather. Genia husband’s name was Moisey Goldman. I don’t know what he did for the living. Genia was a housewife. They had two children: son Milia, also named after my grandfather, by the first letter of his name, he was born in 1926, and daughter Lidia, born in 1934. After my grandfather died grandmother went to live with Genia. Grandmother died in 1936. She was buried beside grandfather’s grave.

I don’t quite know what Mogilyov-Podolskiy was like at that time, but I don’t think it’s changed a lot since the old times. Vinnitsa region was within the Pale of Settlement [4], and there were many Jews living in its towns and settlements. Mogilyov-Podolskiy is a nice little town buried in verdure. It lies between the Dnestr River on one side and the limestone hills covered with woods – on the other. There were cemeteries on the hills: a Jewish, a Catholic and a town cemetery [Eastern Orthodox]. Bessarabia started on the opposite bank of the river [5]. Jews mostly settled down in the central part of the town. Their houses closely adjusted to one another. There were small backyards where only a little shed or a tiny vegetable garden could fit while in the suburbs residents had orchards, vegetable gardens and fields. They sold food products in the town. There were few markets: the biggest one in the center of the town where there was a shochet working. Jews only bought living poultry to take it to the shochet. Local farmers were well aware of Jewish traditions. On Friday morning they brought lots of poultry and fish to the market knowing that Jewish housewives would want to make chicken broth and gefilte fish for family dinners. Almost all Jewish families had their own suppliers of vegetables, dairy products and eggs. Before the revolution of 1917 [6] most Jews in Mogilyov-Podolskiy were craftsmen or store owners. After the revolution there were plants built in the town and many Jews went to work there. There was a Jewish community in the town. It supported a Jewish hospital, a Jewish children’s home and the needy Jews. After the revolution, when the Soviet regime began its struggle against religion, [7] the community stopped its activities.

There were Jewish pogroms before the revolution and during the Civil War. The power switched from the whites [8], to the reds [9], or various gangs [10]. And they all turned to Jews at the first turn demanding gold or money, or just humiliating, beating, injuring people. Mama told me such pogroms occurred every now and then, and they had to leave their home and look for shelter. Many people gave shelter to Jewish families, though if they had been discovered, those people might suffer a lot, but their kind attitude was stronger than fear. I don’t know any details, but I know that my parents’ families survived the pogroms.

Jews and non-Jews of Mogilyov-Podolskiy got along well and respected each other’s religion and traditions. There were few synagogues, a Christian church [He probably means the Russian-Orthodox Church as both, Catholic and Greek-Orthodox are, of course, Christian Churches too.], a Catholic cathedral and a Greek church in the town. There were cheder schools at the synagogues. There were few shochets in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. After the revolution all synagogues, but 2 were closed. One of these two synagogues, a small one-storied synagogue, was near where we lived. After the Great Patriotic War [11] it was closed for some time, but now it operates again. The second – a choral synagogue, was near the railway station. The Jewish school worked before WW2.

I remember my mother’s family well. My grandmother and grandfather were born in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. My grandfather Duvid-Ariye Minkovetskiy was born in 1868. Grandmother Freida, nee Mandel, was born in 1866. I didn’t know any of my grandfather’s relatives, but my grandmother had a sister living in Ataki village on the opposite bank of the river. Before the revolution of 1917 Ataki and Mogilyov-Podolskiy belonged to the Russian Empire. After the revolution Mogilyov-Podolskiy was in the USSR, and Bessarabia was annexed to Romania. Mogilyov-Podolskiy was located on the border. The border between the USSR and Romania was the Dnestr River. There was a restricted entry to the town requiring a special access permit. Frontier guards patrolled the town and the river bank. The bridge that connected the two banks before 1917 was eliminated. There were no contacts between relatives and my grandmother and her sister were separated from each other. However, residents of Mogilyov-Podolskiy and Ataki found out the ways of communication. I remember my grandmother taking me to the bank of the river to bathe. She walked into the river, and her sister was on the opposite bank. My grandmother turned her back to the Romanian bank, so that the frontier guards could not understand, whom she was talking to, began talking loudly about what was new with all members of our family. Her sister talked in the same manner, as if not talking to anybody specifically. Only in 1940, when Romania yielded to the threatening ultimatum of the USSR and gave up Bessarabia, my grandmother and her sister met after a long time.

My mother’s family was miserably poor before the revolution. My grandmother and grandfather rented apartments moving from one place to another. My grandmother was a housewife, and grandfather was the breadwinner for the family. Before the revolution my grandfather dealt in farming. He rented a plot of land from a landlord to farm it. He gave half of his crops to the landlord and had another half at his disposal. After the revolution my grandfather went to work as an acquisition clerk in the supply office that made stocks of fruit and vegetables for Leningrad and Leningrad region. When I was small I liked visiting him at work where I was always given some fruit.

My grandfather was taller than average and thin. He had a small black beard with grey streaks. He wore black suits and a black hat. At home my grandfather wore a yarmulke. My grandmother was short and plump. She wore long black skirts and dark long-sleeved blouses. The only difference between her summer and winter clothes was the fabric, but not the design. My grandmother did not wear a wig, but she always covered her head with a dark kerchief. This was the traditional way the women of her time dressed while my mother and her generation were not so attached to this old tradition.

My grandmother and grandfather had many children, but most of them died in their infancy. Only three of them survived: mama’s older sister Rachil, born in the late 1890s, my mama Paya, born in 1903, and their younger brother Faivish, born in 1907. They spoke Yiddish at home, but also knew Ukrainian and Russian.

My mother’s family was religious. All children were raised religious. Uncle Faivish finished cheder. Mama and her older sister had a visiting teacher. They could read in Hebrew and read and write in Yiddish. They also received a secular education. They finished a 4-year Jewish school and studied in an 8-year Russian school.

Mama’s older sister Rachil married a Jewish man from Mogilyov-Podolskiy. She had a traditional Jewish wedding. Rachil moved to live with her husband. She was a housewife. Her husband Lazar Lerner was an accountant in an office. Their older daughter Bella was born in 1922 and son Abram – in 1932. Mama’s younger brother Faivish studied at the accounting course and then worked as an accountant in an office. He was single and lived with his parents.

Mama was eager to study. She studied at a course for junior medical personnel: attendants and medical nurses. Her dream was to enter a medical college, but this dream was not to come true. She studied and worked as an attendant and then medical nurse in the town hospital. Mama loved her job.

I don’t know how my parents met: whether there was a matchmaker or they met themselves somehow. Anyway, they got married in 1928. My parents had a traditional wedding with a chuppah and a rabbi. I kept my parents’ marriage certificate signed by the rabbi of the synagogue of Mogilyov-Podolskiy for a long time. It moldered in the course of time. Mama and papa rented a little house with one room, a small kitchen and a fore room on a hill in the suburb of Mogilyov-Podolskiy. I was born there in 1935. This house is still there, though many others in this neighborhood have been removed. I can see it from my window. They fetched water from a nearby well in the street. There was a plot of land near the house, about 10 square meters, and the lady allowed mama to make a small vegetable garden there. Mama liked growing dill, parsley and cucumbers, selecting seeds and watching her plants grow.

There was a Russian stove [12] where mama cooked in winter and it also heated the house. In summer mama only stoked the stove to bake bread. She cooked on a small stove on 3 legs. Mama baked bread for a whole week on Friday. It was delicious even when it grew stale. Electricity came to Mogilyov-Podolskiy in 1948. There were kerosene stoves used to light houses before.

My parents spoke Russian to me at home and only switched to Yiddish, when they didn’t want me to understand the subject of their discussion. My parents also spoke Yiddish to grandmother and grandfather.

Mama basically followed kashrut. We never ate pork. Mama bought a living chicken or duck and took it to the shochet to slaughter. She also bought kosher beef and veal from the shochet. Mama had a tray with twigged sides. She soaked meat in water for some time, placed it on this tray, salted the meat and placed the tray into a basin and the blood dipped into the basin. Mama made delicious food. We had gefilte fish on Sabbath and Jewish holidays, and on week days mama made plain food. I remember chicken broth with homemade noodles, cholent, carrot tsimes [13], puddings.

Even during the period of struggle against religion my father remained religious. He didn’t teach me to be religious, but he himself often read his book of prayers. On holidays and on death anniversaries of his parents my father went to the synagogue to recite the Kaddish.

We always celebrated Sabbath at home. Mama made food for Saturday on Friday. She always made cholent that I liked a lot. After finishing baking bread for a week and challot for Sabbath mama put a pot of cholent into the oven where she left it for 24 hours and when she took it out before Saturday dinner it was still hot. In the evening mama lit candles and prayed over them. I remember that mama always covered her face with her hands praying. Saturday was an ordinary working day during the Soviet regime, but mama tried to do no work whenever possible.

We celebrated Jewish holidays. My parents went to the synagogue on these days. They took me with them, when I was small. Before Pesach mama did a general clean up. She whitewashed the house on the outside and cleaned and polished everything inside. There was a Jewish bakery in the town. They baked matzah for Pesach and people made orders for as much matzah as they needed. I don’t remember whether there was bread in the house on Pesach, but surely there was matzah. Matzah was used to make many dishes and also, matzah flour was used to bake strudels and puddings. Mama cooked gefilte fish, chicken broth and puddings. She also made potato pancakes that she also baked in a pot in the Russian stove. She also made borscht for Pesach. Pesia, an old Jewish woman living near the synagogue, made marinated beets for sale. Housewives also bought beet was from her and added boiled potatoes, hard-boiled eggs and matzah to make borscht. It was delicious. I don’t remember whether we had special dishes or Pesach. We were poor. Mama koshered our casual utensils before Pesach putting burning hot stones into pans and casseroles and rinsing them with boiling water. I don’t remember whether my father conducted Seder. I was probably too young to remember.

I remember Yom Kippur well. This was a ceremonious day after Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. They blew the shofar for a month at the synagogue and it was heard all over the town. On Rosh Hashanah we had apples cut into pieces and a saucer of homey on the table. We dipped apples in honey eating them to have a sweet year to come. However negative the Soviet authorities were about religion, all Jews came to the synagogue on Yom Kippur that came after Rosh Hashanah. There were people crowding in front of the small synagogue where my parents went. Those, who failed to come inside, were waiting outside for the prayer to be over. The fast lasted 24 hours. Children could have some food during fasting. The next dinner was to take place next day after the prayer was over. Children went to see their parents at the synagogue.

We didn’t make a sukkah on Sukkot since we lived in a Ukrainian neighborhood, but those Jewish families living in the center installed sukkahs in their yards. My grandmother and grandfather also had a sukkah and we visited them. On Simchat Torah my father often took me to the synagogue with him. I carried a scroll of the torah following my father. I had to be very careful since it was a great sin to drop the scroll.

On Chanukkah mama lit one more candle in the chanukkiyah every day. Our relatives and acquaintances visiting us gave me Chanukkah gelt and I always looked forward to this holiday. I spent this money on sugar candy and sunflower seeds.

I also remember Purim. Mama made triangle hamantashen. Mama made many pies to make shelakhmones and send it to relatives and friends.

Mama had to go to work and left me in my grandma’s care or occasionally she took me to my papa’s sister Genia, whose daughter was the same age with me. At 4 I went to the kindergarten near our house. My cousin Lidia Goldman, my father sister Genia Goldman’s daughter, also went to this kindergarten. Though Genia was a housewife, she still sent her daughter to the kindergarten: at that time children were customarily sent to nursery schools to adapt to communication with other children. I was to go to school in 1942.

I remember well the bright and sunny day on 22 June 1941. I remember my parents and mama’s brother Faivish, who came to see us in the morning, standing with tense faces by the black plate of the radio listening to something. Then my mother started crying and told me that the war began. It didn’t mean much to me. All I knew about the war was how we, boys, played the war. I went outside and heard the roar of the planes flying over the Dnestr from Bessarabia. The beginning of the war is associated for me with those planes flying in rows. There were so many planes that they almost covered the sky, and this looked scaring.

My mother’s brother Faivish and Genia’s husband Moisey Goldman went to the army on the first days of the war and so did Rosa’s son Mikhail Voloshyn. Few days later my father was recruited to the army. He went to the gathering point in Vinnitsa. My father’s sister Genia Goldman, her son Milia and daughter Lidia evacuated on the first days of the war. The rest of the family stayed in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Few days later the bombings began. My mother was pregnant. She decided that we should leave Mogilyov-Podolskiy for Vinnitsa from where we could take a train to evacuate. I remember that we rode a wagon to Chernivtsy in about 20 km from Mogilyov-Podolskiy, where we heard that German troops were already in Vinnitsa. We stayed in Chernivtsy where a local Jewish family gave us shelter. We lived in their attic. Few days later my father found us. What happened was – e managed to get to the gathering point, but it was already deserted. He returned home looking for us and somebody told him that we might be in Chernivtsy. My father stayed with us. The village was bombed and during one bombing mama started labor and had a still born baby girl.

Germans came to Chernivtsy in July 1941. I remember their first action against Jews well. Jews were hiding away. Germans captured 10 people, whoever they could find. They took them to the ridge across the river in the village, pushed them off the bridge shooting after them competing in the accuracy of shooting. They were just entertaining themselves. We didn’t see this, but we heard about it – the whole village was talking about it. People knew this was just a beginning. My father walked to Mogilyov-Podolskiy to find out what the situation was like there. He returned and said that we would be safer home. Few Jewish families got together, hired a wagon, loaded their luggage on it and older people and children sat on it to ride to Mogilyov-Podolskiy. This was a hard trip. We had to cross few villages where people abused and tried to rob us. When we arrived home we discovered thee was nothing left in the house: everything was gone while we were away. However, after we returned some neighbors brought back some of our belongings: a table, chairs and some household utilities.

When we returned home, we heard about what happened to mama’s younger brother Faivish. In July 1941 his military unit was retreating through Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Faivish requested a short leave to visit his family. He went to see his parents, but when it was time for him to go back, another air raid began. Faivish was deadly wounded. A military sanitary truck took him away. Some time later grandmother and grandfather received a notification that Faivish had disappeared. I think he died, but nobody took an effort to follow all procedures and notify his military unit. We don’t know where he died or was buried.

Soon Germans established a Jewish ghetto in the center of the town. It was surrounded with a high stone fence with barbed wire on top of it. The gate was guarded by Romanians. After the ghetto was arranged German troops left Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Vinnitsa region became the territory of Transnistria [14], the area of concentration camps and ghettos. It was divided into two zones: Romanian and German. Mogilyov-Podolskiy belonged to the Romanian zone of occupation. All Jews of Mogilyov-Podolskiy were taken to the ghetto. We could stay in our house since it was on the territory of the ghetto. Rosa’s house was aside from the ghetto and Rosa and her husband were forced to leave their house to go to the ghetto. They moved in with us. Grandmother and grandfather also could stay in their house. Their older daughter Rachil, her husband and their younger son also lived with them. Before the war her daughter Bella finished a secondary school and studied at the Engineering Construction College in Vinnitsa. At the beginning of the war Bella evacuated with her college to the Ural. The Ukrainian families whose houses happened to be within the boundaries of the ghetto were forced to move out. Every day groups of Jews from Bessarabia, and even Romania arrived at the ghetto. They were accommodated in Jewish houses. The husband of my grandmother’s sister living in Ataki found us and his family also moved into our house. Some other Jews from Ataki, my grandmother and mother’s acquaintances, told us that Germans killed my grandmother sister’s daughter and her husband, when they came to Ataki. Their only daughter Gita came to the ghetto with other Jews. Mama found Gita, who was 11 years old then and took her to live with us. Later some other of or distant relatives came o live with us. So, in autumn 1941 there were 15 tenants in our house. Our only room was like a fairy tale tower room stuffed with people. My father made a partial to divide it into two parts. In August 1942 another distant relative joined us. My father had distant relatives in the town of Yaryshev near Mogilyov-Podolskiy. There was also a ghetto in Yaryshev. In August 1942 Germans shot about 700 Jews – all inmates of the ghetto in Yaryshev – in a field near Yaryshev and their bodies were falling into a pit. My father’s relatives perished, but their 12-year old daughter Lisa managed to escape. She hid in the corn field nearby and then headed to Mogilyov-Podolskiy. She walked at night and took hiding during the day. In Mogilyov-Podolskiy she found our family and stayed with us. Romanian troops did not arrange mass shooting, but considering the conditions in the ghetto, it was easier to die from hunger and diseases that survive. When I think about it now, I don’t know how we survived. Local villagers brought food products in exchange of clothes and furniture. Since we hardly had anything valuable left, I have no idea how my parents managed to feed us.

Before the ghetto I didn’t know about what Jews were. There was no anti-Semitism before the war. I only discovered that I was a Jew in the ghetto. When they began to shoot Jews there were many talks of this kind and I asked mama: ‘Who invented those Jews?’ mama got confused and told me to ask my grandfather. My grandfather told me the history of Jews and said that Germans could kill us just for the fact that we were Jews’. Later mama often repeated this phrase of mine as a funny joke.

Yiddish was the main language of communication in the ghetto since this was the only language the Bessarabian and Romanian Jews could speak. I learned Yiddish in the ghetto. I couldn’t read and or write, but I spoke fluent Yiddish. Mama often read me Sholem Aleichem’s [15] books in Yiddish in the ghetto. I still have these books. After the war we also often spoke Yiddish at home.

In spring 1942 there was a big flood in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Such floods happened from time to time in the town. When ice begins to melt in the rives it dams it on turning points causing the flooding of nearby areas. Mama told me about the flood in 1932, when thee were even victims among the population. The flood was also terrible in 1942. The whole riverside and a number of houses in the town were flooded. Inmates of those flooded houses had to move into the houses on hills. My grandmother, grandfather, my mother’s older sister Rachil, her husband and son moved into our house as well. They stayed with us for about two weeks. When the water wet back, they moved back into their house. Shortly after this flood a terrible epidemic of enteric typhoid developed in the ghetto. Almost all inmates had lice, there was no soap, all those struck with the disease stayed in the houses where other inmates lived. There were no doctors or medications in the ghetto. There were ill relatives in our house. My mother and father had typhoid during the revolution in 1917 and had immunity against the disease. They were particularly worried about me, Rachil’s daughters and two girls living with us. We were sent to my grandmother and grandfather. Many inmates of the ghetto died. Rachil’s husband Lazar Lerner died and Rachil died soon after him. Our relatives from Ataki died. Mama managed to get some chloride of lime to disinfect the house and we, children, could come back. Mama took Rachil’s son Abram to live with us. Shortly after we left the house my grandfather Duvid-Ariye contracted typhoid and died. The Romanians allowed inmates of the ghetto to bury their dead outside the ghetto. Rachil, her husband, my grandfather and relatives from Ataki were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. My father recited Kaddish over their graves. We installed a gravestone after the war. Mama took my grandmother to live with us. My grandmother never recovered after Faivish and grandfather’s death. She was very religious. There was a prayer house in the ghetto and my grandmother attended it regularly. Of course, this was kept a secret from the Romanians.

My mother heard that inmates of the ghetto could be inoculated against typhoid in the town hospital and took me there immediately. The children had to stay in hospital two weeks after inoculations. Many patients fell ill after inoculations, but I was lucky to escape the disease. Only recently we found out that actually these were not inoculations, but experiments on people. The German government paid compensation to those who were ‘inoculated’. But at that time people did not have this information. When the attack of typhus was over, it was followed by an epidemic of enteric fever. It was probably caused by contaminated potable water since the wells were never cleaned through the period of occupation. Mama fell ill with enteric fever and her condition was very hard. Fortunately, she recovered. Then there appeared an epidemic of relapsing fever, and there were many victims to it.

Mama believed I had to study and taught me to read, write and count. Many Jews deported from Romania and Moldavia knew German. Mama hired a school teacher from Bucharest to teach me German. I managed to learn the curriculum of almost 2 years of school in the ghetto.

In autumn 1942 inmates of the ghetto began to be deported to concentration camps: one of them was Pechora camp in Vinnitsa region called the ‘Dead loop’ [16], it was also called the ‘death camp’. There were hardly any survivors in this camp. Prisoners of the camp were forced to work hard and they hardly received any food. They stayed in earth huts and holes that they dug themselves. Those who were too exhausted to go to work were killed. At first Romanian guards made lists of groups of inmates to send them to Pechora, but later they just captured them during raids to move them to Pechora. When raids began adults assigned night watch to warn the others, if another raid began. We lived near a school where Romanians arranged a military storage in a shed in the yard. There were Romanian guards there, and during raids we ran to stay closer to this shed. We thought, if there were Romanians there, maybe the raid would not reach this area. Somehow we really managed to escape the raids.

We had no information about the war. There was no radio or newspapers in the ghetto. When adults got together, all they talked about was that we would be exterminated soon and the ghetto will be liquidated. This was terrible. I was just a child, but I can still remember the feeling of horror and despair that overwhelmed me, when they spoke in this manner. All inmates of the ghetto had this expectation of the end despite their age. Adults and children were sort of living our last days. Hungry and cold during a day, we waited for them to come and capture us at night… Every day and every night could be the last in life.

In March 1943 this expectation of the end was particularly acute. These were horrible days: Germans were retreating, and their columns were passing by our house. Jews feared going outside. They said Germans were going to eliminate the ghetto. On 18 March the Romanians started leaving. The ghetto was not guarded any longer, but nobody dared to leave it. There were German and Romanian troops in the streets that would kill any runaway. Nobody slept at night. Somebody knocked on the door, but we did not open. At dawn on 19 March we heard explosions. Then it became quiet. We stayed inside till we heard the Russian language. Mama went out and called us right away. We could see the rest of the town from the hill our house was on. We saw 3 Soviet tanks coming into the town. They stopped and the tank men showed up. People were coming closer to hug and thank them. They opened their field kitchen and cooked cereals with tinned meat. It had a magic and long-forgotten taste. We felt so happy. We knew that the war not over yet, but we were free. However, it was still dangerous to walk the streets for few days. A German sniper sat in the church in Ataki near Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Later people said that Germans even chained him there so that he could not escape. He kept shooting for 3 days till few Soviet soldiers swam across the Dnestr and killed him. Our relatives went to their homes. Gita returned to Ataki where she found some relatives that had survived. Lisa entered a technical school in Vinnitsa. Rachil’s daughter Bella visited us. Se went to her parents’ grave and then went back to her college in Vinnitsa. Her younger brother Abram went with her. 3 Soviet soldiers were accommodated in our house. The Soviet military restored the bridge across the Dnestr. The peaceful life began, but it did not last long. There were still air raids at nights and people were dying again. There was a railway station not far from our house on one side, and an oil terminal and a bridge on the other side. They were the targets the German bombers intended to hit. Germans dropped fire rockets on parachutes. They lighted the area with ominous red light. Then they dropped bombs. Our old house shook from explosions and the ceiling was falling down. Our family gathered in a bunch in the middle of the room. If we were to be killed, we wanted to be together. Someone told mama that it was best to hide under the table during shooting. Mama made me and grandmother go under the table during shootings. Sitting under the table, I was worried about my parents. The hardest bombing occurred on 7 July 1944. On this day Americans and Brits opened the second front. There was a meeting in the town. Mama went to the meeting and I stayed home with grandmother. It was getting dark, when we heard the familiar roar of German tanks. Then the hell came down. The house was jumping up and shaking from explosions, the plaster came down and the glass broke. When it was over our parents came home. Finally, the bombings were over and the peaceful life began. My father’s sister Genia and her daughter Lidia returned from evacuation. Her son Milia Goldman perished at the front in 1944 and so did her husband Moisey Goldman. Papa sister Rosa’s son Mikhail Voloshyn returned from the front in 1945.

In April 1943 classes at school began. Mama sent me to the 2nd form. Two months later summer vacations began at school. Since I missed the first form at school, I had to take few exams in autumn. I studied in summer and passed my exams successfully. I went to the 3rd form. There were three pupils of my age, born in 1935, in my class. The rest of our classmates were older. There were many Jewish children in my class. We were so used to speaking Yiddish in the ghetto that we communicated in Yiddish at school. Any children started their answer in Yiddish, if they were called to the blackboard. Our teachers asked us to speak Russian. I had no problem with this knowing both languages. There was no anti-Semitism at school. There were Jews among teachers and the majority of school children were Jewish.

There was famine in 1947. I was 12 and remember the feeling of hunger. I couldn’t stop thinking about food. All thoughts about food. In summer we broke into gardens eating unripe apples, apricots and pears. There were cards to receive bread every other day. It was hard to keep a portion of bread till the next day. Mama was taking the bread away, but I found it and cut little pieces from it.

In 1946 my sister Gusta (this name was written in her documents) was born. She was named Gita after my paternal grandmother. My father went to work in a construction office. Mama stayed home through the period of breastfeeding my sister. Later she went to work as a laboratory assistant at the sanitary station. We lived near the laboratory and in the evening all microscopes and reagents were taken to our house for the sake of safety. Mama showed me some specimens in the microscope and I liked watching them. Mama retired in 1983, when she turned 80.

My grandmother lived with us and watched that we observed Jewish traditions very closely. We strictly followed kashrut at home. My grandmother watched very closely that we used correctly dishes for meat and dairy products or tableware, accordingly. Only when she grew very old and could not be so watchful we allowed ourselves some liberties.

When grandmother was with us, we celebrated Sabbath at home. On Friday evening she lit candles. Grandmother had to prepare for the holiday. We didn’t have candle stands and it was difficult to buy candles. We used makeshift means: I removed the inside of a potato, we poured oil inside and placed a little wick in it and we got a candle. When grandmother lit candles and covered her face with her hands when praying she started crying thinking about deceased Faivish, grandfather, Rachil and her husband. Then we sat down to dinner. On Saturday my parents had to go to work, but my grandmother did no work at home. She read the prayer book.

We celebrated Jewish holidays after the war and I took part in celebrations, even though I was a pioneer [17], and a Komsomol member [18]. We were taught to be atheists at school. We knew there was no God and that religion was an opium for people. However, this was one thing, and my family traditions – another thing for me. My family always knew the dates of holidays: Pesach, Yom Kippur, Chanukkah. My grandmother was particularly watchful about observance of traditions. There was always matzah delivered for her before Pesach. I don’t know how strictly kosher this matzah was, but it was there. Some people baked matzah secretly: Soviet authorities had a negative attitude toward religion and religious people. Mama could not afford to buy matzah for all of us, but grandmother had sufficient matzah for Pesach. My grandmother and my parents always fasted on Yom Kippur, only when my grandmother grew too old and could not always look at the calendar, my parents did not tell her about the day of fasting. My grandmother lived a long life and died at the age of 95 in 1961. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery beside my grandfather’s grave according to all Jewish rules.

I studied well at school. I was particularly good at mathematics, physics and chemistry. I was not very good at social sciences, but I had good marks in them as well. We were raised patriots at school. I became a pioneer in the 4th form. I joined Komsomol at the age of 14. Since I was the youngest of my classmates, they joined Komsomol long before I did and I was desperately jealous about them being Komsomol members. I was very serious about getting prepared to admission to Komsomol: I read Lenin’s works [19], and was aware of all political events in the USSR and abroad. I was very proud to show my Komsomol membership card to my parents, when I obtained it.

In 1948 trials against cosmopolites [20] took place. It never occurred to me they were plotted against Jews. I sincerely believed that the Soviet people were denouncing the cosmopolites, who wanted to damage the USSR. My head was so stuffed with the Soviet propaganda that there was no space for doubts in it. I thought that this unfriendly attitude to Jews was justified: there were articles in newspapers about dishonest Jewish directors of stores, shop assistants, profiteers cheating honest people. Of course, my parents, acquaintances and I did not belong to them – I was good! Stalin was my idol and I loved him as much as I loved my own father. We had a framed photo of my father’s brothers and sisters who had moved to USA. I took out the photo and threw it out, and put the portrait of Stalin in this frame. My parents were skeptical about the situation, but they didn’t speak out in my presence. They must have understood that I was to live in this country and they did not want to overburden me with doubts or they were concerned that I might report in them. Who knows…

I remember another important event that occurred in 1948, when Israel was established. Our family was happy about it. We were happy that Jews finally had their own state. Gita from Ataki came to visit us. Before 1940, when Ataki belonged to Romania, Gita was a member of Maccabi, [20]a Jewish Children’s Zionist organization. She was a convinced Zionist and her thoughts never changed after Bessarabia was annexed to the USSR. Her husband also came from Ataki and was a Zionist. Gita talked a lot about Israel and how Jews were fighting for their land and how miraculously brave they were. Gita and her husband intended to move to Israel, but when trials against cosmopolites began, emigration was closed. Gita and her husband did not move to Israel until 1968.

I had my first doubts about the Soviet propaganda during the period of the ‘doctors’ plot’ [22]. I was sincerely indignant about somebody daring to infringe upon Stalin’s life. I was sure newspaper articles were true. It never occurred to me then that this was artificial enforcement of anti-Semitism. I realized this, when once I gave my Ukrainian friend, whom I had known since childhood, a sugar candy. He looked at me with dread: ‘You won’t poison me, will you?’ It was then that I thought that somebody made monsters of Jews, who were ready to poison and kill any person… I started taking a closer look at the events trying to figure out what the situation was about. People thought it was dangerous to deal with Jews – who could tell what they have in mind? Patients refused to visit Jewish doctors, or have a Jewish nurse making an injection saying there was poison in the syringe. It seems ridiculous from today’s standpoint, but then it was scaring. However, I never tied this to Stalin’s name. He remained an idol for me. It never occurred to me that he was to blame for anti-Semitism and that nothing at all could happen in the USSR without his knowledge.

In March 1953 there was another flood in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. Our relatives and their children moved to our house on a hill. Again it was like in the ghetto, when a number of people crowded in our room. On 5 March, in the morning, we heard on the radio that Stalin died. Many people cried without trying to hide their tears. I tried to comfort myself thinking that we were all mortal and so was Stalin. He was an old man, but I loved him and believed in him. I had painful fear in my heart. I could not imagine my life without Stalin. When all doctors were rehabilitated later, I felt very sorry that Staling did not live long enough to know that we, Jews, are no poisoning people or rascals.

My illusions were done with, when Khrushchev [23] spoke on the 20th Congress [24] about the crimes of Stalin and his regime. I understood a lot more at the time and believed Khrushchev at once. However, I felt sorry to give up my childhood ideas about Stalin, our leader, the ‘father of people’…

In 1952 I finished school. I already knew that it didn’t matter where I wanted to study. What mattered was where I could be admitted, being a Jew. I grew up quickly and I understood that the routinely anti-Semitism in the USSR spread to the state level. Jews were not admitted to colleges and faced employment problems. Mama wanted me to become a doctor, but I had no hope to be admitted to a medical college. I had to look for a college with lower competition where Jews were admitted, however few of them. Jews had to find a college where they could be admitted rather than starting from choosing a profession. My cousin Mikhail Voloshyn had practical training in Moscow. He found a college with the lowest competition and suggested that I took exams to Moscow Auto mechanic College. I went to Moscow and passed exams, but failed the competition. I returned to Mogilyov-Podolskiy, and went to work as a draftsman at the plant named after Kirov. In 1953 my former schoolmate and I went t Ivanovo town in Russia where we took exams to the Technological College. I failed again. I’m ashamed to say that my examiners discovered that I had a crib and ordered me to leave the classroom. I went to the admission commission to have my documents back. Another Jewish guy from Georgia, who also failed, went there with me. The secretary had the list of our documents in her notebook. When she opened it, we saw the word ‘Jew’ written against our names while there were no notes against other names. The guy from Georgia asked the secretary why this was so and she began to explain that the others were all Russian and there was no need to make such notes. On my way back home I stopped in Moscow and passed exams to the Design Faculty of Moscow technical school of the Ministry of supplies. I stayed in Moscow to study in this school. I lived in the dormitory for 3 years. I studied well knowing that I had to be a high-skilled specialist. I only once heard anti-Semitic expressions from a guy who came to Moscow from a province. The rest of students told me he was a fool and I should ignore him. I finished this technical school in 1956 and had a job assignment [25] to a village in Kaluga region. The local authorities were not very happy to see me. There were hardly any specialists with a diploma. Even director of the enterprise where I was to work only had a certificate of lower secondary education. The local bosses were afraid that I could spoil their careers. One year and a half later I submitted a letter of resignation they approved my resignation, though I had to complete the mandatory term of job assignments of 3 years. I went back home. My parents lived in our prewar house. I went to work at the design office at the machine building plant named after Kirov. This is the biggest plant in the town. I still work there, even though I’ve stepped over the retirement age.

I met my future wife Yelena Kravets at the plant. She was a copy operator at the design office. Yelena was born in Yampol town Vinnitsa region in 1937. Her Jewish name is Leya. Her father Borukh Kravets went to the front during the Great Patriotic War. Yelena’s mother Klara Kravets decided it was dangerous to stay in Yampol and decided to go to Mogilyov-Podolskiy, where her mother and sister lived and took her daughter with her. They only reached Chernivtsy, when Germans already occupied it. In occupation they stayed in Chernivtsy. A Jewish family gave shelter to them. Yelena remembers no details, she was too small then. Chernivtsy was liberated one day before Mogilyov-Podolskiy, 18 March 1943. On 19 March Yelena’s mother perished during an air raid. Yelena was 5 years old, and some people took Yelena to their family. She stayed with them till her grandmother and her grandmother’s sister returned from evacuation. Yelena’s father perished at the front in 1944. Yelena lived with her grandmother in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. After finishing school she went to work as a copy operator at the plant. We got married in 1962. We had a civil ceremony in the registry office, and in the evening mama arranged a dinner for the family. We lived with my parents. My father installed a partial in the room and we lived there for few years. In 1965 the plant constructed an apartment house for its employees and my wife and I received a two-bedroom apartment. My parents also received an apartment in new house few years later. In 1965 our daughter was born. We named her Klara after Yelena’s mother. Yelena entered the extramural school of librarians in Soroki town in Moldavia. After finishing this school Yelena organized a technical library at the plant. She started from just one bookcase of books and in few years their number grew into few thousand books. Yelena became director of this library and worked there till she retired.

I’ve never joined the party. I never wanted to join the party and nobody ever put any pressure upon me. My wife and I celebrated Soviet holidays at home: 1 May, 7 November [26], Victory Day [27]. In the morning all employees went to parades and then we got together at somebody’s place and had parties. We drank and talked. On Jewish holidays my wife and I went to my parents. They still celebrated Jewish holidays. I don’t think there was the so-called Jewry at that time. Te synagogue was closed, and Yiddish was gradually squeezed out of our everyday life. However, we’ve never forgotten that we were Jews. Besides, non-Jews never allowed us to forget it.

I remember how we were concerned during the Six Day War 1967 [28] and the War of the Judgment Day [Yom Kippur War] [29], in October 1973. We felt victorious after the war was over. This was a bright demonstration that Jews were no dweebs unable to defend themselves. When the War of the Judgment Day began, there were rather concerning reports at first. The USSR was supporting Egypt with weapons and military specialists, and our mass media covered only one side of the war. Newspapers wrote that the Israeli army incurred great losses and that the victorious Egyptian army beat its enemies. We worried about Israel and about Gita and her husband, who moved to Israel in 1968. At night we listened to western radio programs that the USSR jammed: the Voice of America [Voice of America and Radio Free Europe were popular radio stations broadcasting Germany in Russian and other Eastern European languages. They were thoroughly jammed in the Soviet Union so that Soviet citizens couldn’t hear the truth about life in capitalist countries and actual state of things in their own country], and others. When I heard that Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula, I felt proud for my people. The Israeli army proved again that it can protect its own country.

When in the 1970s mass emigration to Israel began, I sympathized with those Jews, who decided to move to Israel and I supported them as much as I could. My father’s sisters Rosa and Genia and their families moved there. Rosa and her family settled down in Nathanya, and Genia’s family lived in Holon. My papa’s sisters have passed away, but we correspond with Rosa’s son Mikhail and Genia’s daughter Lidia. Mama’s sister Rachil’s daughter Bella and son Abram also moved there. I couldn’t even consider emigration: my father was deadly ill, and I could not leave him and my mother. My father died in 1972. We buried him in the Jewish cemetery as much according to the rules as was possible at that time. Religious old men came to wash my father. Then he was taken to the ritual hut in the cemetery. A rabbi recited a prayer over him. My father was buried in a coffin, but there was no bottom in this coffin. This was all we could at the time.

My sister Gita lived with parents. After finishing school she moved to Magnitogorsk in Russia [about 2500 km from Moscow], where she entered the Mining College. Our relative Lisa, the girl from Yaryshev, who miraculously survived and lived with us during the occupation, moved to Magnitogorsk after finishing the technical school and getting a job assignment there. She got married and stayed to live in the town. My sister lived with her family during her studies. After finishing the college Gita got a job assignment at the metallurgical plant in Gorky. When my father died I wrote my sister requesting her to come back home. She was reluctant to come back to Mogilyov-Podolskiy, but she did. She didn’t find a job in Mogilyov-Podolskiy and went to work at the metallurgical plant in Ataki. She lived with Mama. Gita was an industrious employee and was soon promoted to deputy director of the plant. Gita married Nikolay Korchmar, a Ukrainian man from Ataki. He and Gita are the same age. He is a driver. They have no children. After the breakup of the Soviet Union Moldavia and Ukraine gained independence. Gita could not live in one country and work in another any longer. She retired. She and her husband live in Mogilyov-Podolskiy. We often see each other. Mama died in 1990. She was buried beside my father’s grave, but it was a secular funeral.

When my daughter was at school, I noticed that her Jewish classmates had Jewish friends and Russian children had Russian friends. This was at the time of Brezhnev’s rule [30], when anti-Semitism became a part of our life. My wife and I wanted our daughter to enter a college in Vinnitsa, but we realized that she did not have a chance to enter a higher educational institution in Ukraine. Klara went to Moscow and successfully passed her exams to the Faculty of Industrial and Civil Construction of the Engineering and Construction College. After finishing it she got a job assignment in the Moscow region. Three years later she came back home and went to work at the construction department. In 1994 Klara married David Roif from Yampol. He was a veterinary. In 1995 their son Ilia, our only grandson, was born. Regretfully, my daughter’s marriage fell apart. She divorced her husband in 1998. David and his parents moved to Israel. Klara and her son live in Mogilyov-Podolskiy.

I‘ve been eager to move to Israel, but it was not to be. At first my wife and I waited till our daughter finished her studies. Our daughter did not want to move to Israel, and we were reluctant to leave her alone here. And now it is probably too late to start a new life.

When general secretary of the Communist party of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev [31] initiated perestroika [32], I felt very positive about it. He gave us hope for a better life. Of course later perestroika took a different direction than we expected. Most people faced problems: the prices went up and their salaries remained the same. However, I cannot say there was nothing good in perestroika. First of all, anti-Semitism receded and we felt it immediately. Perestroika bought freedom of speech and freedom of press. Citizens of the USSR were finally free to communicate with people living abroad, travel there or invite their friends here. Perestroika ended up in the breakup of the USSR. Many people think it was a disaster for us, but I do not agree here. I prefer living in the stand-alone and independent Ukraine to living in the huge empire that the Soviet Union was that the world was afraid of and hated. I think that the breakup of the USSR is a natural process: the history shows us that all empires fall sooner or later anyway. However, I never believed this would happen in my life. Now many people think it’s necessary to restore the Soviet Union, but I think that before we unite again all former SU republics need to learn to live on their own and prove their independence.

Of course, there are occurrences of anti-Semitism, but they mostly emerge from the people of my generation or older. I don’t think it shows up among young people. There is a Jewish life now. There is a lot of Jewish literature and as long as people wish to know things, they have to take an effort to educate themselves. Unfortunately, this came to us too late. The older generation knowing Jewish traditions joined a better world when we were Komsomol members and communists believing that religion was opium for people. Now those, for whom Jewish life was a natural way of life are gone. Young people are not interested, they live a different life and have different values. It’s a pity that the history of the Ukrainian Jewry is coming to an end before our eyes. In the past a rabbi from Zhytomir visited us on Sabbath and Jewish holidays to recite prayers, but he does it no longer due to financial problems. I understand that such activities can only be supported on contribution of Jews from other countries. I understand that this assistance cannot last forever. A community must be self-supporting to exist. We need everybody to become a part of it. If each member gave 10% of his income to the community, as the Torah says, the Jewry would not face this decay. When we receive matzah before Pesach, am ashamed to hear people saying that it is too thick or not crispy enough. If they earn things themselves they would have a better attitude toward things.

I took up Jewish traditions after my father died. Is death struck me. I felt lonely. Then my neighbor lady told me that I had to recite the Kaddish after my father. She wrote the Kaddish to me in Russian letters, and I, being 11 years old, read the Kaddish after my father and then after my mother. I did it at home. The synagogue reopened after perestroika. Every year on my parents’ death anniversaries I read the Kaddish after my parents, as the rules require. I also bring treatments and vodka to the synagogue. I also go to the synagogue once or more times a week. Of course, the services are not quite like I would think they might be. The prayers are read in Russian. I am sure God understands prayers in all languages, but I would rather they were read in Hebrew. Anyway, I am sure that we need a religious and a secular community. I am a member of the board of the Jewish community of the town and know how many problems we have. Most of Jews in Mogilyov-Podolskiy are old and ill people. They need food and medications. The community tries to provide whatever assistance it can. We have a box for contribution where people bring as much money as they can afford. Our compatriots, who visit the town every year on the day of its liberation from the occupants – they make the biggest contributions. Unfortunately, the middle generation of the people in their 40s stay aside. My daughter is very far from the Jewry, but I teach my grandson what it means to be a Jew. When we had a Jewish Sunday school, Ilia attended it willingly. The children were taught prayers and read books about the history of Jewish people. This school was closed due to the lack of funds. Ilia asks me questions and reads a lot. He’ll soon start attending the synagogue with me. I wish my parents came to his bar mitzvah.

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] 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.

[3] Keep in touch with relatives abroad: The authorities could arrest an individual corresponding with his/her relatives abroad and charge him/her with espionage, send them to concentration camp or even sentence them to death.

[4] Jewish Pale of Settlement: Certain provinces in the Russian Empire were designated for permanent Jewish residence and the Jewish population was only allowed to live in these areas. The Pale was first established by a decree by Catherine II in 1791. The regulation was in force until the Russian Revolution of 1917, although the limits of the Pale were modified several times. The Pale stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, and 94% of the total Jewish population of Russia, almost 5 million people, lived there. The overwhelming majority of the Jews lived in the towns and shtetls of the Pale. Certain privileged groups of Jews, such as certain merchants, university graduates and craftsmen working in certain branches, were granted to live outside the borders of the Pale of Settlement permanently.

[5] Bessarabia: Historical area between the Prut and Dnestr rivers, in the southern part of Odessa region. Bessarabia was part of Russia until the Revolution of 1917. In 1918 it declared itself an independent republic, and later it united with Romania. The Treaty of Paris (1920) recognized the union but the Soviet Union never accepted this. In 1940 Romania was forced to cede Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the USSR. The two provinces had almost 4 million inhabitants, mostly Romanians. Although Romania reoccupied part of the territory during World War II the Romanian peace treaty of 1947 confirmed their belonging to the Soviet Union. Today it is part of Moldavia.

[6] Russian Revolution of 1917: Revolution in which the tsarist regime was overthrown in the Russian Empire and, under Lenin, was replaced by the Bolshevik rule. The two phases of the Revolution were: February Revolution, which came about due to food and fuel shortages during World War I, and during which the tsar abdicated and a provisional government took over. The second phase took place in the form of a coup led by Lenin in October/November (October Revolution) and saw the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

[7] Struggle against religion: The 1930s was a time of anti-religion struggle in the USSR. In those years it was not safe to go to synagogue or to church. Places of worship, statues of saints, etc. were removed; rabbis, Orthodox and Roman Catholic priests disappeared behind KGB walls.
[8] Whites (White Army): Counter-revolutionary armed forces that fought against the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. The White forces were very heterogeneous: They included monarchists and liberals - supporters of the Constituent Assembly and the tsar. Nationalist and anti-Semitic attitude was very common among rank-and-file members of the white movement, and expressed in both their propaganda material and in the organization of pogroms against Jews. White Army slogans were patriotic. The Whites were united by hatred towards the Bolsheviks and the desire to restore a ‘one and inseparable’ Russia. The main forces of the White Army were defeated by the Red Army at the end of 1920.

[9] Reds: Red (Soviet) Army supporting the Soviet authorities.

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

[11] Great Patriotic War: On 22nd June 1941 at 5 o’clock in the morning Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union without declaring war. This was the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War. The German blitzkrieg, known as Operation Barbarossa, nearly succeeded in breaking the Soviet Union in the months that followed. Caught unprepared, the Soviet forces lost whole armies and vast quantities of equipment to the German onslaught in the first weeks of the war. By November 1941 the German army had seized the Ukrainian Republic, besieged Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second largest city, and threatened Moscow itself. The war ended for the Soviet Union on 9th May 1945.

[12] 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.

[13] Tsimes: Stew made usually of carrots, parsnips, or plums with potatoes.

[14] Transnistria: Area situated between the Bug and Dniester rivers and the Black Sea. The term is derived from the Romanian name for the Dniester (Nistru) and was coined after the occupation of the area by German and Romanian troops in World War II. After its occupation Transnistria became a place for deported Romanian Jews. Systematic deportations began in September 1941. In the course of the next two months, all surviving Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina and a small part of the Jewish population of Old Romania were dispatched across the Dniester. This first wave of deportations reached almost 120,000 by mid-November 1941 when it was halted by Ion Antonescu, the Romanian dictator, upon intervention of the Council of Romanian Jewish Communities. Deportations resumed at the beginning of the summer of 1942, affecting close to 5,000 Jews. A third series of deportations from Old Romania took place in July 1942, affecting Jews who had evaded forced labor decrees, as well as their families, communist sympathizers and Bessarabian Jews who had been in Old Romania and Transylvania during the Soviet occupation. The most feared Transnistrian camps were Vapniarka, Ribnita, Berezovka, Tulcin and Iampol. Most of the Jews deported to camps in Transnistria died between 1941-1943 because of horrible living conditions, diseases and lack of food.

[15] Sholem Aleichem (pen name of Shalom Rabinovich (1859-1916): Yiddish author and humorist, a prolific writer of novels, stories, feuilletons, critical reviews, and poem in Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian. He also contributed regularly to Yiddish dailies and weeklies. In his writings he described the life of Jews in Russia, creating a gallery of bright characters. His creative work is an alloy of humor and lyricism, accurate psychological and details of everyday life. He founded a literary Yiddish annual called Di Yidishe Folksbibliotek (The Popular Jewish Library), with which he wanted to raise the despised Yiddish literature from its mean status and at the same time to fight authors of trash literature, who dragged Yiddish literature to the lowest popular level. The first volume was a turning point in the history of modern Yiddish literature. Sholem Aleichem died in New York in 1916. His popularity increased beyond the Yiddish-speaking public after his death. Some of his writings have been translated into most European languages and his plays and dramatic versions of his stories have been performed in many countries. The dramatic version of Tevye the Dairyman became an international hit as a musical (Fiddler on the Roof) in the 1960s.

[16] Pechora camp: On 11 November 1941 the civil governor of Transnistria issued the deportation of Jews. A camp for Jewish residents of Tulchin (3005 in total) was established in Pechora village Vinnytsya region in December 1941. This is known as the 'Dead Loop'. In total about 9000 people from various towns in Vinnytsya region were kept in the camp. They were accommodated in the former 2-storied recreation center building. There were up to 50 tenants in one room. No provisions were made for the most basic necessities of the inmates. Inmates hardly got any food and the building had no heating. About 2 500 Jews were taken away by Germans for forced labor. None of them returned, they all died from forced labor beyond their strength, lack of food, hunger and diseases. In March 1944 Soviet troops liberated the camp. There were 1550 survivors left in the camp.

[17] 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.

[18] 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.

[19] Lenin (1870-1924): Pseudonym of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the Russian Communist leader. A profound student of Marxism, and a revolutionary in the 1890s. He became the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democratic Party, whom he led to power in the coup d’état of 25th October 1917. Lenin became head of the Soviet state and retained this post until his death.

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

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

[22] 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.

[23] 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.

[24] Twentieth Party Congress: At the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 Khrushchev publicly debunked the cult of Stalin and lifted the veil of secrecy from what had happened in the USSR during Stalin’s leadership.

[25] Mandatory job assignment in the USSR: Graduates of higher educational institutions had to complete a mandatory 2-year job assignment issued by the institution from which they graduated. After finishing this assignment young people were allowed to get employment at their discretion in any town or organization.

[26] October Revolution Day: October 25 (according to the old calendar), 1917 went down in history as victory day for the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia. This day is the most significant date in the history of the USSR. Today the anniversary is celebrated as ‘Day of Accord and Reconciliation’ on November 7.

[27] Victory Day in Russia (9th May): National holiday to commemorate the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of World War II and honor the Soviets who died in the war.
[28] 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.
[29] 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.

[30] Brezhnev, Leonid, Ilyich (1906–1982) Soviet leader. He joined the Communist Party in 1931 and rose steadily in its hierarchy, becoming a secretary of the party’s central committee in 1952. In 1957, as protégé of Khrushchev, he became a member of the presidium (later politburo) of the central committee. He was chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet, or titular head of state. Following Khrushchev’s fall from power in 1964, which Brezhnev helped to engineer, he was named first secretary of the Communist Party. Although sharing power with Kosygin, Brezhnev emerged as the chief figure in Soviet politics. In 1968, in support of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, he enunciated the ‘Brezhnev doctrine,’ asserting that the USSR could intervene in the domestic affairs of any Soviet bloc nation if communist rule was threatened. While maintaining a tight rein in Eastern Europe, he favored closer relations with the Western powers, and he helped bring about a détente with the United States. In 1977 he assumed the presidency of the USSR. Under Gorbachev, Brezhnev’s regime was criticized for its corruption and failed economic policies.

[31] 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.

[32] Perestroika (Russian for restructuring): Soviet economic and social policy of the late 1980s, associated with the name of Soviet politician Mikhail Gorbachev. The term designated the attempts to transform the stagnant, inefficient command economy of the Soviet Union into a decentralized, market-oriented economy. Industrial managers and local government and party officials were granted greater autonomy, and open elections were introduced in an attempt to democratize the Communist Party organization. By 1991, perestroika was declining and was soon eclipsed by the dissolution of the USSR.