In 1949 I went to work in Sevastopol upon finishing College [there was a system of mandatory employment of graduates from higher and secondary special educational institutions in the USSR and they were obliged to work a certain period].
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Displaying 50011 - 50040 of 50826 results
Clara Shalenko
I met a young Russian Navy officer. We met at a dancing party at the Navy Officers’ House. I introduced him to my parents before we got married. He made a good impression on them and they had no objections to my marrying a Russian man. . His name was Vladimir Georgievich Shalenko. We got married in 1950.
I was a construction technician in a military unit in Sevastopol – we built houses for officers.
My husband was a lieutenant.
We had a big 3-room apartment with all comforts in Sevastopol where my mother-in-law lived I got along well with her.
There were few Jewish officers in the military unit. We often got together to talk about life telling Jewish jokes and trying to keep some sort of relationship atmosphere. My husband never cared about my Jewish nationality.
I remember the period of the ‘doctors’plot’. I went to see my parents in summer 1953 and wanted to enter the Odessa Medical Institute. I wasn’t even allowed to take entrance exams, since there was my maiden name – Finegold in all documents about my secondary education. . We heard rumors about deportation of Jews to Siberia and were very concerned about it.
When Stalin died I was in grief, cried and even joined the Communist party. My mother couldn’t care less about it and my father just said ‘Thank God, this Osetin man left this Earth’. My father recalled when he was interrogated in the NKVD office. He was glad that Stalin died.
When Khrushchev came to power we believed what he said about Stalin’s criminality and his promises of a better life. Khrushchev started extensive housing construction in order to give families separate apartments. Many families in Odessa received apartments, therefore, many people believed in him, but he lacked education that was clear from his speeches and actions.
I moved to Odessa. We exchanged apartments and my parents and I got a two-room apartment with all comforts on the first floor in a new neighborhood of the town.
We were moderately well of: I received a salary of a Soviet engineer and my parents received pensions. We didn’t have a dacha [summer house] or a car.
I worked as a safety engineer in the town construction trust for twenty years. I didn’t have any problems with getting employment, but many Jews did. They were offered jobs that Russians didn’t want.
I had good relationships at work and went along well with both Russians and Jews. There was no anti-Semitism in my environment, but of course, Jews were more familiar to me. We had a good understanding and took up the meaning of what one wanted to say quickly. I had friends and celebrated soviet holidays and birthdays together with them at the festal table. We went to the cinema, theatre, on trips. At Pesach we visited each other and had matzah, but we gave very slight religious overtone to it, I guess.
Back in 1948 when Palestine became Israel my father told me about the history of Palestine with enthusiasm. He was very pleased that Jews gained a Motherland and hoped that life would become easier for many of us since we’ve got our own country. My father told me it was better for Jews to live together; therefore, I was loyal to those that left the country.
I remember when Jews began to move to Israel, our historical Motherland, in 1976. I attended Party meetings where communists blamed Jews for leaving the USSR. Back in 1948 when Palestine became Israel my father told me about the history of Palestine with enthusiasm. He was very pleased that Jews gained a Motherland and hoped that life would become easier for many of us since we’ve got our own country. My father told me it was better for Jews to live together; therefore, I was loyal to those that left the country. I never spoke against Jews at such Party meetings. We had deputy party leader that was a Jew and adamantly blamed Jews that were leaving calling them traitors and holding them up to shame. In few years’ time he left to the US with his family. We didn’t go to Israel since my parents were old and didn’t feel well. I sympathize with the families that leave this country and feel concerned about the troublesome situation in Israel.
My mother and father went to Stalinabad [Dushanbe from 1961, 3 250 kms from Odessa]. My mother got a job at the medical unit of railroad agency. My father was very shy about his injured jaw and just went to work as a house-painter – he didn’t go to see any Party officials to ask about a position. My mother received a one-room apartment with all comforts.
Once, when my parents were standing in line to get some kerosene, they began talking to a Jewish couple. Those people knew uncle Abram and told my parents that he was in Fergana. My father immediately wrote to the director of bakery in Fergana since he knew that my uncle was a baker. This director of bakery happened to be Abram. He replied ‘Mendel, come here – Clara is with us’.
At the beginning of the fall of 1943 my father arrived to take me to Stalinabad. I was my parents’ only treasure and they hadn’t known anything about me for two years. When my mother saw me at the railway station she fainted. We were so happy to be together again.
At the beginning of the fall of 1943 my father arrived to take me to Stalinabad. I was my parents’ only treasure and they hadn’t known anything about me for two years. When my mother saw me at the railway station she fainted. We were so happy to be together again.
I went to study at the medical school in Stalinabad and finished it in 1944.
Many graduates of our school went to the front. I got a job assignment to a hospital in a small town of Khorog in the mountains near the border with Afghanistan. I worked there with my schoolmate Luba Dymshytz and her sister Rosa. They evacuated from Gomel. Rosa learned the Tadzhyk language and worked as an accountant for chairman of the collective farm. She was a smart and intelligent girl. She could also ride a horse. Luba and I went around the neighboring villages riding a donkey to inoculate children from smallpox. The local Tadzhyk people treated us well. They gave us food since we were always hungry. I remember baked pumpkin that we got from them. We lived in jurta [portable Tadjik dwelling from felt round in perimeter, with a cupola-shaped roof]. Tadzyk people took their children to get treatment. We made inoculations and gave them medications, mainly quinine since many of them had malaria. I also had malaria. I worked in Khorog for about a year. In summer 1945 I returned to my parents in Stalinabad.
In the end of August we went to Odessa via Moscow. We arrived in Moscow at the beginning of September. My parents and I were in the Red Square when the radio announced that the war with Japan was over. People rejoiced.
We arrived in Odessa in autumn 1945.
We arrived in Odessa in autumn 1945.
My father became a crew leader – they built a department store in Pushkinskaya Street.
We were accommodated in a hut in the woods near the village. The only food we had were pickled mushrooms in a barrel. Later chairman of the collective farm of the village accommodated us in the house of Julia, a village woman whose husband was at the front. There were a number of us: five children and my aunt and uncle. We got a job – we picked raspberries. I got a horse and a cart to transport boxes with raspberries to the collective farm. There was lack of food. Julia made pies stuffed with onions from dark flour and this was the food we had. We didn’t have winter clothing and villagers were so poor that they didn’t have any clothes to share with us. The only support the chairman of the collective farm could provide was to help us move from there.
In October 1941 we left for Fergana [3 000 km from Odessa in Uzbekistan] a small dusty town of one-storied mud-houses. In Fergana my uncle Abram went to work at the bakery. He was a communist and was appointed director of the bakery. Life was very hard and we starved. Abram’s wife Manya said to me ‘Clara, you are a big girl and it is hard for us to provide for you. Go to the Party town committee and tell them to accommodate you since you’ve lost your parents’. The town committee sent me to the town industrial association where I got a bed in a hostel – there were two other girls in the room. They were in evacuation, but they were not Jewish. We were sewing winter coats for the front, but we still earned a little and had little food. We got a piece of bread, boiled water, tea and few raisins in the canteen. I had no information about my father or mother and missed them a lot.
My father went to the front at the beginning of autumn 1941 after he left all children in the children’s home. He wrote a letter to Artyomovsk, but it didn’t reach us. My father was at the front and didn’t have any information about my mother or me for two years. In 1943 my father was severely wounded – his jaw was injured. He had to wear a bandage for the rest of his life. He was demobilized and began searching for my mother and me.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
He found out through the evacuation agency that the hospital where my mother was working had moved to the Krasnodar region. He got information from an evacuation agency that the hospital where mother worked in Odessa moved to Krasnodar region where it was disbanded. My father found my mother in Arkhangelskaya village in Krasnodar region. She worked as a medical nurse there.
They were religious and attended a synagogue on all Jewish holidays. They fasted at Yom Kippur.
In 1898 my great grandparents moved to America. I don’t know for what reason they moved or why they didn’t take their sons with them. They lived in New York and my great grandfather owned a hockshop. In 1899 they mailed my grandfather Leivi-Itzhok a shiftcard’ – a boat ticket to go to America, but my grandfather stayed at home since he had a family to take care of. His younger brother Emmanuel went instead. When Emmanuel arrived in America my great grandfather sent him back to Odessa ‘I’ve called Leivi-Itzhok to come here. As for you, you should go back to Odessa’. Emmanuel returned to Odessa after a short stay in the US.
My grandfather was very religious. He had a tallit and teffilin. His friends came to see him at Sabbath holidays they went to a synagogue all together. My grandfather’s family followed the kashrut. They had special utensils and dishes for Pesach and they had specific utensils for meat and dairy products. They fasted at Yom Kippur.
They lived in Staroriznichnaya Street near Privoz [a popular market in Odessa]. They had two rooms and a kitchen. They were not a wealthy family.
My grandfather died in 1922. He was buried according to the Jewish traditions at the Jewish cemetery.