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Hanna Ferber
Riga
Latvia
Interviewer: Svetlana Kovalchuk
Date of Interview: March 2002

I don't know how to explain this. I never knew any of my grandparents. I do remember Grandmother Zhenia Hercenberg, though. She was very old and frail and lived in Jelgava in an old people's home, which her sons paid for. When she died, she was buried in a Jewish cemetery in Jelgava. No documents about her have survived.

My parents were married in 1906 in Liepaja.

My father, Adolf Hercenberg, was born in 1880. He came from Piltene, not far from Liepaja. His parents were also from there. But my mother is from Gulbene, another town near Liepaja. My father had two brothers, Edward and Gustav. Edward lived in Riga, where he owned a prosperous antique shop. Gustav lived in Tallinn [today Estonia]. He was the youngest brother in the Ferber family. Gustav was the representative of the Italian 'Viskoza Ltd' in Estonia; he had two daughters.

At the beginning of World War I, in 1914, my father was sent to Glazov, in the district of Vjatskij. What for? He didn't know. My mother, Feike Ite Hercenberg [nee - Kutisker] who was born in 1884, remained behind with three children to raise: in 1914 my brother Boris was six years old, my sister Gita was four and my youngest brother Isaac was two. In Jelgava [50 km from Riga, called Mitava until 1918] a regulation was issued that all Jews should leave the town within 48 hours. [Editor's note: The regulation was actually issued at the end of May or beginning of June 1915, just before the Germans were to occupy the territory which is Latvia today. It is quite possible that Adolf Hercenberg was deported to Glazov as a result of this regulation, since the tsarist government was afraid of Germanophilic feelings of the Jews.]

Everyone living in Jelgava at that time knew about this regulation. A small ship was sent to the Lielupe River- Driksene - all the Jews went there with their children. My mother took her three small children, bundled up the most necessary items and went to the ship. They were brought to Riga. Her brother lived in St. Petersburg at that time. My mother's name was Feike Ite, but we called her Feike. I found out that she had been called Ite, from my eldest brother, Boris. My mother was brought to Petersburg and there they tried to get her a permission to go on to Glazov to join my father. In 1917 the Soviet Workers and Farmers gave my parents a permit to go back to Mitava. They returned, and then I was born in September 1919. In 1933 my mother had another son - Rafi.

My oldest brother Boris was born in 1908, in Liepaja. My sister Gita was born in 1910. My youngest brother Isaac, also known as Isaac Meier, was born in 1912 in Jelgava. Boris began school in Glazov and went to a Russian school there until 1917. There he learned Russian, and spoke it for the rest of his life. When my parents returned to Jelgava from Glazov, Boris was sent to a German gymnasium [high school]. He was 18 when he graduated. How he learned Hebrew, I don't know. But he and a friend of his named Shura Davidson immigrated to Palestine in 1926. He had money to go to Berlin. My mother's brother, Uncle Igo Kutisker, who had lived in Petersburg earlier, then lived in Palestine.

To get enough money to leave Germany, Boris sold his stamp collection and went to Palestine. In 1928 he married Sonya Liven. She was also very active in Betar 1. Boris only got to know Sonya in Palestine, but my father used to work with this girl at Lancman's in Riga, where she was a bookkeeper. So, Father knew his future daughter-in-law. Later, Sonya's sister Rosa took over this position as a bookkeeper. When my brother got married, Rosa and her mother, Frau [Mrs.] Liven, came to us in Jelgava to introduce themselves. In 1929 my brother changed both his first name and his surname. Instead of Boris Hercenberg he became Dov Harlev. Har - means hill; Lev - means lion, I think. Because of this, it is very important for me to maintain the memory of the family name Hercenberg.

In Jelgava we had a rather simple lifestyle. My father had a small shop that didn't do much business. Sometimes he had work, but sometimes he didn't. My mother lived in Jelgava and ran a dining room where people coming to town could come and have dinner. Not too many people came, but that is how we made a living.

Our family wasn't very orthodox. But for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur my parents did go to the synagogue. During Pesach we didn't eat bread. I know all the laws, because I went to the synagogue in Jelgava together with my parents. In Jelgava there used to be a huge synagogue. We learned Hebrew at school every day - it was regarded as a dead language, like Latin. We studied the basics of religion. I couldn't talk it, but I can still remember words to this very day. As I say, 'You won't be able to con me in Hebrew.' I know enough Hebrew for that! But yes, I speak Yiddish.

I was born in 1919 in Jelgava. At that time Bermont's Army was leaving Jelgava. [West Russian Volunteer Army was a counterrevolutionary army in the Baltic provinces of the former Russian Empire during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1920, created by Germany. It was led by a Cossack general Pavel Bermont-Avalov who recruited about 50 000 men in close co-operation with German general Rüdiger von der Goltz. Originally known as "Special Russian Corps", it was made up mostly of Baltic Germans as well as some Russian POWs captured by Germany in World War I and then released on the promise that they would help fighting against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War. In October 1919 West Russian Volunteer Army attacked the newly- independent states of Lithuania and Latvia, to which Germany had granted independence. It has briefly occupied Riga and government of K?rlis Ulmanis had to request military help from Lithuania and Estonia. In November Latvian army managed to drive Bermont-Avalov forces into Lithuanian territory. After interference by the Entente military mission remaining elements of West Russian Volunteer Army withdrew from the Baltics to Germany]

My mother told me that I was almost born in a basement, because there was crossfire. I was the fourth child born in the family. I went to the General Jewish School, then for two years I studied at Jelgava State Secondary School. In 1936 the secondary school in Jelgava was closed. As my father was a bagman and always worked in firms in Riga, and my brother Isaac didn't have work in Jelgava either, we moved to Riga in summer 1936.

I entered a Jewish Gymnasium named after Ice Rauhvarger. Why did I go to this school? Because the subjects were taught in Latvian. But in Jelgava all subjects were taught in German. Hence, my first language was German. In 1938 I graduated from Rauhvarger's school and entered the English College. The English College at that time was a higher education institution. We acquired rather good English at that school. I didn't have to take additional lessons in English, but took the entrance examinations at once. Today, the school is a secondary education institution. At that time I spoke English fluently, I even thought in English. We had wonderful teachers at the college - they were all English - and they taught the language fantastically well. Twice a year, at Christmas and for summer vacations, they went to England. They all married local girls. At the College we only spoke English. We even had a punishment system for non- English words uttered at school. I studied there for three years, passed the third year examination, and then the war started.

I worked during my studies. College classes started at 4pm. A friend of mine got me a job in a workshop at Gandler's factory where they made some sort of lubricant made of smelly herrings. All staff at this workshop - the son of the owner, the daughters - they were all doing commercial business. There was a horseman who didn't know a word of Russian, but he swore in Russian. I started to work as a bookkeeper at Gandler's for 50 Lats. It smelled awful there. I couldn't go to college in the same clothes. After work I would go home, have a wash and then go to college for 7 - 8 hours.

During the evacuation in wartime I tried to study. I enrolled at university in Kirov. I didn't have any idea that it was a pedagogical institute. I really don't know how I followed the lectures! All the lectures were in Russian, and I wrote down everything using the Latin alphabet! It was impossible for me to study. Oh, yes, there was one lecturer from Leningrad who loved talking to me. She even took me with her to the dining room and gave me almost half of her dinner, just in order to talk to me in English. The institute was transferred to Jaransk, 250 kilometers from Kirov, where there were no railways. At that time the Ministry of Meat Production was evacuated from Moscow, for which the facilities of the institute were needed. My father, who had been deported to the North during World War I said, 'My dear, we left Riga only to fall into German hands here! We don't know how far the Germans will come. We are not going with the institute.' My parents and I were offered the opportunity to leave, with the promise that work would be arranged for my father, but he flatly refused this offer.

So I left the Institute and I started to look for a job, because during the war we were punished for not working. Without knowing Russian, I went to a tailor's workshop. They repaired military clothes and did some tailoring too. I was to sew on buttons and make loops. But I was a very bad worker - I couldn't follow the design. I didn't understand what a pattern design was, and what I was supposed to do. I was always the last one on the list, and was badly scolded for it. I worked at this workshop until I got an invitation to come to the military committee, the Vojenkomat. I came to the Vojenkomat and was told that I was to be taken for courses held by the communists. I told them that I hadn't mastered the Russian language and that I didn't have any idea how they were going to teach me. They were collecting communists, apparently to send them to the front line 2.

I had my mother to take care of, because my father was dead by that time. He died from lung cancer in Kirov in 1942. He is buried there. At that time in Kirov there was a Latvian Representation Office and Karlis Pugo was the head of it. He was the father of Boris Pugo. [Editor's note: on the eve of the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 Boris Pugo was the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR]. Karlis Pugo was the nicest person and was very kind to us. I went to the Representation Office quite often - I used to buy the newspaper 'Cina' ['The Fight']. I fell ill with tuberculosis and when I went to Pugo, he gave me felt boots. After my father's death, I went to Pugo again and told him, 'I am being asked to join the army and go to the front line. My mother will be alone without anybody to look after her.' He explained that it wasn't a Latvian division I had been called up to; they didn't need me. So, he wasn't able to help me. Vojenkomat was just not under his jurisdiction. I started to go to the communists' courses where we were mostly taught how to dismantle and put together a gun. I was not able to remember all the parts of a gun, but then, I didn't know the Russian language.

Then Pugo told me that since I had lung problems and went to the tuberculosis health center, I wasn't destined for the army. In the Vojenkomat there was a commission which, having learned that I was a patient at the tuberculosis health center, gave me a document to prove that I was unsuitable for army service. So I got out of the courses.

Pugo explained, 'If you work in a civil organization they won't leave you in peace. You should find some organization from which they don't recruit people for army service.' I was accepted at the Evacuation Hospital No. 3156. First, they made me a bookkeeper, as he had a manager from Moscow, whom he knew would soon return there. This happened in 1943, I think, when people were returning to Moscow. When this bookkeeper left, I was made a manager of a division. Every day I had to document the number of wounded, to write receipts, and to put the menu list together. People were brought in and operated on, and we were sometimes called in at nights. I worked there until 1945. I had a good time there. We got ration cards for 800 grams of bread, whereas my mother got one for just 200 grams. We also had a small garden. Nikolai Krilov, the head of the supply division, planted cabbages for me. He went there every weekend. I couldn't go there, because I didn't have the weekends off. He organized a small shop for civil staff, so we didn't have to stand in queues for bread all night. We didn't starve, and we even got parcels. That is how we lived.

The head of the hospital, Solomon Jakovljevich Rozovskiy from Leningrad, was the loveliest person and a very cultured man. In 1943, for the first time in my life we invited the head of the hospital for Pesach. He had war rations and brought a piece of meat and organized a Seder. I remember my friend Lyuba went to the market, and she saw that somebody was selling a big pike. They were asking 100 rubles for it. Lyuba passed the money over other people's heads to make sure that we had this fish for Pesach. And then, the head of the hospital came to visit us. Boris, my brother, sent us matzah and clothes through the Red Cross organization. Somebody was coming, most probably from the KGB 3, they were whispering. We were closely followed. If you, as a former Riga citizen, told anyone that you used to live in a three-room apartment you could get put away for years. But we knew that we should keep quiet, because my father already had some experience in this field.

Nikolai Krilov became ill with pneumonia and died in 1945. I was left as the head of the supply division. When the war ended, Rozovskiy named people for promotions. I was nominated for the Red Star. I got a letter that they were willing to take me back for studies at the Foreign Language Institute, and my mother and I were given permission to re-evacuate in 1945.

My brother Boris and I kept writing to each other all our lives 4. Even during the war we managed to keep in touch with each other. He helped us with parcels that he sent with the assistance of the Red Cross. In 1989, during Gorbachev's 5 time, people started visiting Israel. One of our relatives went to Israel, so I told him, 'Please pass word to my brother that I agree to come and visit him. But I don't have the money for a ticket. Get him to send me an invitation.' When I came into the Visa department, a woman in uniform was sitting there. She read my form and said, 'You haven't seen your brother since 1926, and he is 80 now! You will get the permission very soon! Order the tickets!' I called my brother at once and told him this. I spoke to my brother again for the first time when he was 80.

In 1989 I went to Israel. I stayed with Rafi, my brother's son. Rafi always invited the whole family for Sabbath. Since I have returned from Israel, I invite all the family for Sabbath every Friday. It's not because I am a strong believer; I simply want my family to meet up. I light candles, but say no prayers. I make dinner. Those who are free, come, or they call and excuse themselves.

My brother and his children lived in Ramatasharon. In 1967, during the war 6, my brother moved from Tel Aviv to Ramatasharon. His daughter also bought an apartment there when she married. Rafi had a house in Ramatasharon. He was an army officer, a pilot. When he retired he got a position in civil aviation. Today he is the president of the Israeli Airline Company 'El Al.'

Now, my sister Gita's story: she graduated from the German gymnasium in Jelgava, a private and very expensive establishment. As my brother Boris said, it was a terribly anti-Semitic gymnasium. There were no Jewish schools in Jelgava, and nobody thought of going to a Latvian school. Gita was studying to become a pharmacist. In 1933, she married Moric Rozenberg, who was 18 years older than Gita. Gita was very beautiful, and looked much younger than her real age. Moric Rozenberg was a bachelor, an older man, not too poor, but I wouldn't say he was extremely rich, either. In Jelgava he decorated a very beautiful apartment, ordering everything from a catalogue. He decorated this lovely apartment and employed a housekeeper to care for it.

They had a beautiful, grand wedding. I was finishing the 7th grade when Gita got married. In 1934, she gave birth to a daughter who they named Atida. They lived a normal life. Gita didn't work any more. They had a Jewish circle of friends and played cards in the evenings. Gita could lose as much money as she wanted, as Moric would always pay. But when Gita happened to win some money, she would buy something for me - some material for a dress, or a coat or an outfit. Her husband loved me dearly. During the summer they would come to Riga seaside - Jurmala and everything was very lovely. Atida was one and a half years old when they came to Jurmala and she became ill with infantile paralysis. At first, she was completely paralyzed, and then the paralysis slowly receded. But one of her feet was still dead. She remained crippled and didn't go to school.

My sister's husband was religious. I remember, one Friday we made a list in order to bring money to all the poor. My friend Lyuba and I did that. When we were asked, 'Who gave all this money,' we were supposed to answer, 'Pray to the Lord for a child's health.' My sister's husband's business was taken away from him by the Soviet authorities, and he was then trading corn. He had a license for export. In 1941, Moric Rozenberg was working in Riga, and my sister was working in the pharmacy. But out of four rooms, two were rented out; it wasn't possible to maintain the four rooms. They all died in the ghetto in Jelgava in 1941 - my sister, her husband and Atida, but details of their life in that period I don't know.

On 14th June, 1941 there was a mass deportation of people to the East of Russia 7. The head of the family was separated from the rest of the family and taken to an animal freight car; the rest of the family went separately. Everybody was deported like this in 1941. And not only one nation - Latvians, all rich people! During that time my brother Isaac was conscripted into the workers' guards. On 14th or 15th June, he came and said, 'Listen! Gita will be sent away without a doubt! I have seen the horror of it! We guards came to people at night and gave them 20 minutes to get ready. And that was only because they were rich! They were taken from their beds - children, old people. Go to Jelgava at once. Get packed and wait.' I went to Jelgava, we packed, and then we waited for two nights. It turned out that the rich Jews of Jelgava had bought themselves out. But when the Germans came in, signs were put on them that said 'Jews.'

Isaac went to a Jewish school, graduated and went as a trainee to work in a clothes shop. He was rather short, but he grew up later to be a very handsome man. He was very kind. When Friday came my mother told me, 'Go to the shop owner and ask for 2 Lats on Isaac's account for Sabbath.' Then my mother would go to the market. Our father had a very small shop; he came home on Fridays for Sabbath. Isaac, too, like Boris, joined the Brit- Trumpeldorf club. He wanted to go to Israel, too. When I got older, my father wouldn't let me join this organization. He was afraid that I might also want to leave. Isaac became a salesman in a shop, and then joined the Latvian army in 1934. You had to be 21 to join the Latvian Army. When he came back there was a tendency among Jews to do hard physical work - to prepare themselves for life in Palestine. It was through such work that Isaac met his future wife, Sara [Sonya] Sorkina. He was carrying bags for his brother-in-law [Moric Rozenberg]. At four or five in the morning his brother-in-law got dressed and went out to work, in winter as well as in summer. Farmers took corn from their farms to sell in town. They didn't deliver all their corn at once, but just when they needed money. His brother-in-law was a great specialist. He tasted the corn, then brought it to the corn elevator.

In 1938 Isaac married Sara Sorkina. In 1941 we saw him for the last time on St. John's day, 24th June. The war had already started. He came to our house, and Sara was there, too. He told her, 'If everybody is leaving, you should leave, too!' She answered, 'I'm not leaving without you!' Later we found out that Isaac had been killed in Staraja Rus in 1941. We have a document to that effect. His wife Sonya remained with us for the rest of her life.

My husband, Shimon Ferber, was born in 1917 in Tukums [65 km west of Riga]. There he graduated from secondary school. Shimon was a very active follower of Brit-Trumpeldorf. One of his brothers was a communist. He had two brothers. Max Mendel, the oldest one and the communist, died in 1942. He died in my husband's arms. Emmanuel was the youngest brother of my husband. He lives in Haifa today; he was a pharmacist.

Shimon courted me from the time I was 13. In Jelgava he had an aunt - Frau Klauss - his mother's sister. He used to go to her place on holidays. The Klauss family had a little two-floor house. On the first floor lived his aunt and her husband, and on the second floor there lived my classmate. In Jelgava there used to be a wonderful park - at the site of a palace, which had been destroyed during World War I. Children used to play there, and Lyuba used to go there with her relative Shimon. When we grew up he fell in love with me. I was too young to be allowed to receive letters. Lyuba Klauss had a housekeeper and Shimon wrote to her. These were letters for me. When I went to Kirov during the war, it turned out that Shimon's parents were also there. He joined the family in Kirov and came to my mother. I was at work at that time and though he sent me greetings, we didn't meet.

But when my mother and I came back to Riga through Leningrad in 1945, I continued my studies at the English Language Institute. Lyuba Klauss told him where I lived. Shimon Ferber came to me when Mother was ill, when I was in a strange apartment with no money. He came and was so kind - he bought groceries for all the ration cards 8. We went to the cinema, the circus and the theater. We got registered, got a document stating that we were officially married. We went to my mother and told her that we were married. My mother asked that his mother come to her. 'Children marry without a chuppah!' my mother said. On 17th November 1945 we went to a rabbi and had a chuppah.

My husband got demobilized. He started to work at the Ministry of Trade, as an inspector for the organizational division 9. He worked in this Ministry until he retired. My husband died in 1996. He worked hard all his life, and would come home at about eleven in the evening. My little daughter once called him 'Uncle.' My relatives arranged work for me back in 1945 at the Ministry of Transportation, in the planning division. I worked there until 1948. Then I went to work at the Taxi Park. The head of the planning division knew my abilities to acquire new goods and they sent me to the Riga Taxi Park. There, I made my career. I became the head of the planning division. I introduced shifts in the Taxi Park so that the cars wouldn't be left idle. In 1959 I went to work for the special scientific research construction office as head of the normative research division. In the Soviet Union, they were the first to construct a diagnostic car workshop. I worked there until I retired at the age of 55.

In 1946, I gave birth to a son whom we named Ruvin. This was the happiest day of my life. I thank God many times a day for such a wonderful son! My son was taken care of by Russian speaking maids. I didn't teach him English; there was no time for that. Ruvin graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Latvia University. He is a professor at the university. He has a son named Arye and a daughter named Lina.

I also have a daughter. My daughter Fira was born in 1952. I was very happy when she was born, because I wanted a daughter so badly. The doctor said at the beginning of my labor, 'The Ferbers again have a son!' But when I saw the bracelet given to all newborn, the doctor had crossed out 'boy' and put 'girl' instead. From the very first day of her life, we had a nurse for Fira. This nurse lived with us for 13 years. My daughter graduated from the Faculty of Russian Philology at Latvia University. Now she is a businesswoman. Fira has a daughter named Ada. Our daughter married a Russian, a wonderful man by the name of Oleg Maniyev, who died of cancer when he was 47. But when Fira's daughter, Ada, went to get her passport she registered as Jewish 10.

I followed the Jewish traditions at home; my children knew when Pesach and the Jewish New Year were; we baked matzah and went to the synagogue. I observed the traditions, and so did my husband's parents.

Glossary:

Abram Kopelovich
Riga
Latvia
Interviewer: Svetlana Kovalchuk
Date of interview: August 2002

Growing up
During the War
Family background
My education
My family life
Alexander Germanovich Losev
Glossary

Growing up

My maternal grandfather, Zalman Beskin, died in 1938. I don't know when he was born, but he died in Vitebsk 1. I was three months old then. His wife, my grandmother Musya [Beskina], died in 1953 and she had been the head of the family since her husband died. Grandfather's brother Beskin, whose first name I forgot, was a merchant and lived in Kiev before the revolution 2. When his store was nationalized, about ten wagons were needed to take away all the goods from his shop. He had been a rich man and the Soviet authorities exiled him and his family to Yakutia [Northern Siberia] in 1924.

When I studied in Moscow, I saw Grandfather's nephew a couple of times, the son of this merchant. He was the deputy minister of trade of Yakutia! What his first name was, I, honestly, don't know. But the surname was Beskin! I think, that the Beskins live in Yakutia nowadays as well. My father Isaac Markovich Kopelovich 3, Jewish name Mordukh Idel Motl Kopelovich, was born in 1901 in Dvinsk [today Daugavpils in Latvia, 230 km east of Riga], and my mother Tsimlya Zalmanovna Beskina was also born in 1901, but in Vitebsk. They were a handsome couple. They got married in 1922 and had a chuppah. But he was a Trotskyist at that time. He was a Trotskyist until 1928, and when Trotsky 4 was defeated, expelled from the Communist Party [December, 1927] and exiled from Moscow, that was it. Later my father was Iosif Stalin's ideological follower. And my mother told him, 'Stop fiddling about with your Communist Party, I'm expecting another baby, who we are supposed to feed, by the way!' My brother earned something too by reselling things. He was born in 1924 and called Lev or Lyova. In 1928 my sister Sonya was born, Sofia.

My father's education was 'super-highest' - four classes. And Mum had completed eight classes - she wanted to study very much, but her father was very poor. Her uncle was very rich, but he wouldn't give the money for her education. I know only this fact: she wanted to study very much.

My father was a soldier in the Red Army 5 since 1919. There were four brothers, who had found themselves in Vitebsk [today Belarus] - Leib, or in the Russian way Lyova, then Khaikl, the eldest, then brother Girsh [Grigoriy], Uncle Grisha, and my father Isaac - the youngest. Uncle Grisha was the one who loved to sing Jewish songs. Whenever I hear singing now, I think of him.

Later, the border was drawn between Russia and Latvia 6. The brothers served in the army at the time and then they found themselves wives. So, these four Red Army soldiers remained abroad, that is out of Latvia.

When Daddy fought in the Civil War 7 he was a rather experienced soldier, so he asked his commander to visit Moscow for one day, as he was serving nearby. The commander allowed him to. He arrived at his uncle's home, and his uncle shook out the contents of his rucksack and put in a crate of vodka instead. Father came to his unit, reported to the commander that Soldier Kopelovich had arrived and heard: 'Hey, why don't you take off your rucksack first!'- 'I can't, it's too heavy! Help me!' So they took off the sack and it was full of vodka! Father was not given a gram, but at once was promoted to the rank of sergeant major. And by the end of the war he was a sergeant major.

Here in Dvinsk, there were seven relatives left, all 'Zionists' and 'super Communists.' The first to be executed in Latvia in 1935 was my aunt Sofia Kopelovich; she was a Communist. But the most interesting things happened later. In 1937, people in the USSR were permitted to make telephone calls to Daugavpils [before 1920 Dvinsk], Latvia. They didn't correspond with each other by mail, it was impossible 8. So they decided to call. Father was busy at work, so he didn't call. In the morning they went to see their friends who did call - and they found out that all of them were arrested. Therefore the brothers refrained from calling. They decided that the following day they would go to the post office and call their mother. But the following day those who called were in prison. And my father Isaac was a Communist, a commander, so he couldn't compromise himself like that. There was no communication between Dvinsk and Vitebsk. It probably existed before 1928-1930, but later the Stalin regime was very strict 9 and arrested those who tried to get in touch with their relatives. I vaguely know my Dvinsk relatives.

Daddy was an odd-job man, a baker mostly. The Communist Party directed him to be a shop manager. And he kept this position until 1941.

During the War

As soon as the war began 10 he was immediately sent to the front, but before he left he took all his relatives and put them all in a railway car and sent them to the Urals. As I was told - I was small then - we reached the Urals, and then headed for Dzhambul, in Kazakhstan. Mother's brother, Ierukhim Beskin, we called him Uncle Ira, was then working in Moscow as the director of a printing house, and we wrote to him and learnt who was where.

We arrived back in Vitebsk in 1944, and I started going to school. Father was still in the army, and we arrived right after Vitebsk had been liberated. The city was completely destroyed! They say Smolensk was destroyed, but in Vitebsk 95 percent of the buildings lay in ruins. I remember only the mess. I remember one bridge across which we were walking, there was a bridge to the brick plant that the Fascists wanted to blow up, and one soldier received the rank of Hero of the Soviet Union 11 for preventing that.

We were given a room in a barrack. And before Father returned in 1945, we lived there. Mum worked at the brick factory as an unskilled worker. We boys ran about, as I remember, played lapta [a ball game]. We were very good friends, I can hardly believe now that it is possible to live in such an amicable way. You ask if we lived poorly? That's not the right word! My grandmother used to give me 'a cake' in evacuation. And what this cake was? - a small slice of bread cut into tiny cubes. That was called a cake. Certainly, for the toilet - be it in winter or summer - you had to go outside. Before I left for Moscow to study, it was nothing for me to run to the toilet outside of the house barefoot in winter. No detrimental consequences whatsoever.

In 1945, my father was discharged from the army, returned home, and was given three German POWs, Fascists, to help him cut the wood and build two frameworks of houses and cement a deep cellar. Then the Germans were taken away, and he finished the work by himself.

After the war, he was just as strong an ideologist as before, but when I turned thirteen in 1951, he, the big Communist atheist, gathered ten Jews and carried out a bar mitzvah as if he was a fully ordained rabbi. Father retired at the age of 60 - in 1961. He still worked a little bit at different jobs. But at 69 years of age he died of cancer.

Father didn't want to return to Dvinsk after the war, because his mother and father had died there, and all our relatives had perished in the war. He told me that they were very religious.

Family background

My brother Lyova finished eight classes of the Jewish school in Vitebsk, and then they closed the school. We all knew Yiddish well, wrote and spoke the language. In our home, we only spoke Yiddish with our grandmother. And with others we could speak Russian, sometimes inserting Belarusian words. With Daddy and Mum I spoke Russian. When they wanted to hide something from me, they spoke Yiddish. And when they realized that I understood everything, they started to mix Yiddish, Russian, and Belarusian words. But both they and I knew that wasn't working.

Uncle Ierukhim Beskin, my mother's brother, left with a large group of friends for Moscow in 1925-1926. This was a group of 20 men - all of them became porters in Moscow, having had not much of an education. And gradually, step by step, they made their way into the world. Some of them returned to Vitebsk, some were killed during the war.

Uncle Ira fell deeply in love with a beautiful woman. The parents of the two parties were against their marriage. Galina Evgrafovna came from an old noble Russian family. They loved each other and registered their union. Grandma used to joke, 'My son cannot eat pork, but he cannot resist cold boiled pork!' Which was her way of referring to her daughter-in-law. But then Galina became very close with my grandmother. They had two kids. They agreed that if there would be a boy - circumcision, if a girl - christening. There was a boy, and later there was a girl. The boy was duly circumcised, the girl christened. The boy's name was Leonid, we called him Lerik. He eventually graduated from a legal college in 1952, but he could not work: in his passport Leonid's nationality was Russian 12, but his surname - Beskin - was specifically Jewish. Leonid's nationality, which he got from his mother, didn't make his life easier.

Eventually, at the end of his life he became the manager of the singer Iosif Kobzon [people's actor of the USSR, officially recognized singer]. He was engaged in theatrical business, was a manager, and came to Riga several times with various troupes. When Leonid Beskin died, Kobzon took on the funeral expenses. Leonid is buried at the non-Jewish Novodevichye cemetery, the most prestigious one in Moscow. It's right in the center of Moscow.

Galina and Uncle Ira are buried there, too. He was not a Communist; in fact, he became a rich man. His daughter Svetlana is in Damascus, they [she and her husband] received jobs at the conservatory there.

My eldest aunt is Anya Bessmertnova [nee Beskina]; her husband died under the wheels of a tram in Moscow. That's what I was told, but trams do not gain such speeds in Moscow to run over a man. He was a jeweler, so it's a dark and suspicious affair. They lived in Vitebsk and owned a big house there before the war.

Grandmother lived in Vitebsk with her younger daughter Tsilya Shagalova [nee Beskina (1900-1989)]. Granny was very religious. Father used to bake matzot, basically for her.

She cooked only kosher meals. She ate only dairy products. Uncle Ira used to say, 'Nobody has the right to help her. I am the only son - me!' Besides, after the war, he gave every one of his relatives 10,000 Rubles each to start building their own houses. And to his last day he supported his mum. Uncle Ira came to visit very often, together with his wife, sometimes in his own car. Aunt Galina Evgrafovna didn't like to offend anybody, so she visited all the relatives and ate everything she was given, although she knew that she would have to take purgatives later. She used to say, 'Well, why would I offend anybody?! But my diet, my fine figure!' They loved each other, those two.

I remember coming to see my grandmother and she would give me a Ruble: 'Go buy yourself some berries.' I went and I bought wild strawberries, which I could eat right in the market place, or, if it were other berries, I had to wash them first. Everyone loved her very much. At 89 she broke a leg while descending the porch. That was in 1952. And in Vitebsk there were very professional doctors then. The persecution of Jews had already begun and prominent experts from Moscow escaped to Vitebsk, and worked in the Medical Institute 13. They performed an operation, put her leg in plaster and said, 'With God's mercy she will be able to sit.' She sat, then she rose, then she walked on crutches and with a stick. After that, her case was described in many medical books, because it's a wonderful fact that she could get absolutely well at that age. When my cousin, who is now in Germany, studied there, she was told about this case by her professors. Then she said, 'It's my granny!' Grandmother died at the age of 89.

My education

The school I went to was a kind of an elite school. Our Physics teacher was the first person to be awarded the Order of Lenin 14 in Belarus. Our Russian teacher was in the circle of Vladimir Mayakovsky 15. My friend, Nikolay Tishechkin, became a people's actor of Belarus. I wasn't the only Jew in our class. There were no national issues whatsoever. Everyone was a member of the Komsomol 16, or a pioneer 17. We visited factories and we had all sorts of interesting field trips. Our life was very nice.

I graduated from the Moscow Polygraphic Institute. I was admitted the first year when Jews were accepted, in 1955. The supervisor of our school treated Jews very well, and she told me, 'Don't you think, that you are not going to be admitted because you are a Jew!' She was Russian or Latvian, I think.

I became a student of the mechanical faculty, specializing in mechanics and design of polygraphic machines. The food at our faculty was disgusting and because we were students of arts and humanitarian sciences, they fed us miserably. And suddenly, there came an announcement - that we were to go on strike! Nobody went to eat for two days. At that time the so-called Hungarian events 18 were happening. Instantly, all sorts of big shots descended on our school. And they immediately rectified the situation.

Sometimes we went skiing. Once we wandered into the residence of Khrushchev 19. They showed us to the exit rather quickly.

At school, every night we had dancing parties, especially on Saturdays. There was a separate campus, two kilometers from any residential area. I lived in a small room - there were only 18 of us living together - all nationalities. When you look at the picture of us, it is remarkable to see every ethnic type.

My uncle's wife, Galina Evgrafovna, personally taught me good manners and all the rules of decent behavior. She introduced me to Moscow's high society and taught me many things, including the right way to hold a spoon or a fork. You know, I was from a small town!

Uncle Ira was the director of a large printing house of the Moscow Theatrical Society. All posters, all tickets - were made there. As a student, I attended all the performances. Thanks to him, I saw a lot of theater plays. I went to the first Viennese ballet on ice, various festivals.

We graduated in 1960. After graduation, we had reunions every five years. On 5th May - the Publisher's Day. We continued meeting until Latvia became independent. Everybody used to come - even some foreigners, who studied with us. During these 30 years we were gathering every five years.

After graduation we had a 'free distribution' 20 - that means everybody was to look for a job independently. My brother Lyova worked here in Riga, and he was the head of a foundry shop. He had trouble with the Latvian language, which he didn't speak and needed to communicate with the workers in Russian.

I worked in the sixth printing house for half a year, that's where Sergey Eisenstein 21, the famous film-director, worked. They insisted on speaking only Latvian to me. So my brother sent me to the electric lamps factory, and asked his acquaintances there to hire me. It was a large production plant. So I went to the main engineer and he said, 'OK, start tomorrow.' I came the following day, though the first department - department of the KGB 22 - didn't want to accept me because I was a Jew and the factory was paramilitary. I began to work, and I worked there until my very retirement. I held all kinds of posts at the factory. I have achieved the rank of designer of the first category, there's nothing above it. I worked as deputy chief mechanic, the chief of design bureau, and my last assignment was the director of a shop.

My family life

Where can you find a Jewish wife? In the regional Komsomol Committee! I was an educated Communist. I finished the University of Marxism-Leninism as a Komsomol member, then took a philosophical training course. I was the secretary of the Komsomol organization of our workshop.

Once there was a session in the office of the third secretary of the Kirovsky district Komsomol Committee. I was the chief of the Komsomol lecturers' group, and my future wife also held some post. It was the time when various youth contests were fashionable. And there was one contest held right then at the factory 'Bolshevichk?'. And there comes my future wife, a young girl, and asks for two tickets. I didn't even now what kind of tickets they were. She bought two tickets and left, and I liked her.

And I told Valya, the member of the Komsomol Committee, 'Valya, I also need two tickets.' And she said, 'Abram, what, are you crazy? You never liked such performances.' - 'But I want to see one now.' 'Well, here you are.'

So I came there with my comrade. She came with a friend, too. And I invited her to dance although I wasn't an expert dancer. And she was a little bit offended because my friend was a real lady's man.

We didn't start dating for a long time. We saw each other about ten times, half a year. She was the first Jewish girl who I liked very much. And that's it. I didn't even know from the start that she was Jewish. And when I found that out, oy - she is Jewish! - OK, it's high time for me to get married! And I have never regretted it. We registered our marriage in 1965.

I was already a Communist, my wife was a Communist, so there was no chuppah, no Jewish wedding. Then it was impossible 23. Instantly, the authorities would have known about it. In 1966 our daughter was born. We couldn't afford a second child - she studied and we thought it would be too hard - nobody helped us financially. Debts, furniture on credit, apartment by installments - that was our life.

We lived in a rented apartment. It was possible to rent and then buy an apartment, so we wrote five applications to different co-operatives. Once I was in a collective farm 24 on an assignment. I came home on leave - and my wife wasn't there. And I was dressed in a felt jersey, just from the collective farm in the country. The neighbors told me she was at a party. I found her and she jumped up, delighted and happy. And I was standing there in dirty boots, you know, right from the village. And she exclaimed: 'I have paid for the apartment!' I said, 'No problem, honey, it's only 30 Rubles.' 'No, I mean the first installment for the apartment in the co- operative society! I had to borrow from this and that!'

And we received the apartment very fast. Then it was necessary to pay back the debts, and it turned out to be a prolonged procedure. It took us about 15 years to pay it all back. And we had to buy books too, and to settle our other bills. We began to travel a little when our daughter turned six. And then we started traveling more and more often. We never built or bought a summerhouse. However, we used summer residences provided by the state from time to time.

My wife's name is Anna [nee Maisel], she finished a Physics college here, and then worked at a prison school in Valmiera [a town 106 km north east of Riga]. Later she worked in another school as a teacher, and deputy director. She studied at post-graduate courses in Moscow. They didn't take her at university - as a Jewish person. But she found a job in the Institute of Improvement of Teachers' Qualifications. Later there was a vacancy of a scientific employee in the institute at the Ministry of Education. Soon she became the chief of the department of labor training in the Institute of Pedagogy of the Ministry of Education. It was considered a prestigious post. Then she was invited to read lectures. Now my spouse is the Dean of the faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology of the Latvian University.

When in 1991 the so-called freedom period began 25, my spouse Anna and Bregman Losev were the founders of Jewish schools. Anna created the first methodological instructions, first programs, and Losev analyzed the Jewish national questions. And they created the first Jewish school. Now, unfortunately, the schools have changed. Now the questions of money prevail, and then these questions were not so important. There was one goal: to create a Jewish school, so that Jewish children could learn about Jewish culture, Jewish life, and in general the basics of their national culture.

My daughter's name is Nelli, Muller after her marriage. She graduated from the university in the department of Physics, with an honors diploma. She was not offered a job in the university due to a simple reason - the position was meant for a relative of one of the bosses. And she entered the post-graduate courses in the Polytechnical Institute in Riga. When she was about to defend her thesis, Latvia became independent and all those changes started happening. And she left for America with her husband. She is a mathematician and works in a large travel company. And she carries out all mathematical processing for the company - absolutely all of it. She married a Jew, which is natural. It is a question of tradition and education. Both the Kopelovich and Muller families originated from Daugavpils. My daughter, granddaughter, and grandson are all Jewish, and the boy is circumcised.

I was a secular man. But, whenever I was on holiday with my wife, or I was traveling alone, I always found time for visiting a synagogue. Not because I was a believer, I just felt drawn to it. Besides, I liked to enter mosques and Christian churches.

But on 18-19th August, 1991, during the coup attempt against Gorbachev 26, we were on Baikal Lake [in Siberia], and we were very scared. There was no connection home to Riga, and besides they were showing all sorts of terrible stuff on TV, so we were very worried. It was in 1991, and we were in a place from where people can't be exiled any farther. It was funny! It was a Soviet tradition for television to show all sorts of cultural programs like the ballet 'Swan Lake,' Beethoven symphonies when some big Communist leaders died, like Brezhnev 27, Andropov, or Chernenko. And in these few days, we had too much culture and not enough news.

Up to the end of my life I will remember that I am a Jew. And I knew that I would marry only a Jewish girl. On Saturdays I started to attend synagogue. But of course, I don't observe all the subtleties of religion. First of all, it's a very long way to the synagogue if you go on foot. It's a great deal of walking. And you cannot ride on Saturdays. It's a serious infringement. And, secondly, my wife often comes late on Friday. If I'm at home, I light the candles. She sometimes works on Saturdays too, she cannot refuse. Well, how can one observe traditions in this situation? It is not allowed to put on the light, to do this, to do that. We cannot observe, even if we wanted to. The only thing we do, we don't eat bread at Pesach. When I worked, I didn't care what people said, I brought matzot and ate it. And my wife says it isn't very convenient, but still she abstains from eating bread. I keep the customs within reasonable limits - I would always put on a cap when I light the Friday night candles.

My sister didn't leave for Israel while Mum was alive. But when our mother died, my sister left. And then she died in Israel not long afterwards. We have a lot of relatives in Israel. The Zeltsers from Grodno [town in Belarus]: Sofia Zeltser, and her husband Alexander Zeltser. Their children are Musya, a doctor in Netanya, and Arkady, who is now working for a doctor's degree at the Jerusalem university. My brother Lyova left for Israel in 1992. My brother's son is now a doctor in Netanya.

My cousin Nina, Uncle Lyova's daughter, lives in Vitebsk. We regularly visit Vitebsk; our parents' graves are there. Two years ago we attended the festival 'Slavonic Fair' [an annual music festival called Slavyanskiy Bazar in Russian] there. I understand and speak Yiddish, too.

Alexander Germanovich Losev

I need to say some words about my dear friend Alexander Germanovich Losev [1923 -1997], or as we called him, Sasha. I have a picture with him in it. I knew him since July 1961. I came to Riga after graduating from the institute in Moscow, and he was a friend of my brother Lev Kopelovich. Losev came to Riga after having completed training in the studio of Solomon Mikhoels 28 in Moscow. He and my brother were sent to Latvia by Mikhoels to create the Jewish theater right after the war. Unfortunately, it was not the time for founding theaters. Life was very hard.

My brother went to work in the foundry; Alexander Germanovich finished the pedagogical institute and started to teach at an evening school. Then he got married, lived on Dzirnavu Street in one room in a shared apartment 29. Financially he lived very poorly. He was always engaged in issues of literature. His hobby is the history of interrelation between Russian and Latvian languages, Rainis [real name: Janis Plieksans (1865-1929): poet, playwright, translator and politician, considered the most distinguished Latvian writer of all time], Pushkin 30 and so on.

He finished post-graduate courses by correspondence, obtaining the degree of a candidate of sciences 31 and worked in the Institute of Pedagogical Studies at the Ministry of Education. In the beginning he was just a scientific employee, but he finished in the rank of a scientific secretary. He wrote a lot of articles and books. He was always interested in Jewish issues, Jewish literature. At the same time he had many Russian and Latvian friends. He had been granted a three-room apartment, where in one of the rooms was his study, full of scientific materials, books, and magazines. He was very cheerful, and liked to tell Jewish jokes very much. It was a sheer pleasure to sit and talk to him. He felt very young and we loved him very much. We lived very near each other, he frequently came to see us and called on the telephone.

When he died, there was a big funeral ceremony. All the Jewish community came, as well as the Orthodox Christian community, that's how well loved he was. He died in 1997, and he is buried at the Jewish cemetery.

Glossary:

Masha Blumenthal
Riga
Latvia
Interviewer: Svetlana Kovalchuk
Date of interview: August 2001

Growing up
My school years
During the war
Post-war
Glossary

Growing up

I don't know much about my family history. Only the last name remained [in my memory]: Epshtein. When I was born no grandparents on my father's side were still living. Nothing was ever said by my parents. My grandfather died not long before my birth and my grandmother died earlier. I was born on 20th January 1926.

Why do I have a name like Masha? Because my grandfather on my mother's side was called Moisha, and since I was born instead of a boy they named me Masha, which sounds similar to Moisha. Moisha Ban was from Liepaja. My grandmother's name was Hina. What I can say about her is that she was a good mother and a good grandmother. She passed away when I was two years old and she had eleven children. I have no idea what profession her husband held. I don't know why my parents never told me. They were very busy, I guess. In general we saw them very seldom. My father's name was Haim Epshtein and my mother's name was Hene, according to her passport, though we called her Helena. They were born the same year, 1889. I don't know what their level of education was. They got married very late and had three children: in addition to me, there was my older brother, Meier, who was born in 1927 and the younger, Abraham, Abrashenka, was born in 1929.

My mom studied very little since there were eleven children in her family. At best she finished the fourth grade. My mom was naturally cultured. My dear mother was so nice. My dad also didn't receive any special education. But my mother's brother Yosef was a smart one! Having only three or four years of education, on his own he made it to the position of head accountant in a bank, a private bank in Liepaja [port city 215 km west of Riga]. Another of my mother's brothers, Naum, or Nokhum, born in 1900, also made it on his own. He worked at a linoleum factory in Liepaja. Two of my mother's sisters left for South Africa, and her brothers also left for different places. I don't remember their names. There were also a lot of children in my father's family: one sister and three brothers. His sister Fani lived in Israel, she left in the 1920s. Abraham lived in Israel, too. Ruvin, the nicest looking of the brothers, and Zalman lived in Liepaja. There were wives; there were children. All of them were killed in Liepaja during the events of July 1941, at the beginning of the war on Latvian territory 1. The whole family was killed.

My parents were not rich, but middle-class. To give you an example of what this means, we had a three-room apartment with everything for the five of us. We lived very well. They rented this accommodation from the landlords and in the back room mother sewed various women's clothing, dresses, and undergarments on a Singer-model machine and father sold them. This little shop was near the market. Their clientele was practically comprised of village people, in other words plain folk. Thus, mother didn't sew anything extravagant. She sewed practical things. And so my parents left in the mornings and returned late in the evenings. They weren't home the whole day and therefore a woman cooked for us and played with us during her free time.

When we reached the proper age, we were sent to private day-care. It was a woman in her forties, Jewish, who lived in a very large apartment. She didn't have more than five or six pupils. And when I turned six, I was sent to a preparatory class where we learned letters and numbers. I remember to this day that there was a teacher who told us that one must wear white clothing in the sun and not black, since it attracts heat. She led us in these types of practical discussions. It was like this with school.

My school years

In Liepaja we had three Jewish schools. In one of the schools lessons were taught in German. This school was considered very fashionable. It was for children of the richer parents. I don't know if they paid for studying at this school or not. The second was in Yiddish and the third in Hebrew. I attended the school that was in Hebrew. In our school we had the rather poor children. The parents who were better off, like my father, helped the school a lot. In addition to the preparatory class I studied in this school for six years. And then in the 1930s there remained only one Hebrew secondary school and I passed the exams to enter it. I was accepted, but could only study there for two years because the war began.

I went to this grammar school for two years before the war. The main language of instruction was Latvian. But the children spoke German among themselves. It wasn't difficult to enter that school, but you had to pay 500 Lats a year, not including the books. 500 Lats was a huge sum of money. The only children who came there from the Hebrew school were my cousin Hene, Zalman's daughter, and me. Hene was very gifted, but she couldn't pay for her education, her father was poor, and she was admitted free of charge. It was a mixed school. The other pupils were from the German Jewish school. I had no friends among boys in my class. My friends from the grammar school - Boka, or Brokha, Kil, Mina Tsal, with whom I used to sit at one desk, - were sent to Siberia on 14th June 1941 2. Of course, all their families survived, except their fathers. At that moment it was a lucky outcome for them. Now they all live in Israel.

In school I participated a lot in sports. I was considered a good sportswoman. In our school on holidays the sport was always gymnastics and I was selected for competitions.

We couldn't afford what 9th grade girls can afford now. We were very unpretentious: dark blue dresses with white cuffs and a collar, a black apron. The first time we were allowed to put on anything we liked was for a school party in late May 1941, on the eve of war. But I didn't have anything special. Father bought me - Mother never went shopping in her life - some dark blue woolen material and a piece of bright silk cloth. Mother went to the tailor and I got a beautiful dress. Only once did I put it on! As I said before, Mother was not a fashionable tailor. My parents hardly bought me anything new until I turned 14. I wore Mother's and Grandmother's clothes. A poor Jewish woman-tailor would come to our place, they fed her, and she would sit and remake our clothes from early morning till night.

I used to earn my own money. I had to. Not because my parents needed the extra Lats, but for educational purposes. It was like this. When I was finishing my 6th year of school, I was 13, and some Jewish acquaintances asked to take their kid for a walk a couple of hours a day. I am sure my parents didn't do it for the money.

Each summer they would send me to a private rest home in Vainede, not far from Liepaja. The place was wonderful. I was very pale and thin. I would go there from the age of ten for almost the whole summer. Boys wouldn't be sent. The older [Meier] was strong and didn't need rest, Abrashenka was too weak to go, and he would hang on to Mother. I used to cry in the train. I was the only child in the rest home. The Jewish lady who kept that rest home, was a good friend of Mom's. I can't remember her first name, only the last name - Vainberg. The same people came there every summer - from Lithuania, Riga, Liepaja. The meals were good - four times a day. I really had a good rest there.

I wouldn't say that my parents were religious fanatics, but they observed religious holidays. They attended the synagogue on holidays. During Passover, it was required from the age of 13 to follow the restrictions on food. They saw and knew very well what I ate but pretended not to notice. Oh, and on Friday evenings they shut down everything and Dad went to the synagogue and Mom was probably at home. Everything was as it should be: fish and challah, Mom lit the candles. And since we missed our parents very much, for we didn't see them all week, it was during this time that we three entertained them. I dressed up in my mother's high-heeled shoes and in general we all had a great time. The language of conversation in the house was German; but we also spoke Yiddish often.

In our school there was a Rabbi with a rather handsome beard. As a child I very much enjoyed ice-skating. And somehow it had to happen that on a Saturday I was returning from the ice rink with my skates when I met the Rabbi. Dad was called to the school. What do you think Dad did? He came home and said: 'Was it not possible for you to walk with your skates so that the Rabbi would not see you!' As you can see, my parents judged fairly. It wasn't allowed to do that on Saturdays. Saturday is a holy day, after all. And they kept to the restrictions, though not in relation to me.

My mom and I embroidered a lot at home. We embroidered a tablecloth for a set of twelve or more; we embroidered during the whole year. We didn't embroider for sale, just for ourselves. Earlier in the kitchen there were shelves and we embroidered little covers for them. On the topic of reading, I don't remember that we had an especially large library. In school and in the secondary school there was a good library so I borrowed books from there. I began to take lessons on the piano but we didn't have instruments at home and there wasn't enough money and the apartment was small. Thus I didn't study long.

My parents never participated in any Jewish societies or trade unions - they just had no time for that. They were real workaholics! And their only day off was Saturday. The only one! They used to work the whole week, including Sundays. And when they were at home on Saturdays, they wanted nothing more than to be with their three kids. Just to walk in the park, tell them a fairy-tale or two.

My childhood was very, very beautiful. In the courtyard where we lived, there were Baltic Germans, Poles, Lithuanians, and Latvians. There were neither any arguments nor any discussions on national differences in general. Only now do I understand it. We all played friendly.

My brother Meier went for sports. He was slim and handsome. He was three years and three months younger than me. Meier's photo I got from a Latvian lady, Mrs. Rimov, who saved my brothers and me in Liepaja. When I returned, she gave back the photos to me and presented me some cups and spoons because I had nothing.

Liepaja was a completely charming little city, pretty and clean. Then it was considered the second city after Riga. It was during the Soviet period when the Soviets arrived and made Liepaja into an army city. They closed it off and it was forbidden to enter without permission. They neglected it so much that it became scary and I, for example, am not drawn to it. They made it so that Daugavpils became the second city after Riga. I remember the clean beach, and nearby the pavilion where well-dressed couples came to rest and dance. It was a cultural city, pretty cafes, and wonderful stores! We have a real sea, not a gulf, and people traveled from Germany, vacationers came - to stay and swim. On Peldu Street, which led to the sea, there were private homes like villas with flowers and waterfalls in front.

There were organized stage shows and my aunt, who was much older than me, was at a concert where Sergei Rachmaninov [1873-1943] himself performed. I went to these types of concerts with my aunt since my mom didn't have any time to. There was an opera in the city. There was one Jewish tenor - Haim Shelikov. A very famous tenor. Something unfortunate happened to him - his younger sister of 17-18 years died and he was supposed to sing, I cannot say which opera it was, either Carmen or Tosca, there was no one to replace him and he was forced to sing. And I remember that my mom told me that he sang like never before. Oh, that things that happen when there is grief and pain! My mom went to the opera with Dad or Aunt Dora. Mom didn't have time for popular music so I went with my aunt. There was a very talented violist, Zara Rashina, from Riga. When she came to our town my aunt and I went to her concert.

During the war

Nazi troops entered Liepaja on 30th June 1941. I remember an incident, it was either the 1st or 2nd of July, we still lived in our house and knew that nothing good awaited us. We were standing at the window when we saw the SS men coming and looking towards our window. They didn't know where Jews lived, how could they have possibly known? And there comes a neighbor, it seemed we got along well, and we see how she is pointing towards our window. It was our good luck that we saw it. We immediately took off through the black passageway to Aunt Fani's, the wife of Yosef Ban. And this Aunt Fani had her own home and we lived with her. An order was given that all Jews had to hand over everything they had: bicycles, radios, various equipment, in general everything. Everyone handed over their belongings thinking they would be left in peace. Then came an order that all Jews must wear a yellow star on their chest and back and that it was forbidden to walk on the sidewalks, only next to them. Then every day men were called as if to work.

Dad was still alive then - every day he went to work. They were gathered on the fire-square in the center of Liepaja. This is how it began: on 21st July in one family some dad didn't return, on the 22nd in another family some father didn't come back, then on the 23rd my father didn't return and on 24th July Uncle Yosef didn't return. And in this manner little by little people disappeared. Later when only a small population had remained the pogroms began - they would go from house to house gathering people and simply taking them out and shooting them.

This is how it was with us: Uncle Nokhum Ban attended a Latvian school where he had a co-worker who started working with the SS men and helped gather people to be shot. I don't know if he shot people himself or not, though he probably did. But, since my uncle was a Jew he came and warned us before the pogroms: 'Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow you should not be at home. They will come for you.' We had really nice acquaintances, also Latvians, and I gathered my brothers, cousins Mepita and little Dov and went to the neighbors. I would ask, 'What would happen if we were found with you?' And she would tell me, 'What happens to you will happen to us.' And she hid us. The rest of the times it was in a different place, we hid in our aunt's house. She knew where to hide. This is how it was on several occasions.

Oh, and before the big round up of December 1941, on Chanukkah, that Latvian SS-man's wife came and told us that her husband had gone crazy and was taken to the hospital. However, since other friends of theirs participated in the shootings they shared this information with her. They, of course, didn't know that she would come to us. She came and warned us. And after these enormous pogroms there remained approximately 800 people out of about 7,500 Jews in Liepaja. And when there remained 800 people, they decided to herd us into a ghetto.

The ghetto wasn't the scariest place, since they settled us into homes where people had lived and everything was there. Our parents succeeded in taking some things from the store and we had some stuff: Latvian acquaintances came over and we gave them dresses and they gave us butter and bread. 30-35 people lived in one apartment. In comparison to what was to come that was normal - we were clean and wore our own things rather than something from another person's back. We were in the ghetto a whole year: from July 1942 to July 1943. We worked in the basements: gathered potatoes in the barracks, cleaned toilets, windows, and floors. We did all the dirty work. We spent the evenings at home under guard. When the Germans entered, only the men went to work. The women and children were not touched. And when they took us to Kaiserwald 3 that is when the real work began.

It was scary to lose our father, I do not deny it, but we had our mother. A mom is a mom! Though when they separated us from our mom that was scary. In the ghetto we were still with our dear mom. That day, the day of separation from Mom, was the scariest for me. It was in July 1943 in Kaiserwald. They brought us to Kaiserwald at night and in the morning we woke up together and they began to separate us - the elderly separately and little children as well. How Aunt Fani was able to remain with her children, I do not know. Just as the Soviets 4 set off for Riga in August 1944, they were killed. All of the others and Mom, Aunt Fani, and her children Mepita and Dov were put into wagons or buses and sent to the gas chambers.

In the beginning we lived in Kaiserwald and were transported to work someplace and in the evenings returned to the barracks. And then they took away 500 women and we were transferred to VEF [State Electro-technical Factory] on Brivibas 197; on the left side where storehouses used to be, two-story plank-beds were made and we slept next to each other like sardines. After work we stood for hours while we were counted. We stood until we went crazy. Once I even fainted, and if I had not been only 18 or 19 years old I would have immediately died. If anyone a little older fell then we would never see them again. We were horribly hungry! In VEF at least it was possible to eat - a little piece of bread or horseflesh, gross but possible to eat. But in Kaiserwald they gave us soup - which had live worms swimming in it! It was impossible! We were terribly starved.

And when I was in Stutthof 5 I sat and thought: 'What is better: to suffer and remain alive or to die immediately. For if I lived I would never again be normal.' Our camp was in Torun, Poland. And the Russians began to bomb. We were gathered up on 20th January 1945 at five o'clock in the morning. It was my birthday. I turned 19 years old. They led us across the River Vistula; I have seen this bridge on television many times since then. I don't know if that bridge is long, but then it seemed to us never-ending. We walked all night. In this year, 1945, it was very cold and we were dressed in one pair of tights and a prisoner's dress topped by a jacket. This was all. The shoes were not shoes but clogs. They rubbed sores on our feet until they bled. We held on by our last strength.

It was morning, around five or six o'clock when they took us from the camp and around twelve o'clock we arrived in Bitgosch. This is all Poland. There were five women, we were the last in this column. A Pole came up to us and said, 'Listen, girls. Do you want to stay here?' 'Of course we want to!' 'The Germans just freed the shed, they led away the horses. If you want, hide here.' We told ourselves: what were we to lose? We agreed. And set forth. The armed escort was occupied with himself. There were even instances when he would suddenly disappear and in 15-20 minutes return in a suit. You understand! He took off his uniform! He worried about himself and didn't pay that much attention to us.

We succeeded in leaving. There were five women - four from Liepaja and one from Riga. He transported us to the shed. There was quite a lot of hay there. We were to hide under it if we heard something. And then what street fights began! The shed where we lay was covered in holes. We left the shed on 26th January and lying there outside were Russians, Germans, more Russians. Just like that in the street, they still hadn't cleaned them up. And on the morning of the 26th the gates of the shed opened and the Pole said to us, 'Girls! You are free! The war for you is over!' We were so worn out that we didn't even ask his name or his address. We were so confused! How stupid! We went out and saw Russian army cars. They were giving out food. We took everything but ate it carefully. Then we were led off to a filter station.

Then began the torture from the side of the Russian soldiers and officers. At the filter station we were questioned. And they did this only at night. He said, 'Well, now tell me who are you; where are you from.' I began to talk about everything I'd lived through. I finished and he said to me, 'Okay that is all very well, now tell me what really happened.' And this is what it was like for two or three nights in a row. When he gave me my documents, I went to the police station and received my passport. I returned to Latvia in March 1945. Until March I was at the filter station 6.

Post-war

When I was freed and we were in Bitgosch in Poland, I had the opportunity to go anywhere I wanted. We went to a Jewish community center. They gave us a little money and said, 'Where to?' 'To Riga.' 'You want to go there?' I said, 'I must, my relatives will come and I won't be there.' 'We'll give you money, a ready ticket, so leave for wherever you want! To America, to Africa.' I was drawn home. Only when I returned did I learn about the horrible fate of my brothers.

Well, in Riga there was no money, there was nothing. There was one woman with me from Liepaja and we went to the factory where wallpaper was made. When we entered, there was a Latvian man, stout and elderly. 'What do you want girls?' 'We need work.' 'And what are you able to do?' 'We cannot do anything! We want to work! We need to eat!' He thought and thought and took pity on us. He said, 'Well, okay.' And to this day I do not remember what we did there, but we worked. And all in all he paid us. We lived like this until June 1945 in Riga. I didn't know the fate of my mother or my brothers then.

My brother Meier, like us, was taken from the camps. He worked on the railway. Here in Latvia and in Germany. Like I was in VEF, he was on the railway. When they led them away, they liquidated the camp. He was very strong, of the three of us he was the strongest, he had a good sporty figure. It was 3rd May and he would have turned 18 years old. But something happened and his leg hurt and he was not able to march with the rest of them and the guard took him away and shot him! And three hours later they were all free!

Abrashenka, my younger brother, had big black eyes. And in our house in Liepaja there was a boot-making shop. Abrashenka loved to go to the boot- maker after school. He sat there and the boot-maker liked to talk with him. And as the Germans entered, the boot-maker said, 'I thought about saving that boy. I have a lot of relatives in the village. But is it possible to save a boy with such eyes! You can't possibly hide this child; he needs to move around. They will see right away that he is not our child.' Abrashenka was not strong before the war. But nonetheless he held on for four years and survived. He was taken to the hospital. He could not even speak. He had tuberculosis of the throat. In the hospital doctors - British and American - surrounded him. He died on 13th July 1945.

I learned about this in 1982. I was still in the state to go to their graves, but was afraid of the police. Contacts with the Germans?! Just think of my husband's career! I was afraid then, I was always afraid and now due to my health I simply cannot. My son often goes to Germany and promises to go to Neustadt Anzei where he is buried. I want him to go, to give thanks. Every week German students go there and clean up.

Later I left for Liepaja, where I lived and worked until 1949. When I came back from the camp and entered my apartment, every piece of furniture was standing in its place. But the people who had settled in our apartment wouldn't give anything back. Even some tapestries that we had sewn were hanging on the walls. They allowed me to take only a small buffet.

My husband, Konstantin Naumovich Blumenthal, is from Riga. His father was sent to Siberia on 14th June 1941 [the day of mass deportation of Latvian citizens to the east of the USSR]. He succeeded, along with his mother and sister to evacuate and in 1945 was accepted to the Moscow Conservatoire for fortepiano. When he graduated in 1945 and came here it was of course logical to expect work in Riga like others from the city. But he didn't find work. He was sent to Liepaja 7. He always joked, 'I was lucky! Otherwise we wouldn't have met.' He was sent to work as a teacher in a music school.

When he arrived he didn't know anybody. He rented a nice room from a landlady, where he boarded. Later I lived there. Once he somehow asked his landlady, 'In general are there any Jewish girls here?' The landlady answered, 'There is one!' It is true there were very few of us, very few. At first his acquaintances met me so as not to traumatize me. My husband accidentally saw me, so I wouldn't know. He said he liked the girl. Then he invited us to a restaurant and everything went from there. We went steady for almost two years and got married in May 1951.

I was dating my husband one year and ten months. Then his aunt came from Moscow and told him, 'If you have serious intentions towards this girl, go ahead, if not - leave her alone. She is too serious, too good for you just to use her.' So we married. We didn't have a religious wedding. Just a civil one.

We went to the registration department and put our signatures on the marriage certificate, it was on Saturday, 5th May. And he left for work right away; he had examinations to attend in his school. And only the following day did I move to his place and we started to live together. There was no celebration - not a tea party, nothing. You can imagine in what kind of mood I was with my closest relatives all dead by then. There was no joy. Yes, I felt happy, of course, because I didn't have to be alone anymore, because I found my man! Wedding! Everybody's happy? With no one to congratulate us? Just put your signature, that's it! One friend sent flowers to my apartment, another presented six plates. That's all. But this sad beginning didn't prevent us from living a wonderful life together. The difference in our education - I was far less educated - and his high position at work didn't hamper our peaceful and decent life. A very interesting life.

We lived in Liepaja and he worked in the school, but he wanted terribly to go to Riga. His mother died in 1948. In 1954 a Conservatoire in Riga advertised a competition for a post in the department of 'General Fortepiano.' He turned in his documents, went through the competition, but without a place to live. Oh, no big deal! His sister Luba lived in Riga. She allowed us to live with her. He finished as professor of the fortepiano class in the conservatoire. He worked five years in Liepaja and 35 years in the conservatoire.

I really wanted to continue my studies. But first there was the language. In order to study, even in the ninth grade, I didn't have the knowledge of the Russian language. What was there to live on? I needed to work. And then my head didn't even function. I simply could not. I began, as they say, self-education. I read a lot in Russian. My husband laughed, my first book in Russian was 'Anna Karenina.' Of course, the first time I read it I didn't understand a thing. But the second time it was nothing! My husband really laughed! I spoke Russian with my husband and with my son I spoke German and Yiddish.

At first it was difficult financially and we didn't want a child. Then we already decided that the years were passing by and we decided to have one child. Roman was born in 1959. I was busy with the child my whole life! I had two children, my husband was worse than a child! Everyday he had to be dressed! True, he did the handiwork himself.

When we moved to Riga I wanted to find work, but he didn't allow me. It was in 1954 after the case of Doctor's Plot 8 and I couldn't start a job anywhere. Yes, what an education! My husband told me, 'No need. It is important to me that you are home.' He worked in the conservatoire, and studied for four hours at home each day. I needed to take care of him.

We lived with my husband's sister until 1960. She had a bedroom and a living room and we lived in a 12-square meter room through which people went to get to the bathroom. At the bottom were stores, in which refrigerators ran and it was extremely cold. When I brought Roman home from the hospital it was 17 degrees Celsius in the room. It was 15 degrees but we placed a space heater, which brought the temperature up by two degrees. My husband needed to study. We put the piano in the large room. But of course it bothered people. Then we lived in a communal apartment 9 where the rooms were luxurious. When they began to build the special residence for artistic workers, where we now live, my husband wrote to the ministry and described all of our problems. The Ministry of Cultural Affairs said: 'Do as you wish, but give Blumenthal a two-room apartment on the second floor.' Thus we have already lived in this apartment for 27 years.

Roman has two children, a fifteen-year-old girl, Diana and a three and half- year-old boy, Eduard. His wife, Marina, is a journalist. She is a Russian Jew. Roman graduated from the Latvian University, the Department of philology with a major in Germanic languages. Though he quit this for business and currently works for a private trade company.

During the Soviet times none of the Jewish traditions were held on to! Nothing! We were even afraid! Roman didn't even know what happened to me during the war. I didn't tell him anything. He found out that I was in a camp when he was 30 years old! And my relationship with my son is the most trusting and close-knit you can imagine! He and I were great friends. But I didn't want him to know. After all, the KGB 10 had called me to Riga from Liepaja just to explain to them how it was that I remained alive! Why?! That's why I didn't tell Roman: a child could tell his friend, his friend tells someone else. It was horrible!

Many people criticize the current government in independent Latvia 11, but I'm thankful to them that my granddaughter now studies at a [Hassidic type] Hebrew school. When she was little, on her way to school in the mornings, if she was asked the question of: where do you study little girl, she could answer, 'At a Hebrew School!' And she would be proud of it. It wasn't like that in the Soviet times. They are very strict in her school! But one can pray an extra time for all that they do well at this school! She complains that the clothing is strict; she wants a mini-skirt. But there are eight to nine students in a class and the rooms are bright and gorgeous. A car comes to pick her up, takes her to school and brings her home. They are fed three times a day. And it all only costs 18 Lats a month. Now she is entering the ninth grade and then we'll see.

My granddaughter asked me this question: 'Grandma, what do you believe in?' - 'Dianochka, I only believe in one thing. In goodness! People must be kind to one another. Like it is written in the Bible. Do not do unto others as you do not want to have done to you.' This is what I believe in. I believe in human decency. But I cannot adhere to strict orthodoxy!

Glossary