My father submitted an application to join the Party at the Leningrad Military Academy, but he had already been involved in some party activities in Vitebsk before he entered the academy. If he hadn't been a party member, it would have been impossible for him to take on the position of head of the Neurosurgery Institute. All top managers in any organization were trustworthy people and loyal to the Party. At those times we were absolutely sure that communists, members of the Communist Party, were worthy people, who were entrusted by the Party to fill such important posts.
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Alexandra Ribush
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However, my parents weren't rich. My father returned the bigger part of his income to the pay fund. As a communist he didn't have the right to earn more than the party-max [Party payment maximum limit], which was much less than his salary. For one, if the salary was 1,000 rubles and the party-max was 700 rubles, he returned 300 rubles in the form of a party fee.
We were rather well provided for. My father got a four-bedroom apartment in a big new building on 61, Lesnoy Prospect [The Specialists' House] in Leningrad. Our windows faced the prospect and the entrance was from the yard. I lived with my parents and I remember the apartment very well. It was a nice, modern apartment with central heating, a bathroom, and a telephone. It was equipped with antique furniture that my mother bought in commission stores. When my father was arrested in 1937, the furniture was confiscated.
Although my father was a very educated man, knew Yiddish and Hebrew, and had his bar mitzvah as a child, he didn't pray or celebrate Jewish holidays as an adult during the Soviet times. He became an atheist and a communist.
Our family was absolutely non-religious. We didn't think about religion in those times.
My father was offered a position at the department of neurosurgery at the Military Medical Academy after graduation. He got the degree of a professor very quickly and later became head of the Institute of Neurosurgery.
,
Before WW2
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Abram's son, Max, became a physician and lived independently. We didn't keep in touch in the Soviet times, as it wasn't permitted [it was dangerous to keep in touch with relatives abroad] [6]. Now none of his family is alive any more.
Abram was engaged in the fur business in London. He also got married there. He and his wife were middle class, neither poor, nor rich.
Abram was engaged in the fur business in London.
,
Before WW2
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In 1921 his son Abram took him away to England. Grandpa and Abram had problems with the Bolshevist power: they were against the Bolsheviks so they had to escape abroad to avoid a possible massacre.
,
1921
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My grandpa probably made some money on the side. He was a very pious man and always fulfilled various public tasks he received at the synagogue. For example, he collected notes that visitors wrote to the rabbi and read them to him after the prayer when everybody had left. He also collected money from idaka [a box for donations]. He had a place of his own there.
They weren't very well-to-do, I would say they lived quite modestly. My grandpa probably made some money on the side.
,
Before WW2
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My grandpa Solomon owned a small store and sold ironmongery. He was a respected man at the local synagogue.
Grandpa got married for the second time in 1907. His second wife's name was Khaya Moiseyevna.
,
1907
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Grandpa always took their tricks very seriously and scolded them severely. By the end of his life he started to limp and walked with a cane. I know about grandpa only from what my mother and grandma told me. He died in 1925, three years before I was born. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Pskov. A monument in the form of a sea-shell was placed on his grave. I don't know if the grave in Pskov is still there. Germans were on that territory and I doubt that the Jewish cemetery is still preserved today.
My parents couldn't get me acquainted with the members of our family since they were subject to repression [during the so-called Great Terror] [3] and were imprisoned while I was a small girl. I know our relatives only from pictures which my mum collected when she came back from imprisonment.
,
Before WW2
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After allocation from the regiment he worked as a zemsky medical attendant. I don't know all his life's circumstances but I do know that as of 1905 grandpa lived and worked in Pskov. He was very famous in Pskov and had very extensive medical practice. He treated patients at home and also visited them. I still have a 'certificate', which proves that he was a district zemsky physician for the municipal medical station. The certificate was issued by the Pskov District Zemsky Council in 1918. My grandpa was remembered even in the 1950s, 25 years after his death. I overheard a conversation between two women in a Leningrad tram. They were scolding physicians who didn't treat patients properly and suddenly one woman told the other, 'We had a medical attendant in Pskov in the old times, his name was Ribush - and he was a real doctor, better than today's professors'.
My grandpa was a wealthy man. He owned a house in Pskov with a big yard. He also had a cart. There was a cook and another domestic worker, who helped in the household and raise the seven children.
My grandpa was a wealthy man. He owned a house in Pskov with a big yard. He also had a cart.
As a teenager he was sent to study at a cantonist [2] college. He graduated from the military cantonist college and was assigned to serve as a corps man in a regiment. Later he obtained medical education through military medical attendants' courses. There is a certificate, dated 1881, which proves that he graduated from the medical attendants' courses and was a certified regiment medical attendant. Upon finishing his military service he received a reference which stated that he was distinguished by excellent medical knowledge, showed effort in taking care of the patients and was recommended to the position of a zemsky [provincial] medical attendant. This certificate was dated 8th March 1883 and was signed by the officer of the 25th artillery brigade.
,
Before WW2
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My maternal grandfather's name was Ziska Iosilev Ribush. In everyday life we called him Alexander Iosifovich [see common name] [1].
,
Before WW2
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My grandpa Solomon owned a small store and sold ironmongery.
My father, Maks Solomonovich Skoblo, came from Vitebsk, a provincal town in Belarus. His family lived there. He finished the Belarus national school in Vitebsk where he studied for 10 years, from 1906 to 1916.
She got acquainted with her future husband in 1925 in the Military Medical Academy. They were schoolmates. They had a common-law marriage, without any religious ceremonies and official registration. This was actually common in the young Soviet intellectual circles of the time.
,
1925
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My mother Berta Alexandrovna Ribush, was born in Pskov in 1903. She went to school from 1910 to 1917. It was a Russian school; I think, it was a girls' grammar school. In 1924 she moved to Leningrad to study and never returned to Pskov. She entered the Military Medical Academy in Leningrad, graduated from it and worked as an oculist up to 1937.
Daniyl perished in the concentration camp in Riga when the Germans came in 1941.
I don't know anything about Uncle Abram's destiny. As a child I heard that he converted to Christianity and was turned out of his parents' house. I was shocked when I heard that but I was too shy to ask about the details. After that he sort of became a member of the Communist Party. I never heard anything about him later.
,
Before WW2
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Grandpa's elder son Lazar died in 1924, before I was born, but I was on friendly terms with his wife Tsilya. She died a long time ago and her daughters Malvina and Sarah remain my closest relatives. When Malvina was born in 1919, the Civil War [5] was at its height and it wasn't possible to send telegrams. It was only allowed to send telegrams that informed someone about someone's arrival. So the relatives received the following telegram about her birth: 'Malvina Lazarevna arrived successfully'.
She was religious, attended the synagogue regularly, observed holidays and knew Jewish cooking traditions. While in Leningrad grandma stopped to go to the synagogue in order not to put her daughters on the spot, since religiosity was persecuted [see struggle against religion] [4]. However, when we left for Dzhankoy in Ukraine in summer, she began to attend the synagogue as soon as it became possible.
Khaya spoke Russian with a very strong accent. Her mother tongue was Yiddish.
,
Before WW2
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