We tried to observe Jewish traditions and teach our children to remember them. . Abram knew when it was a holidays. Of course, we didn’t follow kashrut, but we never ate pork or mixed meat and dairy food. On holidays we had festive meals with traditional Jewish food: chicken necks and gefilte fish. We invited friends and neighbors. On Yom Kippur my husband and I fast and so do our sons and their wives. That’s mandatory.
- Traditions 11756
- Language spoken 3019
- Identity 7808
- Description of town 2440
- Education, school 8506
- Economics 8772
- Work 11672
- Love & romance 4929
- Leisure/Social life 4159
- Antisemitism 4822
-
Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
- Soviet invasion of Poland 31
- Siege of Leningrad 86
- The Six Day War 4
- Yom Kippur War 2
- Ataturk's death 5
- Balkan Wars (1912-1913) 35
- First Soviet-Finnish War 37
- Occupation of Czechoslovakia 1938 83
- Invasion of France 9
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 65
- Varlik Vergisi (Wealth Tax) 36
- First World War (1914-1918) 216
- Spanish flu (1918-1920) 14
- Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920) 4
- The Great Depression (1929-1933) 20
- Hitler comes to power (1933) 127
- 151 Hospital 1
- Fire of Thessaloniki (1917) 9
- Greek Civil War (1946-49) 12
- Thessaloniki International Trade Fair 5
- Annexation of Bukovina to Romania (1918) 7
- Annexation of Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union (1940) 19
- The German invasion of Poland (1939) 94
- Kishinev Pogrom (1903) 7
- Romanian Annexation of Bessarabia (1918) 25
- Returning of the Hungarian rule in Transylvania (1940-1944) 43
- Soviet Occupation of Bessarabia (1940) 59
- Second Vienna Dictate 27
- Estonian war of independence 3
- Warsaw Uprising 2
- Soviet occupation of the Balitc states (1940) 147
- Austrian Civil War (1934) 9
- Anschluss (1938) 71
- Collapse of Habsburg empire 3
- Dollfuß Regime 3
- Emigration to Vienna before WWII 36
- Kolkhoz 131
- KuK - Königlich und Kaiserlich 40
- Mineriade 1
- Post War Allied occupation 7
- Waldheim affair 5
- Trianon Peace Treaty 12
- NEP 56
- Russian Revolution 351
- Ukrainian Famine 199
- The Great Terror 283
- Perestroika 233
- 22nd June 1941 468
- Molotov's radio speech 115
- Victory Day 147
- Stalin's death 365
- Khrushchev's speech at 20th Congress 148
- KGB 62
- NKVD 153
- German occupation of Hungary (18-19 March 1944) 45
- Józef Pilsudski (until 1935) 33
- 1956 revolution 84
- Prague Spring (1968) 73
- 1989 change of regime 174
- Gomulka campaign (1968) 81
-
Holocaust
9685
- Holocaust (in general) 2789
- Concentration camp / Work camp 1235
- Mass shooting operations 337
- Ghetto 1183
- Death / extermination camp 647
- Deportation 1063
- Forced labor 791
- Flight 1410
- Hiding 594
- Resistance 121
- 1941 evacuations 866
- Novemberpogrom / Kristallnacht 34
- Eleftherias Square 10
- Kasztner group 1
- Pogrom in Iasi and the Death Train 21
- Sammelwohnungen 9
- Strohmann system 11
- Struma ship 17
- Life under occupation 803
- Yellow star house 72
- Protected house 15
- Arrow Cross ("nyilasok") 42
- Danube bank shots 6
- Kindertransport 26
- Schutzpass / false papers 95
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) 24
- Warsaw Uprising (1944) 23
- Helpers 521
- Righteous Gentiles 269
- Returning home 1090
- Holocaust compensation 112
- Restitution 109
- Property (loss of property) 595
- Loss of loved ones 1724
- Trauma 1029
- Talking about what happened 1807
- Liberation 558
- Military 3322
- Politics 2640
-
Communism
4468
- Life in the Soviet Union/under Communism (in general) 2592
- Anti-communist resistance in general 63
- Nationalization under Communism 221
- Illegal communist movements 98
- Systematic demolitions under communism 45
- Communist holidays 311
- Sentiments about the communist rule 930
- Collectivization 94
- Experiences with state police 349
- Prison/Forced labor under communist/socialist rule 449
- Lack or violation of human and citizen rights 483
- Life after the change of the regime (1989) 493
- Israel / Palestine 2190
- Zionism 847
- Jewish Organizations 1200
Displaying 37801 - 37830 of 50826 results
Yelizaveta Zatkovetskaya
We never traveled on vacations: at first our children were small and there was nobody to look after them and later we were hard up and couldn’t afford a family vacation, though my husband and I worked and had a garden and a vegetable garden where we grew vegetables and fruit, but we lived on our salaries. We were doing well and our children had all they needed, but we never afforded any luxuries. We lived like everybody else: from one pay day to the next one.
. My sons recited the words of prayer with them. They observe Jewish traditions, go to the synagogue on Sabbath and celebrate Jewish holidays. It was Rosh Hashanah recently, and my sons and their families came for a festive dinner with us. I attend the synagogue once a year on Yom Kippur. I am not religious, but I always remembered Jewish traditions. I do my best to observe the rules: I light candles on Sabbath and give my grandchildren Chanukkah gelt on Chanukkah.
Alexander Ugolev
A lot of Jews lived in Krichev. They were employed in different businesses. Most often Jews were engaged in retail trade. My grandfather Haim also was in the small grocery business.
In Krichev there were Jewish schools. Someone of my friends-boys studied at a Jewish school in Krichev. I played games with them and got to know about Jewish school.
Probably in Krichev there were both synagogues and special prayer houses. And most probably in Komarovka there were not. It seems that my Krichev grandfather took me to the synagogue with him. At that time I was about six or seven years old. I have only a distant memory of that time.
remember Krichev a little bit better. Houses in Krichev were not high, but well-set. A cement factory was located there. In Krichev there lived probably tens of thousands of people. There was a road paved with concrete, homesteads; each house had an enclosed ground. The cows were taken to fields for grazing. There was no electricity supply yet. Both in Krichev and in Komarovka houses were illuminated by petroleum-lamps. At that time they hadn’t even heard about a water pipe. Each house had a well.
, Belarus
I came to Krichev from Leningrad each summer.
I have only a distant memory of my stay in Komarovka at my Ugolev grandparents’. I remember that there was a large earth-road, very clean. The houses stood separately from each other. Right around our house there were large public apple orchards [they had no owner, the authorities used to appoint responsible persons in turns]. We went there to eat apples.
It seems that Komarovka was a large village. They moved about it using horse-drawn vehicles. My grandfather went to Krichev by horse.
It seems that Komarovka was a large village. They moved about it using horse-drawn vehicles. My grandfather went to Krichev by horse.
Before the war her husband, Yosif Khutoretsky, was a director of a sovkhoz [5] in Luga district near Leningrad. Before the war he held the position of administrative deputy director at the Veterinary College.
Another son, Ghirsha [affectionate for Grigoriy], born in 1908, also went through the Great Patriotic War and died in peace time.
He perished at the front during World War II, in 1944. Before the Great Patriotic War [4] he worked at a military prosecutor’s office of the Leningrad military district; during the war he was appointed a commissioner, he excited soldiers to go into the assault. He was lost near the city of Novgorod in action, near the village of Koptsy.
Another brother of my father, Pavel, was lost during the Civil War [3].
I also heard nothing about the army background of my grandfathers. Possibly in tsarist days my grandfathers could have borne arms, I don’t know exactly. At that time they didn’t draft Jews into the army willingly.
Almost all neighbors were Jews. They dressed the same way as my grandfathers and grandmothers, and men wore beards. I think their lifestyle was Jewish, traditional.
Usually, after staying in Krichev for several months I easily started to speak and even think in Yiddish.
It seems to me that both in Krichev and in Komarovka people lived in their own separate houses. I think they had good relations.
, Belarus
Probably, my grandfathers had their own opinions on the political situation in Soviet Russia, but they made no comments. They lived like other people, worked, and affiliated with no parties and societies.
It was difficult for them to observe Jewish traditions and keep kosher in ‘the city of three revolutions’ [Leningrad was called this way by the Communists because it was this city where the Revolution of 1905 and the February and October Revolutions of 1917 took place] in the 1930s. It was dangerous: it could attract attention of active atheists and entail the arrest of all family members. I don’t remember them celebrating Jewish holidays, neither in Leningrad, nor by themselves in Komarovka.
My parents were atheists. They didn’t observe Jewish traditions. Possibly we ate matzah – I don’t remember exactly, but most probably we did. We lived close to the synagogue, but never visited it. We had no Sabbath celebrations: at that time we had no Saturdays off – we had six-day weeks.
When my father came back to Leningrad from his business trip in 1936, he was appointed an editor of a newspaper at the printing house named after Volodarsky. My mum worked as a chemist/laboratory assistant at a factory in Kirov.
,
1936
See text in interview
So after he graduated from the College, they sent him to expand the collectivization process. He was an editor of the Machine and Tractor Station newspaper, then of a regional newspaper, and later an editor of municipal newspaper in the city of Krasny-Sulin. This city is rather large; there is a large Metallurgical Industrial Complex. It was not renamed [after the breakup of the USSR in 1991]. My father made a long business trip: from 1932 till 1936 he worked in Azov and Black Sea territory. We visited him in Ghelendjzhik.
He graduated from a faculty for students-workers and the Oriental College named after Enukidze, Persian department, in 1932. As he was a Jew, they didn’t send him to Persia for work [authorities did not trust Jews to work abroad]. But he was a highly educated person and they had to place him in a job somewhere.
My father was a member of the Communist Party [the All-Russia Communist Party of Bolsheviks]. He joined the Party when he arrived in Leningrad.
My parents got married already in Leningrad. They simply went to a civilian registry office and registered their marriage.
When my mum finished the seven-year school, she decided to leave for Leningrad to continue her studies together with my father. Mother decided to study at special courses, where she skilled in the profession of chemist/laboratory assistant, an analyst.
When my father arrived in Krichev to continue his studies at the seven-year school, he stayed with an old friend of his father. This old friend was Haim Tsypkin, a tradesman. In the house of the Tsypkins my father met their daughter Pessya. Haim and Pessya fell in love with each other.
My parents were introduced to each other by their parents. My grandfather and grandmother from Komarovka and those from Krichev were acquainted with each other long before the wedding of my parents.
He was well-informed about historical events; he had many books on history of the 19th century. He had books in English and in Persian languages – he could read English and Persian – but no Jewish ones.
Up to the 4th class he studied at the rural school, and then he finished a seven-year school in Krichev. I guess that he never studied at a Jewish school, because there was no Jewish school in Komarovka.