Grandpa and Grandma Perlstein were very religious and celebrated all Jewish holidays. Grandpa recounted the Torah and the Jewish history to his children and grandchildren.
- 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 38851 - 38880 of 50826 results
Blyuma Perlstein
![](/themes/custom/centro/flags/ru.svg)
Grandpa wore a beard and Grandma covered her hair with a kerchief.
According to my brother Aron, Grandpa Chaim was very pious and literate and he spoke Yiddish and Russian.
My brother Aron loved Grandpa very much. He visited him often when he traveled home via Vitebsk, talked to him about Jewish history.
Grandpa was in charge of that ferriage across the Northern Dvina, ten kilometers from Vitebsk.
, Belarus
It was very well seen when the Jewish organization ‘Yeva’ started to work in 1993 in Leningrad. ‘Yeva’ [Eve] is a name of a Jewish woman, in honor of who our organization was called. I don’t know the details. They began to supply us with various parcels and helped in other ways. This organization has its own club, adult’s and children’s choir. Two of my granddaughters attend the children’s choir. I keep contact with this organization through my daughter Raya and her children. I cannot walk anymore, so my daughter Raya became a volunteer in this organization instead of me. My grandchildren and Raya celebrate all Jewish holidays in ‘Yeva’ and understand very well that they are Jews. Unfortunately, I cannot visit the place anymore.
My daughters didn’t have a Jewish upbringing. Their grandma, my mother Chasya-Ita, had died before they were born, and I, being a member of the [Communist] Party, deviated from the Jewry. However, they do identify themselves as Jews and support the Jews.
When Jews got permission to leave for Israel, my elder brother’s daughter’s family, the family of my niece – her husband, her children and herself – left Leningrad. Aron’s daughter, my niece, and her family left Moscow. Before her departure her son had left for Israel. I keep in touch with them, we correspond and even meet sometimes, they come to visit us. I’ve never been to Israel, they wanted me to come very much, but I didn’t take the risk of going, especially in the state I am in now.
I worked as a teacher of physics until I retired. There were no conflicts at work connected with my Jewish identity. I had a rather quiet job and I was respected.
When my children grew up, I started to look for a job, since my institute couldn’t give me employment. My job involved business-trips; I didn’t know what to do with my children. Someone suggested that I work as a teacher of physics, which I did. I attended the teachers’ retraining courses and started work at a workers’ school. Thus I was able to work and raise my kids. They went to school already at that time, it was 1954.
I worked as a teacher of physics until I retired.
I worked as a teacher of physics until I retired.
I never wanted to immigrate to Israel. All my relatives, as well as the graves of those who died, are in Leningrad, so I didn’t want to leave. A lot of my friends left, but it happened later. Two of my nieces left with their families and live in Israel now.
Stalin took revenge on Jews for their perceived lack of patriotism: [The State of] Israel was being established at that time and Jews supported the idea very much. A lot of Jews were subject to repressions. KBG [16] officials visited various enterprises, even factories and plants, hunting Zionists, especially among the management and engineers.
I didn’t really face anti-Semitism in my life. I began to feel it only after the war [1948-1953] [14]. We all knew that Jews were refused jobs and those who returned from evacuation weren’t registered at their previous place of residence [15]. It was all owing to Stalin’s personal anti-Semitic feeling, as well as owing to the increase of anti-Semitism in the party machinery. Jews were fired from cultural and educational institutions on various grounds and Jewish literature editions and printing houses were shut down. Stalin took revenge on Jews for their perceived lack of patriotism: [The State of] Israel was being established at that time and Jews supported the idea very much. A lot of Jews were subject to repressions. KBG [16] officials visited various enterprises, even factories and plants, hunting Zionists, especially among the management and engineers.
I was demobilized on the grounds of pregnancy. I served together with my husband in the same unit. I served in the attached battalion for the navy engineering department and he served in the administration of that department. When our Research Institute, where I worked, got evacuated to the Urals, I, having lost my elder daughter, didn’t want to follow them and joined the army voluntarily. I hoped that my daughter would be found, but it was in vain. When our forces liberated Belarus from the Germans, we received the official notification about the death of my daughter and my sister’s family.
We worked at the Polytechnic Institute during the war, from 1941 to 1945. We served in a hospital under our patronage in besieged Leningrad [13]. I was the secretary of a Young Communist League cell. I joined the army at the end of the blockade and served between July 1942 and February 1945 in a construction battalion of the Baltic Naval Depot in the position of a platoon leader commander assistant. I also worked as a library manager and by the end of the war I held the rank of headquarters clerks’ master sergeant.
, Russia
Between 1939 and 1942 I worked as an engineer at the institute.
I have a picture of graves of executed men and women in Yanovichi. They were two separate pits. Our fellow countrymen, who live in Moscow, Vitebsk and Leningrad, collected funds, got together, found the place of their burial and managed to arrange a small cemetery there. Our fellow countrymen visited these graves annually. However, I don’t know who visits them now. But the cemetery is safe and we were told that the borough council takes care of it.
I have a note here, a piece of newspaper, which is a notification about the death of my daughter and my sister’s family. It is just a scrap of paper, but it states clearly that the Yanovichi borough council received a letter from me and sent a reply to it: ‘Your relatives, Raisa Sigalevich, her husband Sigalevich, their younger son, your daughter Ada and Ada’s grandmother, your husband’s mother, Chaya-Isya, were executed by the Fascists on 10th September 1941. Lev Sigalevich is alive, he is a Red Army officer.’ He is the only relative of my husband who survived. I keep this note. I received this letter, a reply to my inquiry, from the Yanovichi borough council chairman. The letter is written in legible handwriting. They even wrote: ‘We grieve about the death of your family.’ The letter was written on a piece of newspaper and sealed up in the form of a soldier’s triangle. Looks like they didn’t even have a clean piece of paper, because this happened right after the liberation of Yanovichi from the Germans.
I have a note here, a piece of newspaper, which is a notification about the death of my daughter and my sister’s family. It is just a scrap of paper, but it states clearly that the Yanovichi borough council received a letter from me and sent a reply to it: ‘Your relatives, Raisa Sigalevich, her husband Sigalevich, their younger son, your daughter Ada and Ada’s grandmother, your husband’s mother, Chaya-Isya, were executed by the Fascists on 10th September 1941. Lev Sigalevich is alive, he is a Red Army officer.’ He is the only relative of my husband who survived. I keep this note. I received this letter, a reply to my inquiry, from the Yanovichi borough council chairman. The letter is written in legible handwriting. They even wrote: ‘We grieve about the death of your family.’ The letter was written on a piece of newspaper and sealed up in the form of a soldier’s triangle. Looks like they didn’t even have a clean piece of paper, because this happened right after the liberation of Yanovichi from the Germans.
About my husband’s parents I can say that they were Orthodox Jews, like my parents.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
We weren’t aware of the oncoming war and sent our daughter to my sister Rasya’s place in Yanovichi for the summer in 1941. When the war broke out, Adel stayed with Rasya until the fall of 1941. We weren’t able to get her out because of the military situation in the country. She perished in 1941 together with Rasya’s family and her grandmother, my husband’s mother.
Yuriy worked at the civilian navy engineering department between 1936 and 1941. Later he became a soldier and obtained the rank of commissary officer.
Yuriy worked at the civilian navy engineering department between 1936 and 1941.
I knew my husband, Yuriy Ilyich Khaitlin, since my childhood, since my first years at school. He also lived in Yanovichi and we went to one and the same school but to different classes. My husband was born in 1912. He was a Jew by nationality [11]. He knew Russian and Yiddish. After we finished school we left for different places: he went to Moscow and I went to Kharkov, later to Leningrad. We kept in touch though. Yuriy graduated from the economic faculty of the Moscow Financial and Economic Institute. Yuriy worked at the navy engineering department in the position of a chief accountant. In 1936 we got married. We just registered our marriage, there was no big wedding and Jewish chuppah, it was impossible in those times [12]. In 1937 our daughter Adel was born.
I knew my husband, Yuriy Ilyich Khaitlin, since my childhood, since my first years at school. He also lived in Yanovichi and we went to one and the same school but to different classes.
I studied for one year in Kharkov at a special technical school. Later I left for Leningrad with my mom. My elder brother Lev lived there at that time. I went to a nine-year Soviet school between 1928 and 1931. There was a contract signed with our class by the Aluminum-Magnesium Institute, so after finishing school we all came to work at that Institute. In 1935 several of my schoolmates entered the correspondence department of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. Being a third-year student I transferred to the full-time study department of this institute. We were accepted for the position of a laboratory assistant [medical field of activities] and developed our careers very quickly. I worked as a senior lab assistant in that institute.
After finishing school all children were members of the Young Communist League [10] and pioneers, so Mom remained alone with her faith, since we didn’t approve of her beliefs anymore. But she continued to observe all holidays.
Mom remained pious, she prayed all the time and never ate any non-kosher food. When she had to go to the synagogue during holidays, I accompanied her if possible and carried her prayer-books. Mother strictly observed all Jewish holidays, kept kosher, though she cooked everything for us. She stopped eating the day before Yom Kippur, spent all day at the synagogue and continued eating only after the first star appeared in the sky. She definitely believed in God and was sure about her way of living. All Jewish holidays were celebrated in our family while Father was alive.
We were adjudged a pension in Kharkov for losing our family provider. It was 60 rubles per month, 30 rubles for me and 30 rubles for my mom. It was a decent amount in those years, but later this amount was never increased and it turned into a very small payment. My brothers supported me and my mother with money.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
When I was a schoolgirl, I remained alone with my mother and lived together with her until I finished school in 1926. After I finished school we left for Kharkov where at that time a trial regarding the pension for my father’s death took place. It was my first trip in a train.
, Ukraine
In 1923 Father shut down his store in Yanovichi and following my brother Yuda’s advice, who served in Kharkov, joined him there. He found a job in the Hunters and Fishermen Union at the gunpowder warehouse. In the course of unloading, one of the loaders lit a cigarette, an explosion occurred and Father died in the accident. It happened in 1923.
Later, when at school I became a pioneer, I still believed in God.