When Jewish organizations, such as Hesed, were established in Chernovtsy they took their place in the life of our family. My husband and I receive food packages. We have such a miserable pension, so that's a great support. I attend a number of clubs at Hesed. My son and I attend a course of Hebrew. Every week I attend a club for older people. I made new friends at Hesed. I go to the club for 'Students of the Torah' and attend the literature club on Wednesday. My husband and I often spend Sabbath and holidays with our friends at Hesed. Our friends often come to see us, we listen to music and have tea. We also discuss world news and books.
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Major events (political and historical)
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Holocaust
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Displaying 13801 - 13830 of 50826 results
elka roizman
I've had a critical mind since my childhood. I could never just take things the way they were. I always needed an explanation. Pesach was celebrated in April when it was still cold. Every person had to drink four glasses of red wine, and one glass was put on the table and nobody was supposed to drink from it. My mother opened the door singing, 'Borech habaa, borech habaa'. I studied Hebrew at cheder and knew that it meant, 'Welcome, welcome. Once I asked my mother to close the door because I got cold. I asked her whom she was waiting for anyways, and she explained that it was Elijah, the Prophet and that the spare glass of wine was meant for him. I didn't ask my mother any more questions that time, but the following year, when she opened the door and sang 'Borech habaa' and my father said a prayer, I looked very closely at that spare glass. Nobody came in to drink from it! When my mother closed the door I declared that she was probably telling me a lie. She told me that Elijah, the Prophet wasn't a man but a spirit and that he had wings and was invisible. He didn't have time to sit down at the table. He flew in to give his blessings and flew out again. It was a plausible explanation, and I believed it.
On Purim my mother made hamantashen. She also made poppy seed cookies that were boiled in honey and honey cookies with raisins and nuts. The tradition on Purim was to take treats [shelakhmones] to neighbors. Some poor person was hired to take them to other people. He got paid for doing this and also received treats for his family. A tray, covered with a white napkin, was filled with pieces of honey cakes, poppy seed cookies, hamantashen, walnuts, apples, oranges and a handful of raisins. Another napkin was put on top of it. My mother used to send this tray to my grandparents first because they were the senior members of the family, and to other relatives, friends and neighbors afterwards. They sent their treats to us in return. On Shavuot we only used to eat dairy products after we returned from the synagogue. My mother made cottage cheese puddings, macaroni soup with milk, cheesecakes and dumplings with cottage cheese.
I got very fond of reading at an early age. My parents wanted me to get a good education. Education was expensive, and I remember one evening when my parents discussed how much money they would be able to save. One year at grammar school cost 10,000 or 20,000 lei - I can't remember exactly. They decided that they couldn't afford it, and sent me to a Romanian secondary school in the village. Education there was free. The director of this school was my father's friend and he admitted me one year before I reached the standard school age. I was a very industrious pupil. I never forgot how eager my parents were to give me an education. I appreciated the opportunity to go to a school free of charge. My brother went to cheder at that time. He was too young to go to school.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
There was a poor Ukrainian family that didn't live very far from the field. When my brother and I were alone in the field they kept shouting, 'Zhydeniata are pups and zhydovka is a bitch!'. [Editor's note: This was a common arhyme in Ukrainian.] There were no anti-Semitic demonstrations in the village at that time, and we were very disturbed about this. We were afraid to go to the field alone. When we were with our parents those children didn't dare to say or do anything of this kind.
In 1936 fascist organizations appeared in Romania. The two biggest ones were the Iron Guard 4 movement and the Cuzists 5. They openly propagated anti-Semitism and threatened that they would put an end to Jews when they came to power.
German troops arrived in Romania in 1939. The USSR demanded Moldavia and Bessarabia threatening to start a war otherwise. In June 1940 our area became Soviet territory. All richer people were immediately arrested and imprisoned or sent into exile to Siberia. Our Moldavian neighbor was very rich. His younger daughter was the same age as I, and we were friends. He was arrested and tortured to death at the interrogations. We weren't rich and therefore didn't have any problems with the Soviet authorities.
Our school became a Russian school. We had a young Russian teacher who didn't know any Romanian. She tried to talk with us, but we couldn't understand what she was trying to say. A year passed and then the war began.
Our school became a Russian school. We had a young Russian teacher who didn't know any Romanian. She tried to talk with us, but we couldn't understand what she was trying to say. A year passed and then the war began.
Once we were woken up by the roar of explosions, and on 22nd June 1941 I saw a wounded soldier with his head in bandages.
After two weeks the Soviet army began to retreat, and German and Romanian units arrived in town. The German units moved on and left an area of about 400 kilometers east of the Bug River under Romanian supervision. Pogroms began in Yedintsy. Romanians began to shoot at young Jews in the streets. I remember how my teacher came to us and asked us to hide him because he had been shot at. A gendarme came after him, took him out and shot him. Many men were shot on that day. In the afternoon the Jewish population was chased out of their houses. We were taken to the seminary building. Children, old people and women were kept there until late in the evening. Then they announced that those who wished to go home could do so. The people who left were shot when they were on their way home. On the following day they told all men to step aside. My brother begged them to leave our father alone. My little brother stood in front of them telling them to shoot him instead of his father. He was crying in despair. My father was left alone.
We came to Transnistria where we were distributed to various ghettos. We were to go to the ghetto in Ternovka village, close to Bershad, in November 1941. There were huts with no windows there - they used to serve as sheds for the dairy farm. There were haystacks near the farm, and we closed window openings with hay and also slept on hay. Lice were eating us alive and our bodies were horribly sore. Later we found an abandoned sauna building and settled down there with another family. We slept on ground floors. My mother told me later that out of 500 families that were in this ghetto in the beginning only about 50 survived.
The partisans lived in the forest and came to the village late at night. Our employer cooked for them and they came at night to pick up the food. They spoke Russian, so we couldn't understand them. I remember that the woman's husband's name was Todoska. The partisans had a meal and left early in the morning. Once partisans attacked the ghetto and killed one Romanian guard and two policemen. After that a German unit came to the village to fight against the partisans. They captured people in the streets. Inmates of the ghetto were among the captives. They were shot in the vicinity of the village. Once the Germans noticed some people in a haystack and rolled over it with a tank. When the bodies were brought to the ghetto it was impossible to look at them. The fascists did terrible things.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
We didn't observe any Jewish traditions or celebrate holidays in the ghetto. Only a few older Jews got together for a prayer, but there were no younger Jews among them. At that time God forgot about us, and we forgot about God.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
In March 1944 we were liberated by the Soviet army. I remember the first Soviet tank entering the village. The Romanians had left a day before. We were so happy and couldn't stop crying and kissing the Soviet soldiers that got out of the tank. I remember a young soldier who gave my brother and me a piece of bread. We went back home, but what we saw in the village when we returned was even more horrific than what we had faced in the ghetto.
An acquaintance of ours told us that there was a Cuzist organization in our village. Members of this organization were our acquaintances, and they had their knives ready to slaughter Jews when the Germans arrived in the village. There was a knife for each Jew and there was a label on each knife with the name of the future victim. Two Jews, Gedale, (hewho lived on the outskirts,) and Sabina who lived in the center of the village, left the village first but returned later. The villagers took them to the Prut river and put them into a boat. Villagers were standing on both banks of the river and whenever the boat approached a bank they were throwing stones until the boat turned over and the man and woman drowned. They begged for help, but nobody came to their rescue. None of those who had been their neighbors, went to church and considered themselves decent parishioners came to help. They forgot one of the ten commandments: 'Do not kill' ['Though Shalt Not Kill']. It was all their own doing because they weren't forced by the Germans or Romanians to do this. Since that time I've had a critical attitude towards religion and people who make a show out of their beliefs. I can firmly state that there was anti-Semitism before and after the war, and it will never vanish. One can never know what's on the mind of a person calling himself your friend.
Our house had been completely plundered. There were no construction materials, doors, windows or even roof sheets left. When my mother entered the house she saw her prayer book on the floor covered with bricks and broken glass. I still have this book. There were no clothes or any of our other belongings left. My mother saw our possessions in our neighbors' houses, but only one family returned our things. My mother was told that her friend Olga was the first among the robbers when the German and Romanian units came to the village. Apparently she said that she would chop my mother like a cabbage if she saw her. I still don't understand why. My mother used to sew for her for free, and they looked after each other's children when one of them needed to go out. Of course, I'm not saying that all people plundered houses or threw stones onto that couple in the boat.
Almost the entire Jewish population of Yedintsy had perished, and there were many vacant houses. We found a small house in the center. There was a kitchen close to the house where my mother grew vegetables. My father got a job as a sheepskin supplier with a supply company. My mother earned some money by sewing. Some time after the war we began to celebrate Sabbath and Jewish holidays and went to the synagogue on holidays.
We went to a Russian secondary school even though we didn't know Russian. There was a Russian and a Moldavian school in Yedintsy. Most of the Jewish children went to the Russian school because Russian was the state language. My classmates were children of militaries from the frontier military unit based in Yedintsy. We didn't know one single Russian letter or word, and our teachers didn't know Moldavian. We didn't understand most of what they told us, but we tried hard and slowly learned Russian. It took me about a year to improve my Russian.
Aunt Rukhl lived nearby. She also sewed for a living. Jews constituted more than half of the population of Chernovtsy before the war, and there were many Jews left after the war. The Jewish community was strong. There was a synagogue, and my aunts and I went there on Saturdays and holidays. Aunt Riva couldn't afford to observe Sabbath at home because she had to earn money to support her family, but she celebrated Jewish holidays. She always tried to make traditional Jewish food even though she was very poor. She always had matzah for Pesach. She cooked chicken and gefilte fish even if that meant that we had to eat bread and have tea without sugar on weekdays. We fasted at before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. My friends and acquaintances attended the synagogue regardless of their age.
In 1948 life began to change in Chernovtsy. The Jewish school and Jewish theater were closed and Jewish (writers, actors, musicians, diplomats and scientists) were persecuted. They were declared to be cosmopolitans 6. They were fired and sent into exile and many of them were physically tortured. It was hidden fascism of the Soviet regime, but we only realized that much later.
I got a job as a receptionist at a polyclinic and studied in the evening. I was the youngest student at this evening school; the oldest one was 55. It was a special two-year higher secondary school for people who worked but wished to complete their secondary education and get a certificate.
I spent my summer vacations with my parents in Yedintsy.
Ruvin Gitman
Therefore, the Twentieth Party Congress [12] where Khruschev [13] spoke about the denunciation of the cult of Stalin wasn't a shock for me. I believed that everything they said at the Congress was true, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to what really happened in the country during Stalin's regimen.
In 1957 my wife and I also decided to move to Chernovtsy. We rented an apartment for some time. I went to work as a mechanic at the Trembita Garment Factory. In a short while, I received an apartment. I understood that I had to get some professional education. In 1957 I entered the Faculty of Sewing Industry at the Kiev University of Light Industry. I studied there by correspondence. In 1963 I obtained the diploma of production engineer of the sewing industry. I worked at the Trembita Factory for 32 years until I retired.
My mother continued to observe all Jewish traditions after we moved to Chernovtsy. She celebrated the Sabbath and Jewish holidays and went to synagogue. There was one synagogue in Chernovtsy at that time. It is still there and is the only one in town. My brother and I visited our mother with our families on holidays, but we didn't celebrate Jewish holidays in our families. If the authorities had found out, our careers would have been over. But anyway, we continued to fast on Yom Kippur. We were communists and couldn't follow the Jewish traditions. We celebrated Soviet holidays and got together with our friends and colleagues. All Soviet holidays were days off and we were glad to relax and meet friends.
In the 1970s many Jews were moving to Israel. I sympathized with them. My brother Iosif and his family and my sister Masia with her husband and children also left. My mother died in 1970. I didn't want to leave because. I believed that my motherland was here, however difficult life in Ukraine could be. My wife agreed with me.
Jewish life in Ukraine has livened up recently. Jewish public organizations have opened in Chernovtsy. Hesed provides assistance with food packages, medications, good medical care and so on. We also receive Jewish newspapers and magazines. I always read them with interest. There is a big library in Hesed. We also celebrate the Sabbath and all Jewish holidays there. At Purim there was a Purimshpil at the theater in Chernovtsy. My wife and I observe Jewish traditions. We fast on Yom Kippur. We celebrate Pesach, Rosh Hashanah and other holidays. I also take an active part in the activities of the Ghetto Inmates Association and the Association of Veterans of the Great Patriotic War [14]. We put in order an abandoned Jewish cemetery in Chernovtsy. We search for the locations of mass shootings and the burial of Jews during the war to install monuments in these locations. The latest monument was inaugurated on Ukrainian Independence Day in the village of Mileyevo near Chernovtsy on 24th August 2002. Over 100 Jewish inhabitants of Mileyevo were killed there. We need to remember those who perished to keep further generations informed about the horrors of war. Let people remember and preserve peace on Earth.
I remember Stalin's death in March 1953. It was a blow for most of the people I knew, but it was a relief for me. I remembered the collectivization and the arrests of the 1930s [during the so-called Great Terror]. I knew that Stalin was aware of these.
My great-grandfather was a farmer. So, my father's ancestors came from Koryshkov and were farmers.
In 1904-1905, during the Russian-Japanese war my grandfather served in the cavalry. Religious beliefs were highly respected in the Russian [tsarist] army. I believe that my grandfather had every opportunity to observe his religious traditions.
Koryshkov was a large village of about 1,000 houses, but there were only 12 Jewish families living there. There was no synagogue in Koryshkov.