Neither Daddy, nor Mom ever offended anybody. If someone needed help – it was a foregone conclusion that it would be given. And I think that, probably, their example and the way they brought me up have left a mark on my life, too, because I left my professional job and started to work with "Hesed", where at first I was a visiting nurse and now I am the curator of the home-nursing service. The awareness that I help elderly people brings me satisfaction. I feel better doing it. It might seem strange to many people, but I realize that this is my calling, my mission.
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Displaying 21031 - 21060 of 50826 results
Sophia Noginskaya
In his childhood Daddy studied in a Jewish school, so he can write Hebrew. After the war and while he was still able to walk – that is, until the 1990s - he regularly attended synagogue, where he had his own seat. Now, because of his age, he can neither pray, nor go to the synagogue. In earlier years, he read the Talmud and prayed in the synagogue. He didn’t pray at home – he just didn’t have time for that – he had all day long at work, and then, the life of a communal apartment didn’t provide opportunities for a dialogue with God. Apart from the Talmud we have both talles and tefilin - the thing that is wound on one’s hand during prayer -- at home, In general, we still have all father’s articles of religious use.
During the entire 56 years that father worked at the factory, there was not a single day that he was even 5 minutes late. He always got up at 6 in the morning. His domestic duties included putting up a kettle for tea and making sandwiches for Mom. They would have their tea and leave for work. Dad walked very fast in spite of his bad leg, and Mom constantly ran behind him along Shkipersky lane and could not catch up with him. Their colleagues asked all the time: “Ilya Abramovich, did you have a quarrel with Manya Borisovna? Why is she running behind you?” They worked in different shops. Mom worked 26 years at that factory.
At Passover my parents didn’t eat any bread except for matzot. They tried to accustom their children to this tradition as well, but, unfortunately, children are sinful. Dad still eats only matzot on Passover.
When my mother was alive, she and Dad rather frequently spoke Yiddish between themselves so that we children wouldn’t understand. But with time we kids began to understand it, too. We could not speak Yiddish, but we followed.
For some reason, I also remember Mom always cooking chicken broth and kneidlakh (dumplings).
Then Aunt Ida, Aunt Fanya and my Mom. All of them are buried in one place, the four of them. According to Jewish custom cremation is not allowed, but because of circumstances we had to do it. We wanted all of them to be in one place. Each year in the autumn my husband takes Dad to the cemetery - we keep our promise to him. Daddy recites kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, himself, and last year, when he recited kaddish over the grave of my Mom and her sisters, some Jews came up and asked, if he could also recite kaddish over the neighboring graves. Daddy, naturally, could not refuse … In spite of the fact that because of his age his memory is quite poor, he still remembers the kaddish.
I went to all Pioneer and other recreation camps when in kindergarten and school, because, unfortunately, I did not have grandparents and there was nobody else to look after me. At seven I started school, and I completed 10 grades in a secondary school.
When I was trying to enter the Leningrad Construction Institute, I passed all my examinations and received an average admissions mark. But when they published the lists of admitted students, my name was not there. At that time Uncle Evsei, the one who had rescued Mom during the siege of Leningrad, was on the faculty of the Institute in the "Water supplies and water drainage" department. He was a senior lecturer. Mom called him up and asked, "Why isn’t Sophia in the lists of admitted students? The acceptance mark was 18, she scored 19.5, but she is not on the list. Is it because we are Jewish?" Uncle Evsei was a communist, and he was convicted that there was no anti-Semitism in our country. He told Mom, "Manechka, it is impossible. There is nothing of the kind in our institute!" But still, he went to the institute to see the dean, and heard, "Evsei Vladimirovich, why didn’t you tell us that she was your grandniece?" - "And why was I supposed to tell you?" he replied. The next day my name was inserted with a ballpoint pen in the general admissions list.
I got married in 1983.
Since the very first day, when my daughter started to understand things, I tried to convince her that “Jew” was not a curse, but just a nationality. The essence of a person, his character - all this depends on the person himself, rather than on his nationality. When Galya came home from school crying that her classmates called her Jewish – they had looked in the class journal and read that she was the only Jew among them - I told her: "Galya, what makes you upset? What evil is there in being Jewish? Look at your grandfather, look at your grandmother, look at all our relatives. We killed nobody. We stole nothing. Everything that belongs to our relatives – any of them - was earned by their own hands and heads, by hard work. So you should be proud that you are Jewish, and not otherwise." I think that in due course she understood this.
My husband graduated from a technical school and became an expert in designing aircraft devices. Then he served in the army from 1975 to 1977 in internal troops and later, in 193 he entered the Leningrad Construction Institute, and graduated with a degree in architecture. Now he works as the chief architect for a private firm.
My husband’s family was never religious; his parents were Jewish, but atheists, estranged from religious ideas and customs.
Ilya’s first wife is a well-known composer, Zlata Razdolina. She emigrated to Israel 13 years ago. When she was getting permission for her departure, she wanted Ilya to relinquish parental rights to their children, but he said he wouldn’t do it. The children were taken to Finland, and from there they moved to Israel.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I was the first of us to visit Israel. Ilya’s parents were still living there. I went under the "Sarel" program – it provides an introduction to the country and help to the Israeli army. I met my husband’s daughter Olya and talked to his mother-in-law. After that, Ilya went for a visit. Everything went absolutely smoothly as well.
Until he was 10, Daddy lived with his parents in Lyubavichi. According to his stories, they had their own house, consisting of two or three rooms. Daddy, unfortunately, can not remember what his father’s occupation was. His mother, Sarra Movshevna, did not work outside the home - she brought up her children. The family was religious; everyone spoke Yiddish. They surely lived in a religious way - prayed, observed Sabbath and all Jewish holidays.
In 1938 Daddy went to work in Vasiliesky Island, at a defense industry factory. It was a secret enterprise and he worked there uninterruptedly until he retired in 1994 -- 56 years! He worked as a mechanic, a shop foreman, and also in the supplies department.
It was from that factory that he was called up into the army, and after the war he returned to the same plant. Daddy fought on the Leningrad front. He is an invalid of the Great Patriotic War. He was wounded twice: the first time in his chest – a penetrating wound, and the second time in his leg. He also had t have three fingers amputated.
Three of my father’s brothers -- Leib [1906-1943], Zalman [1919-1943] and Lev [1925-1943] – died in Leningrad of starvation, during the siege, as did my grandmother Sarra Movshevna [1877-1943].
Daddy had three sisters. Feiga [Fanya] and Ida lived and worked in Leningrad all through the siege. They were awarded medals "For labor valor" and "For the defense of Leningrad ".
Aunt Galya was a medical specialist, and she served in the Army throughout the Great Patriotic War. She returned home only in 1949, because, as a military doctor, she continued to serve in the Far East, somewhere in China or Japan. Aunt Galya was awarded the order of Red Star and medals "For the defense of Moscow", and "For the capture of Koenigsberg". I also kept these medals and now have presented them to "Hesed".
Haya-Lea Detinko
Grandfather was tall and handsome and wore a large beard with payes [sidelocks]. He was very religious, always wore a skullcap, and regularly attended synagogue. My grandparents spoke Yiddish with each other and my mother spoke Yiddish as well.
My grandmother wore a wig at all times in accordance with traditional customs and over that she wore a black open-work transparent scarf. They celebrated all Jewish holidays. At the beginning of Sabbath they always lit candles and at the end of Sabbath they celebrated the moite-Shabos [End of Sabbath in Yiddish] or havdalah [in Hebrew]. They were very kind and liked to help people, especially the poor who came to our house for a handout.
On the Sabbath, Grandma and Grandpa welcomed these poor people as well as all children and friends who came to visit into the house and fed them cholent. Since cooking was prohibited on the Sabbath, Grandma prepared the food and left it in the Russian stove on Friday evening, so that when she took it out on the Sabbath, the meal was still hot. Choelnt is a very tasty Jewish meal: special potatoes stewed with meat and which was claret in colour. We had all other dishes too, including challah.
On the Sabbath, Grandma and Grandpa welcomed these poor people as well as all children and friends who came to visit into the house and fed them cholent. Since cooking was prohibited on the Sabbath, Grandma prepared the food and left it in the Russian stove on Friday evening, so that when she took it out on the Sabbath, the meal was still hot. Choelnt is a very tasty Jewish meal: special potatoes stewed with meat and which was claret in colour. We had all other dishes too, including challah.
My mother, Pesya-Mindlya Pinkhas-Leibovna Kats, was born in 1897 in the Rovno district. She received no education and was illiterate. She was a housewife and a mother and raised four children: Hava [1916-1960], Aron-Moisha [1919], Haya-Lea (myself) [1920], and Bella [1925-1941].
My mother, Pesya-Mindlya Pinkhas-Leibovna Kats, was born in 1897 in the Rovno district. She received no education and was illiterate. She was a housewife and a mother and raised four children: Hava [1916-1960], Aron-Moisha [1919], Haya-Lea (myself) [1920], and Bella [1925-1941].
She was very religious and imparted all the Jewish traditions to us.
She was very religious and imparted all the Jewish traditions to us.
My mother was executed in Rovno in 1941 at the age of 44. My mother had two sisters, Malka and Khana, also housewives who married and had children. All of them perished in the Rovno ghetto in 1941.
I remember my father telling me that his sister, Miriam Chernizer, had the same name as my mother, Miriam Kats, but I can’t remember anything else about her.
Miriam was shot in Rovno in 1941.
Miriam was shot in Rovno in 1941.
My father also had a brother named Shaya, who was a teacher in Rovno until 1941. He lived in the Jewish quarter in Rovno near the synagogue in Shkolnaya Street. Shaya had many children and his family was quite poor.
father often helped them out. Shaya and his family were all murdered by the Germans.
father often helped them out. Shaya and his family were all murdered by the Germans.
As a child my father received a Jewish education in a cheder and in 1909 he finished his education in a yeshiva in Orokhov. My father was ordained a rabbi [smikhot] but he thought that he wouldn’t be able to support his family that way, so he became a stockbroker instead. However, he was a member of the managing board of the synagogue in Stoloner.
My father did not want to be drafted into the army so he chopped off two toes on his foot on purpose and was exempted. My father was executed in Rovno in 1941 at the age of 46.