At the technical school I felt no anti-Semitism, despite the fact that we were ‘one and a half Jewesses’ – I was half Jewish and Fira Trostinetskaya was a pure Jewess.
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Displaying 26581 - 26610 of 50826 results
Ninel Kunina
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In 1950 I successfully graduated from the technical school and right away passed the exams for a financial economics institute, the department of instruction by correspondence, as according to the law I had to work three years in a certain place, where the technical school sent me after graduation. I was afraid of this assignment, because leaving my mom was frightful for me and something I was not used to. I was sent to work in the town Anapa in Krasnodar region. I was an inspector of state revenues in the finance department of some town district. [She worked and studied at the same time in order to earn her living]. I worked there for a year; we raised taxes from the state enterprises.
I was a second-year student in the institute, and in spite of the fact that I had a diploma of a financier after the technical school, I was refused employment everywhere. It was 1951, the very height of anti-Semitism. And only in February of 1952, by knowing the right people, by way of several people I could meet the deputy director of the plant ‘Svetlana’ Petrov. During the blockade of Leningrad between 1941 and 1944 he was a simple engineer, and one cook of this plant, a Jewess, fed the weak and hungry people, among which was this engineer. He turned out to be talented and became the deputy director of the plant. And when this cook, a pensioner as well, addressed him with the request to give a job to some Jew, he did not refuse her. In such a way I, a specialist with an incomplete university education, began to work at the plant as a tester of measurement instrumentation; it was merely a worker’s position instead of a fiancier’s position.
My female chief was an anti-Semite and tried to get rid of me; I was advised to address the chief of the special design office, where the planning department was, led by a Jew. He took me on in the position of a technician, though I was the only person with special economic education. And when at the end of 1952 my dad was arrested, I stayed at work in the evening and shared my trouble with him. His name was Naum Efimovich Ostrovsky. He ordered me to tell the ‘First Department.’ [‘First Department’ or ‘Special Secret Department’ employees had access to state secrets of the defense and other industries, they couldn’t go abroad for ten and more years, on the other hand their salary was a bit higher than that of ordinary employees.] Our plant belonged to the electronic industry, and everything was classified as secret. I refused, then my chief said, ‘You did not tell me anything, and I don’t know anything.
The Doctors’ Plot [23] in the USSR affected us marginally. My paternal relative, a doctor/gynecologist, Mikhail Kogan, was arrested, his family lived on the poor salary of his wife. Relatives feared to communicate with them.
In March 1953 Stalin died. All of our acquaintances were sad about Stalin’s death. And my chief Ostrovsky suffered in the following way: in the evenings he taught political economy at the institute, and at this time the textbook of political economy was first published, and in the circle of his colleagues at the plant he said, ‘It’s a pity, that this textbook was not checked by Stalin.’ One of the colleagues reported to the Party Committee, that Ostrovsky ‘demoralizes the Party’ by saying that ‘even a textbook cannot be corrected by anybody except Stalin.. Ostrovsky was expelled from the Party, discharged from his work, and he died at the age of 49.
Volodya completed the institute and upon his return from evacuation entered the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute, the Physics and Mathematics Department, became a Physics teacher first at school, and then at the radio-polytechnic school.
In general I rarely went to the synagogue, as it wasn’t safe to go there [24]. So we often got together at the home of someone of our friends. There we danced a lot and it was great fun.
After the war in Israel in 1967 [25] we had a proverb: ‘Don’t beat kikes, but beat in a kikish style.’ We never traveled to Israel but a lot of people from the plant departed [emigrated for permanent residence]. My friends left. I loved them, I took an interest in their fate, but I immediately told them not to write to me, as my son was studying at the military college and I was still working [26]. I was given the telephone number of elderly people who were in contact with them, who corresponded with them, and I got to know about their life from these people. [The situation in the Soviet Union was such, that if you had friends or even more so ‘relatives abroad,’ you would be considered a real spy, recruited by a foreign secret service, and you would be immediately dismissed from work, or they wouldn’t admit you to university and in every possible way the authorities would put obstacles in your way to a successful life. All people kept secret the existence of friends, who had left for foreign countries.
When Soviet troops were in Hungary [27], there was a famous journalist from Moscow, comrade Borzenko. And one of our acquaintances from Leningrad, let us call him Sidorov, while understanding that we were misinformed, wrote a letter to Moscow with the following content: ‘If you see that our troops are met well by the residential population, then you are a fool; and if you see that our troops are met with animosity but write the opposite, then you are a scoundrel.’ He addressed it like this: ‘Moscow, to the journalist Borzenko.’ There was no signature. This Sidorov was a prominent scientist, headed a large laboratory, often drank too much, and, certainly, in a state of drunkenness dared to write such things.
Now I am visiting Hesed [30], I am a volunteer and help those, whom I can help with something. I have a lot of friends. Certainly, I have become accustomed here to the Jewish life. I visit the synagogue on major holidays. I go to concerts, which are arranged by the Jewish community. But I remain an irreligious person , I only began to believe in God, and I pray to myself and not in the temple.
Genrikh Len
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During the period of the NEP [3] he became a nepman, a dealer, he had enough money, owned a business and their house was very well furnished, as I was told. The children were taught languages and music.
All that came to an end when the NEP was abolished. Grandfather was sent to a labor camp [4] for ‘reeducation’ because he was a nepman: to fell trees in Perm district. Grandmother formally divorced him, as was customary then, and moved to Leningrad with the children in 1929. Having come back from timber cutting, Grandfather worked at the shoe factory ‘Skorokhod’ as a cutter.
All that came to an end when the NEP was abolished. Grandfather was sent to a labor camp [4] for ‘reeducation’ because he was a nepman: to fell trees in Perm district. Grandmother formally divorced him, as was customary then, and moved to Leningrad with the children in 1929. Having come back from timber cutting, Grandfather worked at the shoe factory ‘Skorokhod’ as a cutter.
Grandfather’s native language was Yiddish; he didn’t speak Russian very well and had a pronounced Jewish accent.
I was subjected to the customary circumcision in 1938. You can understand how Jewish traditions were observed in the family even in those hard years [5].
Grandfather lived in Leningrad until 1942, stayed here during the blockade [7] and died of famine in January 1942. He was buried in the mass grave in the Piskarevsky memorial cemetery.
My grandfather’s brother continued to live in Poland; he was a merchant, quite a prominent businessman. His name was Genokh, the Russian equivalent would be Genrikh. Therefore I was named, as I heard from my relatives, in his honor. Genrikh was a trader, an owner of extensive property. He had a stone house, a big courtyard. He got stuck in Poland during the German occupation, almost got through it, but in 1945 was killed by the Germans or by local inhabitants, presumably in Lodz [today Poland]. During the Holocaust he was a worker, at the disposal of the local commandant. Probably, being rich, he regularly paid off the Germans, for them to leave him alive, and they, as the Russians say, gradually ‘milked’ him, until they picked up all he had, and then they did away with him. No one of his family survived in Poland, and all the property was lost.
My grandmother received her education in a cheder in her native town. She was not particularly religious, and after the death of Grandfather she practically didn’t observe any traditions, but celebrated Jewish holidays. Grandmother didn’t observe the kashrut. Her native language was Yiddish; she spoke poor Russian with a Jewish accent.
During the Holocaust Grandmother lived in Leningrad, in the blockade, and in 1943, after the blockade was lifted she was evacuated to Kuibyshev [formerly Samara], from where she returned to Leningrad in 1946.
Her brother, Khenik Skurnik, also born in Poland, in 1901, went to serve in the voluntary Polish army, participated in the revolutionary movement, was an active member of the Communist party of Poland from 1919 to 1923, carried out revolutionary work among poor and landless peasants of Rodzynya, Narchev, Lukov. He was repeatedly arrested, was many times behind bars, persecuted by the police and was compelled to move to Warsaw in 1921, where he was a member of the Communist organization of the dressmakers’ trade union until 1923. In 1923, due to the risk of another arrest, he was sanctioned by the Central Committee of the Communist party of Poland to escape to the USSR. There he wanted to serve in the Red Army, but they didn’t allow him, as he was not a USSR citizen. He became a citizen and consequently a soldier of the Red Army.
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Before WW2
See text in interview
After obtaining legal education, Khenik served as a people’s judge between 1935 and 1937. He frequently acted as a judge in court cases of Poles and Jews, thanks to his good command of both Polish and Yiddish. At the end of 1937 he was subjected to repressions [9], announced an ‘enemy of the people’ [10] and put in jail for ten years. His wife, having learned about it, hanged herself.
My ancestors on my mother’s side came from Belarus. My maternal grandfather, Abram [Avraam] Mendelevich Sorkin, was born in the small Jewish town of Drutsk, Tolochin district, Belarus, in 1885. Later he moved to the town of Tolochin with his family. He was a handicraftsman by profession. His last job was that of a storekeeper in the artel [14] ‘The Red Fuller.’ He was religious, observed all Jewish traditions. His native language was Yiddish. He couldn’t write Russian. He didn’t serve in the army because of his poor health and as the single son of his mother Perl, my great-grandmother.
My grandmother’s name was Golda Yankelevna Sorkinа, nee Kagan. She was born in Belarus in the small town of Krupki of Tolochin district in 1885. It was a large Jewish family with seven or eight children. She received religious education in this town, finished a cheder, and considered Yiddish her native language. She could read and write Yiddish, also knew Belarusian and, living in Russia afterwards, studied Russian as well, so she could read newspapers and write letters.
Her native Jewish shtetl of Krupki consisted mainly of small wooden houses. They were occupied by poor people, generally referred to as ‘ragged.’ But there were also people who had a cow, a goat, a piece of land, a large garden and a good house and who were engaged in the carrier’s trade. Everything depended on physical abilities and presence of the minimum initial capital. The rabbi was certainly in charge of the religious issues, there was a synagogue, it was obligatory to go to cheder, all Jewish traditions were observed.
Children, in spite of living in a small town, received good education, allowing them to continue their education in the future. They read, wrote, counted well and were smart enough to advance in their further careers. Boys could enter a yeshivah. There was also a school for girls who wanted to continue studying after cheder. Of course I can’t remember now what it was called, but I saw in the documents of one of my aunts, that she had graduated from some Jewish school, where they were taught needlework, languages, and were basically prepared for the family life. They studied, first, their native language, i.e. Yiddish, and secondly, it was obligatory to learn the Belarusian language, plus you could optionally master Polish or Russian. Hebrew was not in great demand then.
Children, in spite of living in a small town, received good education, allowing them to continue their education in the future. They read, wrote, counted well and were smart enough to advance in their further careers. Boys could enter a yeshivah. There was also a school for girls who wanted to continue studying after cheder. Of course I can’t remember now what it was called, but I saw in the documents of one of my aunts, that she had graduated from some Jewish school, where they were taught needlework, languages, and were basically prepared for the family life. They studied, first, their native language, i.e. Yiddish, and secondly, it was obligatory to learn the Belarusian language, plus you could optionally master Polish or Russian. Hebrew was not in great demand then.
When the NEP was established, she was smart enough to understand that she could as well make ice cream out of milk rather than sour cream, and sell it. Ice cream was bought like hot cakes. So with her own hands she brought the wealth of her family to the point where it almost equaled the fortune of the landowner Gorzhelovsky, who lived in a nearby estate before the revolution. Grandmother’s means sufficed to send, when it became necessary, both her son Alexander and her daughter Tsiva to study in Leningrad. To spare them from living in hostels, each one had been bought a separate room.
I only heard from some relatives, that Vulf, the nephew of Grandmother Golda, the son of one of her sisters who left, married a German lady and lived in Germany, and they had a son. Vulf was rich and had a factory. When in 1930 Russia was struck by famine [18], he sent a letter to his relatives here welcoming them to come and live with him in Germany. When Fascists came to power in Germany, he was executed, as were both his German wife and his son. All their property was confiscated by the Gestapo.
My father married my mother at the end of 1934, graduated from the university in June 1941, having received a diploma of a Physicist – a rare diploma for that time. By then he already had two children: my sister Polina and me. It seems that they didn’t receive their parents’ consent for marriage at once, because both were students, but obtained it after all. According to their ‘Certificate of Shlyuby’ [certificate of marriage in Belarusian], it happened in the town of Tolochin in 1934. ‘Shlyuby’ means ‘love’ in Belarusian.
When Mom finished the institute, she worked as a technology engineer at the brick factory #1, and then in the Transportation Research Institute until 1941. Mom was not religious. Her native language was Yiddish, but she learned to speak Russian without any accent.
After the war began, in August 1941, we went to Kuibyshev, where Father was assigned a job as quality control engineer of planes at a military plant. He was working by methods of non-destructive tests.
After Mom’s death in 1942 Father became a widower at the age of 32, with two small children and a mother-in-law to support.
We returned to Leningrad in 1946. Father started to live with his mother, my Grandma Eugenia. The living space belonging to my mother and us had been lost in the war perturbations.