The Doctor’s Plot [23], which started after Stalin’s death, suggested to me that having killed Mikhoels, the authorities began to repress his family and other Jews. I didn’t believe that the doctors were guilty of the death of the Leader.
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Displaying 37831 - 37860 of 50826 results
Alexander Ugolev
In the post-war period I thought about politics rarely. However, attacks on Jews went on. For example, I didn’t manage to watch any performance of the Jewish theater, though I wanted to so much. When Mikhoels [22] was killed they closed his theater.
Right after the end of the war I knew nothing about the emigration of Jews to Israel. I heard about it only in the time of Khrushchev’s [19] ‘thaw’ [see Twentieth Party Congress] [20]. At that time I got to know that Golda Meir [21] was the Israeli ambassador to the USSR. I could not bring myself to immigrate to Israel: I never could imagine myself in another country.
When I became a student, I refused to study the German language, and chose English.
It happened at the time when the Soviet authorities permitted to organize building societies [at the end of 1980s] to give people a chance to buy apartments.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I finished the fifth grade before the war in Leningrad, I started studying in the sixth grade in the village of Muslimovka in Tatarstan, and later we (the whole Baranov family) moved to Menzelinsk, where I finished the sixth and the seventh grade.
We were evacuated in the middle of February 1942. We moved by divisional lorry, heavily loaded with something, to the front headquarters. The lorry had to return back to Leningrad. At first I decided not to leave for evacuation. By that time they had already increased the daily rate of bread up to 300 grams. It was almost wholesome bread. My stepmother raised objections against my stay in the besieged city. She said that she was responsible for me to my father. We all – me, my stepmother, her sister Valya and my sister Polina – went safely.
Later, at the beginning of August he was recalled to the military unit. I saw him off. When my stepmother came back from digging entrenchments, he had already left. My father left for the front in the rank of senior lieutenant. Later he was made captain. When we wrote him letters, we addressed envelopes to division headquarters [prosecutor’s office].
News about the beginning of the war reached me in Novgorod, at the relatives of my stepmother Galina. At that time I was 13 years old. In two weeks I went back to Leningrad by train and arrived there in July 1941. At that time my stepmother was recruited for digging entrenchments in the city suburbs. On 8th September 1941 the blockade of Leningrad was started.
At the beginning of the war my father worked in the Leningrad military district headquarters [(in the prosecutor’s office, which was located in the Peter-and-Paul Fortress]). Later, at the beginning of August he was recalled to the military unit.
At the beginning of the war my father worked in the Leningrad military district headquarters [(in the prosecutor’s office, which was located in the Peter-and-Paul Fortress]). Later, at the beginning of August he was recalled to the military unit.
News about the beginning of the war reached me in Novgorod, at the relatives of my stepmother Galina. At that time I was 13 years old. In two weeks I went back to Leningrad by train and arrived there in July 1941. At that time my stepmother was recruited for digging entrenchments in the city suburbs. On 8th September 1941 the blockade of Leningrad was started.
At the beginning of the war my father worked in the Leningrad military district headquarters [(in the prosecutor’s office, which was located in the Peter-and-Paul Fortress]). Later, at the beginning of August he was recalled to the military unit.
At the beginning of the war my father worked in the Leningrad military district headquarters [(in the prosecutor’s office, which was located in the Peter-and-Paul Fortress]). Later, at the beginning of August he was recalled to the military unit.
,
1941
See text in interview
She returned to Leningrad after she divorced her first husband and soon married a man, who was older than she, a captain in retirement named Alexander Alexandrov. Later they also got divorced. Then she married Valery – I don’t remember his surname – and lived at his apartment. She got acquainted with Valery during her figure skating training sessions: he was a brother of her coach.
Soon after leaving school she got married. Her husband was a senior lieutenant, Ushkov Victor. She gave birth to a daughter, Olga. After the putsch of 1956 [15] they lived in Hungary, where her husband served, later in Krasnodar and other places. Polina worked as a sales assistant in different shops.
In 1944 I returned to Leningrad from evacuation. People, who lived in the city during the blockade [14], warmed their houses using material at hand. They used everything: books, furniture, etc. But that lath fence in our court yard remained safe as it was before the war. Only one part of it was broken – by me. Nobody touched it, though it was made of wood and could have been used for heating.
We celebrated only state holidays: 1st May, Soviet Army Day [12], etc. We didn’t celebrate Jewish holidays, because my family members and our relatives were atheists.
I have a few clear memories about political events in the country before 1941. I asked my parents no questions. I sussed things out for myself, and my opinion was formed from broadcasts and newspapers. I made conclusions myself. Some things seemed strange to me. For example, in 1935 in the USSR there were five marshals. Later only two marshals remained: a metalworker, Klim Voroshylov [11] and a Cossack junior leader, Semen Budenniy [Budenniy, Semen (1883-1973): USSR marshal (1935), Hero of the USSR (3 times: in 1958, 1963, 1968), commander of the 1st Cavalry (1919-1921), Deputy People’s Commissar of Defense department (1939-1941), commander of group of armies (1941-1945), delegate of the USSR Supreme Soviet (1937-1973)]. What happened to the rest of them? But the main public prosecutor Vyshinsky’s speeches for prosecution against ‘spies and traitors’ were so convincing … [Vyshinsky, Andrey (1883-1954): Soviet diplomat and lawyer, Professor of Law and Chief Prosecutor in Stalin’s purge trials (1934-1938), Foreign Minister (1949-1953), Deputy Foreign Minister and permanent delegate to the UN]
Each summer we left for Krichev to see my grandmother and grandfather, or for Komarovka.
Each summer we left for Krichev to see my grandmother and grandfather, or for Komarovka.
At school I was a [Young] Octobrist [8], then a pioneer [see All-Union pioneer organization] [9]. I was a son of a convinced supporter of the Communist Party. Though, to tell the truth, it wasn’t absolutely clear for me, why there were so many poor people and why our life was so hard. But in 1937 we didn’t even think about it: it was dangerous [see Great Terror] [10].
I never experienced any manifestations of anti-Semitism from our teachers. Our school staff was multinational. The head of the education department, Frida Moiseevna, was Jewish. She taught in senior classes. The director of the school, Petr Sokolov, was Russian. German language was taught by two sisters, russified Germans – their family name was Miller. My classmates never teased me or discussed Jewish topics with me.
, Russia
Before my sister Polina was born, my father left for an out-of-town military camp; he was not in the army before the war with fascist Germany. I have his photo, where he is shown in the uniform of a second lieutenant.
,
Before WW2
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At home I remained with our housekeepers. My mum worked all day long. When my mum was alive, Olga Pavlovna from Rostov, our housekeeper, worked for us. She was 75 years old. She was very tall, like a grenadier. I liked Olga Pavlovna very much; I kissed her and called ‘my pretty face’. She was Russian, a wife of a teacher of literature. Later she left and sent me a letter: ‘Good-bye, Sanya! Kissing you, your ‘pretty face’’.
All my life I’ve lived in the same house on Kurlyandskaya Street. As a child, I lived with my parents in the apartment no. 9, and now I live in the apartment no. 4, which is smaller. As a child, I lived in a two-room apartment. One room was 19 square meters large, and the other one – 12. Both rooms got all the sun. Two small gardens were located in front of our house. All windows of the apartment faced south. The kitchen was small. For its time that apartment was very good. There was no bathroom though. In the courtyard there was a cesspool and a laundry. The house was heated by stoves; a woodshed was situated near our door. In the house there was a sewerage system and cold water supply; we cooked meals by means of kerosene stoves. The house had an electric power supply. Gas appeared in houses only after the war. The furniture was good, both modern and old. The cupboard was mahogany with statuettes of horses – an antique one.
There were a lot of books in our apartment: books written by Lenin and Stalin, books devoted to the history of the 19th century, two books of Pushkin’s [6] works and a lot of others.
There were a lot of books in our apartment: books written by Lenin and Stalin, books devoted to the history of the 19th century, two books of Pushkin’s [6] works and a lot of others.
I found out that my Jewish name was Isaac only when I went to school. At first I didn’tlike its sound and became upset. But my father was a clever man. He showed me a portrait of Isaac Newton and told me how talented this scientist was, and I calmed down. I even took pride in my Jewish name.
On the contrary, a lot of my relatives became Communist Party members and atheists. Probably, in the terrible time of revolutionary changes and Stalin’s mass repressions my uncles and aunts followed the law of self-preservation.
,
Before WW2
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I never went through the ceremony of bar mitzvah. But they arranged the brit for me. I guess my grandfathers initiated it. You see, my parents were atheists. It seems that among my family members only grandfathers Abram Ugolev and Haim Tsypkin observed Jewish traditions and practiced Judaism. Nobody else did.
I was born in Leningrad, attended all children’s educational establishments: a day nursery, a kindergarten, a zero class [a special class for children’s preparation to school].
,
Before WW2
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My father was a member of the Russian Communist Party, the Bolshevik party, and my mum was only a member of a trade union. They didn’t talk about politics at home. They taught me to look for human values. For example, at that time [in the 1930s] near Kirovsk [up-stream the Neva river] there was a Jewish collective farm. My parents held up Izya Feiggin, a boy as an example for me.
,
Before WW2
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Daddy and mum spoke Russian. Sometimes, when they wanted to keep a secret from me, they spoke Yiddish. They didn’t teach me Yiddish though. I studied it during my visits to Krichev, talking to local boys. When I came back to Leningrad I used to forget Yiddish words.
My grandfathers and grandmothers had no farm hands: they were poor Jews.
Grandfather Abram had a large house in Komarovka. In Krichev Grandfather Haim also had a house: two rooms and a kitchen. Both houses in Komarovka and in Krichev were heated by furnaces. In Krichev the furniture was old-fashioned. I remember a large bed. Both in Krichev and in Komarovka my grandfathers had vegetable gardens. Grandfathers worked in vegetable gardens rarely: for the most part women did it.
Both grandfathers were bearded, but wore regular clothes.They prayed regularly, at set hours. My grandmothers didn’t wear wigs, they didn’t cover their gray hair. They were dressed in long skirts with elastic webbings and jackets with long sleeves.
Both grandfathers were bearded, but wore regular clothes.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview