On the anniversary day of the October Revolution [30] there was a mess in the barracks. The soldiers were drinking moonshine with the local broads and at dawn many of them headed for the forests with them. It turned out that 180 deserted the regiment. It was a big scandal.
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Displaying 32341 - 32370 of 50826 results
Zalman Kaplanas
In the lines I was offered to join the Party on multiple occasions. I honestly said that I was raised in bourgeois Lithuania and wouldn’t be able to give my life for Lenin and Stalin.
I celebrated the Victory Day [31], 9th May 1945 here, in Vilnius.
Finally, on 26th January 1946 I was demobilized from the army in the same rank I had after having finished military school.
I was in high spirits. I had a place to live. The house that the regiment commander gave me still belonged to me. I was to study at university and have a good job. I was offered the position of deputy head of the municipal Ispolkom [32] owing to my fluency in Russian. But things turned out to be quite different. I met my friend, Ivan Zherebtsov, in the military enlistment office where I came to take my documents. He offered me a job in the forestry vocational school as a civil defense teacher. The previous teacher, the Lithuanian Dragunas was a sot, who even drank during the lectures. He was fired and I was offered to teach civil defense instead of him. I resisted for a long time. I didn’t want to work at the vocational school as a teacher with a certain schedule. I wanted to have time for my studies. Frankly speaking, the salary was much lower at the vocational school as compared to the one offered by the Ispolkom. In spite of the fact that I didn’t give my consent to work at the vocational school, I was forced, because Ivan, without telling me, had an appointment with the head of the Ispolkom and convinced him to assign me as a defense teacher at the vocational school. My task was to establish a rigid discipline as there were bandits in the forests at that time, and students, who mostly came from villages and hamlets, were influenced by them. It was very easy for me. During the war I used to stick to military discipline and require it from my subordinates. In a couple of weeks there was an apple-pie order in the vocational school and the students didn’t only obey me, but also other teachers and the director.
I was in high spirits. I had a place to live. The house that the regiment commander gave me still belonged to me. I was to study at university and have a good job. I was offered the position of deputy head of the municipal Ispolkom [32] owing to my fluency in Russian. But things turned out to be quite different. I met my friend, Ivan Zherebtsov, in the military enlistment office where I came to take my documents. He offered me a job in the forestry vocational school as a civil defense teacher. The previous teacher, the Lithuanian Dragunas was a sot, who even drank during the lectures. He was fired and I was offered to teach civil defense instead of him. I resisted for a long time. I didn’t want to work at the vocational school as a teacher with a certain schedule. I wanted to have time for my studies. Frankly speaking, the salary was much lower at the vocational school as compared to the one offered by the Ispolkom. In spite of the fact that I didn’t give my consent to work at the vocational school, I was forced, because Ivan, without telling me, had an appointment with the head of the Ispolkom and convinced him to assign me as a defense teacher at the vocational school. My task was to establish a rigid discipline as there were bandits in the forests at that time, and students, who mostly came from villages and hamlets, were influenced by them. It was very easy for me. During the war I used to stick to military discipline and require it from my subordinates. In a couple of weeks there was an apple-pie order in the vocational school and the students didn’t only obey me, but also other teachers and the director.
In 1949 I wrote a diploma work and graduated from university. I got a mandatory job assignment [38] to the Ministry of the Forest Industry of Lithuania and was supposed to start work on 1st August. I resigned from the vocational school and was looking forward to my new job. In the middle of July I was called to the headmaster’s office. My job assignment was changed. I was shown the order of the minister wherein I was assigned acting director of the vocational school I was so happy to have resigned from. The previous director, who had practically ruined the work of the vocational school, was promoted to a deputy minister in Moscow. It was normal for the Soviet regime to get rid of negligent directors by promoting them. I was trying to resist the best way I could, but the minister promised that I would be transferred to another position after ensuring order at school. It turned out to be more than one year.
In a year, viz 1950 I was again appointed the acting director of the vocation school at the collegium of the ministry. I couldn’t be appointed director as I was a Jew, and besides I didn’t belong to the Communist Party. It was the period of state anti-Semitism. Almost every day ‘rootless cosmopolites’ [39] were stigmatized in the papers, which said that they were looking for ways to do harm. At that hard time when Jews were fired no matter what position they had, I became the acting director of the vocational school. Since 1950 the commissions from Moscow came to the vocational school on a frequent basis. Many people couldn’t abide by the fact that I was a good director. In reality, the vocational school became one of the best in its field. I moved to the vocational school.
On the one hand I understood that I would be working there until a good Lithuanian director was found, on the other hand I didn’t like my job, but nobody allowed me to leave. In the full swing of anti-Semitism, during the Doctors’ Plot [40], at the beginning of 1953. the auditor came to the vocational school intending to fire or arrest me. But he couldn’t find a reason. The most interesting thing was when the Minister of Forestry was trying to find out from our curators in Moscow who initiated the checkup, it turned out that the checkup wasn’t coming from our system. They didn’t even know the name of the auditor. It means that other important authorities were interested in me, mostly likely it was the KGB [41]. It was a terrible time. It was impossible to read those loathing articles about Jews being criminals and murderers. All people with common sense understood that it was libel and provocation. But still it affected the public opinion. People became suspicious. The Jews in the street were looking around feeling harassed.
fortunately for me and for other millions of people, the tyrant died on 5th March 1953. I didn’t mourn over his death, but I didn’t show my joy either. By that time I knew a lot about the true persona of Stalin and repressions. Every morning I listened to Radio Free Europe [43] in my office, BBC and other western radio stations. It was impossible to black out these radio stations in Lithuania and the voice of Anatoliy Goldenberg, the BBC announcer became dear to many Lithuanian households.
That year, 1953 I was given a car, a ‘Moskvich-401’ [44], for being the director of the best vocational school of the industry. I stayed in that position for another four years. In 1957 they finally found the director who met all requirements of the ministry. He was a Lithuanian and was educated in forestry. By that time I had been given an apartment by the vocational school. They told me to move out of my apartment after my resignation as it was meant for the new director. And again luck was smiling at me. The vocational school was transferred to Kaunas, so the apartment was left to me.
I had a family by that time. A wonderful girl, Sheina Volpe, lived with her mother not far from me in the house of their remote relative, my former front-line comrade, Avrum Volpe. I met her in his house. Sheina was born in 1928 in the small town of Kronis, not far from Kaunas, into the family of a merchant, Moses Volpe. A couple of days before the war the Volpe family came to their relatives in Kaunas. They were caught in the war and became inmates of Kaunas ghetto. Moses, Sheina’s father, was shot during one of the first actions. Sheina, her mother, aunt, and cousin were taken to a hamlet by one of their acquaintances, a Lithuanian called Bronis. For two years the three of them stayed in a hole under the shed sized 2.5x1.5 meters. The hamlet where Bronis lived wasn’t far from the highway Kaunas–Vilnius. There was a pond where the Fascists washed their horses and watered them. If somebody had checked the shed, where the Jews were hiding in the cellar, not only the Jews would have been killed, but also the whole family of the host.
In 1955 Sheina and I registered our marriage in the state registration office, but we didn’t have any party on the occasion.
By that time Sheina had graduated from the Chemistry Department of Vilnius University and was employed by a military plant. She worked there for quite a few years. After I resigned from vocational school I started working for the Design Bureau of the Light Industry and then for the Light Industry Ministry as an advisor on financial issues. I was well paid. My wife earned pretty good money as well. We had a comfortable life. We could afford good food and beautiful clothes. I still think what suit to put on and pick a tie to match the suit. In the summer time we went to the popular Baltic spas or to the Crimea and the Caucasus.
Sheina and I had arguments. In spite of inconsiderable disparity in years our views differed as she was born later and she grew up in the USSR. So, we were raised in different states: I was raised in bourgeois Lithuania and Sheina in the Soviet Union. She was a zealot of the socialist way of life; she believed the Communist ideals, while I was rather skeptical of them. The situation at the military plant affected my wife’s outlook the most. It was a certain realm where people were raised to be devoted to Communism.
In spite of the fact that after the war I didn’t keep in touch with the Jewish community, nor mark religious holiday, in my soul I was loyal to the Jews. I’ve always been a patriot of Israel. I always followed the events in Israel and my wife considered me to be anti-Soviet and that was the reason for our tiffs. When at the end of the 1970s a new immigration wave commenced, she was against our departure. For us to leave anywhere she would have had to resign from her job at the plant and work for several years at an ordinary enterprise as all employees of the defense industry had top-secret status. It was considered that they were aware of state secrets and they were banned from going abroad even as tourists. She didn’t want to quit her job. She said she had a wonderful life in the USSR and there was no need to go anywhere.
When after the breakup of the USSR in 1991 we were invited to immigrate to Israel by one of my wife’s distant relatives, Yehoshua Rabinovich [former Israeli Minister of Finance and Mayor of Tel Aviv] who was the mayor of Tel Aviv, we couldn’t leave as our passport bureau didn’t want to accept my wife’s documents for a visa. It was such a good chance for us: we were guaranteed a job and an apartment. I was one of the first who came to Israel on invitation. I am fascinated by this country. I would love to live there, but I couldn’t leave my family.
My sons were very good students at school. Both of them entered Vilnius University. Here in Lithuania, state anti-Semitism was not at such a level as in other parts of the USSR and almost all Jewish children entered universities without any problem. Moshe graduated from the Economics Department and Emmanuel from the Faculty of Applied Mathematics.
In 1995 Emmanuel immigrated to Israel. He found a very good job there.
I’ve always been biased against the Soviet regime. That’s why I approved of the breakup of the Soviet Union and the foundation of the independent state of Lithuania [47].
My wife and I are currently members of the revived Jewish community of Lithuania. We celebrate all Jewish holidays. I am a member of the military community of Jewish War Veterans [48]. I often go to Jurbarkas, to the place where my kin perished. Only five Jews, born in Jurbarkas before World War II, remained in Lithuania. We founded a club. Now there is a group of the second generation there – children of native Jurbarkas Jews who are currently residing abroad. We also established a charity fund, where donations from Jurbarkas Jews are collected. We put up a monument at the place where Jews from my town were shot by the Fascists.
My name is Zalman Kaplanas. The ending ‘аs’ is added to all last names in Lithuania. [The ‘as’ ending is characteristic for masculine Lithuanian surnames. After the country gained its independence in 1991, in line with the national idea, people without this ending were encouraged to use it and make their name sound Lithuanian] My original surname is truly Jewish: Kaplan.
I was born in the small town of Jurbarkas, 200 kilometers away from Vilnius. The town had existed for 400 years by the beginning of the 20th century. Jurbarkas was built on the river Neman in the western part of Lithuania, 86 kilometers to the west of Kaunas. Back in the Middle Ages fortifications were built for the defense of cities. Thus the frontier town of Jurbarkas, bordering on Germany was built. [Lithuania was bordering with Germany until the end of WWII, when Eastern Prussia was divided up between Poland and the Soviet Union. The previous Lithuanian-German border today separates Lithuania from the Kaliningrad territory, a part of the Russian Federation].
An ancient citadel was preserved in the vicinity of Jurbarkas. There was a very beautiful park in the town. There was a palace of the Russian Prince Vasilchikov [Prince Ilarrion Sergeyevich Vasilchikov (1881-1969) was a state activist, economist and publicist. He left Russia after the Communist take-over and lived in Berlin, Paris and after 1932 in Kaunas, the capital of Lithuania at the time, and was involved in social life and economy there. He started his career as a provincial governmental leader of Russian gentry. When Soviet troops occupied Lithuania in 1940, he immigrated to Germany]. A small park not far from the Jewish lyceum was called Tel Aviv by local people, as it was the place where Jewish youth got together. There was a large Catholic cathedral in the center of the town, though half of the population of Jurbarkas consisted of Jews – the total population of the town was five thousand. There were several synagogues, two elementary Jewish schools – in one of them subjects were taught in Hebrew, in the other one in Yiddish – and an amateur Jewish theater. In the early 1920s a private Yiddish lyceum was founded, where the children of rich local and out-of-town people studied.
Jurbarkas Jews were involved in craftsmanship and commerce. They were cobblers, tailors, hatters, glazers, cabinetmakers etc. The only photography studio in Jurbarkas was owned by a Jew called Levinas. There were brilliant dedicated doctors among the town’s Jewish intelligentsia.
An ancient citadel was preserved in the vicinity of Jurbarkas. There was a very beautiful park in the town. There was a palace of the Russian Prince Vasilchikov [Prince Ilarrion Sergeyevich Vasilchikov (1881-1969) was a state activist, economist and publicist. He left Russia after the Communist take-over and lived in Berlin, Paris and after 1932 in Kaunas, the capital of Lithuania at the time, and was involved in social life and economy there. He started his career as a provincial governmental leader of Russian gentry. When Soviet troops occupied Lithuania in 1940, he immigrated to Germany]. A small park not far from the Jewish lyceum was called Tel Aviv by local people, as it was the place where Jewish youth got together. There was a large Catholic cathedral in the center of the town, though half of the population of Jurbarkas consisted of Jews – the total population of the town was five thousand. There were several synagogues, two elementary Jewish schools – in one of them subjects were taught in Hebrew, in the other one in Yiddish – and an amateur Jewish theater. In the early 1920s a private Yiddish lyceum was founded, where the children of rich local and out-of-town people studied.
Jurbarkas Jews were involved in craftsmanship and commerce. They were cobblers, tailors, hatters, glazers, cabinetmakers etc. The only photography studio in Jurbarkas was owned by a Jew called Levinas. There were brilliant dedicated doctors among the town’s Jewish intelligentsia.
In the first day of the Great Patriotic War [1], the Lithuanian Polizei [2], who served the Germans, came to us. The doctor was on the round in the town hospital, which was the only one in our town. His Lithuanian colleague reproached the police and tried to stand up for the Jewish doctor. He said that Karlinskiy had recently rescued his little son. The Polizei just sneered and pushed the doctor aside. Doctor Karlinskiy was doomed like his patients. He was shot during the first action against Jews in Jurbarkas.
. My maternal grandpa, Morduchai Grinberg, was among the rich Jews of Jurbarkas. There’s hardly anything I know about my great-grandpa, Zalman Grinberg, whom I was named after. All I know is that the second time he was married to a lady who was much younger than he was. His son Leibl was born in 1895. Thus, Grandpa Morduchai had a stepbrother, who was younger than some of his children. Zalman died in the early 1900s.
Morduchai Grinberg was born in Jurbarkas in 1864. Morduchai was involved in commerce. He was neither rich nor poor.
Morduchai Grinberg was born in Jurbarkas in 1864. Morduchai was involved in commerce. He was neither rich nor poor.
During World War I the tsarist government exiled Jews to clean up the frontier territories as they considered Jews to be potential spies. In 1915 Morduchai was exiled to Siberia. Morduchai wasn’t only smart, but also an energetic man. In Siberia, an almost pristine business area, he started his own business and came into money. When Lithuania gained its independence in 1919 [3], he came back to Jurbarkas a really wealthy man. Grandpa purchased a large house and opened one of the largest agricultural stores in town. There was a wide range of products on offer, starting from the most primitive nails to common agricultural gadgets and machines.
Morduchai’s family kept Jewish traditions and celebrated holidays. Grandfather wasn’t a very religious man as business was the pivot of his life. God and prayers were in the second place.
He gradually passed his business to one of his sons. When in 1940 the Soviets nationalized Grandfather’s property, he and his wife had to rent a dark apartment in a village not far from Jurbarkas. They didn’t live there for a long time. By the vicissitude of fortune Grandfather was exiled to Siberia again [4]. It happened a couple of days before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, in June 1941. The 76-year-old Morduchai couldn’t stand the hunger, cold and the humiliation. Soon his wife and he passed away. They were buried somewhere in Siberia.
During the Soviet times we didn’t keep in touch with my uncle’s family as we feared persecution and exile [5]. All I know is that Uncle died in 1965.
My mother’s middle brother Joseph, born in 1890, worked in the store with Grandpa Morduchai. He had an accident and became disabled: one of Joseph’s legs was shorter than the other. In 1920 Joseph got married. His wife, Zhenya, was from Riga. In the 1930s Granddad was ill, and Joseph managed the business. He ran the store. Joseph, his wife and their small child were exiled with Grandpa Morduchai on 14th June 1941. Joseph was the only one of the family who survived. Zhenya and Robert died on their way to exile. Joseph was sentenced to eight years in camps for having been a member of the Shaulist Council [6]. It was a kind of a military and sports organization. Joseph was charged with counterrevolutionary Fascist activity because he regularly paid a membership fee to the organization. Having gone through this ordeal Joseph came back to Lithuania in the post-war period, then he immigrated to Israel, where he died in the 1970s.
Polina, her husband, and their two children perished in 1941 during Fascists actions [military execution] in Riga.
The family of my mother’s sister Dina, born in 1895, was also doomed. She was married to a pharmacist, Shabashevich, who owned a large apothecary in Kaunas [the capital of Lithuania during its independence (1920-1939)] Dina had a small daughter. In 1941 they were put in Kaunas ghetto [7] and shot on 28th October during one of the Fascist actions.