My daughter Lilia finished school with a silver medal. She entered the Faculty of Electronics of Uzhhorod University. Upon graduation Svetlana got a job assignment to work as an engineer at Uzhhorod instrument making plant. She lives with us. Her private life never worked out. Her son Anton Gotlib was born in 1985. Now he is a 2nd-year student of Uzhhorod university. After perestroika the plant where Svetlana worked closed down. She went to work as an accountant at the department of railway passenger and freight transportation. She works there now.
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Displaying 34921 - 34950 of 50826 results
Iosif Gotlib
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When perestroika [22] became I thought that Gorbachev’s [23] promises were idle. Whatever hadn’t they promised on behalf of the Party… But then there were notable changes. The dead wall separating the USSR from the rest of the world, fell down.
Soviet people got an opportunity to travel to other countries and invite their relatives and friends from abroad. In 1991 I visited my relatives in Israel. It happened a year before, in 1990, that my wonderful and beloved mother died. She lived 94 years and until her last days she was in sound mind and she remained kind. I never saw her. I only managed to visit her grave in a Jewish cemetery in Rishon LeZiyyon. My mother and father were buried nearby and according to Jewish rules, of course. 2 months of my stay in Israel flew by like one day. I met with my family and saw my friends who had moved there long before. Israel is a beautiful country and I am happy to have visited it at least at my old age. Of course, perestroika gave me this opportunity.
However, I think perestroika took away from much more than it gave. During perestroika our society divided into the rich and the poor. I still think they shouldn’t have allowed this. In the end perestroika ended in the breakup of the USSR [editor’s note: Breakup of the USSR: Yeltsin in 1991 signed a deal with Russia's neighbours that formalized the break up of the Soviet Union. The USSR was replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).]. Life became harder. I was an ace, the best locomotive operator, I have over 20 awards for my work, but now I am a beggar.
After declaration of independence the rebirth of the Jewish life in Ukraine began. Before Hesed was established in Uzhhorod in 1999 the Jewish community began its activities in Uzhhorod. People began to go to the synagogue freely and stopped hiding their Jewish identity. I’ve never attended the synagogue. I’ve been an atheist, though I believe in some superior force supervising us. My wife Antonina began to attend a women’s club at the synagogue. We joke at home that Antonina is more Jewish than me. At least, it was her initiative to celebrate Jewish holidays at home. We do not celebrate Sabbath. On Jewish holidays Antonina cooks traditional Jewish food. We always have matzah at Pesach. However, we also have bread at home at Pesach since my grandson doesn’t think it necessary to refuse from it. As for my wife and I, we do not eat bread at Pesach. My wife insists that I do not fast. She doesn’t think my health condition is fit for fasting. I’ve never strived to it, but I’ve got adjusted. Almost all of my wife’s friends are Jewish ladies. They taught her to cook traditional Jewish food and my wife cooks for holidays. Only my mother could make as delicious gefilte fish as my wife. My wife and I read Jewish newspapers and magazines Vek (Century), and Yevreyskiye Vesti (Jewish news) that we receive in Hesed and then we discuss what we’ve read. Of course, Hesed helps us to survive. They used to bring us meals from Hesed, but my wife and I decided we would have them brings us food packages rather than cooked meals. Not because their meals were not good. It’s just that I, like any other man, think that my wife can cook better. Hesed provides medications and makes arrangements for a stay in hospital, if necessary.
Petr Weber
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He had a vocational college education, and worked as a technical clerk. He worked for Skoda in Pilsen.
I was in touch with my uncle regularly, by mail. And then, when there was that short period when things let up, around 1966, 1967, I also traveled to Israel for the first time, to go see him, because his was the only name that I knew. But another two aunts were also there to greet me, so there I found the remainder of my family.
I can’t say whether my parents dealt mainly with others from the local Jewish community, but one can assume this to be so. It was a traditional Jewish environment, it’s hard to imagine that they’d somehow differ from the rest. But it’s not impossible for them to have had closer friendships with non-Jews as well.
My real parents were from Poland, as I’ve mentioned. Their mother tongue was Polish and also Yiddish, because they lived in an Orthodox Jewish environment. I myself don’t know Polish, or more precisely, I know it, or rather I understand it, like every Czech who isn’t illiterate.
And as far as life itself goes, in that there was of course a huge difference, because back then the Soviet Union was at a significantly different point as far as standards go. For example living standards. I lived in a dormitory like all other students, sublets didn’t exist. There were dozens of nationalities studying there with me, Europeans, Africans and Asians.
In Prague I also went through a half year of military service for university graduates, back then I was one of the last ones to manage to still do only a half-year term. I served with the anti-missile defense.
The Pioneer movement [4] already existed at that time, but I didn’t go to any camps.
But after two years I left on a scholarship for the Soviet Union, to Moscow, and there I then finished my studies in 1965. I left for there not even so much because I didn’t have anyone here anymore, but because it was a very enticing offer. At that time the Soviet Union was at the forefront of my field.
What’s more, for me vacations always meant work. Because we had to – or I had to – help pad out the family budget. And so I spent my vacation in the forest picking everything there was, mushrooms, blueberries, cranberries and so on. We would then sell the results at a collection point. That was hard-earned money. I remember that I’d leave for the forest early in the morning, almost crying. I’m not saying that I spent all of summer vacation like that, but certainly a good half fell to that.
And I remember for example, when television began in 1953, the one and only television receiver was at the school superintendent’s in the school in the neighboring village. We kids used to go over there to watch it. That was also an attraction. I don’t really remember much of what we used to do on Sundays, most likely I was running around somewhere outside. And what’s more, don’t forget that our hamlet was a remote hole. Which did have a pub, but didn’t even have a store. So to do some sort of cultural activities there... there wasn’t anywhere to go, even if you wanted to. And the nearest bus stop was, as I’ve said, in the next village.
Our parents never took us anywhere on trips, neither to go see sights nor into nature. That wasn’t our custom and neither did our financial situation permit it very much.
So I can speak decent German, but also English, a very little French and of course Russian, because I studied in the Soviet Union, where I graduated from university as a nuclear systems designer.
It’s a very small village. It’s not an independent municipality, but a mere hamlet. About 40 houses, for example ours had only an outhouse in the yard. The village already had electricity, but during that time there was no running water, only wells. Everyone had his own water. We, for example, lived in this little house on a little bit of a hill, and the well, the town well, was at the bottom. When I was living there, there wasn’t even a paved road, only this better dirt road. And of course, I was also the only Jew there.
There I also began attending school, which was in 1948.
So they took me into their family and during the remainder of the war pretended I was a nephew from Prague. For this purpose a cousin from Prague used to even come visit for these camouflage visits, which also wasn’t exactly a simple matter. My adoptive parents knew of my origins – they had my relatives’ trail, as they knew who had left that child in Slovakia. Who he’d been with and where he’d continued on to. So they knew roughly what the deal was.
A Christian girl used to visit that family to see her love, her boyfriend. That’s where she first saw me, that’s where I apparently first caught her eye, and she took me from that family and brought me to her own family.
They left me, a small child, for reasons that today I can only guess at – perhaps they were afraid, for themselves, for my life, it’s hard to say – in any case, they left me back there in Slovakia. In the hands of Jews, in a Jewish family, which – in 1944 Jews in Slovakia were also in difficult circumstances – at that time was living in one of the collection points before the deportations, namely Liptovsky Mikulas.
So when I was about two, my uncle took me away with that group that managed to escape from the concentration camp in Bochnia. The whole group went through Slovakia, through the Slovak State, on to the Balkans and to the Palestine, where they, including that uncle of mine, managed to finally get to.
As far as employment goes, I kept working in the same place even after the revolution, and my wife didn’t change jobs either.
My relationship with Israel is of course highly emotional and positive, it’s my second homeland, even though I’ve never lived there.
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After WW2
See text in interview
During my first visit I considered very seriously whether I should stay in Israel, but I didn’t find the courage. Mainly I was afraid of the language barrier. Not even later, already with my wife, who doesn’t have relatives there but friends, did we consider it.
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After WW2
See text in interview
Our grandchildren are also aware of their Jewish origins, they of course know about them. They both very much like to for example come here to the Jewish community, but it’s more got to do with the fact that they feel a certain importance here, that their grandfather works here and so on.
Our son Jiri is another step further along in the sense of more tolerant, more liberal behavior, so he celebrates holidays even much less. On his own, from his own impetus, I’d say, he doesn’t celebrate anything, plus his wife isn’t Jewish.
Today my wife and I observe the main Jewish holidays, sometimes we also go to synagogue. Most certainly, without any sort of doubt, the most important for us is the celebration of the Jewish New Year [Rosh Hashanah] and the holiday of atonement [Yom Kippur]. We also celebrate the holiday of crossing, Passover.
Back then the Jewish community in Pilsen still had over a hundred members, but after the war there were only four of us children, with the age difference between the youngest and the oldest being almost 14 years. I was of course the youngest. There was for example a girl about two years older them me, they used to put us together even later, and we’re good friends to this day, though we rarely see each other. At that time I was the only boy of that age, plus an orphan, being brought up in a Gentile family.