My father reached the biggest success in the forestry business. None of the Vilenskiy family ever joined the communist party. After the Civil War [4] my father was manager of the office responsible for restoration of the Eastern Siberian Railroad in Khabarovsk [about 6200 km east of Moscow]. My father worked in field offices moving from one location to another. My father often traveled to Moscow.
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Major events (political and historical)
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Displaying 38221 - 38250 of 50826 results
Semyon Vilenskiy
I remember from what my mother told me that papa and Khomutov came to Moscow once a month and went to the Bolshoy Theater [6] with their wives. When in 1934 at the very start of arrests [Great Terror] [7] they were invited to Moscow to receive their awards, but both of them were taken to the Lubianka [8] prison for the charges of sabotage. My father had a relative, who was his second uncle Dubinskiy – I don’t remember his name. Before the revolution this uncle was probably one Jewish forester in Russia working for a count. Dubinskiy gave shelter to young communists Molotov [9], Kaganovich and others in his woods. Dubinskiy faced great risks. The czarist police hunted for these people and giving them shelter might mean death sentence. Dubinskiy also got infatuated by communist ideas. After the revolution those whom he had given shelter became governmental officials. They remembered their rescuer, and Dubinskiy stayed to work in this forestry that became the state property. Dubinskiy had many awards from state authorities. He was well-respected by his relatives. I remember that when he visited us, he brought me toys, I remember the lotto game [popular gambling game – one player picks cards with numbers from a bag and the others place chips on the numbers he names. The winner is the one, who covers all numbers on one of his cards] and we played it together. He always stayed with us. When he visited us that time, he found out that Samuel was in Lubianka. He went to see his old friends and told them he was going to stay there till Samuel got out of the prison. They released Samuel, but executed Khomutov. My father’s uncle could not do anything about it since he was not his relative. My father never spoke to anyone about this incident as if nothing had happened at all. In the 1930s my father worked as chief of the forestry department of the Ministry of Aviation Industry. Aircraft were manufactured from compressed wood at the time.
Papa and mama met in Moscow. Papa was a friend of mama’s brother Grigoriy. Grigoriy was a financial officer during the Soviet period. Papa visited Grigoriy at his home and everybody could tell that mama fell in love with my papa, and my papa, being a decent man, married her in 1919. He liked her, but that was all, but my father believed it to be indecent conduct to refuse a woman, if she loved a man – this was what the etiquette of good manners demanded at the time. My parents just had a civil ceremony in the registry office.
My mother said my grandfather finished a yeshivah and dedicated his life to religious activities. He had many religious books and knew Hebrew.
We visited my grandparents on Jewish holidays. I remember little about traditions, but I remember the smell of delicacies and Jewish sweets.
After the gymnasium my mother finished a 2-year dentistry course, but she never worked. She got married and became a housewife.
After my parents got married my father received two rooms in a 4-bedroom communal apartment [13] in the center of Moscow. The building was constructed in 1914. It’s still their, an old house. There was a sculpture of a knight at the entrance. Engineers and other intelligent people lived in this house. After the revolution some moved to other countries and others were executed in 1937, and the building decayed. Those, who wanted to move into this house, were offered to join the association of tenants for restoration of the house. They were to fix water supply, heating or gas supply.
My father told me how in 1917 he came to Alatyr in Chuvashia [about 5000 km east of Moscow] where his relatives – young communists were establishing the Soviet power. They were fervent revolutionaries and communists. When he arrived, they were partying in the house. They had already executed some people, when all of a sudden in light of general intolerance to religion and struggle against religion decided to execute the priest. My father jumped out of the window, found this priest and told him to hide away. My father had no sympathy to these drunken party revolutionaries and he never joined the party.
My parents, their relatives and friends gave up their parents’ religion and traditions. They were atheists. After the Pale of Settlement was cancelled, Jews began to move to bigger towns and to the capital. They associated their past, when they were not allowed to take part in public life, with Jewish rules, holidays and religion. Jewish young people believed this past to be dull and boring. They rejected all traditions. They already identified themselves with Russian, when all of a sudden they were brutally reminded that they were Jews. Once, when my father was an older man and had health problems, he came to see me and said he was at the synagogue. ‘Are you religious now?’ – I asked him. ‘No, I just went there to take a look at Jews’. He was drawn to Jews, perhaps, this was the call of the blood.
My father was a brave man and had good organizational skills. At some time he was manager of the office dealing in external sales of wood: ‘Les Eksport’ [meaning Wood Export] in Arkhangelsk [about 1000 km north of Moscow]. In 1937 all brokers were arrested. Brokers were responsible for quality assurance of wood and support of the trade process. They needed high skills and experience to do their job well and there were not so many of them available. My father went to Moscow. He changed trains fearing an arrest. He went to see Mikoyan [Mikoyan Anastas Ivanovich (1895-1978) – Soviet party and state activist. In 1926 – Minister of Home and Foreign trade of the USSR, in 1946 deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Minister of Foreign Trade]. Mikoyan told my father to wait for him in his office and managed to have few brokers released. There were no replacements, and to avoid paying forfeits to western companies, the authorities decided to release the brokers. My father told me that he avoided arrest in Arkhangelsk thanks to me. I was 9 or 10 years old, and my father took me with him. We stayed at a hotel. All local NKVD [14] officers were arrested. An officer from another town came to work for NKVD. He had his son with him. Since this man had to work at night, he left his sons at the hotel and we played together. His father took us to the port on his motorcycle. My father said that if this man had somebody to watch his son, my father would have been arrested. He worked with captains of foreign ships waiting for wood loading in the port, and all of his co-workers were arrested then.
On 22 June 1941 the war began. Mama died in a hospital in Moscow in 1942.
Some time after the war my father and the Ministry of Forestry moved to Kuibyshev [about 800 km southeast of Moscow], and in 1943, after the turning point in the war, when it became clear that fascists would never come to Moscow, my father and his Ministry returned to Moscow.
In 1943, when this hospital moved to the front line, I went back to Moscow. According to the documents I had finished the 5th form, but I didn’t spend more than two months at the school desk through this whole period. In Moscow I finished the remaining years at school in two years as an external student. I also joined Komsomol [18] then.
I became an external student in summer 1945.
fter the war our knowledge of the fascist genocide awakened the Jewish self-identification in me and my Jewish comrades. The press published information about the genocide, but they didn’t mention that native residents of the occupied areas had their part in it. Actually, we didn’t know the Jewish language, Jewish history. There were people of the Russian culture in my surrounding: the future philologists, writers and historians. This self-identification revealed itself within the Russian language and literature. There were poems, in which those, who arrested us discovered nationalistic motives. This was described in protocols and this was identified as a criminal action. The Jews, who did not know the Jewish language [Yiddish], found refuge in the brilliant Jewish theater in Moscow with its leader Mikhoels [19].
In 1945 my friend Lev Malkin and few other University students were arrested. I would have been arrested at the same time, only I rarely met with my friends. Perhaps, for this reason I was arrested later. The trial took place in the town court. They were charged under article 58 (anti-Soviet activities). The court sitting were closed. One of my friends and Gulag fellow prisoners Gasteyev described the trial in detail in his book ‘The lives of destitute sybarites’ published in Russian in America. Gasteyev moved to USA. HE died in Boston. At that time he was also arrested later. I came to the court, when he was under trial. I saw my friend, when he was escorted in the corridor. The visitors, including me, were allowed to come into the court room, when his sentence was announced. I sat beside academician Williams [Williams, Vasiliy Robertovich (1863— 1939), Soviet Academitian, founder and first chief of the department ‘Basics of farming and plant cultivation’, a genius of the Russian scientific school of soil scientists and agronomists], whose son was under trial. When the sentence was announced, he dropped his hat on the floor. These actually youngsters were accused of anti-Soviet agitation, espionage for capitalist countries, corruption and disorientation of Soviet students and God knows what nonsense. My friend was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Later this sentence was changed to 3.5 years, but even this sentence was enough for him to never return and perish in the camp, stay there for good.
My external co-student Vsevolod Kolesnikov was my friend and I introduced him to my university fellow students. He never invited any of us to his home. After school he offered me to enter the Military College of Foreign languages. He said he knew director of this college, who promised to admit him and me. When we came to this college, I saw its students marching and refused to go there. I said that the army and drilling were not for me. I entered the university, but we kept meeting. I recited my poems to him and talked about my vision of intelligentsia and classes. He replied that these brilliant thoughts should be kept for the history and put them down. I was flattered. I didn’t suspect anything. Only later I found out that his father was a KGB [20] general. During investigation my interrogators wanted me to confront him hoping that I would confess then, but this confrontation never happened. My interrogation officer said he broke his leg, but I just think he probably feared to look into my eyes. He also betrayed my other friends without any afterthoughts. When I returned to Moscow after I was released and the issue of my rehabilitation was under review, I went to this man’s home trying to see him. His mother was at home, but I never saw him again in my life.
Berta Zelbert
Now I am taking part in Jewish social life. I am a member of the group of the Friendship with Israel, International Board of Russian Committee of Russian Veterans of War. I am working for that group. Sometimes we get requests to provide charitable assistance and we are doing it. Now we got a request from the Jewish community Fund ‘Hurry to do Good’ to assist the victims of the terror in Israel and Russia. We responded to that request. We can afford it. I think we have a comfortable living. I have a rather decent pension for being a veteran of war. My husband works and receives pension. We are not needy.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Markus moved to Moscow after the Revolution of 1917, when the Pale of Settlement was abolished [4]. He was a tailor.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Father’s eldest sister Rena was the only one out of father’s kin who stayed in Berdyansk after the Revolution [2] She was married to a local Jew Reinov.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
He said that Austrians saw no difference between Jews and non-Jews. There was no anti-Semitism. Father and Jews-captives were not differentiated by Austrians in any way, they took them as Russian soldiers.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
When father reached drafting age, he was drafted in the tsarist army, where he served in the musicians’ regiment. In father’s words that regiment was even called to the palace of the Tsar of Livadiua in Crimea and musicians played for the Tsar Nikolay II [1]. When in 1914 World War I was unleashed, father and his regiment went to the front. He was in the orchestra. In late 1915 father was captured by Austrians and he was sent to the Austrian town Reisenberg together with other captives. They worked by some local hospital there. Judging by the pictures of that period of time, which my father managed to preserve, Russian captives lived pretty well there. Anyway they did not look meager in the photo. They looked rather funny. Father did not tell me much about his captivity. He said that Austrians saw no difference between Jews and non-Jews. There was no anti-Semitism. Father and Jews-captives were not differentiated by Austrians in any way, they took them as Russian soldiers. Captives were not hold for a long time, they were exchanged for Austrian captives. In 1916 my father was permitted to go home. He must have passed via Byelorussian village Smilovichi on his way to Berdyansk. He met mother there.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Since childhood father ran errands for the owner of the footwear store. I do not know what education he got, but he was literate. I kept father’s letters. They were written in good Russian. During his childhood he learnt how to play clarinet. I think father got Jewish education as well. At any rate, he had all praying paraphernalia– tallith, tefillin, prayer books. Father knew Ivrit. He was religious. He prayed at home, marked Sabbath and Jewish holidays.
During the first years of my studies at the institute I met future husband Simeon Gorelik. Simeon was also a new-comer. He was born in Mariupol [Ukraine, about 500 km from Kiev] in 1911. His father Samuel Gorelik and mother Rosa lived in Mariupol. Simeon’s junior sister Tsilya, born in 1915, lived in Moscow. She finished Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages and worked as a translator. After that she was transferred to Moscow Teachers’ Training Institute named after Lenin [14]. There she defended a thesis in linguistics and worked as a teacher. Simeon studied at our institute at the senior course and was often in that hostel. We met there. We must have liked each other at once and decided to date.
Students were of different nationalities, there was no national discrimination. I did not feel any anti-Semitism. My life became very interesting. New pals, institute, dorms… I went to museums and theatre with my chums. For the first time in my life I was in Bolshoy theatre [12]. I saw ballet Swan Lake composed by P. Chaikovskiy [13]. I was rapt. Then I tried to save some money from scholarship to be able to go to Bolshoy Theatre.
I sent out letters to several institutions of higher education asking whether they could provide a room in the dormitory for me. I sent a letter to Moscow and Leningrad universities and to Moscow Institute of Physiology, headed by academician Lina Shtern. I was sure that it was an educational institution, but it turned out that it was scientific and research. They were ready to admit me in Moscow, but they could not provide a dormitory. As for Leningrad they wrote that they would provide me with a room in the dormitory. I did not have any relatives or acquaintances in Leningrad, but I had relatives in Moscow – the family of my father’s brother- Markus. Then I got a letter from Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys, where it was indicated that I had been admitted and would be provided with the dormitory. Riva, Markus’s wife told me about that institute. She graduated from it. She came over to us in summer and told about that institute. I thought that engineers were in demand in our country and I decided to enter the institute. In August 1939 I left for Moscow. I was admitted to the institute and given a room in the dorms. The dormitory was located in a very interesting place called ‘commune–house’. It was a long 7-storied building on props. The walls, consisting of wooden boards, at the bottom were one meter long, there was an opal glass above them. There were no common rooms in the building, just separate cubicles. There was not enough room, but still each student had a separate place with a bed and a table. I was deeply immersed in studies and social life of the institute.
Mother died in early summer 1940 at the age of 39. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Berdyansk. During German occupation the cemetery was devastated and we could not find mother’s grave.
I finished school with honors and was entitled to enter the institute without preliminary entrance exams. I wanted to enter biological department of Moscow University [M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, the best University in the Soviet Union, also well known abroad for its high level of education and research]. I was inspired by a famous physiologist Lina Shtern [11]. I had read and heard a lot about her. I decided to become physiologist as well. Neither I nor my parents paid attention to my appeal to literature. It was considered that there should be some profession, and literature should be left for leisure. It seemed to me that there would be brilliant future ahead of me- studies in Moscow, but there were other things in store for me.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
I did not feel anti-Semitism before war. I think it did not exist. There were Jews and non-Jews among my friends. I did not care about nationality at all.
I was a great patriot, an active pioneer and later Komsomol member [9]. I took part in demonstrations during Soviet holidays. We marked them both in school and at home. They were joyful and long-awaited for us. I and my coevals were avid readers of books about revolution. The characters of those books took part in revolution and civil war [10]. They were idols for us. We adored a popular band at that time and its leader – the singer Leonid Utyosov. We could have listened to them by radio for hours. I also remember a popular movie about happy life of common workers in the USSR «Hilarious guys», where Utyosov played the part.