I was born on 11 August 1923. My mother told me there was no space in our room for even a little bed and I slept in a laundry basket until I turned one year old. The first years in Moscow were very difficult. Although my father worked in the Central Committee he received a small salary: at that period the Party 'maximum compensation' principle was effective [Party 'maximum compensation' - maximum salary amount for the Party officials that was quite low to demonstrate their communist modesty and honesty]. Besides, my father didn't hold a high position.
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Displaying 40861 - 40890 of 50826 results
Ninel Cherevko
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My father went to a grammar school, but he didn't finish it due to the revolution of 1917. In 1916 he became a member of an underground Marxist group and after the revolution he became head of the Party unit in Evpatoria. When Komsomol was organized in 1918 [7] my father became secretary of he party organization of Evpatoria. He made a prompt career being a leader by character. In 1919 my father became a member of the Communist Party. My father met my mother in 1916. They fell in love with one another and got married in 1921 when my father turned 18.
My father didn't tell me anything about the Jewish way of life in his family - I think that he was reluctant to recall his Jewish origin when he became a Soviet official. I remember him telling me about Pesach when he asked traditional questions about the history of the holiday and about matsah during Seder and his father answered these questions.
, Ukraine
In 1904 my father's family moved to Evpatoria due to his brother Izia's illness - he had lung problems and doctors advised his parents to move to an area with warm and dry climate. My grandfather bought a one-storied brick house with four big rooms and a kitchen in one of the central streets in Evpatoria where they settled down. They bought new furniture in Simferopol: new wooden beds, wardrobes and chests of drawers.
In 1937 [6] David was arrested and nobody ever heard about him again. Anna went with her children to her parents in Taganrog. During the war they didn't evacuate and were exterminated along with other Jews of the town.
My mother Clara Doctorovich was born in 1902. After finishing primary school she became an apprentice at the same sewing shop where Evgenia was working. At 14 she became a member of a Marxist organization for young people. At first she assisted her older sister Evgenia, but later she became a propagandist herself.
, Ukraine
My grandmother and grandfather went to synagogue only on big holidays since it was located far from their home - in the center of the town. They celebrated Jewish holidays: Pesach, Yom Kippur and Chanukah. My mother told me little about their celebration: her mother Ida died in 1914 and Jewish traditions left the house along with her. Grandfather Joseph missed her very much. He died in 1917. They were buried at the Jewish cemetery in Evpatoria. No religious rules were followed at their funeral.
My mother's parents were moderately religious. My mother told me that they observed all Jewish traditions and celebrated Shabbat. On Friday my grandmother and her daughters cleaned their house and made food for Saturday. They also baked hala bread. There was always Gefilte fish on our Saturday table. Lunch of Saturday was always different than on weekdays. Meat and chicken were a luxury - my grandparents didn't keep any livestock and bought all food products at the market.
, Ukraine
My grandmother could read and write in Yiddish and Russian. She probably finished a primary school. The Doctorovich family was a bourgeois family: they were educated and intelligent people. They were not poor, but they managed somehow. My grandfather didn't have a permanent income and often there was no money in the family. They lived in a house of 3 rooms and a kitchen in the vicinity of the town.
, Ukraine
In 1999 after my husband died Alexandr and his family moved to Israel. He married aJewish girl, his co-student. He's got a job there. In summer 2002 Alexandr fell ill with blood cancer. Victor, his younger brother, flew to Israel, to give his marrow for transplantation for his brother, but it didn't help. At the beginning of November 2002 Alexandr passed away. It's hard to believe that Alexandr is gone. I didn't see him dying and he lives in my heart.
My husband and I graduated the Institute in and stayed to work there. My husband got a profession of economist. He entered a post-graduate course in Leningrad and defended his thesis of Candidate of Sciences in 1951 and thesis of Doctor of Sciences - in 1969. Then he worked at the Department of the Institute of Economy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Lvov.
In 1951 when Jews were persecuted all over the country [19], and anti-Semitism on the state level was very strong my father was removed to a lower position of engineer at Construction department. My father didn't give up. He wrote letters to the town and regional Party Committees and went to the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Kiev. He wrote in his letters that the only reason for his persecutions at work was his national origin.
At the end of 1945 we got married. We had a small party at the hostel of the institute. My parents were not able to come to our wedding - my father had to work, and, besides, it was hard to get on a train. They greeted us with a letter and wished us happiness.
I decided to continue education at the Institute of food industry in Kiev, but it was still closed. I cane to Kiev Polytechnic Institute where I met a man that began to convince me to come to study at the Polytechnic Institute in Lvov. He promised that I would get accommodation and I agreed standing in a half-ruined building of the Institute. I came to Lvov in October 1944 and have lived my life here ever since. My family was in Kiev: my father worked at the military headquarters and Felix went to school.
On 23 February 1943 Red Army units liberated the village. People were very happy - they greeted, hugged and kissed one another. It's hard to tell what it is like to feel free after a nightmare of the war. The headman was arrested for supporting Germans. My mother and I wrote a letter to NKVD office telling them that Butz actually saved our family and many other people who he helped also wrote such letters. Butz was released though it happened after we left the village.
,
1943
See text in interview
They were the most horrific months in our life. Within 6 months Germans shot 7 thousand Jews and Party activists in the outskirts of Armavir. Varvara Burdova, a young woman, a former chairman of the collective farm, was also shot at that time. Once somebody told my mother that a number of Jewish people moved across our village to be shot and that I was among them. My mother ran all the way to my crew and when she saw that I was there she fell on the ground exhausted. Few times in those 6 months Butz sent a messenger - usually a boy riding a horse to notify me that Germans were coming and I escaped to the steppe.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
My mother, Felix and I got an opportunity to evacuate since my father was a military. We went in a sleeping compartment of a passenger train with other members of the families of Soviet officials. We got food packages and were well provided during our trip. The trip lasted for about a month until we reached the farm village of Grushki in Udobnaya village at the border of Krasnodar and Stavropol regions in 1500 km to the East from the Crimea.
,
1941
See text in interview
On the first days of the war my father volunteered to the front. He was 38 and was not subject to immediate recruitment at the very beginning of the war, but my father couldn't stay home. He wished to redeem his fault and join the first rows of those that defended our Motherland. Even that my mother was pregnant didn't stop him.
On 17 December my father didn't come home from work. On the following day NKVD [14] officers came to us with a search that lasted several hours. The officers looked closely into every document or photograph they found. They looked at photos where my father was photographed with Kamenev [15], Zinoviev [16] and other outstanding Party leaders. My father was arrested at the accusation in the coalition of a counterrevolutionary group in Leningrad that was in opposition to the Party. On the next day after the search my mother was expelled from the Party and fired from work declared to be the wife of a traitor supporting her husband in his anti-Soviet activities. NKVD authorities ordered her to leave Moscow within 3 days or else she was subject to administrative deportation.
In 1931 I went to a Russian secondary school. My mother didn't go to work for some time after Felix was born. When the boy turned two months old my mother hired a nanny, a girl from a Russian village, and went to work. She became a planner at the Cotton agency responsible for manufacture and sales of fabrics from native fibres. After work my mother and I went to walk my brother in the Arbat Street. I liked widow shopping.
My parents had many Jewish friends, - they had Jewish names and appearance - they visited each other, had tea and discussed current subjects. My parents often had gathering at our home. My father had Jewish friends that visited us for the most part: Samuel Rosovskiy and his wife and others. They were all members of the party and held high official posts.
, Russia
In 1928 my mother graduated from the Institute of Public Economy named after Plekhanov, and went to work. I went to a kindergarten not far from Arbat.
Children played together. We played 'hide and seek' running along the corridor and dropping in our neighbors' rooms. Our neighbors offered us tea and sweets. Neighbors often looked after each other's children when their parents had to go out.
In 1926 my mother became a member of the Communist Party, she always wanted to join the Party and be in the first rows of builders of communism. She prepared very thoroughly for an interview in at the district party committee studying works of classics of Marxism-Leninism. To join the Party applicants were to take an exam in front of commission of party officials that asked them questions about the history of the Party, biography of its founders, names of secretaries and other officials, etc.
Sergey lives in Lvov. He often comes to see me. His wife is Ukrainian and they have a very nice family. His daughter Ninel, named after me, finished a choreographic school. She went to the US on tour and stayed there. She is a dancer in Los Angeles. My granddaughter Lena, Victor's daughter, lives in Lvov. She is 19. Lena is a student of Lvov University.
As of late I feel interested in my roots and the history of my people. I often look at photographs of the ones I love. I am interested in the history and culture of the Jewish people. I attend Hesed in Lvov, read Jewish newspapers and celebrate Pesach. I am interested in Jewish traditions and including Jewish traditional food. Sometimes I feel sorry for staying away from the traditions of my people in the course of life. I wish I knew Yiddish and Hebrew. But anyway, I can say that I've lived a happy life.
As of late I feel interested in my roots and the history of my people. I often look at photographs of the ones I love. I am interested in the history and culture of the Jewish people. I attend Hesed in Lvov, read Jewish newspapers and celebrate Pesach. I am interested in Jewish traditions and including Jewish traditional food. Sometimes I feel sorry for staying away from the traditions of my people in the course of life. I wish I knew Yiddish and Hebrew. But anyway, I can say that I've lived a happy life.
, Ukraine
Vera Leontievna Doroshenko
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I got married in 1958 when I was 36 years old. My husband Alexandr Grigorievich Doroshenko was Ukrainian but he respected Jewish people. His mother was an Evangelist and she instilled in him love to the "God's people". My husband was a worker. He was kind and nice. During the war he was in the evacuation, involved in the military ship repairs.
After returning to Kiev I got a job of economist at the "Melmashstroy" plant where my father was working. Chief engineer and the Party unit secretary at the plant were Jewish, and they accepted me into their team, because they respected my father very much. I worked there for about a year, then I caught cold that developed into pneumonia. This resulted in heart problems, and the doctors again gave me invalidity grade 2. I couldn't work any more and worked at home sewing whatever people ordered.
My mother's brother Volodia Dubov lived in Kharkov. He had a Ukrainian wife. They had a son, Pavlik, and a grandson. Pavlik and his wife finished an Institute in 1941. I don't know why Volodia's family did not evacuate. When the Germans were in Kharkov they exterminated the Jewish population in the Drobitskiy Yar.
My older sister Rosanna had finished a medical high school before the war and got a job at the Sanitation and Chemistry Scientific Research Institute. When the war began she was recruited to the army. On 5 July 41 she came home to say her good-byes. She was wearing a uniform, had the rank of first lieutenant and worked in the regional hospital. She came by car, picked up some of her clothes and left. She had long hair, long plaits. Mummy recalled that she didn't give her a proper comb or our family pictures.
In 1937 he was under trial as an enemy of the people. But this Chernov had visited my uncle's collective farm and gave him a bonus in the amount of 2 months' salary for my uncle's good performance. Therefore, the authorities thought that my uncle was with Chernov and was an enemy of the people. Other Chairmen of collective farms were also arrested for the same reason. They were all released and my uncle returned home. It was almost a miracle.