My father was quite enthusiastic about the Soviet power. We had no information about what was actually happening in the country, about arrests or famine. It never occurred to us that somebody would wish to destroy our well being. We didn’t hurt anyone, vice versa, we always did charity. After the Soviet power took away our house and we had to move into a smaller house with only two rooms. Our house was given to the officers from the Soviet Union. They also took away my father’s petroleum storage depot. They issued him a passport where his social origin was determined as a “merchant” meaning that he was a hostile element to the Soviet power. He couldn’t find a job. My father did some joiner’s work earning the living for his family. This turning in life was tough for my parents.
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Displaying 49051 - 49080 of 50826 results
Leonid Mariasis
On 13 June 1941 a cart stopped in front of our house at night. We were told to move. We were only allowed to take some clothing and documents, but no jewelry. Soviet officers were supervising the process. We were taken to the railway station and ordered to board the train for transportation of cattle. This wasn’t an anti-Jewish action. Nobody can explain what kind of action this was. There were Moldavians, Rumanians and Russians and, of course, there were many Jews on the train. They were richer and poorer and, of course, there were many Jews. There were 380 families (women, old people and children) to be removed (there were women, old people and children). My father and many other men were separated from us. There were 50 people in each railcar and we slept on planks. We were not allowed to get off the train when it stopped. We arrived at the point of destination on 25 July and we didn’t know that the war had begun. We happened to end up in Siberia – the Soviet farmyard “Tripolie” not far from Tumen. We were told that we were special deportees and that we were not allowed to leave. We were supposed to go to work on the following day. We were living on the field until the middle of summer. We were involved in harvesting and construction of the livestock farm. My mother was having a difficult time. She wasn’t used to such life and she was spoiled in her previous life. She went to work in the field wearing high-heeled shoes – she just didn’t have other shoes. We were working at the construction site and she went weeding. We didn’t know where our father was or where the other men were. We were trying to get in touch with my father hoping that he was alive. Later we were told that he was under investigation and then sent to a penitentiary work camp in Siberia.
We remembered about Jewish rituals and traditions, but it was not possible to observe them. For example, on Saturday my mother had to go to work and I had to go to school. We also had a quiet celebration of my turning 13 years of age in 1942. I didn’t have a barmitsva. There were no Jews familiar with this rituals in our settlement.
In Salekhard life was easier a little bit. My sister went to work as a teacher of foreign languages. She had fluent French and German. I went to study at school. It was a two-storied wooden building. We had nice teachers. They were all women and there was one man, teacher of mathematics. He had no arm. I was eager to study. We studied when the temperature was 40°С below zero, but when it dropped to -50°С we had to stay at home. We went to school in winter and worked in summer. We also went to work during our studies: at the fish cannery or at the dock to load boxes. We were working like everybody else to support the front. In summer we were sent to the haymaking area at an island.
My father joined us in 1943. He told us that he was judged by the “troika” – 3 people that just read his sentence: 5 years in a prison camp with no right to write letters. He was under trial as an enemy of the Soviet power, Zionsit and a spy for Israel. He said he was very lucky to have escaped, because if he had stayed he wouldn’t have survived. He was in the Ivdel camp in Sverdlovsk region for two years. He was released because he had diabetes and needed insulin injections. He didn’t tell us anything about the camp. He wanted to forget that time. He obtained a permit to reside where he wished. He arrived at where we were and obtained his passport from the authorities. But in some time the authorities took away his passport and he became a special deportee like all of us. He didn’t have the right to move around. It was mandatory for everyone to work. My father worked as a merchandise expert at a big cannery. He was very hardworking and he loved to work. My father easily adjusted to life in Siberia.
Such conditions of life didn’t allow my father to observe Jewish traditions, so we only observed fasting in the family. There was a rabbi from Kaunas that had Jewish calendars so we knew when the holidays are, although it was strictly forbidden. He had other religious books as well. My father prayed at home every day. My mother managed to bring the book of prayers. Sometimes on holidays religious Jews gathered at the rabbi’s home. This happened very rarely, because all the people did work hard and had no days off. The Jews tried to get together at Jewish holidays. There were many of them. There was the family of Shtiry and Lichnik from Bendery and there were Jews from other locations. Younger people didn’t fast or celebrate holidays. Older people spoke Yiddish at their gatherings. There was no matsa, of course, it was just out of the question.
I remember 9 May 1945. Our military tutor congratulated us with the victory. He was a big strong man and he was training us in military disciplines, but when then he couldn’t hold his tears of happiness. Victory was a big happiness for our family, too. I remember my father said “If people glorify Stalin it is because they love him”. He used to say it several times.
I worked at the radio station for a year (1945-1946). I was an apprentice at first and then became a radio operator. It was a very powerful radio station supporting communications with Dickson Island and Novosibirsk. We broadcast weather reports in Siberia – this information is very important there. I enjoyed working there, but I wanted to continue my studies.
For a whole year I was trying to obtain a permit for departure. The nearest bigger town was Tumen, and it was the farthest where I could be allowed to go. There was only one higher educational institution in Tumen and this was a pedagogical institute. In 1946 I went to Tumen by boat. I didn’t get my passport. Instead, the commandant office issued a paper obliging me to register in Tumen. I passed exams to the institute and was admitted.
For a whole year I was trying to obtain a permit for departure. The nearest bigger town was Tumen, and it was the farthest where I could be allowed to go. There was only one higher educational institution in Tumen and this was a pedagogical institute. In 1946 I went to Tumen by boat. I didn’t get my passport. Instead, the commandant office issued a paper obliging me to register in Tumen. I passed exams to the institute and was admitted.
We obtained the required permission immediately and in 1946 all our family reunited in Tumen. I was studying and my father went to work at the automobile plant. This plant manufactured electrical devices for tanks and vehicles. It mainly supplied Miass, an industrial town in the Ural). My father was logistics manager. He was a very good expert and nobody cared that he was a special deportee. He got his job and nobody ever reproached him for being who he was.
In 1950 I graduated from the Institute and went to work as a teacher in a village. I heard about Stalin’s death in this village. The First Secretary of the district Party Committee Mikhailov called us for a meeting to declare that Stalin had died. He was crying while saying this. I didn’t have any feelings.
I managed to get a job at school as a teacher of physics. I received a room at school. I worked in this school #28 for many years.
My parents and sister always observed Jewish traditions, Sabbath and fasting, they went to the synagogue, they didn’t follow the kashruth, but they didn’t eat pork. They spoke Yiddish at home.
There was anti-Semitism in Lvov and the general attitude was anti-Semitic. Once I was in a bus and a man said to me “Well, you zhyd have survived. O’K I will arrange another Auschwitz and Babiy Yar6, and it will be worse than it was, you will all know!” I replied “Your Jesus was a zhyd, you know”. And he shut up. There were other incidents happening to me or my friends, but as I said, there were many decent and honest people and I was very lucky to meet so many of them.
Faina Melamed
My maternal grandfather Ariee Goichman was born and lived in Golovanevsk town, Kirovohrad region. [It is a town in Baltski district, Podolsk province. According to the census of 1897 its population was 8,148 residents, 4,320 of them were Jews.] Regretfully, I cannot tell even approximate date of his birth. From what my mother told me I know that my grandfather Ariee owned a mill and had grain stocks. I guess he had some secular education. It goes without saying that he had religious education. He was very religious and knew Torah well. My mother told me that grandfather Ariee was tall, wore a yarmulka and always put on his glasses to read the Torah. There was a synagogue in the town. My grandfather went to the synagogue every Saturday. He recited a prayer at home in the morning, put on his tallit and tefillin. They all spoke Yiddish in the family. My grandfather had a house and kept livestock. They had an orchard and vegetable garden and kept chickens, geese and cows. There was always fresh milk and eggs in the house.
My mother told me that my grandmother was a wise and courageous woman. She always wore a kerchief and on Sabbath she put on a lace shawl that she passed on to my mother later. On Sabbath my grandmother lit as many candles as there were members in the family. My grandfather returned from the synagogue, recited Kiddush, and the family sat down to dinner. They observed kashrut strictly. My grandmother taught my mother to observe kashrut.
The names of two other brothers of my mother were Baruch and Gedali. I cannot tell for sure, but I believe Baruch was born in 1887 and Gedali was born in 1889. They studied in cheder. Grandfather Ariee helped them to buy a mill. They became its owners. During the Civil War 2 their employees killed them.
The names of two other brothers of my mother were Baruch and Gedali. I cannot tell for sure, but I believe Baruch was born in 1887 and Gedali was born in 1889. They studied in cheder. Grandfather Ariee helped them to buy a mill. They became its owners. During the Civil War 2 their employees killed them.
My mother’s older sister Faina was born in 1893. I don’t know anything about her life, but my mother told me how she died. During the Civil War a Petlura’s 3 gang came to the town. Faina was sitting at home holding her baby and one of Petlura’s bandits killed her and the baby with a sword.
My mother’s older sister Faina was born in 1893. I don’t know anything about her life, but my mother told me how she died. During the Civil War a Petlura’s 3 gang came to the town. Faina was sitting at home holding her baby and one of Petlura’s bandits killed her and the baby with a sword.
My mother’s younger sister Rosa was born in 1899. Rosa left Golovanevsk for Shpola town near Kiev where she married Rovin Yampolski. He was an artist. They had a hard and poor life before the Great Patriotic War. I remember how my mother sent them a letter and some money, Rosa wrote back that she was so happy and that my mother’s letter was like a gift from heaven. When the war began we lost track of them. After the war we visited Shpola. Its residents told us that during the Great Gatriotic War Germans drowned Rosa and her husband in a well.
My mother Leya Melamed was born in Golovanevsk town in 1897. I don’t know where she studied, but she had education. She could read and write in Russian. She spoke Yiddish with my father at home and she knew many prayers. Perhaps, she studied in a Jewish school.
My paternal grandfather Yakov Melamed – whose date of birth I don’t know, regretfully –, was born and lived in Odessa. Grandfather Yakov had education. He spoke Yiddish and Russian and had a good conduct of English. He was a rich man, an industrialist. He had a luxurious apartment in 20, Petra Velikogo Street and his own carriage and horses. My grandfather was a gambler and used to lose a lot of money.
My paternal grandmother Sara Melamed, nee Shpolianskaya, was born in Odessa. Unfortunately, I don’t know her date of birth either. My father told me that she finished a grammar school and received music education. She played the piano. My grandmother had to earn her living. It was a difficult period of the Civil War and October [Russian] Revolution 4. My grandmother played at concerts and gave private lessons. My grandmother Sara lived in Odessa in the family of her younger daughter Eva. During the Great Patriotic war she perished in the ghetto. I don’t know any details of her death.
, Ukraine
My father’s younger sister Yeva was born in 1897. She finished a conservatory. She played the piano and taught in a music school. Yeva married musician Alexandr Krylov, a Jew. In 1930 Yeva gave birth to her son Semyon and in 1936 her son Leonid was born. During the Great Patriotic War Yeva’s husband Alexandr perished at the front. Yeva and her children failed to evacuate and they perished in Odessa during [Romanian] occupation 5. Semyon was killed when he came outside to consider the weather when all of a sudden Romanians appeared ‘Ah, zhydovskaya morda!’ [Jewish mug] and killed him. Yeva, her younger son Leonid and my grandmother Sara were in the ghetto in Odessa. My grandmother perished and Yeva and her son miraculously survived.
My father studied at school and received religious education at home. He and his brother studied Hebrew and Torah with a teacher who visited them at home. He also had private classes of playing the violin. My father’s family had a talent for music. When the World War I began my father served as a private in the tsarist army. When the October Revolution began he went to the Red army 6. He served in the troops under command of red commander Yakir 7. I think he did it because he knew about pogroms and the attitude of tsarist power to Jews. He believed that the new regime would bring wealth and prosperity to all.
My parents got married in Golovanevsk in 1920. My mother told me about her wedding. She didn’t even have a wedding gown. They found a cut of fabric at home. A tailor cut it for a dress and fixed the cut on her with pins and she spent a whole evening wearing this dress. My mother said that they invited a rabbi and had a chuppah. My grandmother Hana did the cooking and the whole family was helping her.
My father wasn’t a communist, but he always held key positions. He was responsible for meat stocks in Golovanevsk. In 1921 my older brother Boris was born. Since my parents spoke Yiddish at home Boris knew Yiddish well.
During famine 8 in 1932 my father was sent to work in Samarkand in Uzbekistan. We traveled by train. I don’t know exactly what his work was about, but he had to work a lot.
We were accommodated in the house owned by a woman, who also living there. There was a big verandah and a basement in her house. We lodged in three rooms: bedroom, dining room and a long narrow room that was like a corridor – the children slept in it. The walls were whitewashed and there were photographs and portraits on them. There were stone floors that we rubbed with a metal scraper until it became yellow. There was a big oak table in the dining room where our family got together on holidays. There were nickel-plated beds with ironclad base. There was a wardrobe with a mirror in my parents’ bedroom. It was a most valuable piece in our home. We had a Buchara-type kitchen. There was a fireplace in the center and everything was baked and cooked on the floor. It was a pit of about 20 cm deep with coal in it. There was a U-brick stand. On Sabbath coal was put in this pit. It smoldered in the pit and kept warmth through Saturday. Buchara Jews cooked delicious food and we borrowed their recipes. (I used to do my cooking in Buchara manner, but not any more.) My father made stocks of raisins, dried apricots and nuts for winter. He kept apples and vegetables in sand. My parents also bought lamb, treated it in a special manner, added pepper, salt, garlic and various spices. This meat and the vegetables were kept in the cellar. My father was very good at doing things about the house.
My parents tried to observe Jewish traditions when we were in Samarkand. My mother went to the synagogue on Sabbath and holidays. My father didn’t go to the synagogue. Probably his position didn’t allow him to, but he preyed usually at home with his tallit and tefillin on. My father had a prayer book and my mother had a different one. Before Sabbath my sister and I helped my mother to do the apartment. My mother cooked a lot of food and we prepared for celebration of Sabbath. My mother lit two candles. My brother and sister could understand and speak Yiddish well while I could only understand it. Our preparations to Pesach usually took several days. We cleaned off any breadcrumbs in the apartment. We used special crockery. I remember well big plates with portioners and special inscriptions in Hebrew instructing what food should be placed in them. At Pesach we all reclined on cushions around the fireplace on the floor. I found it funny when my father recited prayers. Once at Pesach my father was reciting a prayer in Hebrew from some special book [editor’s note: she refers to the Haggadah here] and we were singing songs. My brother and sister were very serious about it, but I burst into laughter all of a sudden. My father got very offended.
We didn’t face any anti-Semitism in Samarkand before the war. We observed our Jewish holidays, Uzbek people celebrated theirs and Russians had their celebrations. We celebrated Soviet holidays – 1 May, October Revolution Day 9 all together. Housewives of all nationalities came to the market where they could buy whatever food each of them needed. There were shochets that slaughtered chickens, cows and sheep. We bought meat from them. My mother bought milk from Buchara Jews. She knew that they observed kashrut and they kept milk in a special bucket that they never used for other products.
Arrests in 1937 [during Great Terror] 10 didn’t affect our family. However, we had a neighbor, who came to us one night and told us with tears in her eyes that her husband Volodia had been arrested. Her husband was a communist. He was a Party official. Some time later she was ordered to move out of their apartment and they moved into a basement.