My father joined the Communist Party by the end of 1943, after the victory of the Soviet Army at Stalingrad. Afterwards he told me: 'Before the war I never shared the communist ideals, I was a non-party engineer. But during the war I understood that the Party was that very force, the only one that could organize resistance to Hitler, and bring victory.' This was at a time when he couldn't imagine himself not being in the Party any more. He often told me that during the Great Patriotic War, as an official person, he never confronted any anti-Semitism directed against him.
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Displaying 7051 - 7080 of 50826 results
Mikhail Gauzner
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In 1944 we moved to Sverdlovsk [2,300 km from Odessa], where my father was appointed chief engineer at one of the hugest optical-mechanical device plants within the People's Commissariat of Armament.
My grandfather David worked at the same plant as my father. He wasn't a locksmith any more; he was a warehouse executive. My grandmother and mother didn't work.
In 1947 my father received a large three-bedroom apartment with all comforts in a newly-built house. One room was for my grandparents and one for my parents. I slept in the living room.
I started school in Sverdlovsk in 1944. I could already read fluently in Russian and was rather good in writing, but only in print letters. I had taught myself. I studied in the 1st grade for about a month and then I was transferred to the 2nd grade. I finished primary school in 1946.
From 1947 on, my father started to send his applications to the Minister of Armament, Mr. Ustinov, for being transferred to Odessa, to get his former post. It took long until he let him go. It wasn't until 1949 that he managed to transfer to Odessa Kinap Plant as a chief engineer. The head of the central administration, Mr. Polonskiy, helped my father. After we moved to Odessa they gave my father the apartment in which I still live now. I, my grandparents and my mother followed my father soon after his departure. My first impressions were from the winding - as I named them - trees in the square around the Opera House, with the knotty, bent trunks and the bright azure colored sea. I had a feeling that I had arrived home. It must have been stimulated by the fact that my parents always spoke about Odessa with such aspiration, with such caress. There weren't that many ruins any more in 1949. In the five years that had passed since the liberation of Odessa many houses had been restored. There were ruins behind our house, where I would run to and play with the boys after classes.
It was in Odessa where my father encountered anti-Semitism for the first time, when he came to the regional party committee and introduced himself to the head of the industrial department. The latter said, 'We didn't invite you here. We have our national cadres.' My father was in a fury, hurried to the plant, called Moscow, Mr. Polonskiy, the head of the central administration. A day or two later, my father was invited to the secretary of the regional party committee, who apologized for his colleague. My father began to work. He usually arrived home at ten at night, sometimes at eleven. He was hardly ever at home on holidays.
By the end of 1951 a commission from the State Control Ministry arrived at the plant. There was such a ministry during Stalin's regime, headed by Mekhlis, a Jew by the way. He was appointed one of Stalin's 'watchdogs'. Stalin empowered him to interfere with the work of any administration. All of a sudden, the director of the plant became 'ill', and my father met that commission and answered all their questions. As a result of this commission's work, my father was dismissed - groundless. He phoned Mr. Polonskiy in the central administration. The latter said that my father should not worry - justice would be restored. But when my father came to Moscow, he found out in Mr. Polonskiy's reception-room that a co-worker, who was also a Jew, had been dismissed, too. My father couldn't find a job anywhere.
It was the end of 1951 - the campaign against 'cosmopolitans' [9] was in full swing. My father was well acquainted with the directors and chief engineers of most of Odessa's machine-building plants. Some of these executives wouldn't accept him on various pretexts. Others would pat him on the shoulder but say that they couldn't employ him. Some of them would turn away when they met him in the street and wouldn't exchange greetings. In the beginning my father didn't understand that this behavior was connected with the anti-Semitic campaign. But when he got to know that the majority of Jews working as chief engineers or directors at Odessa plants had been dismissed, he realized that it was state anti-Semitism.
In 1949, when we returned to Odessa, I entered the 7th grade of a school near my home. It was a boys' school then. I studied with great interest and was engrossed in Komsomol activities. I was also a leading character, just like my father. I could be youthfully irreconcilable, which I regretted later on. I was the Komsomol organizer of my class and a member of the school Komsomol committee. I organized all the cultural work. While in the 8th grade, I was recommended to the post of the school Komsomol leader. It was then that my Jewish friends said to me for the first time, 'Mikhail, don't you meddle with this. You won't be approved by the district committee.' And, at that point, I recalled my father's past experience. I had a feeling that anti-Semitism only existed in adult life and that we, youngsters, were spared of it. I wasn't elected, of course.
When Stalin died on 5th March 1953, my grandfather David Gauzner, who could hardly be suspected of love for the Bolshevik party [the Communist Party], cried and said to me, 'Mikhail, what's there ahead? You see, everything may go topsy-turvy without the man. And we'll have it served right upon us.' He was afraid of sedition because they always beat the Jews in troubled times. My father's reaction was ambiguous. On the one hand, he had survived the period of the struggle against 'cosmopolitans' and had no illusions left as to the attitude of Stalin's regime towards Jews. On the other hand, he was a product of his age. My father had survived the war under the guidance of the most potent organizers, and considered Stalin a superb organizer and creator of that machinery. I was the Komsomol organizer of my class at the time, and we organized a guard of honor in front of Stalin's portrait with a black crape band. I watched particularly that nobody would stir things up because it would be committing sacrilege. Well, we were like that in those times.
Hence I decided to follow into my father's footsteps and entered Odessa Polytechnic Institute - without exams because I had a golden medal. Many of my Jewish friends could enter Odessa Polytechnic Institute - anti-Semitism wasn't as severe there, although it was 1953, the time of the Doctors' Plot [10]. As far as I remember, the doctors were released in June, and we were admitted in August. The institute was relatively liberal, mostly due to its rector, Victor Dobrovolskiy. Studies were very easy for me. I was greatly attracted by the public activities. I was a member of the Komsomol bureau of my year, later of the department and finally of the institute. In my undergraduate years I was elected to the Komsomol committee bureau of the institute and was responsible for organizing activities. I also led the Komsomol meetings. By the way: the identical head of organizational activities at Odessa Medical Institute was my closest, now late friend Victor Leshchivker. He was also a Jew, and later became a splendid surgeon in Odessa, and assistant-professor at Odessa Medical Institute. When I was in my senior year, the party organizer of the institute told me to write an application to the Party and promised his recommendations. I answered that didn't consider myself apt. It was a lame excuse - I just didn't want to join the Communist Party.
In 1958, after graduating from the institute, I went to work at the design office of the radial drilling machine-tools plant and found myself in excellent fellowship, headed by a Jew called Boris Bromberg - the leading designer, whom I consider my No. 1 teacher. He was a brilliant engineer, an erudite and very interesting person. Our curator was deputy chief designer Mikhail Nadol, also a Jew. The chief designer was a Jew called Fridrich Kopelev, a very well-known person in the machine-tool industry. The greater part of my accomplishments is due to science I studied under the guidance of my teachers. I wasn't a born engineer, but I always found interest in what I did. I would walk to work, murmuring songs. I jumped out of bed, sat at the desk and started drawing something with haste. The answer to a problem would come to me in my sleep. It meant that my brain worked non- stop. I liked work, I found it very interesting. When I was working for my second or third year, the secretary of our department party bureau invited me and suggested that I wrote an application to the Party. My answer was the same, 'I consider myself unapt.
I got acquainted with my future wife, Berta Kelshtein, in 1961 when I was 25, and she was 22. We got introduced to each other by a mutual friend. It was a brief encounter in the street that resulted in nothing. A year later, I spent time with this same friend and came back from a tourist walking tour. Following habits, our tourist company went to the seafront Zhemchuzhina Restaurant in Arkadia in the evening. I met Berta again there. [Editor's note: Arkadia is a well-known Odessa beach, a recreation place.] We stayed late into the night and danced. Night. Moonlight across the sea. I walked her home; it was three in the morning. Deep inside I knew for sure - I was in love. Three months later, on 5th August 1962, we got married.
My wife was born in Zhytomyr in 1939. Berta finished school with a golden medal and entered the Department of Mathematics at Odessa Pedagogical Institute. In 1962 she graduated and worked for a year at the Molodaya Gvardiya [Young Guard] Republican pioneer camp. Later she was employed by the most popular physical-mathematical school.
Despite Elena's illness, we spent every summer, with the exception of two years when my daughter was at the spa, traveling around by car. I constructed a rigid bed for her on the back seat of our car, which we bought in 1971. We traveled across Ukraine, the Baltic states, Belarus, around Moscow, the Caucasus and the Crimea. We traveled all over the European part of the USSR. These travels were a delight to all of us, but Elena was particularly happy about them. You see, in her childhood she knew neither how to play in the yard, nor how to ride a bicycle, nor school parties, nor dancing. She always read a lot and had a good knowledge of Russian and foreign literature. We always subscribed to several literature- and-art magazines and exchanged opinions on the latest literary novelties. We tried not to miss guest performances by the metropolitan theatres that visited Odessa every summer from the 1960s to the 1970s.
I became the leading designer of the radial drilling machine-tools plant in 1962 and held the position until 1980. In my active life as a designer- constructor I often had to go with a mission either to achieve agreement over our designs or to set up the machine-tools manufactured at our plant in companies.
My daughter Elena always showed interest in her origin, just like any curious child, but in terms of genealogy, not nationality. I first explained nationality issues to her when she was in the 8th or 9th grade and we started to discuss her future profession. She longed to be a doctor. To this I objected that she would never become a doctor because it was almost impossible for a Jew to enter Odessa Medical Institute. She was silent for a long time because she had never encountered anti-Semitism in her life before. Then she said, 'Daddy, if I can't be a doctor, it's all the same to me, what I will be'. I started taking her with me to the plant to get her acquainted with my profession.
In the end she entered the therapeutic department. She was a magnificent student, and throughout the six years of her studies she never once experienced any bad treatment due to anti-Semitism.
After her graduation in 1988 Elena started working at Odessa Cardiology Center. In the late 1990s she was assigned to the highest doctor's category. Today she is the leading doctor of the Cardiology Center.
My wife and I visited Israel in 1997. I understood that it was a completely unique place, I don't know if there's another one like it on earth. It has a very special flair, especially Jerusalem. We were in Jerusalem twice, but only on flying visits because we stayed in Holon with a friend of mine who had invited us. We traveled all over Israel with my friends and relatives. I heard from them that every bush and every tree in that country had been planted by human hand. And there I felt that I was one with that heroic people, that I belonged to the Jewish people. I have to admit that I wasn't overcome by religious inspiration, it was rather the spirit of these heroic, proud people that managed to create their own state and restore national independence.
When I was still at work, although I had already been a pensioner for several years, all my Jewish colleagues advised me to enlist to the Gemilut Hesed charity center. To that I answered that I wasn't a pauper. I still worked and as little as we were paid, I didn't feel I had a right for charity. I have hearing difficulties, and they started tempting me, 'They give you a perfect, imported hearing apparatus. They give you perfect English eyeglasses.' I still wouldn't conform.
In 2000 I quit work because of my serious illness: lung cancer was diagnosed and they suggested that one lung should be removed. My daughter said, 'It will never happen until we are a hundred percent sure.' She and her husband took me to the oncology center in Kiev twice. Elena came up with a probable diagnosis, an alternate one. And she proved to be right - it was tuberculosis. I was congratulated on this... And that was when I did turn to Gemilut Hesed because the treatment was prolonged and expensive. I'm indebted to them for the help they rendered.
In 2000 I quit work because of my serious illness: lung cancer was diagnosed and they suggested that one lung should be removed. My daughter said, 'It will never happen until we are a hundred percent sure.' She and her husband took me to the oncology center in Kiev twice. Elena came up with a probable diagnosis, an alternate one. And she proved to be right - it was tuberculosis. I was congratulated on this... And that was when I did turn to Gemilut Hesed because the treatment was prolonged and expensive. I'm indebted to them for the help they rendered.
Aristide Streja
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I do know a few Hebrew letters and three or four words, but, even today, I'm not able to follow the service, especially when they read really fast. I go to the synagogue on Friday evening and I can only follow some fragments. I'm interested in the commentary of the weekly pericope.
I had my bar mitzvah at the Great Synagogue. The only time in my life when I studied Hebrew was when I was preparing for my bar mitzvah.
Hamisha Asar was the most popular holiday, because we got to eat exotic fruit, just like in Palestine. We would have sweet dates, manna, dried squeezed apricots called pistil, and all sorts of fruits except oranges and the likes. They were expensive, but could be found on the market, because we lived in a capitalist society back then. Tradition would have us eat a bit of those and we cared about the tradition.
The synagogue is and has always been at the very heart of the community - this is what I think and what I say to the children who come here now. Take Passover or Yom Kippur, for instance. The prayers last 3-4 hours in the morning and are continued for 3 more hours in the afternoon, which takes a lot of time. Back then, they lasted even longer. During the breaks, people would get out in the courtyard and talk. All sorts of things were discussed in the courtyard. Even marriages were arranged out there; young men and women would get introduced to one another and people would talk. They would also talk inside the synagogue, not on Yom Kippur or Passover, of course. But there were days when they would discuss things that weren't necessarily related to religion. Like nowadays, people talked about the issues that concerned the Jewish community of the time: social, philanthropic and Zionist issues, donations for Keren Kayenet [7]. The Jewish communities were organized around the synagogues, which had their own committees, presidents, rabbis etc.
So my father was a religious man. He went to the synagogue on Friday, on Saturday and in other days. He would go to the Great Synagogue, where he had a seat reserved for him, which he paid for. He would take me with him too, but only on holidays. I spent a lot of time there, playing with other children in the courtyard, which was pretty large.
There is no hakham nowadays; animals are slaughtered at the slaughter house and the rabbi checks on the process.
My grandfather from Ploiesti came to visit us. He kept the kashrut. We did our best to eat kosher too. My mother would buy live poultry and would have it slaughtered [by the hakham] on Mamulari St. I couldn't tell how strictly we kept the kashrut, but I'm sure we did.
In my childhood, my mother, who was a rabbi's daughter, kept all the holidays, of course. She would often go to the synagogue. My father was also a very religious man. Jewish tradition was observed with every holiday. We ate matzah on Passover and we fasted for Yom Kippur.