My sons were raised knowing their Jewish spirit. They could pick up their grandfather or my jokes in Yiddish. They fought the neighbor’s children, when they heard their anti-Semitic expressions or teasing. When Yuri studied in the music school in Lvov, most of his classmates were Jewish, and so was their class tutor, a teacher of physics. This teacher humiliated the boys, gave them lower marks and told them off, so that the others did not suspect him in supporting his own kin. There were Jews, who were most of all afraid of being suspected of being Jews.
- Traditions 11756
- Language spoken 3019
- Identity 7808
- Description of town 2440
- Education, school 8506
- Economics 8772
- Work 11672
- Love & romance 4929
- Leisure/Social life 4159
- Antisemitism 4822
-
Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
- Soviet invasion of Poland 31
- Siege of Leningrad 86
- The Six Day War 4
- Yom Kippur War 2
- Ataturk's death 5
- Balkan Wars (1912-1913) 35
- First Soviet-Finnish War 37
- Occupation of Czechoslovakia 1938 83
- Invasion of France 9
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 65
- Varlik Vergisi (Wealth Tax) 36
- First World War (1914-1918) 216
- Spanish flu (1918-1920) 14
- Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920) 4
- The Great Depression (1929-1933) 20
- Hitler comes to power (1933) 127
- 151 Hospital 1
- Fire of Thessaloniki (1917) 9
- Greek Civil War (1946-49) 12
- Thessaloniki International Trade Fair 5
- Annexation of Bukovina to Romania (1918) 7
- Annexation of Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union (1940) 19
- The German invasion of Poland (1939) 94
- Kishinev Pogrom (1903) 7
- Romanian Annexation of Bessarabia (1918) 25
- Returning of the Hungarian rule in Transylvania (1940-1944) 43
- Soviet Occupation of Bessarabia (1940) 59
- Second Vienna Dictate 27
- Estonian war of independence 3
- Warsaw Uprising 2
- Soviet occupation of the Balitc states (1940) 147
- Austrian Civil War (1934) 9
- Anschluss (1938) 71
- Collapse of Habsburg empire 3
- Dollfuß Regime 3
- Emigration to Vienna before WWII 36
- Kolkhoz 131
- KuK - Königlich und Kaiserlich 40
- Mineriade 1
- Post War Allied occupation 7
- Waldheim affair 5
- Trianon Peace Treaty 12
- NEP 56
- Russian Revolution 351
- Ukrainian Famine 199
- The Great Terror 283
- Perestroika 233
- 22nd June 1941 468
- Molotov's radio speech 115
- Victory Day 147
- Stalin's death 365
- Khrushchev's speech at 20th Congress 148
- KGB 62
- NKVD 153
- German occupation of Hungary (18-19 March 1944) 45
- Józef Pilsudski (until 1935) 33
- 1956 revolution 84
- Prague Spring (1968) 73
- 1989 change of regime 174
- Gomulka campaign (1968) 81
-
Holocaust
9685
- Holocaust (in general) 2789
- Concentration camp / Work camp 1235
- Mass shooting operations 337
- Ghetto 1183
- Death / extermination camp 647
- Deportation 1063
- Forced labor 791
- Flight 1410
- Hiding 594
- Resistance 121
- 1941 evacuations 866
- Novemberpogrom / Kristallnacht 34
- Eleftherias Square 10
- Kasztner group 1
- Pogrom in Iasi and the Death Train 21
- Sammelwohnungen 9
- Strohmann system 11
- Struma ship 17
- Life under occupation 803
- Yellow star house 72
- Protected house 15
- Arrow Cross ("nyilasok") 42
- Danube bank shots 6
- Kindertransport 26
- Schutzpass / false papers 95
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) 24
- Warsaw Uprising (1944) 23
- Helpers 521
- Righteous Gentiles 269
- Returning home 1090
- Holocaust compensation 112
- Restitution 109
- Property (loss of property) 595
- Loss of loved ones 1724
- Trauma 1029
- Talking about what happened 1807
- Liberation 558
- Military 3322
- Politics 2640
-
Communism
4468
- Life in the Soviet Union/under Communism (in general) 2592
- Anti-communist resistance in general 63
- Nationalization under Communism 221
- Illegal communist movements 98
- Systematic demolitions under communism 45
- Communist holidays 311
- Sentiments about the communist rule 930
- Collectivization 94
- Experiences with state police 349
- Prison/Forced labor under communist/socialist rule 449
- Lack or violation of human and citizen rights 483
- Life after the change of the regime (1989) 493
- Israel / Palestine 2190
- Zionism 847
- Jewish Organizations 1200
Displaying 27241 - 27270 of 50826 results
Abram Bashmet
Stalin’s death on 5th March 1953 wasn’t a big event for us. We spent all our time with little Yuri. Of course, we were concerned about what was to happen in the future, but I always remembered what our father said, ‘Don’t ask the tsar for anything better,’ and didn’t expect anything good from this regime. We lived our own life.
At the end of 1948 we had our marriage registered in the registry office, and in the evening Aunt Revekka arranged a small dinner party. I got a job assignment [21] to Siberia. Maya’s uncle Boris pulled some strings for me. He was logistics manager of our college. At the very last moment I got another job assignment to the Northern Caucasian railroad, to the Russian town of Rostov-on-the-Don, 920 km from Kiev.
,
1948
See text in interview
I met my future wife Maya Krechiver in the college theater. She wanted to be an actress and loved theater, but she never managed to realize her dream. She studied in Leningrad University and became a philologist.
n 1946 my college was transferred to Leningrad. I had finished two years of studies and went to Leningrad with my college. I got accommodation in a hostel. We admired the theaters, museums and the highest cultural level of people in Leningrad. I was very fond of attending the amateur art club where I played in the amateur theater and was particularly good at playing strong characters.
I went to the eighth grade at school. There were terrible anti-Semitic demonstrations in Alma-Ata and there was no escape from it. The main subject of it was that Jews were staying in the rear rather than going to the front. [Editor’s note: Many people evacuated to Central Asia during the Great Patriotic War, including many Jewish families. Many people had an idea that all Jewish population was in evacuation rather than at the front and anti-Semites spoke about it in mocking tones.] Russians talked about it at markets endlessly, though I never heard any Kazakh talking about it.
Uncle Aizik’s friend, who worked in a railroad office, was responsible for the evacuation of equipment of a plant and had a railcar at his disposal to evacuate the family. He took my uncle’s family and us into this railcar. Our trip in the overcrowded freight railcar lasted over two months before we finally arrived in Central Asia. We had a suitcase of clothes, a record player and few records with us. There were many Jews from Bessarabia [17] in the railcar. They spoke Yiddish and I actually learned the language there.
I went to the second grade of a Russian secondary school for boys and girls. There were many Jewish children in my class. Our class tutor was a Jew, a kind woman. Nobody distinguished us by nationality. Like everybody else I became a young Octobrist [13], and then a pioneer [14]. I don’t remember anything special about the admission ceremonies, probably, I didn’t care much. I was an active pioneer. I issued our class wall newspapers, one to the 100th anniversary of Pushkin [15], and also recited poems at concerts.
, Ukraine
In 1933 there was famine [10], I remember it well: we were miserably poor then. I remember that my mother and father had golden rings and they took them to the Torgsin store [11] to buy bread or something else. My father even had to take our pillows to sell them at the market. My father went to work at the garment factory. We didn’t have coal or wood to heat the apartment. I fell ill with measles. It created complications with my eyes: I had a squint, poor sight and long sight. I even couldn’t go to school at the age of seven: my parents decided I needed to get better.
My mother often whitewashed the stove. She cooked delicious traditional food. I remember the monotony of similar dishes: Jewish stew, chicken broth with beans and boiled cereals. Our family liked sharp tasting dishes: ground radishes with oil and onions, herring and sauerkraut, and we always had them at meals. My mother made gefilte fish, soup and borsch, but not so often. She cooked egg plants deliciously; they were popular in Odessa: she stewed them ground with vegetables, filled them with carrots and onions and pickled them. My mother also baked strudels and cookies.
, Ukraine
Our apartment consisted of one 17-square meter room and a 10-12 square meter kitchen. The front door led to the kitchen from the yard. There was a wood or coal-stoked stove in the corner of the kitchen that served for cooking and heating. There was a basement in the house where we had a cell to keep vegetables. There were two windows in the room, a wardrobe, beds and a mirror on the wall – this was all, I think. There were carpets on the walls that my father made.
, Ukraine
After the revolution my mother finished a secondary school. She was good at music and had a good voice. She entered the Vocal Faculty of Odessa Conservatory, but she only studied two years there. The hard conditions of her life at her sister’s, lack of food forced her to give up her studies.
, Ukraine
My mother studied in a grammar school. She loved music, literature, theater and art. My mother’s family must have spoken Yiddish among themselves. My mother could speak it well. The family was probably not so religious. My mother didn’t go to synagogue or lit candles on Saturday. We observed some traditions and on Pesach my mother made some dishes from matzah, but this was merely all.
, Ukraine
The family was not poor. My father was a breadwinner his whole life. He liked working for himself. He didn’t want to be subject to tough discipline at work. When the weather was bad, he stayed at home making his needles and later he went to the market to sell them. He always paid taxes on time. He didn’t want to have any problems with the authorities.
, Ukraine
At 17 or 18 my grandfather was recruited to the army. He served as a private in an infantry regiment located in the vicinity of Grodno [today Belarus]. At that time soldiers who had Judaic faith were given leave on religious Jewish holidays. They joined Jewish families for celebrations. So one seder my grandfather came to the family of a wholesale fish trader named Michel Rohkes in the town of Indura [26 km south of Grodno, Belarus].
, Belarus
Institutions and organizations began to evacuate. Our family didn’t hope to leave the town. Uncle Aizik’s friend, who worked in a railroad office, was responsible for the evacuation of equipment of a plant and had a railcar at his disposal to evacuate the family. He took my uncle’s family and us into this railcar. Our trip in the overcrowded freight railcar lasted over two months before we finally arrived in Central Asia. We had a suitcase of clothes, a record player and few records with us.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
I remember well the day of 22nd June 1941. In the morning we heard the roar of planes and heard the firing. We ran outside. We were terribly scared.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
This subject was not discussed at home, but there were talks about the war. We knew about the horrific war in Europe. We didn’t know any details, what Hitler was doing to Jews, but we understood there was bloodshed and towns on fire. In 1939 people said there was going to be a war in 1940, in 1940 they said there was to be a war in 1941. These were mere talks for me, and only when bombs began to fall on us, we realized this was the war.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
When the children were at school, my wife Maya was a housewife. To add to the family budget she made clothes at home. She had her clients. Later, when the children grew older, she went to work at the conservatory where she was chief dispatcher of the curriculum department. She did very well at work and her colleagues respected her. She worked till her last days.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
In 1969 my sister Emma died. She was young. I always loved her. She was an amazing person, kind and fair and never recognized the evil. Regretfully Emma was single. She was very ill. She had an ulcer in her stomach, consequences of the war and poor food. She was a philologist and worked in the library. She was very fond of Pushkin. She loved her nephews, my children, and spent a lot of time with them.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Though our boys have been so different they’ve always been close to one another. They went to pioneer camps together and played in bands. Music tied them together. Yuri has always acknowledged that Yevgeniy is talented. My sons were raised knowing their Jewish spirit.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Yuri lives in Moscow and goes on tours to many countries. His schedule is busy for a few years ahead. Besides, Yuri is a public person. He takes part in many events: music festivals, contests, etc. In many interviews my son mentions his family. He says he had ‘a great mother,’ who took every effort to make him what he is now.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
His wife Nathalia is a violinist.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
He is very fond of playing the piano and plays it wonderfully. Yuri is also known as an outstanding conductor now.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
In Lvov I climbed the career ladder promptly. In the 1960-1970s I worked as deputy director of the design institute. When our director died, everybody believed that I was to become director. The chief of the railroad department had a discussion with me and seemed to like what he heard, but later I was expressly told that the party district committee didn’t approve me due to my nationality. During the Soviet time a candidate for any official post was to be approved by the Communist Party district, town or central committees. So I remained to be deputy director of this institute. Many times I heard the others saying about me that I was a good specialist and a good man despite my being a Jew. When our institute was closed, I went to work at the railroad production site. I was chief engineer and when I became a pensioner, I stayed to work there as a dispatcher.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My father and 20-year-old Emma were left on their own. I realized that I had to support them and got a transfer to a similar design institute in Lvov. At that time we had a two-room apartment in Rostov that we exchanged for an apartment in Lvov in 1957.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My father continued making needles in Lvov and they were in demand.
By 1950 the Bashmet family gradually reunited in Lvov. Victor Lezhanskiy, the son-in-law of my father’s older brother Iosif, was director of a big enterprise in Lvov, and in the first years after the war it was easy to get an apartment here, and he helped all of them to get apartments and they moved to Lvov.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
On 24th January 1953 our son Yuri was born. Stalin’s death on 5th March 1953 wasn’t a big event for us. We spent all our time with little Yuri. Of course, we were concerned about what was to happen in the future, but I always remembered what our father said, ‘Don’t ask the tsar for anything better,’ and didn’t expect anything good from this regime. We lived our own life. We played in an amateur theater in Rostov. There was a good producer and what we did was quite serious. I went to work at a design institute and found this job more interesting. There were more Jewish employees there, but I didn’t notice any prejudiced attitudes.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Maya worked at school a little.
,
After WW2
See text in interview