Sabbath wasn’t celebrated at home the way it was in traditional families. Though, my mother did her best. She baked challot, put wine and candles on the table, lit the candles herself. On Saturday there was always a festive dinner, but Father didn’t go to the synagogue, moreover he had to work as Saturday was a working day at the brewery. Only when Grandmother Hana-Beila, who celebrated Sabbath, came to us from Kaunas, the whole family was at the table, and Grandmother said a prayer. Grandmother died in the early 1930s. I was very sick at that time and Mother couldn’t leave me. Father went to his mother’s funeral by himself. Grandmother was buried in accordance with the Jewish rites. The mourning period was also observed.
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Displaying 31441 - 31470 of 50826 results
Liza Lukinskaya
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My parents weren’t religious, though they kept up the traditions. Meat was bought only in kosher stores. Chicken and other poultry were always taken to a shochet. Sometimes Mother bought a tidbit-pork ham. She kept it in paper and gave it to me and my brother when nobody was around so that the neighbors wouldn’t see. When I said that we couldn’t eat pork, Mother gave me a surprised look and said, ‘Where do you see pork, it’s ham!
On weekend our whole family often went out together. There was a central park in front of our house. It was shady and beautiful. There was a chestnut alley not far from it. In summer Father rented a dacha [9] for us a room and veranda in Pagegiai [about 200 km from Vilnius]. It was a splendid place, with seven lakes in a row. Mother was good at kayaking. Every day she and I swam in the lakes. Sometimes she put us in the kayak. My parents were great swimmers. Special belts were made from corks for my brother and me. Soon we also learned how to swim. As a rule Father came over to us for a weekend and we had picnics in the garden or in the forest.
Father’s friends also belonged to the middle class. As a rule, husbands worked and their spouses were housewives. Mother’s friends came over every once in a while. They had tea or coffee with Mother’s pies, browsed fashionable magazines and played cards. Women met once a week. Each of them received guests in turns. Sometimes they went out to eat ice-cream and drink liqueur. Mother often took me with her. She was a fashionable lady. She had her clothes made by the best milliner in Siauliai. She enjoyed shopping. She liked stores that sold readymade goods and haberdashery. Mother always went to the store where threads, yarn and knitting needles were on offer. The owner of the store gave classes on needlework to beginners.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
The lyceum wasn’t far from home. My brother’s friend lived close by. His parents owned a cab and they usually gave us a lift with their son. Once, in winter time, when it was frosty, the three of us came to the lyceum, but my brother and I weren’t let in. It turned out that Father left on a trip and didn’t manage to make the payment. My brother and I had to walk back home across the town. When Father came back, he was furious. I had never seen him in such a frenzy. He went to the lyceum right away and took our documents. The headmaster of the lyceum understood his fault and tried to correct the situation. He came to my father with his apologies, but Father wasn’t willing to listen. He hired teachers for us, who came home and crammed us for the Lithuanian lyceum. In summer 1929 my brother and I entered it rather easily. He went to the boys’ and I went to the girls’ lyceum.
My parents mostly spoke Russian at home. Mother knew Yiddish, but Russian was closer to her. Of course, I understood Yiddish as my father tried speaking it with me. There was a Jewish school by the synagogue and my brother and I went there. I went to that elementary school for two years. Subjects were taught in Yiddish. There were several Jewish schools and lyceums in Siauliai. When I grew up a little bit, Father made arrangements for my brother and me to be transferred to the Jewish lyceum. Here I started studying a language that was new to me: Hebrew. It was a prestigious institution. Father had to spend a lot of money on my tuition. I don’t remember the precise amount.
We had all kinds of modern novelties in the kitchen. In that period of time people started canning food. Father bought a German apparatus with jars and glass lids. Mother made stewed fruit and canned them. Then she put them in a special boiler. We had a fridge in the kitchen: a special crate, where a metal box with ice was put. The ice was brought from the brewery. When it melted, more ice was brought again in a couple of days. There was a special cooler for pickles in the cellar. Father made them. He salted tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage in large barrels and stored them in the cellar.
Father started making pretty good money and we felt it. We acquired a beautiful grand piano made of mahogany. Mother played it. My brother and I were taught music at home. Besides, I had an English tutor, who came over to us. We had a housekeeper: a Russian lady, Nina, but my mother, a great cook, didn’t let her cook without her guidance. She spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Food was cooked on primus stoves – there were several of them in the kitchen. There was also a stove, where Mother baked different pies, cakes – tartlets, rolls and all kinds of desserts. I still consider her cake ‘Napoleon’ to be the acme of culinary art. Mother cooked Jewish and Ukrainian dishes. She made wonderful borscht with garlic pies, vareniki [a kind of stuffed dumpling] with meat stuffing, curds and potatoes. Puffy meat patties were always served with broth. I don’t know what kind of cuisine that is.
We had a four-room apartment. My parents purchased new furniture. There was a beautiful carved cupboard in the drawing-room as well as a table, chairs and a sofa with silken upholstery. The bedroom furniture was made from nut wood – a wide queen-size bed, mirror, dresser and large wardrobe with a mirror. There was not too much furniture in the small dining-room: a table with chairs, a small round table, where the telephone and address book were placed. Mother embroidered very well and she decorated the room with embroidered pictures and cushions and white starched laced table-cloths.
Soon Father was given an apartment near the brewery and we moved to a new place. The office of the brewery was located in the former mansion of some respectable countess. It was a beautiful two-storied building with a yard, fence and a gate. There was a 24-hour security guard by the gate. It was closed for the night and the guard would walk around the yard with a dog and didn’t let in any outsiders. The office of the brewery was on the first floor together with the small premises of a music school. There were several apartments for the employees of the brewery on the top floor.
There was an old building of a confectionary in front of our house. So it smelled like sweet caramel in our block. There was a military unit and an orchestra in the yard of our house. My brother and I enjoyed listening to bravura marches and waltzes they played almost every day. Our apartment was rather small, consisting of two rooms: my parents’ bedroom and the room I shared with my brother. At first, it seemed to me that father didn’t make that much money in Siauliai, as my mother did the house chores and cooking.
I was a feeble child. When I was unwell, the pediatrician Kantorovich came over. There was also a doctor at the plant where father was working. He was a Lithuanian. He was also called, when needed, and treated our family free of charge. There were a lot of Jews in Siauliai – merchants, businessman, intelligentsia: doctors, lawyers, teachers of Jewish schools. There were two synagogues in the city. The first place we lived in was near a large two-storied synagogue, located in the vicinity of the train station. My father went to the synagogue at that time and took my brother and me with him. I liked to see my father change in the synagogue. Usually he was funny and kind. When he put his tallit on, he looked older and stricter.
Father was assigned to a good position. He was a representative of the owners of the Guberniya brewery. This company is still an important brewery in Lithuania. Father was a very gifted and literate man. He was fluent in Russian and Lithuanian, both oral and written. He also knew Polish and German. He had a lot of responsibilities: starting from concluding contracts with stock houses and stores and up to quality control of beer. Siauliai was the second city in Lithuania after Kaunas in terms of population and importance. It was multinational. 30-40 percent of the population was Jewish.
Here in Kaunas my parents rented a small two-room apartment on the outskirts. I have some vague memories from my childhood in Kaunas. I remember a big round table, a large parental bed and beautiful velvet window curtains. Once, my mother asked me to give her a pair of scissors. I took them and ran to the sofa, where my mother was sitting. I fell down on them and hurt my neck. I still have a scar. I was a bad trencherman and my mother was constantly trying to scare me with gypsies. I was afraid of them for many years. When I was five or six, Father was offered a well-paid job and our family moved to Siauliai [about 200 km from Vilnius].
My mother, Feiga Dubossarskaya, the eldest in the family, was born in 1898. She obtained a wonderful education. She finished a Russian lyceum. I don’t know what language was spoken in the family of Grandfather Tsal. My mother was proficient in Russian, both oral and written, but she didn’t speak very good Yiddish and had an accent. Mother was taught music and played the grand piano. She was good at it. I don’t know how my parents met. In 1917 they got married. They didn’t have a traditional Jewish wedding. It wasn’t the right time: the years of the Revolution [6], Civil War, hunger and pogroms [7]. In 1918 mother gave birth to my elder brother Abram, and on 13th May 1920 I, Liza Abramson, was born. By that time Lithuania had gained independence from Russia [8]. Many Lithuanian citizens came back to their motherland and in 1921, when I was a year and a half old, our family – my mother, father, brother and I – came back to our motherland in Kaunas, which was the capital of Lithuania at that time. Almost all of my father’s family came back there.
My mother’s only sister Katya was much younger than she. I have a picture, where teenage Katya held me in her arms. I was four months old in that picture. I don’t remember Katya. She stayed in Ukraine. She died from pneumonia in about two years after we had left. She was only 17.
, Ukraine
The second brother, Aron, who was one or two years younger than Alexander, was a career military. He went through the entire Great Patriotic War and then lived in Kharkov. He died in the 1980s. The youngest, Yakov, also lived in Kharkov. He worked as a chief accountant of some pharmacy administration. He was in evacuation in Ural and after the war lived with his wife and children in Kharkov. He survived Aron by a couple of years.
, Ukraine
I didn’t know my mother’s brothers and their children. I don’t remember the names of all of them. The eldest brother Alexander, born in the early 1900s, was a callow youth, ran away from home during the Civil War [4] and joined a Red Army squad. He fought in the cavalry and became a Bolshevik [5]. When the Civil War was over, he finished the Construction Institute in Moscow and worked as an engineer at some military plant. He lived in Moscow all his life. He was appointed to high positions. Alexander had a son, whose name I don’t remember. He also lived in Moscow. Alexander died in the 1970s.
My maternal grandparents observed Jewish traditions and celebrated holidays as did the paternal ones. They also went to the synagogue, but in my mother’s words they did it because it was customary for the Jews, not because of their religiousness. They tried to raise their children – two daughters and three sons – to respect Jewish traditions, but they kept abreast with the times. Mother told me that they had governesses who taught them foreign languages and music.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
My mother’s parents were from Ukraine. Most likely they were born in Romny in the 1870s. Mother’s father, Tsal Dubossarskiy was also a merchant. He was very rich. I don’t know what exactly his business was. I didn’t know Grandfather – he died in 1922 after our family came back to Lithuania. Grandmother Anna was a housewife and brought up the children. After her husband’s death Anna moved to Kharkov [440 km east of Kiev], where she lived before the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. During the war my grandmother was in evacuation in Ural. When the war was over, she came back to Kharkov. After the war she lived only for two years. I didn’t see her then and was not able to find out about her life.
, Ukraine
My father, Isaac Abramson, was born in 1887. Having finished cheder he went to one of the Jewish lyceums of Kaunas, though I don’t know how many grades he finished. He was exiled to Ukraine with his family and in 1917 met my mother, who was from Romny, Sumy oblast [about 250 km east of Kiev]. Father also lived there at that time.
,
1917
See text in interview
Samuel Abramson, born in the 1890s, followed Abram. He was a representative of a large trade shoe enterprise, Salamander, in Kaunas. This enterprise is still known all over the world. He ran the Salamander store in Kaunas. I don’t remember the name of his wife and two children. They also became Nazi victims in Kaunas ghetto. My fathers’ younger brother, Yakov Abramson, born in the 1900s, and his wife owned a hat store in Kaunas. Both of them ran the business. They had two sons, who perished in the ghetto with their parents.
, Lithuania
My father was the eldest of the brothers. Then Abram was born in 1890. He was a violinist and worked in the orchestra of the Kaunas opera theater. I don’t recall his wife’s name, but I clearly remember his children’s names. The eldest, Israel, was my age. Before World War II he was a student. The younger Lev and Anna went to a lyceum. Abram’s family perished in Kaunas ghetto during its liquidation in 1944.
Liza, born after Fanya, was also married. I don’t remember her husband’s name. He died before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War. Liza also perished during one of the first actions of extermination in the second Kaunas ghetto. I don’t remember my father’s other sisters. Our family rarely kept in touch with them. I know that one of them, the youngest, stayed in Ukraine. She remained single and died at a very young age.
, Lithuania
When her mother died, Ida moved to her sister Fanya, who was one or two years younger. She was a famous milliner. Fanya owned a large hat store and atelier, where she and a couple of dozens of her employees made beautiful, fashionable hats. All the stylish ladies from Kaunas knew Fanya. She was married. Her husband, a Jew, Keirauskas was deported [1] and exiled to Siberia in 1940. It saved his life. Ida and Fanya died in the Kaunas ghetto [2]. Ten years after the Great Patriotic War [3] Keirauskas came back to Lithuania. I don’t know what happened to him. After Fanya died he didn’t keep in touch with our family.
, Lithuania
As a former ghetto prisoner, I receive a pension from Germany and I have a pretty comfortable life. I can even help out my son financially. Now I am a member of the Jewish community of Lithuania. Every week I come to the department of prisoners of ghettoes and concentration camps tour community and perform different assignments. I celebrate Jewish holidays with my friends. This way I revived my Jewish life. I don’t feel lonely.
My husband, who had always been friends with Jews, suggested leaving for Israel in the 1970s. I didn’t want to as, unfortunately, during the occupation I saw different Jews – some of them were starving, others were making money on that. That is why I don’t want to live in a purely Jewish environment, though I have been to Israel and liked it a lot.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Since that time I am on my own. Jewish life was revived in the period when Lithuania gained its independence in 1991 [24]. I think it was the only positive factor of perestroika [25] and the breakup of the USSR [1991]. I don’t like the altercations in the Lithuanian parliament. It seems to me that every member of the government is thinking only of himself. Life in Lithuania became bleak, and there is no sense in leaving for Russia as my motherland is here, and nobody is waiting for me in a different place.
My son served in the army, entered the university and finished the Economics Department. During the Soviet regime he was in charge of the bureau of heating appliances of the largest plant. That plant went bankrupt and Alexander doesn’t have a permanent job. He is involved in small business. My son divorced his first wife, who bore him a daughter, Yulia. She finished the Philology Faculty. She is fluent in English. Yulia is a business lady. She has a daughter, my great-granddaughter Anastasia. My son married for the second time, a Russian woman named Natalia. The most important woman for my son is me, his mother. He loves me dearly and comes to see me every day. My son buys me all kinds of scrumptious things I like and helps me about the house. My son started taking special care of me after my husband’s death in 1998.
My son was a wonderful boy. He was an excellent student at school and he obeyed his parents. I can say that I didn’t have any problems with him as a teenager. When he came of age and was to receive his passport, the issue of nationality came up [23]. Vladimir said that it was up to me. I had a talk with my son and told him that he had always been a Jew, but he should put the Russian nationality in his passport, not to feel any discrimination in his education and career. My son did as I told him. His nationality is Russian, but he is a Jew in his heart.