When I turned seven, I also went to the Jewish elementary school. It was a private school, but the tuition fee was rather affordable for people with medium income. Poor families – there were a lot of them in Vilkaviskis – were exempt from tuition fees for their children. I made many friends at school. They were two girls, Rosa and Manya. We went strolling together after classes or on the weekend. All subjects were taught in Yiddish in our school. We studied Jewish classical literature. We had religion class as well. We had joyful celebrations of Jewish holidays at school, Purim was the special one. On that holiday there was a carnival, the Purimspiel. Almost all kids had traditional Purim costumes of Esther, Haman, Mordecai and Ahasuerus. I learnt about the origins of Jewish holidays at school. We merely celebrated them at home, and we, the kids, weren’t told anything about them.
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Displaying 32581 - 32610 of 50826 results
Raya Teytelbaumene
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I successfully passed the entrance exams and became a lyceum student. Lithuanians, Poles, Russians studied in our class. There were two Jews: I and a boy named Yankel. Teachers treated us kindly, without picking on any nationality. When there was a Bible class, Yankel and I didn’t have to attend it. We had a free hour. As for the rest of the subjects, we studied them the same as other students. I was good at Lithuanian and had no problems with my studies.
However, there were a couple of girls in our class, who offended Yankel and me. There were cases, when they openly called us kikes. My friends stood up for me at once and punished those who hurt me. When teachers found out about the conflict, they didn’t ignore it. They called the culprits into the teaching room and had a very strict conversation with them, saying that all people were equal. They tried to make them feel ashamed and soon there were no more conflicts.
When I was studying at the Lithuanian lyceum, I communicated with my Jewish peers less and less. I had no opportunity and willingness to take part in any Jewish youth organizations, but my brother Boruch was always fond of Zionist ideas and even started talking of departure for Palestine.
I left for Kaunas, where I entered the Jewish professional seamstress school and started learning that profession. I rented a room with several girls on Maku Street. I made new friends here as well. They were keen on Communist ideas and all of them were underground Komsomol members [5]. I also gave in and the ideas of equality and fraternity were close to me. I also entered the Komsomol. However, I was a poor member. I didn’t fulfill the assignments, as I was much more interested in my private life.
In 1936 Fayvel and I went to Kaunas. Our marriage was registered by a town rabbi. There we went under a chuppah in the synagogue. We celebrated our wedding at home. It was very modest: a dinner for the relatives arranged by my mother.
I decided to continue my education, and Fayvel and I left for Kaunas. I recommenced studies at school, worked in the school workshop and got a scholarship. Fayvel found a job at a comparable factory to the one where he had worked in Vilkaviskis –the one that produced soap. We rented a room on Kestucchio Street. The three of us lived there – my husband and I and my brother Chaim, who was studying at Kaunas University.
Now, the time of farewells started. Chaya’s family, Yudita and Tuvia, left for Palestine. My brother Boruch followed them. By that time he was a good photographer and made pretty good money, but Zionist ideas, inherent in him, finally broke through and Boruch dreamed of Palestine. Mother cried as if knowing that she was saying good-bye to him for ever. I envied my brother a little bit, but my husband and I weren’t going to leave. I was totally apolitical, stopped thinking of the Komsomol and seeing my mates from the Komsomol unit.
At that time, in the late 1930s pro-Fascist movements were founded and there were a couple of cases when open anti-Semitism was displayed. Neither I nor my husband were affected by that, though. Both of us belonged to the circle of a Lithuanian youth, looking to the East, to the Soviet Union. I should say, not only poor Jews hoped that the Soviet regime would change their lives for the better, the middle class of the Jewish society also preferred Russia. We didn’t know anything about the wave of the repressions, arrests [6], how Stalin and his clique exterminated true Communists.
That is why when the Soviet Army [7] came to Lithuania in 1940 we were happy to be annexed to the USSR [8]. Crowds of people threw flowers to them. Since that time our life changed slightly. My husband, who wasn’t drafted into the army due to his lame leg, became an activist. He was appointed director of the plant, where he had been a common worker. I finished typing courses and found a job in the regional committee of the trade unions. There were some changes in our Vilkaviskis. Mother’s store was nationalized. She didn’t work anymore. Father kept working at the factory, which was also nationalized. We were lucky. Our house wasn’t touched and nobody else was accommodated in it. Our land wasn’t taken over and father kept on working in his favorite garden. Mother was happy that my brother, who became a rather famous Zionist in town, managed to leave for Palestine. Otherwise, the Soviets would have exiled him like many other Zionist activists. The town synagogue was still open and Father went there. I think he did it out of the habit, to stick to the traditions.
We enjoyed our lives. Of course, we understood what Fascist Germany was threatening us with, but we hoped that there would be no war. Though, in 1941 there were military training alarms. We had civil defense classes at work. It was a bad premonition. On 22nd June I worked, though it was a Sunday. I had a lot of things to do. We lived not far from my workplace. I went to work and quietly did what I had to. My husband came to see me two hours later. He was really worried, even at a loss. Fayvel said that the war had broken out: Fascist Germany had treacherously attacked our country. Fayvel told me to stop working and to leave immediately. We went in the yard, where there was a cart. Fayvel made arrangements with some Lithuanian to take us away from the town. We didn’t come back home. My husband took money and our documents along. The only clothes I had were the ones on me: a summer dress and sandals. So my husband and I left Kaunas.
It was an escape. We had covered about twenty kilometers. A Lithuanian cabman decided to come back on his cart, as he was worried about his wife and children. We walked on the road along with other lost people, who had left their homes. Defeated units of the Red Army were also with us. Some wounded soldiers were going on trucks. Those who were slightly wounded supported each other. Some cars with military were ahead of us, they didn’t take any civilians with them. Bombings started. Military planes bombed us, though they saw that we were ordinary civilians. There was screaming. Children were weeping. Some old people were carried on stretchers. When the bombing was over, some of us remained immobile. We walked almost without any stops, just taking some rest in the woods or on the curb. We munched on some rusks on the road, which my husband had taken with him. We drank water from the wells, which were by the road. We were in a hurry as Fascist armadas were close on our heels. I was constantly thinking of my parents and brother, as they had stayed in Vilkaviskis, which was occupied in the first hours of the war, being close to the border. We didn’t have any information about my brother Chaim either. My husband’s mother Riva also most likely remained in the occupation.
We had been walking for a long time. On the border with Latvia we got on some truck and went to a small Latvian town, which was still in the rear. If forgot the name of the town. All of us went to live in the houses of locals. It was calm for a couple of days. There were no bombings and it appeared to me as if the war was very far away. Soon the German army approached the Latvian border. We took the train together with other fugitives and went towards the East. It was a locomotive train, crammed with fugitives. People were sitting in the aisles, on the roof. It was a long trip, no less than two weeks. The train made frequent stops. People scattered during air-raids. What we feared the most was that we could miss the train or lose each other. Death became a natural thing. After every bombing there were less and less people in our car.
It was an escape. We had covered about twenty kilometers. A Lithuanian cabman decided to come back on his cart, as he was worried about his wife and children. We walked on the road along with other lost people, who had left their homes. Defeated units of the Red Army were also with us. Some wounded soldiers were going on trucks. Those who were slightly wounded supported each other. Some cars with military were ahead of us, they didn’t take any civilians with them. Bombings started. Military planes bombed us, though they saw that we were ordinary civilians. There was screaming. Children were weeping. Some old people were carried on stretchers. When the bombing was over, some of us remained immobile. We walked almost without any stops, just taking some rest in the woods or on the curb. We munched on some rusks on the road, which my husband had taken with him. We drank water from the wells, which were by the road. We were in a hurry as Fascist armadas were close on our heels. I was constantly thinking of my parents and brother, as they had stayed in Vilkaviskis, which was occupied in the first hours of the war, being close to the border. We didn’t have any information about my brother Chaim either. My husband’s mother Riva also most likely remained in the occupation.
We had been walking for a long time. On the border with Latvia we got on some truck and went to a small Latvian town, which was still in the rear. If forgot the name of the town. All of us went to live in the houses of locals. It was calm for a couple of days. There were no bombings and it appeared to me as if the war was very far away. Soon the German army approached the Latvian border. We took the train together with other fugitives and went towards the East. It was a locomotive train, crammed with fugitives. People were sitting in the aisles, on the roof. It was a long trip, no less than two weeks. The train made frequent stops. People scattered during air-raids. What we feared the most was that we could miss the train or lose each other. Death became a natural thing. After every bombing there were less and less people in our car.
Eugenia Berger
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In 1939 the Russians came and then the Germans. We were taken to the ghetto. Of the whole family, only I and my sister Cyla, who was already in Palestine by then, survived. The rest of the family was shot in Ponary [15].
I escaped on the fourth day after they put us in the ghetto. I was very lucky I was young. A whole group of us, young people, left the ghetto. Then, sleeping in the woods, we walked east. That was right at the beginning of the war. If they’d caught us, it would have been back to the ghetto and we’d have been sent to our deaths.
I escaped on the fourth day after they put us in the ghetto. I was very lucky I was young. A whole group of us, young people, left the ghetto. Then, sleeping in the woods, we walked east. That was right at the beginning of the war. If they’d caught us, it would have been back to the ghetto and we’d have been sent to our deaths.
,
1939
See text in interview
He wouldn’t hear of our going to Israel. I even tried to apply for documents to go, but he didn’t want to let me. And so we stayed.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Unfortunately there was no way of getting to Israel from Poland, either, because Khrushchev had said that Poland was not to become a stopping-off point, and that they weren’t to let people go who had returned from the Soviet Union. So I stayed in Warsaw.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
They deported me to a camp deep in Siberia, in Kolyma. There is only sky and tundra there. Nothing grows there. In winter only mountains and ice: to have water to boil you have to chop up blocks of ice.
Our camp was just for women. We worked, in very harsh conditions. If anyone has read Solzhenitsyn [20], they know what it was like there. Our camp was 30 kilometers away from the one where Solzhenitsyn was. We were there at more or less the same time.
There were not only Jews there. We were from different places: from cities, small towns, even from the country. There were German women there, too, and one Englishwoman. I remember that Englishwoman well. She had been a language teacher in Moscow. A Russian, an old general, had taken a fancy to her. She didn’t want to get involved with him, so he dealt with her by having her sent to Kolyma. She was so fragile and delicate; she was perhaps 19. My God, how sorry I felt for her.
I was supposed to sit out my ten years there, but they let me out after seven. That was after Stalin died. Khrushchev [21] said then that those eight million innocent people sentenced to Kolyma had to be released. I was released after seven years’ work in hunger and cold, in the most terrible conditions.
Our camp was just for women. We worked, in very harsh conditions. If anyone has read Solzhenitsyn [20], they know what it was like there. Our camp was 30 kilometers away from the one where Solzhenitsyn was. We were there at more or less the same time.
There were not only Jews there. We were from different places: from cities, small towns, even from the country. There were German women there, too, and one Englishwoman. I remember that Englishwoman well. She had been a language teacher in Moscow. A Russian, an old general, had taken a fancy to her. She didn’t want to get involved with him, so he dealt with her by having her sent to Kolyma. She was so fragile and delicate; she was perhaps 19. My God, how sorry I felt for her.
I was supposed to sit out my ten years there, but they let me out after seven. That was after Stalin died. Khrushchev [21] said then that those eight million innocent people sentenced to Kolyma had to be released. I was released after seven years’ work in hunger and cold, in the most terrible conditions.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
The NKVD officials took everything I had, even the family photographs that I’d managed to take with me and then smuggle out of the ghetto. Not to mention my gold rings and things like that. They never gave anything back. They deported me to a camp deep in Siberia, in Kolyma.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Meir was a communist, an idealist. Before the war he had even been in prison for his communist activities. After the war he moved to Wroclaw and worked for the party.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Meir remained a communist to the end.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My eldest sister, Cyla – her married surname was Kopsztel – held right-wing views. She belonged to Betar [3], and was a Zionist. She was a leader in her organization. They sent her on hakhsharah [4]. In 1930 she immigrated to Palestine. She was 19 then. She ended up in a right-wing kibbutz.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
I should also say that my Mama was a socialist. She didn’t belong to any party, but I remember her singing Jewish revolutionary songs in Yiddish.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Then I escaped from the kolkhoz and got to Smolensk. I don’t want to talk about that any more.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
The rest of our brothers and sisters were small children. I’m not going to describe them here. I don’t want to talk about it any more.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I worked in that factory sewing clothes for three years, and then I wrote my sister another letter. I asked her to help me get to Poland somehow. It turned out that a distant cousin of ours had a husband who was a Polish diplomat. He helped me to get to Poland. I came back in 1958.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
We went to work in a kolkhoz [16]. Then I escaped from the kolkhoz and got to Smolensk.
When the war broke out the Germans came and threw us all out of the house and took us to the ghetto. Then she resolved to go with us. There were some Lithuanians there [Lithuanian members of divisions collaborating with the Nazis], and they said to her, ‘What nonsense are you talking; we know you are a Christian, get out of here!’ But she said, ‘No,’ and went with us. I was told that she died along with my family in the ghetto.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
In 1939 the Russians came and then the Germans. We were taken to the ghetto. Of the whole family, only I and my sister Cyla, who was already in Palestine by then, survived. The rest of the family was shot in Ponary [15].
,
During WW2
See text in interview
I escaped on the fourth day after they put us in the ghetto. I was very lucky I was young. A whole group of us, young people, left the ghetto. Then, sleeping in the woods, we walked east. That was right at the beginning of the war. If they’d caught us, it would have been back to the ghetto and we’d have been sent to our deaths.
In the end we made it over onto the Soviet Union side. And there it all started. We found it very hard. We were searched, they started interrogating us, but they didn’t lock us up in prison. We went to work in a kolkhoz [16]. Then I escaped from the kolkhoz and got to Smolensk. I don’t want to talk about that any more.
In the end we made it over onto the Soviet Union side. And there it all started. We found it very hard. We were searched, they started interrogating us, but they didn’t lock us up in prison. We went to work in a kolkhoz [16]. Then I escaped from the kolkhoz and got to Smolensk. I don’t want to talk about that any more.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
As for the changes since 1989 [26], I’d rather not express my views.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
As for vacations, yes, we did go away, but never all the family together. Firstly there were too many of us; it would have been very expensive, and secondly Father had his business, so he couldn’t go with us. Sometimes I went with Mama, but usually we children went away on school camps, and even more often than that on trips out of town.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
I remember, too, that we were always having discussions among ourselves. Of the eight of us, you see, four of us belonged to different organizations. Cyla was in Betar, I belonged to Hashomer Hatzair, another of my sisters was in the Bund [11], and Mordechaj went to yeshivah and was very religious. We were always arguing, especially during the elections to the various organizations. We would even come to blows over whom to vote for in elections to various councils and youth organizations.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview