Nonetheless everyone returned to his previous life and to family traditions but it was very difficult. All relatives gathered at my grandparents’ place as usual. We didn’t celebrate any Jewish holidays.
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Displaying 39031 - 39060 of 50826 results
Mia Ulman
Our apartment had remained untouched except for the library. While we were away, no one forced his way in and nothing was stolen, thanks to our house-manager, who had our keys and kept an eye on our apartment. He was a remarkable man. He preserved all apartments for the tenants in those hard times when houses became the targets of looters. Some time after our departure to Moscow our housemaid Nyusha stayed in our apartment; she didn’t want to come with us. Sometimes Aunt Yevgenia came back from the frontline and stayed there, so the apartment was only empty for a short time.
I entered the Faculty of Law of the Leningrad State University in 1944. I was awarded the ‘For the Defense of Leningrad’ medal and other medals [such medals were awarded to those who stayed and worked in Leningrad during the war]. Step by step all our relatives and friends came back from evacuation.
When we came back from Moscow, Leningrad was very clean, and the citizens put it back into order. As toilets didn’t function during the siege, buckets of sewage were poured out into the streets, and in the spring, before the ice melted, people went outside with crowbars, broke the frozen sewage, loaded it onto trucks and took it out of the city, in order to prevent epidemics. At some places there were sacks with sand in front of the stores’ shop-windows; they were put near buildings for fire-extinguishing. Some windows were still covered with plywood or sealed up with strips of paper to prevent them from breaking.
In November 1942 the plant, where my father worked, was evacuated to Moscow. Mother, father, Aunt Raisa and I left for Moscow on a truck and then a motor-boat across Ladoga Lake. In the beginning we lived in a hotel, later we were allocated a three-bedroom apartment in the center of Moscow. When we lived in the hotel the son of the hotel manager had to go to Leningrad, but he had no place to stay. My parents gave him the keys of our apartment. On his way there he got acquainted with some guy, and they lived together in our apartment. That other guy ended up stealing and selling the books of my grandfather’s library.
At the beginning of the war my grandparents evacuated with Uncle Lyova and his enterprise to Nizhny Tagil in the Ural. Aunt Tania and her daughters joined them. Grandfather fell ill with pneumonia in evacuation and my mother, who was eight month pregnant, went to take care of him. My brother Mikhail was born in Nizhny Tagil in 1943. He was named in honor of Uncle Mikhail, who perished at the beginning of the war.
Our family lived in Leningrad until the end of 1942. My father was working at the plant. My mother was manager at the Primary Education Department of the District National Education Department [RONO], and later she worked as a consultant for the Executive Committee Chairman. I was 16 years old. I took an active part in the self-defense group of the House Economy in preparing houses for defense. I put out fire-bombs, was on duty on the roofs and at the bomb-shelters and provided first aid for victims. The Executive Committee received letters with requests to find people, and I went to look for them. When the Germans threw fire-bombs during the siege [the blockade of Leningrad], the buildings trembled like houses of cards.
Once, during the bombing in the siege, I went to the opposite building. I went to the bomb-shelter to count the people there. At that moment a bomb hit the third floor, but it didn’t explode. The combat engineers neutralized it, but the exits of the bomb-shelters were filled up with debris. The light went out and it became stuffy. The red-haired plumber, who lived on the third floor of that building, began to shout, screaming that we would all die. He was arrested afterwards; he appeared to be on the German side. Fortunately we were saved, and the blockage was cleared.
Another time I went to the bomb-shelter located in 5 Sapyorny Lane. Two fire-bombs landed at the entrance, right in front of the windows, but didn’t explode. Aunt Yevgenia was at home at that moment, she had just returned from the frontline. She was the one who saved us. Owing to her high military rank she was allowed into the bomb-shelter, walked quietly alongside the wall and directed everyone out. We walked home that time very slowly in order not to send any vibrations through the ground. It took us 1.5 hours for 200 meters.
Once, during the bombing in the siege, I went to the opposite building. I went to the bomb-shelter to count the people there. At that moment a bomb hit the third floor, but it didn’t explode. The combat engineers neutralized it, but the exits of the bomb-shelters were filled up with debris. The light went out and it became stuffy. The red-haired plumber, who lived on the third floor of that building, began to shout, screaming that we would all die. He was arrested afterwards; he appeared to be on the German side. Fortunately we were saved, and the blockage was cleared.
Another time I went to the bomb-shelter located in 5 Sapyorny Lane. Two fire-bombs landed at the entrance, right in front of the windows, but didn’t explode. Aunt Yevgenia was at home at that moment, she had just returned from the frontline. She was the one who saved us. Owing to her high military rank she was allowed into the bomb-shelter, walked quietly alongside the wall and directed everyone out. We walked home that time very slowly in order not to send any vibrations through the ground. It took us 1.5 hours for 200 meters.
When the Great Patriotic War broke out in 1941, father signed up for the People’s Volunteer Corps, but he was brought back to the plant, because he had been wounded on his ear during the Civil War [8]. He had an operation and his hearing became bad afterwards. All my uncles, except for uncle Lev, who was old and was brought back from the front because of his age, left for the front. Aunt Yevgenia and Aunt Rosa were mobilized. Uncle Vladimir and Uncle Mikhail perished at the beginning of the war. My cousins, Yevgeniy and Yuriy, were severely wounded.
If I remember correctly up to 1937 no one in the family felt any anti-Semitism at all. I went to school, my aunts and uncles got excellent education and held high positions at work. 1937 was the year of arrests. [1937 was the worst year of the Great Terror.] Fortunately, they didn’t affect our family, though everybody expected trouble and terror. We flinched from every doorbell ring, when we sat together in one of the rooms in the evenings. People were arrested everywhere.
We hired a German lady to teach me German when I studied in secondary school. Anytime something didn’t come easy to me she hit me with the ruler on my head and hands. Once I hid behind a big stove in the corner of the dining-room before her arrival and she left, because she didn’t find me. My grandmother felt sorry for me and asked my parents to fire her. My next teacher succeeded to teach me two languages: German and French.
I don’t recall anything interesting about my pre-school years. I went to a very good school which was called First Exemplary. It was a secondary general school. Children of various nationalities studied in that school, as well as in any other Soviet school. The school was really excellent: We had a school orchestra, arranged school performances and masquerades. Children of famous people studied with me such as the son of A. A. Bryantsev, the founder of the first children’s theater in Russia, and the son of S. Y. Marshak, who was a famous children’s book writer and translator of Shakespeare’s works. My grandfather picked me up from school every day. We went to the RosCond confectionary and had pastry and soufflé. We were scolded about it at home later, because I didn’t want to eat my lunch.
I was born in 1925. I was never taken to my grandfather’s birthplace, Serebryanka. But the summerhouses we rented nearly every summer, when I was a child, were located in that area, near Luga. I don’t remember anything interesting about those vacations, we lived there with families of my uncles and aunts and I played with my cousins. My aunts and uncles’ families rented neighboring summerhouses. I was sent to Vyritsa and Siverskaya, the suburbs of Leningrad, several times to spend the summer with the kindergarten. The standard Soviet kindergarten left for the country with children, if their parents weren’t able to arrange summer holidays for them.
My mother studied at the Hertzen Primary Education Faculty of the Pedagogical Institute. She defended her final thesis when she was pregnant with me.
In 1994 she emigrated with her husband and her younger daughter’s family to Israel to live with her older daughter and granddaughters, who had left in 1990.
Vladimir’s daughters graduated from the Leningrad Mining Institute. After graduating, Lutsia left with her husband, a fellow student, for Vorkuta. After retirement they returned to Leningrad, and they still live here. They have a daughter, who works as a teacher of literature, and their grandson is in the 10th grade now. Larisa worked as an engineer at a Scientific-Research Institute until her retirement.
, Russia
Uncle Vladimir was a lawyer, and before the Great Patriotic War, he worked at the Municipal Prosecutor’s Office.
Uncle Grigory wrote to us from the front saying that he had left the last copy of his thesis in his bureau and asked us to pick it up. But their house had been destroyed by a bomb. The external wall of the building was ruined and everything was covered with debris. I remember me and my father trying to open Uncle Grigory’s bureau. We kept the thesis until he returned from the frontline. Both his daughters got a higher electrical-technical education and worked as leading experts at the Leningrad Leninets Association until their retirement.
, Russia
My mother’s younger brother, Grigory, learnt to play the piano at the Conservatory. He met his future wife Lyubov, who was a cellist, there. Besides, he graduated from the History Faculty of the Leningrad State University and defended his doctoral thesis. They had two daughters, Kima and Margarita. Kima was born in 1930 and Margarita was born in 1936. The name Kima means ‘Communist International of Youth’, it is an abbreviation in Russian. It was in fashion at the time to give Soviet names to children.
My mother’s sister Nina married Mikhail Model, a military man, before the war. She worked at the Leningrad State University Library.
, Russia
My mother’s brother Akim married Yevgenia Yekhilevskaya before the war. He worked as the head of the Planning Department at the Shipping Company and she was an epidemiologist. They didn’t have any children. Yevgenia participated in the Soviet-Finnish War [7]. Akim died in 1979.
, Russia
My mother’s sister Tira married late. Her husband, Ilya Gutner, her cousin, was a professor at the Pediatric Institute.
, Russia
After returning from the front Yuriy worked as a teacher of military subjects at school and finally became the Deputy Chairman of the Leningrad Municipal Committee for Physical Culture and Sports. He was a well-known person in the world of sports, not only in Leningrad, but also in the former USSR.
So Yuriy began to study at the Legal Institute right before the war and volunteered to the frontline when he was a second-year student. He participated in the Battle for Stalingrad. He was severely shell-shocked in the battles on Kurskaya Duga.
, Russia
Their younger son, Yuriy, was born in 1921 in Leningrad. Raisa paid special attention to her children studying German, so Yuriy attended the well-known Peterschule where all subjects were taught in German. It’s a special school with a good reputation. Education was free of charge in the USSR, thus nothing had to be paid. Raisa tried to provide good education to her children, which was typical of Jewish families. So Yuriy began to study at the Legal Institute right before the war and volunteered to the frontline when he was a second-year student.
They had sons, Yevgeniy and Yuriy. I remember that before the Great Patriotic War uncle Mikhail was head of the Disinfection Stations of the Northern Ports. He perished at the front at the beginning of the war.
Genrietta and Ilya. He worked as a legal adviser and his wife was a dentist. Genrietta was born in Leningrad in 1922. She got a higher technical education and worked as a leading specialist at the Electrosila Association to her very last day. She had no children. She died untimely of a serious illness at the age of 55. Her brother Ilya, who was born in 1924, pursued his career from a mechanical electrician to the deputy head of the Promsvyazmontazh Trust.
, Russia
The son of that relative, Grigory Tsepliovich, recalled, how people had rejoiced over the Revolution of 1917 in Luga: ‘Someone explained to me that it was freedom for all people, and for us Jews it was joy and liberation from pogroms. I remember how father took me by the hand, led me outside and marched boldly with the crowd of many thousands. In the evening I saw the crowd in Uspenskaya street catch a police constable and break his head on the stone steps of the central drugstore. At night our family was woken up by the doorbell and drunk soldiers walked into the apartment. They told us to stand by the wall, took out their revolvers and announced: The tsar has been murdered. Rodzianko [4] ordered to kill all Jewish men!. But somehow our valuables appeared to be more precious to them than our death. Father soothed us and told us that they were bad people; that they were not satisfied with freedom; that there were more good people and everything would be fine. And everything did blow over, everybody danced and laughed.
No one of our family attended the synagogue when we lived in Leningrad, at least, I don’t remember doing so. All religious manifestations were suppressed on a state level during the Soviet times. We were never proud of our nationality, nor did we try to conceal it, even during the dreadful years of arrests [during the Great Terror] and the war. All my grandparents’ sons were members of the Communist Party by conviction, and my mother joined the Party at the beginning of the war, when the Germans approached Leningrad.
, Russia
Before World War II my grandmother had housemaids, who lived with the family and helped with the housework, although my grandmother went shopping, bought food and cooked herself. The first maid’s name was Pasha. She found a fiancé later and our family arranged a wedding for her because she had no relatives. We also helped the second maid, Nyusha. My father found her son a job at the Krasniy Metallist Plant, where he worked as Deputy General Manager.
My grandparents took in their friends from Luga as lodgers. They were their distant relatives, and didn’t have a place to stay. Thus our apartment step by step became a communal apartment [5] by 1933.