We stayed in the kishlak for about two years before we moved to Ursat'yevskaya. My mother began to work as an inspector in the financial department, I went to school, my grandfather became a janitor and my grandmother looked after my sisters at home. Our family received bread per cards. My mother worked in the financial department and received 500 grams, my grandfather - 400 grams as a janitor and we, children - 300 grams each. When I went to school, my mother made me a bag from some pieces. There were no books. I wrote on blanks that my mother brought from work. They were stapled together like notebooks. I finished the first form in three months.
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Major events (political and historical)
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Displaying 40801 - 40830 of 50826 results
Igor Brover
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We stayed about a year and a half in Ursat'yevskaya before we reevacuated in late 1944. We took a train home. The trip lasted a month less three days. On our way my grandfather died and we buried him in the Jewish cemetery in Kotovsk town. We sent our baggage separately. Since there were problems with salt at that time we sent a bag of salt with the luggage. Neither the salt nor our most valuable things reached us. They were stolen. We came to our village hungry and cold. Our neighbors helped us and we felt at home again. The kolkhoz gave us the same house where we lived before the war. Of course, there were no belongings left at home. We were sorry they were gone. My parents worked so hard to get them. My mother worked as director of the food and materials storage of the kolkhoz. In late 1945 my father returned and life became easier. He worked as crew leader at first and then he became manager of a mill and the buttery at the same time. Besides, we had a cow, goats and chickens. I was to take care of them. All kolkhoz members having cows had milk hauled by a truck to sell in Odessa. For the money we got from sales we bought food and clothes.
Rosa went to the first form at the age of 6, and I went to the 3rd form. There was only an elementary school in our village and after finishing it I went to a 7-year Ukrainian school in the neighboring village of Yeremeyevka.
We studied in Ukrainian, and after finishing this school my Ukrainian writing was better than Russian.
We studied in Ukrainian, and after finishing this school my Ukrainian writing was better than Russian.
I was the only Jew in my class, but I never faced any prejudiced attitudes.
There were a few clubs at school, but I didn't have time to attend them. Every day Volodia and I covered 5 kilometers to Yeremeyevka and then walked 5 kilometers back home. I came home late and had to do my homework. Then it was time to go to bed. On weekends I usually played volleyball and football with other boys. We often played games, mostly dominoes, with our parents at home. My parents always paid attention to my reading and studies, though they only had three years of school education. My father could solve a mathematic problem for the 6th form. That's how smart he was. During my summer vacations I worked as the artesian well motor mechanic to support my family. I liked this job very much.
My sisters and I grew up in a Jewish kolkhoz and knew that we were Jews. Though we didn't face any antisemitism in our childhood, we were prepared for it. My mother and father made us understand, directly or indirectly, that we might face unfair attitudes being Jews. They always said I had to be ahead of the others or else I would never reach anything in life and I always tried to follow this indication.
In 1951 my brother Samuel was born and I went to a vocational school in Odessa.
I studied to become a mechanic in the vocational school in Mechnikova Street in Odessa for two years. I lived in a hostel.
I studied to become a mechanic in the vocational school in Mechnikova Street in Odessa for two years. I lived in a hostel.
I faced antisemitism on the state level for the first time when I was finishing my vocational school in 1953. There was demand for motor mechanic in the shipyard and our group of 30 graduates went there to be examined by a commission. Of course, I was eager to get a job at the shipyard and I got the highest point at the commission. They told us to wait for the results. Then they called everybody, but me and Odesskiy, both Jews, and two guys from a children's home. This was too much for me, and I asked them why they didn't employ me considering my highest marks. They replied: 'You are not employed and that's it'. They never explained their motives, but we understood. I remember well that this happened during the period of the "Doctors' Plot" [7], and Jews were having problems. They could say 'here is a zhyd' [abusive word for a Jew] at the market, or 'what are you doing here, there is nothing for you here'. They were particularly rude with women. They were not so brave with men, but they frowned on them, anyway.
I was sent to the shipyard to work as a mechanic. There were many Jews at the shipyard and we were friends. Many of them live in the USA now. Since I didn't have secondary education I went to an evening school where I finished the 8th and 9th forms. There were prejudiced attitudes toward Jews at the shipyard. Of course, promotions were out of the questions. Jews were better than many others, but there was no way for professional growth.
In March 1953 there was information in newspapers and on the radio about Stalin's health condition. They gave the status of his health every hour. Of course, we were anxious. When they announced that he died, it was a tragedy. Women were crying and men looked dispirited walking with their heads down. We were born during Stalin's rule absorbed love for Stalin with our mothers' milk, we were raised with the name of Stalin and prayed to him, as if he had been God. It was very hard to think that he was dead and watch this mourning. That is why perhaps after the 20th Party Congress [8] I felt a real shock. We didn't know how many people were put in prisons or killed. When we got to know about it, we lost faith in the government. Though after Stalin's death people stopped disappearing, the Soviet regime always stood on people's fear.
My parents, grandmother and my younger brother Samuel also moved to Odessa. We bought (I don't know the details) a small house in the vicinity of Bugayevka in the suburb of Odessa. My father worked at the leather plant where he was a package operator and my mother didn't work since my brother was small. Unfortunately, Samuel lost his hearing after a disease. He was deaf, but he could read from lips. Samuel studied in a special school at the 11th station of the Fontan [resort district of Odessa]. There was only one room in the house while there were 7 of us, so we had to install a partial in the hall to make another room. Each of us slept on a folding bed and only our parents had a nickel-plated bed. On weekends our old grandmother was at home with my younger brother, and we usually went to the cinema or theaters. My parents sometimes joined us. We liked musical comedy, but also went to operas. There were problems with books even in Odessa after the war, but we managed to get books. We liked reading. We particularly like books by Boris Polevoy [9].
There was a mandatory two-year period of work requirement after finishing vocational schools [10]. After two years of work at the plant I was recruited to the Navy in 1955. At first I served in a training military unit in Lomonosov near Leningrad and then I served on a ship in Severomorsk. I didn't have any nationality-related problems in the army, basically. I was physically strong and had independent character. Besides, I was Komsomol [11] unit leader of the ship. Of course, there might have been intrigues behind the curtains, but they had nothing to do with me.
When I was serving in the army, the Hungarian revolution [1956] [12] happened. All I remember about this period was the propaganda. We didn't understand things then and supported the actions of our country. I demobilized in 1959.
After the army I went back to work as mechanic at the shipyard. In 1960 I entered the evening department of the Machine Building College where I studied four years. I continued my work at the shipyard. We had to work in three shifts. This was hard physical work. After finishing this college I became a technical mechanic. I became a foreman and then senior foreman at the plant, but there were no further promotions because of my Jewish identity. My management told me that I was working well, that I had good knowledge and was a good tutor for young people. I had apprentices who were promoted later, but that didn't happen to me.
In summer 1960 I met my wife to be Alla Perelman. My mother brother Mikhail's son Adik, my cousin brother, was my friend. In the yard of his house in Razumovskaya Street where he lived with his mother, there was a small shoemaker shop. Once Alla brought her shoes to this shoemaker and we met. On 15 March 1961 we got married.
Alla finished the Food Industry School and worked as lab assistant at various bakeries afterward. She was an excellent lab assistant and knew her profession well, but she was held back from promotions. She often heard: 'Where will you go if you quit? Nobody would employ you'. When we got married I convinced Alla to take a job of a lab assistant at the plant of stove units and she began to earn more.
After the wedding we moved to her parents in Khvorostina Street. They had a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor in an old house near the town garden. We lived in one room and her parents lived in another.
My wife's family wasn't religious and we didn't observe any Jewish traditions.
My wife and I liked musical comedy. Alla was very fond of opera and had a big collection of records, but we liked musical comedy more. This was the period when Odessa Musical Comedy Theater was at the peak of its popularity. We watched performances with Vodianoy, Dynov and Dyomina - they were stars. There was a good ballet group in this theater. I knew their names, but I've forgotten them. We watched the 'White acacia' performance [operetta by the famous Soviet composer Isaac Dunayevskiy The act is about life in Odessa], and all performances with Vodianoy [Vodianoy, Mikhail Grigorievich (1924-1987) - popular theater and movie actor, Jew, in Odessa]. Once a week we went to the cinema. We watched all new movies standing in lines to get tickets before. We usually went to the movie theater named after Voroshilov [13], it was called 'Zirka' later, in Chicherina Street. There was no television at that time, and people read books. I always liked reading, but had little time for it. Besides, I had to help at home and spend time with our daughter. So I gradually got to reading only newspapers and magazines. We subscribed to 'Rabotnitsa' [Woman-worker, a monthly social and political magazine issued in Moscow], and Odessa newspaper 'Znamia communisma' ('The banner of communism', but I preferred 'Izvestiya [Izvestiya - News, daily communist newspaper published in Moscow.
In 1967, during the war in Israel [Six-Day-War] [14], I was recruited for regular military training in Nikolaev. There were lectures about it in our unit. There were a few other Jews in my unit and we sympathized with Israel, but didn't like Arabs. We were very upset about the termination of diplomatic relationships between the USSR and Israel. This was done outrageously out of negative attitude toward Jews and to play up to Arabs. There was an incident with the radar station then. The USSR furnished a state of the art radar station to Egypt. At 12 o'clock, when all Arabs were praying, an Israel plane hooked up this station and took it away. The Arabs were horrified. During the war in 1973 [Yom Kippur War] [15] our emotions were no different and we sympathized with Israel as we did before.
In 1968 Soviet troops occupied Czechoslovakia [Prague Spring] [16]. We didn't quite understand what was going on. Only much later, when there were publications on this subject, we understood that we didn't have to get involved there.
Some time after finishing school my sisters got married. Rosa married Anatoliy Garyshev, Russian. She changed her surname and moved to Ilichevsk [port on the Black Sea, 25 km from Odessa, in 1973 became a city] where she worked as senior engineer in the department of capital construction. Her daughter Yulia lives in Odessa now with her husband Yuriy Vozovikov, Russian, and their 6-month-old son. Raisa married Vladimir Gordienko, Ukrainian. They also settled down in Ilichevsk where Raisa worked as an estimator at a plant. Their daughter Vika became a teacher. She is married and has a daughter. Her daughter's name is Irina. Raisa died in 1993 and was buried in Ilichevsk. My brother Samuel finished 7 forms and became a mechanic. My brother worked for the association of deaf and mute people and then made locks at the plant of household goods.
In 1970 we received a new two-bedroom apartment in Tairovo, a new district in Odessa. That's where we live now.
Sheina Burdeynaya
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We didn't go to synagogue, but we celebrated the main Jewish holidays: Pesach, Purim and Rosh Hashanah, at home. We had a festive meal with traditional Jewish food and invited our friends to join us. . We celebrated Soviet and family holidays in a similar way. My mother went to synagogue at Pesach and Yom Kippur. My mother and I fasted on these holidays always remembering brutalities of Romanians during occupation. We also tried to follow the kashrut rules. In summer we usually sent my son to a camp at the seashore.
I cried bitterly when Stalin died. We all were save from death in 1945 by Stalin's Soviet Army. I couldn't imagine life without him. Neither my husband nor I were members of the Party.
In winter 1952 during the period of the 'doctors'plot' I faced anti-Semitism. A woman in a food store abused me without any reason telling me that Jews would finally get what they deserved. I felt very hurt. I recalled the war and my father's death.
After liberation I got a job of an accountant in the bank in Rybnitsa. I wanted to go to the Institute, but there wee too many veterans of the war entering higher educational institutions. Administration told me that they would admit me, but I would have no bread coupons or stipend at the institute. I couldn't afford. My father was gone and there was nobody to take care of us.
About 100 inmates of the ghetto were taken to a beetroot field in a nearby village to pick up the beetroots that were left in the field. We worked in the field for a whole day and in the evening were taken to the school building. My mother and I were looking for some straw to sleep on it at night when my father called us. What happened was that a woman from that village recognized my father. She ran back home to tell her husband that came and paid a Rumanian guard to take us to his home. These people put us on their stove-bench and gave us warm food from the oven - I can still remember the food: cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and meat, very delicious. We stayed there for some days.
,
1941
See text in interview
In autumn a ghetto was formed. Gendarmes watched that we stayed inside. At the end of 1941 an epidemic of typhoid began at the ghetto. We were taken to a disinfection chamber. We had almost all our clothes burnt. Our neighbors gave us some clothes to wear. Inmates of the ghetto were not allowed to leave it, but people from outside could visit us. We wore a white star [so remembers Sheyna] sewn on our clothing. We were allowed two hours to go to the market on market days. Inmates of the ghetto were exchanging their remaining belongings for food. There were raids. Gendarmes captured Jews that were not wearing a star and they never came back. Farmers took their products to the market on a road across the ghetto. They managed to leave some of vegetables to us. We had no flour and we ground corns to make flat cookies or boil it. We heated our premises with whatever we could find: leaves or straw.
On Friday my mother made cholent and left it in a hot stove to keep it warm until Shabbat. On Shabbat we had a Moldavian aid at home. In cold weather she stoked the stove and did minor chores in the house. My mother made kugel on Shabbat - something like a pudding with noodles, raisins and jam. My mother also made 'essyk-fleysh' [sweet and sour meat with citric acid]. I also make this type of meat. Sometimes our relatives came and we set at the Shabbat- table all together.