Our parents were Neolog, but we observed all holidays. For Rosh Hashanah we would go to synagogue, and after the holiday we would have a big festive supper, which started with an appetizer - some sort of horseradish mixture. Then soup with meat and dumplings and the main course. On the table there of course also had to be round carrots slices, honey and apples.
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Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
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- First Soviet-Finnish War 37
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- First World War (1914-1918) 216
- Spanish flu (1918-1920) 14
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- 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
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- Kolkhoz 131
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- Waldheim affair 5
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- Józef Pilsudski (until 1935) 33
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Holocaust
9685
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Communism
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Displaying 5911 - 5940 of 50826 results
Ota Gubic
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Even when after the war he could have studied, I also tried to convince him, he also came to Prague to see me. He could have gone to school, because I was making decent money and also had an apartment, where we could have put another bed, but he didn't have the strength any longer. For the rest of his life he made a living in all sorts of ways unsuited to his talent and intelligence. He for example worked as a gatekeeper at the Bojnice spa, and practically also a bouncer in restaurants.
Ervin attended Jewish elementary school in Prievidza and high school in Banska Bystrica, where he also graduated. However at that time the Numerus Clausus [limitations on accepting students on the basis of economic or political reasons] was already more or less in effect, so he could no longer study. Ervin suffered very much because of this. I remember that in 1938, after the Munich meeting [21] he threw himself on the couch and began shouting, 'There won't be anything! There won't be anything! There won't be any school!' It was a huge shock to his psyche that he practically never recovered from.
Already in prewar times we felt anti-Semitism, to this day I still remember the insulting sayings that Christian children used to yell at us at Dreveny [Wooden] Ring. That's where we used to play soccer matches, Jews against the Christians. Once we'd win, once they'd win, but usually it would end with them yelling insults at us. We also used to yell things like 'Christian, Catholic, crapped on a stick....' I don't know how it continued.
I did only four grades of high school, and in 1936 I left to learn the printing trade. I was already a clerk by trade, so as a former high school student they gave me a one-year credit for my apprenticeship period. In those days the apprenticeship took four years, and high school students were credited with one year.
So these are those memories of school days. The high school was nice. The building stands to this day. There was a beautiful garden there, and when the year 1938 came, they made it into a large military training ground, because military training was instituted as a school subject. It was expected that Hitler would attach Czechoslovakia, and they were counting on us as soldiers [15].
I used to attend the Jewish school in Prievidza at Dreveny Rynek. Grades 1 and 2 were combined, and classes took place in one room. I absolved five grades in the Jewish school. Classes were mostly held up until lunch, but some subjects were also in the afternoon. For sure I know that religion was in the morning. There was no school on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday people went to synagogue. I wasn't some sort of exceptional student, even when I had A's, but I didn't study much at home the way my brother did, who always had his head in books and textbooks, and knew them by heart. I was more into sports. My favorite subject was also sport [physical education].
Electricity and running water were brought in to Prievidza probably around 1927. We had a three-room apartment. The rooms were in a row, one behind the other, and it continued on with the printing room, larder, woodshed, and behind that was the yard belonging to the building owner, Chikan. He had two sons. I was friends with one of them, with Mikulas. Our parents also had good relations all those long years that we lived there.
My parents usually spoke Slovak to each other, but would occasionally also speak Hungarian and German, because Prievidza was surrounded by German villages.
I would characterize our financial situation as 'from hand to mouth.' We didn't own very much. Quite the opposite, our business was kept above water by the Gazdovska Bank and its manager, Stefan Vunder, who was a friend of my father's.
My mother was from Banska Bystrica, from the Fried family. My mother finished a two-year mercantile academy in Banska Bystrica, and then worked in a distillery, likely as a clerk.
My father apprenticed as a printer in Budapest. He was married twice. I never met his first wife. I think that my father was a widower, and then he married my mother. He probably didn't have any children from his first marriage, and if he did, I never met them.
The best-kept road in Prievidza was the so-called Bojnice road. Bojnice is a spa, and a poplar-lined road led there. It was a straight road, about three kilometers long, which led from Prievidza Station, which is why it was called the Bojnice road. It was kept up, paved with cobblestones. They were also used on the town square, and then I remember that sidewalks were gradually made. Piaristicka Street was fixed up quite early on, and the town square as well, because every day there were markets held on the square, and each month a fair. The small markets mostly sold fruit and vegetables, but also smaller poultry like ducks and geese.
There were two religious communities in the town. The Neolog one was larger, and the Orthodox [9] one was smaller. My father played a part in trying to have the Orthodox community dissolved. In the end he didn't succeed. He was always somewhat of a rebel. He was very anti-Orthodox. He didn't like them, I don't know what it was.
Slavia was a hotel as well as a restaurant, where Jews used to go on Sunday to play cards. My father used to go there too, but he didn't play, but only kibitzed. He was a very notorious kibitzer in Prievidza, because my mother didn't allow him to play cards. But she would at least let him go to the café to kibitz. That was his Sunday afternoon pastime. In Prievidza Jews mostly made a living as businessmen.
During my childhood, Prievidza, my home town, might have had a population of about 5000, of that about 400 could have been Jews, about 60 families.
They youngest, Jeno [Eugen Fried] was a prominent figure, because he ended up in France as a representative of the Comintern [5]. Already as a high school graduate in Banska Bystrica, at the age of 17, he excelled in these political matters. He was an exceptionally educated person, and read a lot from the time he was very young. He was very talented.
Aunt Jozefina Safrankova excelled in baking so-called Fried bread. Very popular in Banska Bystrica in those days. Half the city used to go buy that bread. Jozefina, who was called by the Hungarian name of Jozaneni in the family, fell in love with bread-making and married a baker in Banska Stiavnica.
The Frieds had seven children, I think my mother was the oldest. Next after our mother was Moric Fried. He was apparently the second biggest and most important person in the wool industry in Slovakia - Moric Fried from Banska Bystrica.
The Frieds weren't devout, they were Neologs, keen Neologs [1]. I think that for the most part they kept kosher. I'm not completely sure, but they probably didn't eat pork, only poultry. They also had separate dishes for meat and dairy foods. They attended synagogue only during the High Holidays. The Sabbath, and the lighting of candles? Certainly not that, but they knew that the Sabbath existed. As I say, they were very Neolog, after all, the store was open on Saturday as well.
Zakhar Benderskiy
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In 1995 I visited my sister and brother in Israel. They showed me around the country. I admired how my people had changed the desert into blooming gardens and modern towns. I visited Jerusalem and prayed for my family at the Wailing Wall. I went to synagogues and visited Christian and Muslim temples. It's a wonderful country, but I felt homesick after a month. I wanted to be back in Chernovtsy, back at my mountain and the land where my wife and daughter are buried.
,
1995
See text in interview
Alexandr finished 9 years of Russian secondary school in Lvov and continued his education in Israel. He studied under the educational program Sochnut. After finishing school he served in the Israeli army. After his service he entered university. He lives in Israel now and has a job. He has two sons. We correspond and he calls me every now and then. I think Emma would be proud of her son.
Our daughter went to a Russian secondary school. She studied well. She finished school in 1962. It was difficult for a Jewish girl to enter a higher educational institution in Chernovtsy at that time. My daughter and I were aware of it. I had a friend in Lvov. He suggested that Emma came to study in Lvov. She entered the Faculty of Economics at the Polytechnic Institute in Lvov. My wife and I missed our daughter a lot. Emma lived at my friend's family during the first year of her studies until she got a bed in the hostel of the institute. She graduated and married her co-student, Grigory Koifman, a Jew from Lvov.
In March 1953 Stalin died. There was a meeting at our factory. Many people were crying. They couldn't imagine their life without Stalin. I didn't cry, but I felt concerned. We weren't aware of all those horrors caused by Stalin. We only knew what the propaganda said. If only I had known how many people died in labor camps and all other crimes that he had committed, my attitude would have been different. The only thing we knew was that fascists and capitalists were bad, and that Stalin was good. This was what we had been told, and this was what became the conviction of many people.
,
1953
See text in interview
Anti-Semitism entered our life. There were anti- Semitic expressions in the public transport and in the streets. Gravestones were destroyed at the Jewish cemetery and words like 'Jews, get out and go to Israel' were written on the walls of buildings. This lasted for a long time.
The struggle against cosmopolitans [10] began. Scientists and teachers were losing their jobs. Accusatory articles were published in the newspapers. Neither my family nor I had any problems in that regard but anti-Semitism was growing stronger. The Jewish theater and school were closed, and it wasn't advisable to go to the synagogue. Religious people were expelled from the Communist Party, got lower positions at work or were dismissed.
The local authorities told us to find a vacant apartment and obtain all necessary documents to move into it. We moved into this apartment on the following day. I became chief accountant at the furniture factory. My wife was a housewife. I was very glad that we moved to Chernovtsy, which is a beautiful town. The Jewish population constituted about 60 per cent. Now there are about 3,000 Jews in town. People spoke Yiddish in the streets, and there was a Jewish theater, school and synagogue until 1948. There was a very warm and friendly atmosphere in Chernovtsy.
All people that knew Germans during World War I believed that they were educated and intelligent people. My father stayed in his apartment and didn't open the door. There was a German man, Karl, who lived in our street. My father knew him very well, and they were friends. When my father heard Karl's voice at his door he opened it. Karl was with the Germans. I was told later that the Germans sent my father to the ghetto in Vinnitsa. He perished there.
I knew very little about the Soviet Union. We didn't know anything about the crimes of Stalin and his companions. We watched Soviet films, which were showed the happy life in the Soviet Union. We believed that there was no unemployment or anti-Semitism in the USSR. We believed that people in the USSR enjoyed freedom.
Moldova
Upon graduating my sister went to visit the princess. She showed the ring to the guards, and they let her in. A new hospital was being built in Kishinev, and my sister was appointed the supervisor of the therapeutic unit there. She worked well and liked her job.
Romania