Neither my wife nor I were members of the Communist Party. I was not interested, and my wife's relatives had struggled for the independence of Ukraine. She would have betrayed their ideals if she had become a party member.
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Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
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Holocaust
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Communism
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- Israel / Palestine 2190
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- Jewish Organizations 1200
Displaying 2521 - 2550 of 50826 results
Dimitri Kamyshan
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Larissa finished a Russian school and graduated from the Pedagogical Institute, but she didn't want to become a teacher. She said that she saw us working so hard, and until late at night, and wanted a different life. She became an interpreter. She has worked with companies and tour agencies ever since. Every now and then she can earn good money, but sometimes she can hasve no work at all.
My wife and I spoke Russian in the family and our children knew nothing about their Jewish origin.
In 1996 my son Pavel went to work in Israel. He had friends there. They invited him to come to the country as a tourist, and later they arranged for him to get a job as a masseur. He liked it in Israel. He worked there over three years until he came back here speaking about this state with great enthusiasm. It was only after my son returned from Israel, that I told him and my grandchildren the story of my family. They cried with me and showed much understanding.
My grandchildren, Anton and Anna, showed much interest in Israel and the history and traditions of the Jewish people. Anton, a student at a Computer College, has enrolled in the Jewish organization of Hillel. He attends their workshops and has become an expert on Judaism. Anna goes to school. She is very good at drawing. She made illustrations on subjects in the Old Testament, which were exhibited by the Sholem Aleichem 19 Jewish Cultural Society1.
My grandchildren, Anton and Anna, showed much interest in Israel and the history and traditions of the Jewish people. Anton, a student at a Computer College, has enrolled in the Jewish organization of Hillel. He attends their workshops and has become an expert on Judaism. Anna goes to school. She is very good at drawing. She made illustrations on subjects in the Old Testament, which were exhibited by the Sholem Aleichem 19 Jewish Cultural Society1.
My son decided to take his grandfather's last name and is now called Pavel Zilberberg. As for me, I still feel that the last name Kamyshan saved my life, and the name Zilberberg has too many fearful associations to me.
Jewish life in Ukraine has revived within the last ten years. I don't observe any Jewish traditions - simply because I don't know them. But I am interested in the history and traditions of my people. Sometimes I go to celebrate holidays at Hesed. Hesed assists people and helps them to communicate. We have many new friends. They are all very nice people. We feel very well in Hesed. It's very important for older people to feel support and communicate with one another.
Rudi Katz
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I go to the synagogue every Saturday morning and I often read from the Torah. I cannot sing, though.
Today I'm very involved in the Jewish community here and I receive support from it.
I retired in 1990, and I started to study religion and Hebrew, all by myself. At the same time I offer some technical advice to some companies. Although I didn't go to the synagogue [during the communist regime], I had bought books, dictionaries from secondhand booksellers from across the country even before 1989 - I had to travel a lot with my work, so I already had the material to start up.
Life changed for me after 1989 [16]; one can take part in religious Jewish life more freely than it was possible before. I believe religion is essential for every man. Before 1989, I couldn't go to the synagogue, just like many other Jews. Now there are conditions for a proper development of Jewish life, although there's a certain anti-Semitic movement that couldn't be seen before. But this is life; one cannot have things in a pure state.
I have never been to Israel. I wasn't directly affected by the wars against Israel in 1967 [14] and 1973 [15], but they affected me because the existence of the state of Israel is vital for every Jew. You could feel some danger in those dramatic moments, but you also felt that the whole world was there for Israel; back then, it was an impulsive movement against Israel, and Israel had a much larger effective support than it does now. I believe it's more dangerous now, when there's a stronger coalition of forces against Israel.
I tried to observe Sabbath whenever I could, but a lot of times I had to work on Saturdays.
I never agreed with the regime, so I was never politically involved.
I think this was also one of the reasons I never got married; I never actually had the time to meet somebody, or the means to start up a family for a long time. For people like me, who had been alienated from their homes and families in the troubled 1940s, it took a tremendous effort to fit into the normal life once again, and try to gain what you lost or what was taken away from you.
Before 1960 I didn't have a place to live, a house of my own; I lived in rented apartments, the salary wasn't enough; I didn't have anything that belonged to me, except my clothes, not even a spoon. It was hard to get a place to live. After 1960, I got an apartment I had to share, but at least I had a place and a bigger salary. It isn't the place I live in now; I have been living here since 1980; this is a castle compared to what I had back then!
I didn't have problems at work because I was a Jew; everybody was used to talking in riddles, apparently trifling about serious subjects; nobody was willing to risk being heard speaking clearly against the system or about religion, and suffer the consequences. I used to talk to my friends like this, for example: 'You know, the Bible is just a fairytale, it's silly to believe in it...but you know, there's something interesting in it...' and so on. It never happened to me, but I have seen Christian colleagues being reproved for going to church or having the priest over because their mother was sick. I was careful.
In 1955 I went to the Polytechnic University in Bucharest. I did one year in Bucharest and the rest through distance learning while I worked in Brasov. I took all my exams in 1960.
While working, I finished the apprentice school here, in Brasov, in 1954, because I was allowed to take exams from two previous years in one year.
When we moved to Brasov, I worked as a technician at the Consumers' Co-operatives Union for a year and a half, and then at Uzina 2, a factory with military profile.
When I came back to Cernauti, I studied for two years in an apprentice school under the Russian government.
I wanted to go to Israel, too, but the Zionists were always asking me to stay a bit more, because they needed me.
I also had another good friend here, in Brasov, whose name was also Katz, Misi Katz! But we weren't related in any way, he came from Maramures and had been deported to Auschwitz. He was alone, just like I was. He also left for Israel, and we kept in touch for a while.
I had two good friends when I came back from deportation, Zuckermann and Becker. Becker left for Israel and became an actor.
From 1946 until 1950, about four years, I was active in a Zionist organization, the Hashomer Hatzair [12]. I prepared Jews for aliyah, and a lot of people I knew then left.
Neither my father nor I worked at the time, so my aunts helped us with some money.
For almost two years my father and I stayed in Cernauti under the Russian government. The Jews in Cernauti struggled with the authorities and eventually were given permission to join a program to go back to Israel; this meant coming to Romania, so this is how we came to Brasov, in 1946. I don't know if it was my father's choice to come here, we could have been sent here by the program. But as soon as we came, my father got sick with cancer, and he was in the hospital for more than a year, and so we couldn't go to Israel.
When I returned, in 1944, I had no political beliefs. I had been cut off from the world for too long.
But as far as I could tell, the attitude of our neighbors and friends toward us didn't change.
There had been a lot of requisitions, and a lot of houses were devastated and robbed when the deportation took place.
But we were able to come back to the same house; I don't remember the exact details, but I think it was common property with some relatives. The house was empty, of course, none of the things we had were there, but it was good that we had at least a place to stay.