My second husband was not a religious Jew either, like many Jews in Leningrad at that time. Iosif graduated from Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, the Faculty of Metallurgy, and had been working for many years at the open-hearth shop of Kirovsky plant. During the war the family stayed in besieged Leningrad. My husband’s father starved to death during the blockade [12] and was buried in a common grave at the Jewish cemetery. Iosif continued to work at Kirovsky plant until it was evacuated to Chelyabinsk. Both he and his mother, completely dystrophic, were taken out of the city.
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Major events (political and historical)
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Displaying 26881 - 26910 of 50826 results
Tatiana Nemizanskaya
In 1958 I married Iosif Lipovich Nemizansky, everybody called him Iosif Lvovich. He was also a Jew.
There was no anti-Semitism before the war, it started to appear after the war [13] and of course during the war. The Soviet regime propagandized internationalism, thus we never felt any anti-Semitism among the Russian population during the war in areas, which were not occupied by the Germans. During the war we suffered only from the Germans, most of the Russians assisted us very much. I did not feel any anti-Semitism at work, it depended on the team and we had a lot of Jews in our team. Our institute manager, Shvernik, looked for and accepted all smart Jews, who were fired from other places.
I was not disturbed by the Doctors’ Plot [14], but a huge tide of anti-Semitism arose. Our neighbors at home yelled at my mother that it’s a pity that so few Jews had been eliminated by the Germans, that Jews had not even been at war, but had stayed in the hinterland. Mother quarreled with them and even fought with some of them in the yard. She submitted applications to the militia about these cases. A rumor was spread in the city that all Jews would be gathered and sent to Siberia in special trains [15].
Certainly we suffered a lot from it, we were happy when Stalin died and the physicians were rehabilitated. No one in our family grieved because of Stalin’s death.
Now I would like to say a few words about my friends. I always had Jews as friends, some of the old prewar friends came back from evacuation to Nevel, but many of them left for Israel. They formed a Nevel society there, with which I keep contact by letters and phone. Some of my friends left for Germany and America. There are few Jews in Nevel now: 10-15 families, not more. Our close friends invited us to go to Israel with them, but my husband Iosif was very sick by that time, he was bedridden, and certainly he could not move anywhere. We took our friends’ leave very hard, continued to correspond with them for many years.
Life has become more interesting. I spend all my spare time at the library, read newspapers and magazines and take great interest in everything that’s happening in the world.
My Jewish life changed a lot after in 1993 I became a member of the Society of Former Ghetto and Concentration Camp Prisoners, located on Gatchinskaya Street. Later on I started to visit ‘Yeva’ on Moika and the Jewish Welfare Center ‘Hesed Avraham.’ I made a lot of friends there, we celebrate Jewish holidays together, attend lectures and concerts. We take great interest in Jewish history and traditions. I receive monthly packages and warm clothes in Hesed and use their other services, which are free of charge – order glasses, go to the hairdresser’s, etc.. I also received two grants as a former ghetto prisoner from Switzerland. Germany still transfers me 250 Deutschmarks every month starting from 1995. All this supports me very much and I am very grateful for this assistance as well as for the attention.
Rita Razumovskaya
We are dacha neighbors. My daughter built this dacha not far from Gatchina [small town 50 kilometers from Leningrad], in Siverskaya. She started it ten years ago. The cottage looks nice; we have two verandahs, a kitchen, and a couple of rooms. In the upper story we have a stove, which is a fireplace at the same time. I like the nature around, these are interesting historical places, and here many noble families lived. The air is very clean, you can breathe it with pleasure, the river Orlinka is clean too and there are very many cranes in the neighborhood. We grow tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries there. We plan to organize ecological tourist routes in this region, and I’m ready to provide excursions there, because I love those places.
In our family no Jewish holidays were celebrated, but we celebrated some of the Russian Orthodox holidays. One of my pals baptized my children, Olga turned to mystics. It happened in the late 1980s, we had hard times here in Russia, the economy collapsed, the country was destroyed, people didn’t know how to live and were looking for some mutual support. The Russian Orthodox Church started to increase its activities, and many people became very religious, including my daughter. She was attracted by this idea of mutual exploration, that’s what I mean when talking about ‘mystics.’ She’s been to Israel together with the Russian Orthodox mission. I never was an atheist, I believe in life after death, and I want to meet my daughter after our death,. I’m not a church person, and my daughter is a church person, I mean that she observes traditions and prays.
I like matzah and other Jewish meals. My children also like matzah, eat it with pleasure, of course, they know it’s some kind of Jewish food. Food was the only thing among all traditions, which we knew and observed. I cooked gefilte fish very well; some time ago my pal taught me how to cook ‘kichelach,’ which is Jewish cookies, so I even bake Jewish cookies at home.
I currently get packages from Hesed, sometimes I go there, once I’ve been there to a conference, about my uncle Kiselgof.
Jewish culture isn’t my culture, I grew up among Russians and Russian culture, I live due to this culture, Israel isn’t my country, not my people; I have no sense of national identity, I can’t consider myself Russian, because I’m Jewish and I even paid dearly for it, but I can’t think that I’m Jewish either, because I don’t know the language, I don’t share national feelings, I feel like I’m a cosmopolitan. And Israel is a state, which is built on national principles. Where I was born, there I’ll die.
I don’t know anything about my great-grandfather Strunsky, but my great-grandmother was very religious. I remember her always praying: she put on some special traditional cloth; I don’t know what it was. In the cupboard she always had matzot, and we, the children, stole it, both because we liked matzah and also because we wanted to see what our great-grandmother would do. Also she read some Jewish book all the time, and we understood nothing in it. She spoke Yiddish more than Russian. And, thanks to her, I still remember some Yiddish expressions.
Grandmother happened to find herself in Petersburg [later Petrograd, Leningrad, today St. Petersburg] very easily. She was a doctor, a dentist, because Jews usually became dentists, or medical attendants and midwives. It seems to me, that doctors were allowed to live outside of the Pale of Settlement [6], including Petersburg. So she worked as a dentist all her life. She differed from others, because she could pull out teeth very well. And everyone knew her because of this skill. Even though she was a very small woman, she could do it deftly and without any pain. And it is remarkable that she became a dentist, a doctor, because it was quite unusual for women to become doctors!
She didn’t know any Yiddish, absolutely none at all. And she never wore Jewish clothes. She didn’t observe any traditions or go to the synagogue.
My father played the violin, he graduated from the Conservatoire with excellent grades. At home we had violins made by Amati [famous Italian violin maker of the 17th century], Father played them and I still remember him playing. He played mainly classics, he liked to play Paganini [Niccolò (1782-1840): Italian virtuoso and composer of the 19th century], and as a matter of fact he had quite a large repertoire.
Mother told me how he proposed to her: ‘Simocka [short and tender name for Serafima], let’s live together!’ I guess that they were from the same circle and both were very virtuous. They got married in 1921, and I don’t think that there was a wedding ceremony, either Jewish, or Russian. They just registered their relations officially, since they were very poor.
My mother was born in 1897. She graduated from a gymnasium [high school] with some medal: either gold, or silver [a distinction]. She not only told me about her school, she even showed me its building.
After the Revolution they proved to my father, that the winning proletariat doesn’t need any art, it needs economics instead, and so he began to learn the new profession in some of Leningrad Institute, and became an engineer/economist. That’s why he had two university degrees. But I remember that when I was ten or twelve, he still played the violin in the cinema, which was situated on Sredny Avenue of Vasilievski Island, later it housed some club named after Uritsky [a revolutionary, killed in Petrograd in 1918], and today the Theater of Satire is situated there. Probably, he studied at some extra-mural courses, and then he began to work at ‘Mechanobr’ [big factory in Leningrad]. He didn’t play the violin any more and worked as an engineer five or six years before World War II started.
Mother taught Russian and literature. She graduated from the History and Philology Faculty of Leningrad University, she studied after the Revolution, and she finished her studies when I was little. Mother was a teacher her entire life, first, it seems to me, in a regular school, and later only in an evening one.
Father’s sister Elizabeth lived near Vitebsk, in Babinovichi. She was easy-going and liked to talk, she was very nice and had a wonderful voice, she sang very well. I saw her, because she came to visit her brothers in Leningrad – I think, she came twice or even three times. She was a doctor, and her husband was a doctor too, and they didn’t have children. They were religious people, Elizabeth sang Jewish songs, tried to keep kosher and observed Sabbath. I guess, they celebrated holidays and, perhaps, prayed everyday.
Anyway, this flat on the Petrogradskaya side was quite dark, and in 1924 we moved to the house on the corner of Siezdovskaya line and Sredny Avenue. Later there was a café on the first floor of this building for a long time, and above this café you could see the balcony, where I spent my entire youth. We lived in a huge communal apartment [9]; as a matter of fact, those were two flats with different entrances, only the kitchen and the corridor were common. There was a very interesting staircase. This building was built at the end of the 18th century, and the stairs were built in the wall, almost as in ancient Orthodox churches, there were no stairwells. The stairs led to the gallery, paved with stone blocks just like the street. We also had huge windows, looking over the yard. When you stood on the third floor of this gallery, the angel from the Church of Saint Catherine [one of the oldest Catholic churches in Russia] seemed to be very near. I remember this angel with the cross from my early childhood.
We had three rooms. One of them was huge, something like thirty square meters. And the only entrance to the room, where I lived together with my sisters – it was about eighteen square meters – was from this huge first room. There was also a small room, my parents’ bedroom. Their windows went straight out on Sredny Avenue and there was a wonderful view out of those windows of the city, roofs of the buildings and the Neva River. The apartment was a very good one; my parents chose it on their own: in those times the authorities gave apartments for free. And Father liked this particular one. My granny lived in the large room; her part was separated off with shelves. She had her own place, and she didn’t let anybody in.
In the same apartment a worker’s family lived together with us.
We had three rooms. One of them was huge, something like thirty square meters. And the only entrance to the room, where I lived together with my sisters – it was about eighteen square meters – was from this huge first room. There was also a small room, my parents’ bedroom. Their windows went straight out on Sredny Avenue and there was a wonderful view out of those windows of the city, roofs of the buildings and the Neva River. The apartment was a very good one; my parents chose it on their own: in those times the authorities gave apartments for free. And Father liked this particular one. My granny lived in the large room; her part was separated off with shelves. She had her own place, and she didn’t let anybody in.
In the same apartment a worker’s family lived together with us.
I went to school at the age of eight, and I went to the Jewish school for three long years.
We were not a poor family. Mother worked two jobs, and Father earned money too, we had housekeepers, and we ate well, and it was quite cozy at home. We never had anything splendid, didn’t go to Torgsin stores [13], but we lived quite well.
Apparently, I had many friends, I even had a boyfriend in the tenth grade [last grade in Soviet school], Alexander Guriev, nowadays he looks very old. And even though I was very unsociable, I had to communicate on some business and friendships started. I had the nickname ‘the ambulance’; maybe I had many friends due to this reason. I didn’t pay any attention, if they were Jews or not. I didn’t even think about this question, and I had no interest in this topic.
In my free time I read. Read, read, read…
It seems to me, that I was a pioneer [14]. And I was a Young Octobrist [15] too.
We had splendid vacations. Those were the best memories of my childhood. Near Luga [small town 180 kilometers south of Leningrad] there is a railway station, formerly called Preobrazhenskoe, today it is called Tolmachevo. It’s paradise there. You can breathe wonderful air there, and I haven’t seen such beauty anywhere else. So frequently, from year to year, as long as I can remember, we rented a dacha [16] there. I remember that we went there by train. There was some steam, and all that… The train was very loud. And also I remember how the owner met us at the station with the horse, riding a ‘brichka’ [kind of cab], which they used before the trams ever appeared, with two wheels and some cover. So he met us and rode eighteen kilometers to the village called Bolshie Izori. Ships crossed the Oredeg River; in those times it was a wide and beautiful river.
Our preparation for our time at the dacha was a separate point; this was something really sacred. We took food, a full case of cereals, all that was packed, and Father participated too, it would have been impossible with no men, and finally we left solemnly. For us, the children, it was something special, and we grew up in this village. We left just after the school vacations had begun. Mother had two months vacations [teachers in the USSR had longer vacations than all other civil servants]; she went there together with us. Father was interested only in fishing, and he didn’t want anything else in his life. He asked for vacations, and when he didn’t have such a possibility, he came for the weekend only, and walked eighteen kilometers on foot, I remember that once I ran all those kilometers very fast together with him, he was even surprised, but it happened when I was an adult and we were late for the train. I was seventeen then, I think.
Our preparation for our time at the dacha was a separate point; this was something really sacred. We took food, a full case of cereals, all that was packed, and Father participated too, it would have been impossible with no men, and finally we left solemnly. For us, the children, it was something special, and we grew up in this village. We left just after the school vacations had begun. Mother had two months vacations [teachers in the USSR had longer vacations than all other civil servants]; she went there together with us. Father was interested only in fishing, and he didn’t want anything else in his life. He asked for vacations, and when he didn’t have such a possibility, he came for the weekend only, and walked eighteen kilometers on foot, I remember that once I ran all those kilometers very fast together with him, he was even surprised, but it happened when I was an adult and we were late for the train. I was seventeen then, I think.
Galina became a Math teacher, and Irina is an engineer.