Finally, I was employed at a design institute of water supply systems, 'Giprovodkhoz.' There were many Jews there. First I worked as an engineer, and then I was a senior engineer. In 1973 I requested to be transferred to the All-union organization 'Soyuzvodoproyekt' [All-union water project]. I worked there as the head of the group of designers of municipal water supply, then I became a 'chief expert' - that was my job title. My functions included the check of quality and control over all design projects carried out by our department. I designed electric equipment for hydraulic power stations, elaborated automation of technological processes in melioration and took part in the adjustment of our systems in melioration sites.
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Displaying 14101 - 14130 of 50826 results
Adolf Landsman
I was despondent by Stalin's death in 1953. Stalin had been my idol since my childhood like for many other children. I believed in Stalin, in his brilliant mind and his justice. In 1953 I worked at the plant. There was a radio set in our office and I remember how we cried listening to the funeral ceremony for Stalin. It was the common mood; it was the psychology of the crowd. Everybody cried, including me. My father, who had had two apoplectic strokes and had to walk with a cane, said that he wanted to say good-bye to Stalin in spite of the fact that he was repressed and had to hide for many years without an opportunity to live and work normally. Of course, neither my mother nor I let him go to Stalin's funeral. He was worried about it. We thought it was the end of the world and we didn't know what would happen to our lives.
The shock passed and we kept on living.
The shock passed and we kept on living.
There was another shock after the Twentieth Party Congress [53], where Nikita Khrushchev [54] took the floor disposing Stalin's cult and divulging the crimes of Stalin and his apparatus. The whole text of his speech wasn't published in the papers or broadcast on the radio. There were only excerpts. There was a general meeting of all employees a few days after the party congress. The secretary of the party organization read us Khrushchev's speech in its entirety. I asked her if I could hold that historic document in my hands for a couple of minutes. I couldn't help believing Khrushchev and not because we were used to believing things spoken on behalf of the Party. Khrushchev said that all of us at the back of our minds understood the things he had been a witness of. Though there are people who even now say that Khrushchev calumniated Stalin, and I don't understand why. Others are prone to think that Khrushchev divulged the truth, which was to be hidden from the people. I disagree with both of those opinions.
I think people are entitled to know the truth about their leaders who govern the state and about things going on in their country. Though, before the Twentieth Party Congress there were people who had known the true personality of Stalin. These were mostly people who had suffered from Stalin's regime. They were smart and didn't blindly believe in Stalin's propaganda. My father told me that in 1949, when he was having tea, one of his good Jewish pals, the secretary of the party organization of the trust, whispered to him, that Stalin was a hard-core criminal. There were very few people who could say that. The majority of people, especially of my , believed Stalin was a genius, and we won the war because of him, and there is no way they could be convinced otherwise. They merely didn't listen to the proof. And these aren't necessarily retarded, ignorant or illiterate people.
I think people are entitled to know the truth about their leaders who govern the state and about things going on in their country. Though, before the Twentieth Party Congress there were people who had known the true personality of Stalin. These were mostly people who had suffered from Stalin's regime. They were smart and didn't blindly believe in Stalin's propaganda. My father told me that in 1949, when he was having tea, one of his good Jewish pals, the secretary of the party organization of the trust, whispered to him, that Stalin was a hard-core criminal. There were very few people who could say that. The majority of people, especially of my , believed Stalin was a genius, and we won the war because of him, and there is no way they could be convinced otherwise. They merely didn't listen to the proof. And these aren't necessarily retarded, ignorant or illiterate people.
My father died in 1956. He was buried in the city cemetery and his funeral wasn't in accordance with the Jewish rites. My mother lived another half a year longer and she was able to find out that I was seeing a girl, who later became my wife. She was happy for me. She died in the late fall of 1956, and she was buried next to my father.
My grandparents were religious. My grandfather went to the synagogue on holidays. I think he went there on Sabbath as well. Jewish holidays and Sabbath were celebrated at home. I don't know the details, as I only remember bits and pieces of my mother's tales from my childhood. Both parents and children spoke good Russian, but Yiddish was spoken at home. The family was most likely well-off before the revolution [see Russian Revolution of 1917] [3] because the two elder daughters finished lyceum.
Elisavetta worked in a district polyclinic as a pediatrician. I don't remember her husband's name; all I know is that his surname was Kugel. He worked for the NKVD [4] as a steward.
My mother finished six grades of the Jewish school. She worked in a pharmacy before getting married. She weighed the components of the medicine. She quit her job after getting married. I think my parents had a traditional Jewish wedding as my grandparents would have objected to a non- Jewish one as they were very religious. My parents didn't have their own house. They got very lucky - they moved into the apartment with the Lubotskiy sisters.
Those sisters' brother was the closest counsel of Lenin [5], the first secretary of the Moscow Party Committee. He died tragically in 1918. A bomb was thrown in the office where the party committee was. Lubotskiy took that bomb to throw it away, but it exploded in his hands. Many people died. His revolutionary pseudonym was Zagorskiy and that's why the town Sergiev Posad was named after him - Zagorsk.
One of his sisters was a seamstress, and the other, Elena, was involved in revolutionary activities. even before the revolution.
One of his sisters was a seamstress, and the other, Elena, was involved in revolutionary activities. even before the revolution.
My father still worked in his shop with his brother Pavel. My mother was a housewife and took care of me. We were pretty well-off during the NEP [7] times, and the Soviet regime encouraged entrepreneurship.
In Moscow my father and Pavel rented a shop for rubber manufacturing. They hired a manufacturing engineer, who helped them launch the manufacturing process.
We lived in the city center in Moscow, on Alexander Nevskiy Street. The name of that street hasn't been changed. We lived in a communal apartment [8], where there was another family apart from us. Our neighbors were Russians. It was the Nikiphorov family. The husband was an engineer, and his wife was a school teacher. They didn't have children. They were very friendly, I don't even think that they got irritated judging by the tone of their conversation, and there were no quarrels. We had two small rooms and a hall.
My parents spoke only Russian with me. They spoke Russian, too [with each other] and they switched to Yiddish when they needed to conceal something from me. Unfortunately, I wasn't taught Yiddish.
I don't think my parents were religious. They stuck to Jewish traditions rather conventionally. My parents didn't pray. My father worked on Sabbath and my mother also had things to do. Maybe it was connected with the rigid struggle of the Soviet regime against religion [see struggle against religion] [9]. Religious people were persecuted and disdained. Pesach was the only holiday we celebrated at home. We bought matzah for the holiday. My mother cooked traditional festive dishes: chicken broth and gefilte fish. She also baked strudels. I think they just paid tribute to the tradition. My mother never went to the synagogue. My father went on Pesach and Yom Kippur. He had a prayer book and a tallit made from rich silk. That tallit was kept in the family for many years.
When we moved to Moscow, my parents decided to give me the best education possible. I went to a private German kindergarten, where there were eight to ten children.
When I reached school age, my parents managed to send me to the best school in Moscow. It was the privileged school # 25 [11], where the children of the Party and the governmental elite studied. It was a hard time. There wasn't enough food but our school breakfasts were pretty good. Before the revolution this school used to be a lyceum, and some teachers from that lyceum taught there. Of course, I wasn't aware that the children of governmental authorities went to our school. The teachers had the same attitude towards everybody. They treated everybody equally and in a good- wishing manner. I became a Young Octobrist [12] in the first grade.
I finished the first grade when my father was arrested. Authorities knew that my father was a businessman and during the NEP his business was closed down, but entrepreneurs were persecuted and restricted in civil rights. When in 1933 there was a passport exchange, Pavel and my father weren't given new passports for being NEPists, and they were put behind bars.
So my father and Pavel were charged with crimes, which weren't proven, and they were exiled to Arkhangelsk by a court ruling [about 1,200 km north of Moscow].
My mother wasn't given a passport as she was the wife of an exiled. It was very strict at that time, if the husband was exiled the wife was supposed to follow him and a passport could be issued only in the area of the exile. Even if spouses were divorced, wives were supposed to go to the exile anyway, as they thought that the divorce might have been fictitious. Such people were called deprivees [see Admission privilege] [13] - they weren't only deprived of the election rights, which would be easily overcome, but many other rights, and one of them was the right to live in a big city.
My mother couldn't find a job without a passport, she couldn't even go to the polyclinic to see the doctor as she was supposed to show her passport with the registered address at the reception.
Soon after my father's arrest, my grandfather, Gersh Sherman, passed away. My mother couldn't go to his funeral, as she was supposed to show her passport at the railway stations and in the train during the stops as the passengers were checked by the patrols of railroad police. She would be forced to leave the train immediately at any station.
My mother and I were evicted from the apartment. We lived with Marta, my mother's sister, for about a year.
My mother tried to take some actions. She managed to get an appointment with Maria Ulyanova, Lenin's sister. She wanted to ask her to help us stay in Moscow. When my mother went for the appointment she was asked for her passport at the reception and she wasn't let in. She went to the hall hoping that when Maria Ulyanova left the office she would have a chance to have a talk with her in the hall. She understood that she might have to stay there for the whole day and had brought a bag with sandwiches with her. She had the bag in her hands. When Ulyanova left the office, my mother went up to her. She started out with her request, but Ulyanova wasn't listening to my mother, just looking at the bag. Later my mother said that Ulyanova had such frightened eyes. She might have thought that there was a bomb in the bag. She didn't react to my mother's request and left hastily. It had been the last chance to hang on, so my mother and I had to go to exile.
My father and Pavel were lucky not be sent to the Gulag [14]. It was an administrative exile under surveillance of the militia. They were supposed to go to the district militia department twice a week. The rest of the time they could lead a normal life - rent an apartment, get a job, etc. It was a very lenient punishment as compared to the others. My father didn't have a passport, only a certificate from the militia. He was entitled to get a passport only when the term of exile was over. He rented a room from a landlady, whose husband was an entrepreneur during the NEP and had the same deprivee status. He was also exiled.
My father found a job as an economist in forestry. My mother was immediately given a passport in Arkhangelsk. The population of Arkhangelsk was doubled at that time due to the exiled. There were many families from Leningrad and Moscow. I went to the second grade. Half of the class consisted of the children of the exiled. We were treated very well. Neither teachers nor classmates gave us a cold shoulder. Maybe not all school teachers knew who we were.
I became a pioneer [see All-Union pioneer organization] [15] in the third grade.
We settled in the dacha village [holiday village] of Tarasovka and rented a room there. My father was given a job owing to connections of one of his pals.
When we lived in Arkhangelsk, Kirov [18] was assassinated in 1934, and that assassination caused the commencement of 'enemy of the people' [19] trials, and mass repressions [Great Terror] [20].
We were very aloof. My parents tried not to make friends with anybody, even not to have friends. They didn't visit anybody. When I went to school I also was very offish. I had very few friends and they never came to our house. Even in their conversation my parents didn't remember the prosperous life they used to have. They survived a personal tragedy and didn't want to recall anything and make me an antagonistic against the Soviet regime, which had taken away everything from us.
At that time repressions were continual. Every single day there were articles in the papers disposing a new peoples' enemy. Almost all of those peoples' enemies were well-known and respectable people, governmental authorities, party activists, eminent military commanders. I was about 14 or 15 and I understood a lot about life in exile. I remember how I was shocked when Tukhachevskiy [22] was arrested. He was a brilliant military; boys considered him an idol. I remember the phrase that I heard about him on the radio, 'the peoples' enemies were divulged and neutralized and now the Red Army would be strong and invincible.'
I was flabbergasted as Tukhachevskiy was the one who did the most for the Red Army to be strong. My father never talked to me about repressions, but I understood that he didn't believe anything. There were things I couldn't speak of in spite of the propaganda. I didn't believe in the treason of military leaders, who gave their lives for communist ideas; Trotsky [23] and Tukhachevskiy were some of those decent people. It was a subconscious disbelief on my side and an organic protest of common sense. Of course, I didn't share my thoughts with anybody as I was aware how perilous it was.
I was flabbergasted as Tukhachevskiy was the one who did the most for the Red Army to be strong. My father never talked to me about repressions, but I understood that he didn't believe anything. There were things I couldn't speak of in spite of the propaganda. I didn't believe in the treason of military leaders, who gave their lives for communist ideas; Trotsky [23] and Tukhachevskiy were some of those decent people. It was a subconscious disbelief on my side and an organic protest of common sense. Of course, I didn't share my thoughts with anybody as I was aware how perilous it was.
I had doubts but anyway I became a Komsomol [24] member. I didn't join the Komsomol because I believed in its ideas; I just did what everybody else was doing. I understood many things in those years and considered myself to be an adult. But now I can definitely say that I was influenced by continual Soviet propaganda.