The only reminder of Jewish traditions was matzah that my grandfather always brought at Pesach. At Pesach and Rosh Hashanah we visited my grandfather where they had family gatherings or went to visit my father’s parents in Ovruch. The family discussed family news and enjoyed getting together. My grandparents understood that the generation of my parents was not religious and didn’t say prayers in their presence.
- Traditions 11756
- Language spoken 3019
- Identity 7808
- Description of town 2440
- Education, school 8506
- Economics 8772
- Work 11672
- Love & romance 4929
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- Antisemitism 4822
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Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
- Soviet invasion of Poland 31
- Siege of Leningrad 86
- The Six Day War 4
- Yom Kippur War 2
- Ataturk's death 5
- Balkan Wars (1912-1913) 35
- First Soviet-Finnish War 37
- Occupation of Czechoslovakia 1938 83
- Invasion of France 9
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 65
- Varlik Vergisi (Wealth Tax) 36
- First World War (1914-1918) 216
- Spanish flu (1918-1920) 14
- Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920) 4
- 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
- Warsaw Uprising 2
- Soviet occupation of the Balitc states (1940) 147
- Austrian Civil War (1934) 9
- Anschluss (1938) 71
- Collapse of Habsburg empire 3
- Dollfuß Regime 3
- Emigration to Vienna before WWII 36
- Kolkhoz 131
- KuK - Königlich und Kaiserlich 40
- Mineriade 1
- Post War Allied occupation 7
- Waldheim affair 5
- Trianon Peace Treaty 12
- NEP 56
- Russian Revolution 351
- Ukrainian Famine 199
- The Great Terror 283
- Perestroika 233
- 22nd June 1941 468
- Molotov's radio speech 115
- Victory Day 147
- Stalin's death 365
- Khrushchev's speech at 20th Congress 148
- KGB 62
- NKVD 153
- German occupation of Hungary (18-19 March 1944) 45
- Józef Pilsudski (until 1935) 33
- 1956 revolution 84
- Prague Spring (1968) 73
- 1989 change of regime 174
- Gomulka campaign (1968) 81
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Holocaust
9685
- Holocaust (in general) 2789
- Concentration camp / Work camp 1235
- Mass shooting operations 337
- Ghetto 1183
- Death / extermination camp 647
- Deportation 1063
- Forced labor 791
- Flight 1410
- Hiding 594
- Resistance 121
- 1941 evacuations 866
- Novemberpogrom / Kristallnacht 34
- Eleftherias Square 10
- Kasztner group 1
- Pogrom in Iasi and the Death Train 21
- Sammelwohnungen 9
- Strohmann system 11
- Struma ship 17
- Life under occupation 803
- Yellow star house 72
- Protected house 15
- Arrow Cross ("nyilasok") 42
- Danube bank shots 6
- Kindertransport 26
- Schutzpass / false papers 95
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) 24
- Warsaw Uprising (1944) 23
- Helpers 521
- Righteous Gentiles 269
- Returning home 1090
- Holocaust compensation 112
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- Loss of loved ones 1724
- Trauma 1029
- Talking about what happened 1807
- Liberation 558
- Military 3322
- Politics 2640
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Communism
4468
- Life in the Soviet Union/under Communism (in general) 2592
- Anti-communist resistance in general 63
- Nationalization under Communism 221
- Illegal communist movements 98
- Systematic demolitions under communism 45
- Communist holidays 311
- Sentiments about the communist rule 930
- Collectivization 94
- Experiences with state police 349
- Prison/Forced labor under communist/socialist rule 449
- Lack or violation of human and citizen rights 483
- Life after the change of the regime (1989) 493
- Israel / Palestine 2190
- Zionism 847
- Jewish Organizations 1200
Displaying 34801 - 34830 of 50826 results
Semyon Ghendler
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When in the late 1930s arrests began [Great Terror] [14], my father had a fear of being arrested, even though he wasn’t a party member. Many of his friends and acquaintances holding key positions were arrested. I think my father understood that it was despotism, but my parents didn't have any discussions in my presence. There was the feeling of alarm in our house like in many others. I remember that some time in 1938 the doorbell rang late at night. My father asked who it was before opening the door. It was a stranger. His surname was Litvak and he was a Jew. My parents took him to the kitchen, gave him some food and money and he left. From their words I understood that this man escaped from his hometown in fear of arrest and visited my father as his old acquaintance. I don’t know what happened to him then. After this visit my father had many sleepless nights fearing arrest. If somebody saw our late visitor they would have reported and my father would have been arrested for giving shelter to an ‘enemy of the people’ [15]. My mother prepared a bag with underwear and dried bread for my father. This bag was in a corner in the kitchen for a long time. Fortunately, nothing of the kind happened in our family.
Anna Gliena
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I faced open anti-Semitism for the first time in Pavlodar. It generated from those that evacuated from Western Ukraine and Belarus. They contracted hatred toward Jews from fascists. [Editor’s note: the anti-Semitic sentiments of the Belarussian and Ukrainian evacuees were most probably not the result of any Nazi impact. As early as the 17th Century Chmielnicki in the Ukraine perpetrated large-scale massacres. In the late 19th and early 20th Century pogroms were widespread in the Ukraine and in Belarus. Between 1903 and 1906, among others, Gomel, Odessa, Kiev, Kaments Podolsk were scenes of mass killings of Jews] There were Jews in evacuation in the town. Life was very hard and if they noticed that a Jew was doing better than the others they hissed wickedly ‘Ouh, zhydy!’ [kikes].
,
During WW2
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There were many Jewish employees at the theater. They got together on Jewish holidays, lit candles and made matzah from the flour that we received. I don’t think there was a synagogue in Pavlodar since there were no local Jews in Pavlodar.
,
During WW2
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Our theater gave performances in Ukrainian in Kharkov and we had to translate them into Russian. I worked at the audience department at the theater. I was to go to factories and plants, schools and hospitals to distribute tickets. My mother continued working in the costumes office.
,
During WW2
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There were no Russian-speaking residents in this village. They were Kazakh and Uzbek people that didn’t seem to care about the theater or culture in the general sense. We were transferred to Pavlodar, the capital of Northern Kazakhstan. We covered over 700 km on a truck across the steppe. We had rehearsals and performances in Pavlodar and received food packages. It’s hard to tell how exhausted and starved people were. We received flour with water and people asked three or more treatments so starved they were.
,
During WW2
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We covered 3000 km and got off at Poltoratskoye village in about 250 km from the Lake Balkhash in Southern Kazakhstan. There were steppes and desert around. There were Kazakhs selling tomatoes and potatoes, but we didn’t have any money or clothes to exchange for food. We were accommodated in the cultural center. There was a little stove in this building. We received food packages at the kolkhoz where I worked in the field picking cotton. The plants had rough stems with thorns that injured hands. After work we took a bunch of stems to stoke the stove.
,
During WW2
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We were told that we were moving to Ulan-Ude, farther than the Lake Baikal, 4500 km from home. Our trip lasted two or three months. There were air raids and people scattered around to hide, but mother said ‘I am not going out, I am staying here’. I stayed with her. We didn’t have money or food, nothing, but the watch that my father gave me. We had to sell it to get some food. There were free meals given at some stations, but how was one supposed to survive in between?
,
During WW2
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Our theater was on tour in Kharkov in 1947. I went to our house, came as far as our porch and fainted. There were different tenants in the house. Nobody knew me.
,
After WW2
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That was it. When Kharkov was liberated I wrote letters to our Russian neighbors that I thought stayed during the occupation, but they didn’t reply. I don’t know anything. All I know is that he is not to be found anywhere in the world. Nobody knows what happened to Papa. Of course, he perished during the occupation, but how and where? I will never know.
,
During WW2
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My father went to the railway station with us and even got into a railcar and I was hoping that he was going with us when an actress came and said ‘it is too overcrowded here. Those that do not have official grounds to be here, leave the car’. This was the first time in my life when I heard the phrase ‘Jews know their ways’. My father got up and went out. He was very proud. My brother that time was getting a boarding ticket for our father. My father said before he stepped off the stairs: ‘Kind meyne [Yiddish for my child], we shall not see each other again. Take care’. And he left. We were trying to look for him, but he was not there. Then our train stooped in the outskirts of Kharkov and I wanted to run back to look for our father, but he had left.
,
During WW2
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The theater provided train boarding tickets to members of families of its employees and my brother obtained such for my mother and was having one filled up for me. My mother was living at the theater with my brother. She worked at the costumes office and I was staying at home with my father, a cat and a dog. Later the cat ran away. We couldn’t obtain a train ticket at the railway station for a long time and when we finally got one we still didn’t have a boarding permit for my father, since he wasn’t a theater employee and it was hard to get them for relatives.
,
During WW2
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When the war began my husband went to the army and I returned to my parents’ home. The theater where my brother was working was to evacuate. Many actors were taken to the army and many volunteered to the front. My brother had no replacement and when he received a warrant to come to the military registry office secretary of the Party unit of the theater went to see chief of the registry office, explained the situation to him and obtained a temporary permit for my brother to stay at the theater.
,
During WW2
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I lived with Boris in his room that he received from the plant, but I often went to see my parents. Boris came from the family of workers and his parents treated me nicely, but we never came to knowing more about each other. In July 1941 Boris Suchodolski was recruited to the army and perished shortly afterward. I even didn’t have his photograph as if he had never existed.
,
During WW2
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My personal life didn’t develop, even though I had many friends and was a sociable girl. In 1939 I met Boris Suchodolski, a young worker of Kharkov tractor plant. He was tall, blond, joyful and nice. We met at the library and he invited me to go dancing in the cultural center. In 1940 we were married at a registry office. We only had a civil ceremony. We didn’t have a wedding party. I didn’t have a wedding gown. I took few hours off work and Boris worked 2nd shift on this day. I came home after work and told my mother that I got married.
,
Before WW2
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My brother married an actress. Her name was Claudia and she was Russian. My father and mother were not very happy about his marriage, but not because she was not a Jew – this was a matter of no importance at the time - , but because they thought Claudia was a frivolous and flippant person. Osher was very independent. He respected our parents, but he relied on his own opinions. Well, he should have listened to his parents. He divorced his wife few years later. They didn’t have children. He had lovers afterward, but he never remarried.
,
Before WW2
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He received a small room in a communal apartment [14] near the theater.
,
Before WW2
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My brother Osher became one of the leading actors in the theater for young spectators and played leading roles. They staged plays about heroes of the Civil War, denunciation of enemies of the Soviet power. Their performances developed patriotic feelings and hatred toward enemies in children. We often went to the theater. The art director of the theater valued my brother high.
,
Before WW2
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The biggest pleasure for my mother was going to the theater. Later my mother got fond of the sound cinema. She watched Soviet comedies many times and sang songs from them. My friends and I went dancing or to concerts on weekends and holidays. We also went to the cinema or out of town whenever weather permitted.
,
Before WW2
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My father continued his work at the shoe factory. When he was not at work he fixed shoes of our neighbors and friends. My mother was a housewife and went to synagogue on Jewish holidays.
,
Before WW2
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When our acquaintances got arrested we believed they were guilty and did something wrong to the Soviet power. We were common people and there weren’t too many among us that suffered arrests.
,
Before WW2
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There was inventory in their library and I just happened to drop by. I got amused to see so many books and I began to work in libraries. The first library where I worked was the central scientific library at Kharkov University. I released books by the lists that students submitted to a librarian. There was a five-storied book storeroom and I ran up and down the stairs to find all books needed, but later I learned the stocks and didn’t have to run that much. There were books in Russian and Ukrainian. I don’t remember Jewish books. Later I finished a course for librarians. I liked books and this work. I worked in the library until the war began in 1941.
,
Before WW2
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I went to work at the age of 16 to help to support the family. I became a tutor in a kindergarten. I just bumped into this job announcement in a street: ‘’A kindergarten tutor required’. I went to the kindergarten to ask and they hired me without delay. I liked children and did well at work, even though I had no professional education. There were children of various nationalities in the kindergarten. Their piano teacher suggested that we staged short puppet performances for the children. Again, it worked out well. We began to show these fairy tales in other kindergartens and clubs. I was thinking of going to work in a puppet theater, but somehow it never came to it. My parents were not very happy with my job. I earned little and they thought it wasn’t a serious profession.
,
Before WW2
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I remember in 1933 at the time of forced famine [12] my mother and I had to stand in lines for bread. Later there were bread coupons issued: there were different rates for workers, clerks and dependents. My father was a worker and had a worker’s bread coupon. I remember stared people in the streets, but I saw no dead bodies, Perhaps, I was just lucky to have not seen them.
,
Before WW2
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My mother went to work when I was at school. She took work to do at home. She made leather bags of straps of leather. Later she made them in a shop. She used to sing when working. This shop sent my mother to a likbez [11] school. My mother learned to read well, but she couldn’t write whatsoever. At times she had splitting headaches and put her head under cold water to reduce the pain. She was awarded a trip to a resort in Odessa in 1934 for her remarkable performance at work. Then her management made arrangements for her to retire and get a pension of an invalid. It was a miserable pension. We could hardly make ends meet, but my mother could not really go to work.
,
Before WW2
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I had many friends at school. Many of our boys perished at the front during the Great patriotic War. My closest friend was Nadia Kartud. We were sitting at the same desk in class. We were like sisters and even dressed alike. Nadia’s mother made clothes for us. Nadia finished a college and became a librarian. She married a Soviet German man [10] from Saratov before the Great Patriotic War. When the Great Patriotic War began he was arrested. Many Germans were arrested then. Soviet authorities didn’t trust them and feared their cooperation with fascists. Nadia followed him to Siberia. Their son was born there. I also had other friends: Inna Kisler, Cheva Boguslavskaya. When I visited Kharkov in 1978 we got together at Nadia’s home and we recalled our school years. Nadia’s husband had died and about ten years ago Nadia’s son moved to Israel. Nadia went with him. She died few years ago.
,
After WW2
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My childhood dream was to become an actress. I went to a ballet class at the age of 10. My brother was working in the opera comedy theater and he arranged for me to take classes with their prima ballerina Klavochka. There were two other girls in her class. We began to come out onto the stage when required. Then one day my brother came home and said ‘That’s it for you. I am to be the only actor in our family'. It turned out that he noted one ballerina of indecent conduct and forbade me to continue my studies. I didn’t mind. I was fond of skating. Skating stretches one’s muscle’s while in ballet they need to be strained.
,
Before WW2
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I went to school in 1924. On the first day I went there by myself. I was a brave girl. At that time it was common for Russian children to study in Russian schools, Ukrainian children went to Ukrainian schools and Jewish children went to Jewish schools. Thus, I went to a Jewish school. There were four Jewish schools in Kharkov. We studied Yiddish, Russian, mathematics, physics and drawing. We studied in Yiddish and had Jewish teachers. I don’t remember their names, but I remember that they were nice and cheerful. I was elected a head girl in my class. I became a young Octobrist [9] in the first or second grade. We had badges with a portrait of young Lenin and were called ‘Lenin’s grandchildren’. Later we became pioneers. My parents were proud that their daughter was taking such active part in public activities. I organized gathering of metal scrap at school. We picked waste casseroles and samovars and felt proud that we could make our contribution in manufacture of new tractors and locomotives for our country.
,
Before WW2
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I remember the day when Lenin [8] died in January 1924. I remember people crying and grieving a lot. There was a shop in our house and a big portrait of Lenin in its window. I came to kiss the glass where the portrait was behind it and my lips froze to the glass. When I tore them off the glass they were bleeding. What a fool I was. We all believed in the Soviet power and Lenin was a holy man for us.
,
Before WW2
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My father was a kind man and couldn’t refuse anybody. Due to his kindness we lost one room. We had two rooms and a kitchen. It goes without saying that we didn’t have a bathroom or toilet. There was a tap and a sink in the kitchen, but we fetched water from a well. There was a bucket in the kitchen that served as a toilet and there was a toilet facility in the yard. There was a wood stoked stove that heated the rooms. However, this was a common apartment for the time. In 1923 my father bumped into an acquaintance that he knew when living in Poland. That man said that he had divorced his wife and had no place to live. My father offered him to stay at our place overnight. He came and stayed and a week later his wife joined him. They began to live in this room. I remember that her name was Sophia, but I don’t remember his name. They were Jews. Some time later they moved out, but then another woman came to live in this room.
,
Before WW2
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