I didn't even have money to bury my husband. The Jewish community that was established in Chernigov helped me. I have been a member of the community since then. I attend every meeting or event and read Jewish newspapers. I don't go to the synagogue since I don't consider myself a believer, although I think there must be a God and I'm grateful to Him for my basically happy and interesting life.
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Displaying 8611 - 8640 of 50826 results
Ida Kristina
I attend the 'Warm House' in Hesed where I have meals with other old Jews like myself. However, I'm not a passive consumer - I try to give people what I can. On Jewish holidays our group from Hesed sing songs and I rehearse with my friends playing the piano. We celebrate holidays and birthdays together and get together at hard times, when somebody loses their relatives. We support each other.
In 1997 I visited my sister Riva and my niece Ada in Israel. I liked the country very much. I visited the country when it celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Alice Klimova
I was in Israel once, only once, still during totalitarian times actually, and the moment the plane touched down, it had a very strong effect on me. I can't express it, but it was a very, very strong feeling. I had the impression that I belonged there, that it's my home, but I can't imagine living there. I never even really considered emigrating there.
We had absolutely nothing. Nowhere to live, nowhere to sleep, nothing. Worries came, where to get money, where to get food coupons, who will give you [financial] support, what school to attend. Now to at least graduate from high school... And no one told anyone anything. No one gave you advice. I understand, it was the end of the war, and everyone had heaps of worries, but that officials could have been a bit accommodating to those who had survived, and especially to us children, no.
My mother also wanted to follow my father, and left on 1st October [1944]. Whether they met again, I don't know, it's likely that when she arrived in Auschwitz, he was no longer alive.
My parents had been deported to Terezin, and my father had continued on to Auschwitz on 28th September 1944.
Our school repatriated us at the end of August 1945. By then my sister knew that as far as she knew no one had survived. Which however didn't mean that someone couldn't have appeared later; alas no one appeared, not even later.
By June of 1945 my sister had already returned to Czechoslovakia. Because she'd taken some sort of quick course in chemistry in England, she was able go to Terezin and help there with delousing and the typhus epidemic. At the same time she tried to find out who in our family had survived.
My sister was attending nursing school in England, but alas she didn't finish it, they threw her out. Then she worked at the editorial offices of some Czech or Czechoslovak magazine, but because it was wartime and everyone had to help out in the war effort, she went to work at a munitions factory. Right before the war ended, while she was still in England, she married a Czech soldier.
When school was out we'd sometimes borrow a bike and ride around in the hills, especially on weekends. The countryside there is beautiful, gorgeous. The property also had a lake, so it was nice for a walk of 20 minutes or so. The boys had their soccer team, and we girls played volleyball, handball or ping-pong. We spent a lot of time playing sports. Each Saturday evening there'd be some sort of program, and someone had to prepare it, usually the older ones took care of it. It was quite varied, from dance parties, listening to gramophone records through various quizzes, plays, Czech ones as well as English, or discussions. We'd discuss various subjects, the equality of women, about what would be once we returned...
My next family was a childless pair in their forties, they were kind, but how should I say it, these simple people. I did have my own room, but their little house had no washroom. They used to go to some sort of public bath house. The town had a very strong Jewish community, which, when they learned that a Jewish child was living in a Gentile family, could not leave it at that.
But then May 1940 came, and the man from the family I lived with had to join the army, so I could no longer stay there. They were expecting another child, they wouldn't have gotten any support for me, and the support that soldiers got was so little that they could barely live on it themselves, when on top of that they had to pay a mortgage. So I had to move. At that time they also fired my sister from the hospital, because she was a foreigner. Those were exceptional cases, and she was one of them, she was literally suddenly out on the street. Later it came out that due to the poor conditions in which she lived, she got tuberculosis.
This family lived near London, so I could see my sister, who was working in a hospital in London. I think that once every 14 days she had the entire day off, so we'd get together every second Saturday. It was a short way by bus and then the subway, plus I paid half fare. The little tiny bit of pocket money that my sister got, she gave it all to me. Either for the movies, for ice cream, or something like that, to make me happy. Which she really did. While all that time, as I found out years later, she was always hungry in that hospital. But instead of buying something for herself, she invested everything into me.
Then we went to stay with families, but my family didn't have a bed for me yet, so for a few days I was with another family that lived nearby. This family also took in one girl, her name was Lia or Lea, and she was from the Sudetenland. I remember it as if it were yesterday: I went to the bathroom, and when I returned the girl was weeping profusely. I asked her what had happened, and she said, 'I'm homesick.' Suddenly I was homesick too. So we had a duo, a vale of tears.
The Prague leader of 'Rote Falken' was waiting for our group of about fifteen children with an English colleague of his, and they then took us to this camp in eastern England, where we were supposed to get acclimatized, so to say. It was this gift from them, very kind, nice, we slept in tents.
Years ago, when I was looking through the letters I had received while in England, I found a letter from my uncle, in which he wrote that my cousin Vera was supposed to leave on the September transport and that she'd be in Newcastle. That was the largest transport, and almost 300 children were supposed to leave on it. Alas the war broke out, and the transport didn't leave. As far as I know, none of those children survived, and neither did Vera.
Today I can still see little girls clutching their dolls, little boys their teddy bears, and so on... Their fathers were trying at the last minute to teach them some English word or something similar. And everyone always: 'Write, write!' Then suddenly I saw those friends of my parents'. At that time they were already in hiding, but they also came to say goodbye to me. Well, and then it was time to get on the train. I remember sitting by the window. Everyone had their necks craned out the window, and as soon as the train started moving, I saw that my father started weeping. He simply could no longer hold it in, no one had any idea for how long we were saying goodbye. My last words to him were, 'Dad, don't blubber here and don't embarrass me!' That was the last thing I said to him.
My parents apparently did what they could to protect me from everything unpleasant. When the opportunity arose for me to go to England, they said with a smile, 'That's amazing, you're so lucky, you'll go to England, we'd like that too, for sure you'll go to the sea.' They basically made it into something sensational for me, and I looked forward to it. Of course, not even they could suspect that we'd never see each other again, if they'd have suspected it, I don't know if they would have managed it. When it came down to the decision whether they should or shouldn't send my sister and me away, their best friends were persuading them to do it.
To this day I remember 15th March 1939 [the beginning of the occupation of the remainder of the Czech lands by Germany], it was a Wednesday and snow was falling. When we arrived by the water tower on Vinohradska Street, there were tanks sitting there. I'll never forget what it's like for a ten- year-old child to walk by tanks, when he has no idea why and what is going on, and now those muzzles are aiming at him.
I'd say that my father was probably politically left-leaning, even though he definitely didn't belong to any organization. On the other hand, he was a member of the Freemasons, who definitely weren't some sort of leftists. But my sister was a member of one very left-leaning youth organization.
Our parents would always rent a room or two somewhere for the summer, and we'd spend the summer holidays there, along with one other family. Our fathers would be in Prague working, and only our mothers would keep an eye on us.
Everyone in our family was Jewish. At home we observed holidays, and that was the beginning and end of it. We definitely didn't do things like attend services during the week or keep kosher [5]. We celebrated the New Year [Rosh Hashanah]; my parents would go to the synagogue, and perhaps I did too. For seder supper we'd go to Aunt Kamila's, and for Chanukkah we'd light candles.
And then I had one more girlfriend; that one was Jewish, and left with me for England in 1939.
My sister and I played the piano. This young lady teacher used to come to our place, a saint, because it would have been hard to find someone as musically untalented as my sister and I. I loved her. She was amazingly patient with us. And it's true, that when I listen to music today, I enjoy piano most of all, so I guess something of it must have rubbed off on me.
I did rhythmics [rhythmic gymnastics], today you'd probably call it gymnastics; I used to go where today Palac Metro is on Narodni Avenue, and my mother would accompany me. My sister didn't attend rhythmics, she played the piano. So basically our mother made sure that we had these various activities, so we had what was 'in' or done in a decent family.
My father had been wounded in World War I, I think in 1933 they had to take one of his kidneys, and my mother then took exemplary care of him.
At home we spoke Czech and German. I think that my mother had more German schooling, but I can't say for sure, I don't know. My father had Czech schools, even though he also spoke German excellently.
Our father first worked as a traveling salesman. He walked around with a briefcase and sold things, perhaps still when I was born. Then he had his own business, with electrodes. First in Strasnice on Prubezna Street, then in Liben. Today it's up there in Holesovicky, as you drive down, on the right there are these nice little houses that are still there. My father was the only owner, and the company was tiny, at most twelve or fifteen employees.
For a long time after the war, I didn't have the courage to walk by our house. It wasn't until sometime in 1947, when I was at some youth festival which ran late, and because there were no longer trams running, I had no way to get to Hanspaulka, where I was living at the time. So a girlfriend of mine, who lived on Ruska Street, offered that I could sleep at their place. So I had to walk by our house; she didn't know about it. Well, I dealt with it somehow.