The Belaya Tserkov district was located within the [Jewish] Pale of Settlement [1] existing during the czarist regime. The Jewish population constituted a bigger part of the population. [about 40% of the population]. Most settlements, including Volodarka, were Jewish towns. The Jewish population was religious. Jews observed Jewish traditions, went to the synagogue, celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays at home and followed kashrut. There were atheists of Jews in bigger town, but this was not to happen in little towns. Of course, there was a synagogue, cheder, a general education Jewish school in the town. There was a Jewish cemetery in the suburb of Volodarka.
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Leonid Aptekar
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My grandfather Lazar died in 1918, before I was born. He was buried according to Jewish traditions in the Jewish cemetery.
My mother’s parents were religious. On Sabbah and holidays my grandmother and grandfather went to the synagogue with their children. They celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays at home.
They spoke Yiddish at home, but they also spoke fluent Russian with their non-Jewish neighbors.
My grandmother had to support her family and took over any job to earn their living. She baked bread for sale at home and did cooking and baking for other families in her clients’ homes where she worked, but the family was big and it was difficult to provide for all of them. Mama became an apprentice of a dressmaker. When she learned this vocation she began to take orders herself. It was still hard to find clients in Volodarka: many of its residents were poor.
In 1916 Jewish pogroms [2] overwhelmed Volodarka. Bandits broke into the town robbing and killing Jews and burning the Jewish houses. My grandmother decided to move to Skvira [40 km from Belaya Tserkov, 105 km from Kiev].
It was a small town with the population of about 12 thousand people. Jews constituted over a half of the population. There were three synagogues in Skvira. The biggest one was the 2-storied choral synagogue. The two other synagogues were smaller. After the revolution of 1917 [3] the Soviet regime started its struggle against religion [4] and the synagogues were gradually closing. The biggest synagogue operated till the early 1940s. Later it was also closed and housed a knitwear factory.
There were no pogroms that had overwhelmed Ukraine during the revolution and the Civil War [5] in Skvira where Jewish self-defense units [6] were formed. Their leader was local Jew Meyer Treletskiy. He was a fearless and smart man. People feared and liked him. He did not look heroic whatsoever: he was short and fat. It was thanks to his efforts that the situation in Skvira was calm and quiet through this period. The flocks and Denikin [7] troops preferred to pass by the town.
There were 2-storied stone houses in the central part of the town. They housed administrative offices or belonged to wealthier people. The others were clay-walled huts. The clay was a mixture of clay, chopped straw and horse manure [air-brick]. Our house where we lived before the Great Patriotic War [8] was one of them. My mother’s brother Teviye, a tinsmith, installed the tin sheet roof on our house. There were 3 rooms, a fore room and a big kitchen with a Russian stove [9] in the house. There was a store shed and a living stock shed in the yard. My grandmother kept ducks, geese and goats. There was a meadow and a river near our house. There was a water mill with a mill-pond on the river where our ducks and geese swam. There was an orchard and a vegetable garden by the house.
Jews lived in Jewish neighborhoods and if one of them decided to sell his house he started looking for Jewish clients and would have never sold the house to Ukrainian buyers: they wanted to have Jewish neighbors.
My grandmother told me that during the period of NEP [8] Jews owned all stores in the town. The shops were full and people had a good life. When the NEP was over the state took over all commercial activities, but the former Jewish store owners kept their jobs and shop assistants. Before the revolution Jews also owned shops and factories, but the Soviet regime nationalized their property.
A number of wealthier Jews moved to America after the NEP was over. They understood it was not safe for them to stay since the NKVD [9] expropriated their property at best and at worst they might be executed. These immigrants purchased land near New York and founded the town of New Scriba: it forms a part of New York state now. During perestroika [10] their descendants visited Skvira to take a look at the place where their ancestors had lived.
There was a market in the center of Skvira. Ukrainian farmers were selling their food products on them. They knew that Jewish housewives would only want to buy the living poultry, and there was a shochet near the market, and the housewives could use his services. Farmers also sold vegetables, fruit and berries – cherries were just great!
During the period of collectivization [11], a kolkhoz [12] and a Jewish kolkhoz [13] were established in Skvira. The chairman of the Jewish kolkhoz was the man whose family name was Zub. When the kolkhoz was established people had to give their cattle, tools and also, sewing machines for some reason to the kolkhoz. This kolkhoz was closed in 1936 for being non-profitable, all property of the Jewish kolkhoz to the neighborly non-Jewish kolkhoz and the former employees of the Jewish kolkhoz also went to work there.
The district and town authorities, director of the only plant in Skvira, executive authorities and militia were represented by Jews. There were hardly any Ukrainians among them. Jews always helped and supported each other. They spoke Yiddish at home and in the streets. They openly celebrated Jewish holidays even during the Soviet rule. All boys had brit milah rituals. The family installed tables in the yards and treated all neighbor children with sweets and cookies.
When my mother’s family moved to Skvira uncle Gersh was working as a clerk in a store. He could write and count well. I don’t know about my uncle Teviye, but my mother and her sisters had no education. After the revolution of 1917, when they were quite grown up, they finished a likbez [14] where they learned to write and read.
After the revolution uncle Gersh joined Komsomol [15] and became a Komsomol activist.
Gersh became a butcher after the revolution and Teviye was a roof maker. Mama’s sisters went to work at the Metallist shop, which manufactured beds. They were laborers.
Even after the revolution Jews commonly turned to matchmakers to prearrange weddings. Matchmakers also visited my grandmother. They arranged Boba’s marriage with Idl Damskoy, a Jewish man from Pavoloch, Zhitomir region [25 km from Skvira, 105 km from Kiev]. My aunt had a real Jewish wedding with the chuppah and the rabbi. After the wedding the newly weds stayed to live in Skvira and both worked at the Metallist shop.
During the Civil War a partisan unit was deployed in Skvira. My future father Iosif Aprekar, a Jew from Odessa [16] served in it. My mother liked him and they got married. They had a chuppah and klezmers at their wedding. Mama told me no details. My father stayed to live in Skvira.
My grandmother told me that during the period of NEP [8] Jews owned all stores in the town. The shops were full and people had a good life. When the NEP was over the state took over all commercial activities, but the former Jewish store owners kept their jobs and shop assistants. Before the revolution Jews also owned shops and factories, but the Soviet regime nationalized their property. A number of wealthier Jews moved to America after the NEP was over.
In 1934 the Skvira residents were forbidden to make bread at home. There was a bakery and a baker’s store opened. People lined up to buy bread since this was the only baker’s in the town. Komsomol activists made the rounds of houses to make sure nobody violated the order. My grandmother went to the store to buy one loaf of bread, the allowed ration. Some residents wet to buy bred in Kiev. It was not allowed to take bread from out of town, but people managed to do it in secret.
My grandmother was very religious. We always celebrated Sabbath at home. On Friday morning my grandmother made a general clean up. We had ground floors and she swept it clean. My grandmother also cooked food for two days. There was always gefilte fish, sweet and sour stew, chicken broth and strudels with nuts and jam to eat. On Friday evening my grandma lit candles and prayed. Then the family sat down to dinner. On Saturday morning my grandma went to the synagogue. Later she read her prayer book and told me about the Jewish history.
Of all holidays I remember Pesach. The blacksmith living in our street closed his forge one week before Pesach and engaged in baking matzah. Women joined him to make and roll the dough. Each family needed plenty of matzah: there was no bread in the Jewish houses through 8 days of Pesach. On the eve of the holiday a general cleanup was done and all crumbles swept out. My grandmother checked how clean the house was. The Pesach crockery was taken down from the attic where it was stored during the year. My grandma followed kashrut and had all kosher crockery, but it was not appropriate for Pesach. Geese and chicken were taken to the shochet before Pesach. My grandmother made chicken broth, roasted chicken and geese, stuffed chicken necks with liver and fried onions and made gefilte fish. She made strudels with raisins and jam and honey cakes. Grandma made potato and matzah and egg puddings. There was plenty of food at home. I am sure there was seder conducted, but I can’t remember. On Pesach grandma and mama went to the synagogue. I sometimes went there with mama. Mama and I sat on the upper tier.
Many men of Skvira wore beards. Older women like my grandma wore kerchiefs, but my mother or other women of her age only wore shawls to go to the synagogue.
Mama worked and grandma took care of the housekeeping. I went to a kindergarten before going to school.
There were few general education schools in Skvira and two Jewish schools, the curriculum was the same, but the language of teaching was different. I went to a Jewish school at the age of 6. All subjects were taught in Yiddish, but it was no problem for me. We had Jewish teachers.
Our history teacher Zaslawski was awarded an Order of Lenin [20] after the Great Patriotic War.
I became a young Octobrist [21] and then a pioneer [22] at school.
Most of my friends were Jewish boys, my neighbors and classmates. We did our home chores and then went tobogganing, swam in the river or went fishing. There was an abandoned orchard on the bank of the river where we picked apples and pears.