Before my father’s arrest many of his comrades moved to the USSR. The Soviet government gave them this opportunity. At first they could move with their families, but when it was my father’s turn, this opportunity was closed. Communists and their families were leaving Hungary illegally, by forged documents. My father refused to go without us. Perhaps, it was for the better since many of those who went to the USSR were sent to the GULAG 8 where most of them perished.
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Judita Haikis
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When the war with the Soviet Union began 9, my father was arrested again in July 1941 and taken to the Hungarian prison in the mountains near Garany town, in the former mansion of an Austrian lord. This area belonged to Slovakia before 1938. When Hungarians came to power, the owner of this mansion moved to Austria and his castle was converted into a prison. All prisoners were kept for political charges. My father became the leader of all prisoners. He prisoners had to cook and do all maintenance duties in the jail. My father organized courses and hobby clubs for prisoners. My father generated lists of attendants and also, made cleaning and cooking plans. He learned to cook in this camp. There was also a good library in the mansion and prisoners could use it. Relatives were allowed to visit twice a month. Two relatives could visit 2-3 days. My mother went there to visit my father and took either my sister or me with her. We rented a room from local farmers. My father made arrangements with the management of the camp for prisoners to be allowed to take some time off the camp to meet with their relatives. There were strict rules about the exact time for all of them to return to the camp. My father asked my mother to bring grandmother Amalia to see him, but my grandmother never came to see him. For her it was out of the question to stay in a goy’s house and eat non-kosher food. My father was kept in the Garany prison for a year. In late 1942 it was closed and Jews were taken to work battalions while Jewish communists were sent to penal battalions to go to the frontline. They were to wear yellow armbands with a 10 cm in diameter black circle on it. The work battalion where my father was taken was following the frontline with Hungarian and German troops in the eastern direction. After defeat of Germans near Stalingrad they turned to go in the opposite direction, from east to west. My father kept thinking about how to cross the frontline and surrender to the Red Army. He organized a group of 50 people and managed to accomplish their well-considered plan near Zhytomyr. It’s scaring to think what might have happened to them since the USSR did not trust deserters believing they were spies, but my father and his comrades were lucky. There was a Jewish communist, who lived in Hungary and emigrated to the USSR in the end of 1930th in the Red Army troop where they happened to get. He knew about my father’s underground work in the communist organization in Kosice. He guaranteed for my father’s trustworthiness. This group formed a group of prisoners-of-war following the Red Army troops liberating Ukraine. My father proved to be good at having a brigade under his command. The brigade consisted of Hungarians and Hungarian Jews. One of the commanders of a military division where they happened to come knew my father, and also considering that my father was a communist, this man appointed my father to command over this unit of the newcomers. This man also helped my father to improve his Russian, but at the very start this man translated my father’s commanders’ orders from Russian into Hungarian for my father to understand and follow them. My father was promoted to the rank of an officer and moved with the troops as far as the Carpathians. When they were near Uzhgorod, the military were inoculated and they must have injected some infection in my father. He fell gravely ill. He developed abscess. My father was taken to a hospital in Uzhgorod. My father’s comrades were working in the communist department in Uzhgorod and my father began to assist them even when he was in hospital. At their request my father was demobilized to establish the soviet power in Subcarpathia. He became 2nd secretary of the town party committee in 1945. We reunited with my father after the war.
One of anti-Jewish laws did not allow Jews to own stores, factories or anything that generated profit. They were supposed to give away their property or the state confiscated it. Many Jews fictitiously sold their property to non-Jewish owners, but actually things did not change. Or they entered into agreement of common ownership and became ‘partners’. By late 1944 many Hungarians took advantage of such agreements and took over the new property. There were also honest Hungarians, who returned Jews their property after the war. My father’s brothers lost their property. My father’s brother Jeno was working for the new owner of his former store. My father’s brother Mor, when suppression of Jews began in Hungary, sold his store and moved to Presov in Slovakia where our relatives lived.
In 1936 I went to the first form of a Czech primary school. During Hungarian rule this school became a Hungarian one and I studied 2 of 4 years in the Hungarian school. I had all excellent marks at school and was allowed to go to a grammar school after the 4th form. For the rest of pupils could go to grammar school after the 5th form. I finished primary school in 1940. My father was in prison at that time. My mother sister’s husband Andras took me for an interview to the Hungarian grammar school for girls. There were restrictions already: only 2 Jewish girls were allowed for a class. My interview was successful and I was admitted to the first form. Few teachers were members of the Hungarian fascist party. They got to know that my father was a communist and was in prison. They kept finding faults with me and it caused me much distress.
The situation with Jews in Kosice grew worse in the middle of 1943, when Germans were losing their positions in Stalingrad. Hungarian introduced many restrictions for Jews. [Editor’s note: Mass persecutions started as late as after March 19th 1944, when Germany invaded Hungary.] Since 1944 all Jews had to wear 10-cm hexagonal yellow star on their chests. I went to school with this star, though it didn’t last long. The academic year was reduced due to the wartime. In the middle of April the school closed for vacations. Jews were not allowed to come to public places or leave their homes after dusk.
In April [19th] 1944 10 German troops occupied Hungary, though Hungarian fascists started outraging even before. I shall never forget the first evening on Pesach 1944. There was a synagogue across the street from our house where Jews got together for a prayer. All of a sudden we heard screams from the synagogue, curses and anti-Semitic shouts. This was a pogrom in the synagogue made by Hungarian fascists. During the war there were back-outs on the windows in all houses. My mother lost her temper, turned off the lights, open the window and began to shame the young people telling them to stop this disgrace. She didn’t look like a Jewish woman and they were just laughing in her face, but did her no harm. My sister, grandmother and I sat in the corner of our children’s room trembling of fear. The rascals pulled some older Jews by their payes and went away. In the morning we saw that all windows in the synagogue were broken and heard the rabbi’s wife and children crying. Then German officers and soldiers came to Kosice. They ordered wealthy Jews to come to the central square and told them to give their money and valuables to the German army voluntarily, and if they did not obey they would force them to do so and arrest them. Later Germans gathered Jews in the ghetto at the brick factory in Kosice. So the old couples, the owners of our house were arrested. There were air raids. Or house was near the railway station that was bombed most frequently. Germans also began to arrest communists and their families. We were scared. My mother was told that we had to stay elsewhere, but not at home. We separated: grandmother Berta and I stayed with my grandfather’s sister Relka, and as for my mother and sister, only Liza, my father’s cousin brother Nandor’s wife, knew. Nandor died after an unsuccessful surgery in 1942. Liza and her two sons lived on the 3rd floor in the house in the end of our street. Liza was watching our house, when we were not at home and in case of danger was to notify us to stay away from coming home.
In April [19th] 1944 10 German troops occupied Hungary, though Hungarian fascists started outraging even before. I shall never forget the first evening on Pesach 1944. There was a synagogue across the street from our house where Jews got together for a prayer. All of a sudden we heard screams from the synagogue, curses and anti-Semitic shouts. This was a pogrom in the synagogue made by Hungarian fascists. During the war there were back-outs on the windows in all houses. My mother lost her temper, turned off the lights, open the window and began to shame the young people telling them to stop this disgrace. She didn’t look like a Jewish woman and they were just laughing in her face, but did her no harm. My sister, grandmother and I sat in the corner of our children’s room trembling of fear. The rascals pulled some older Jews by their payes and went away. In the morning we saw that all windows in the synagogue were broken and heard the rabbi’s wife and children crying. Then German officers and soldiers came to Kosice. They ordered wealthy Jews to come to the central square and told them to give their money and valuables to the German army voluntarily, and if they did not obey they would force them to do so and arrest them. Later Germans gathered Jews in the ghetto at the brick factory in Kosice. So the old couples, the owners of our house were arrested. There were air raids. Or house was near the railway station that was bombed most frequently. Germans also began to arrest communists and their families. We were scared. My mother was told that we had to stay elsewhere, but not at home. We separated: grandmother Berta and I stayed with my grandfather’s sister Relka, and as for my mother and sister, only Liza, my father’s cousin brother Nandor’s wife, knew. Nandor died after an unsuccessful surgery in 1942. Liza and her two sons lived on the 3rd floor in the house in the end of our street. Liza was watching our house, when we were not at home and in case of danger was to notify us to stay away from coming home.
Very soon all Jews, and my grandmother too, were taken to the ghetto at the brick factory on the outskirts of Kosice. In late April they began to be taken to concentration camps where they were sorted out. The younger and stronger ones were taken to work. They lived in barracks with inhuman conditions. Old people and children were burnt in crematoria. My grandmothers and many relatives perished there.
My mother, my sister and Erno on the evening of 22 April 1944 removed yellow stars from our clothing and went to a village near Kosice where a guide was waiting for us to take us across the border. This was the night of 22 April, full of danger. The first risk was when we went across the town. At first everything was all right, but then we saw my sister’s former teacher and his wife. He was wearing the uniform of a lieutenant of the Hungarian army. Of course, he recognized us. My mother was sure he would call the police, but there are decent people in this world. He greeted my mother politely, gave my sister and me a wink and moved on. When we came to the guide, Erno gave us some Slovakian money and went back to Kosice to take another group next night.
We stayed till dark in the guide’s house without turning on the lights. The guide, his two brothers and sister, who spoke fluent Slovakian, came at midnight. We went a long way across the woods in the mountains. 3 hours later we stopped in a nice valley. The guide told us to stay there till morning, when we had to get to the railway station nearby. It was cold and the men made a fire. We had sandwiches. We tried to get a nap, but it was cold and we were worried, so we stayed wide awake. At dawn we saw a nice river in the valley, and got to the station along the rail tracks. My mother gave our companions money to buy tickets. When we were alone, a tall man in the hunter’s outfit, with a rifle over his shoulder approached us. He said he knew my mother from Kosice and advised us to get in another carriage than our companions. He said they had typical Jewish appearance and this might attract the gendarmes’ attention, but speaking good Slovakian, they would manage while for us it might be worse since Slovakian gendarmes were capturing those who crossed the border illegally. We did as he told us. It happened to be true. Gendarmes approached our companions demanding their documents and left them alone afterward. We were close to Presov, when the tall hunter told us to get off the train and walk to the town since there were many gendarmes at the station. We agreed with our companions to meet near the railway station square. They were to take us to the house where my father’s cousin Terez, daughter of Anna Hertz, and her husband lived. They were aware that we were coming and were to give us forged documents. Everything went all right. Our relatives welcomed us and we could take a rest. On the following day our documents were ready. According to the legend, my mother was a widow of landlord Vitalishov from near Presov, and we were going to the Tatra Mountains since I had tuberculosis and had to breathe fresh air in the mountains. My sister and I had chains with crosses on our necks to prove our Christian origin. A week later, on 1 May 1944, Erno joined us. We didn’t recognize him. He colored his hair to become fair and grew a beard and moustache. Erno told us he only managed to take one more group relatives across the border before Hungarian gendarmes started looking for him. Probably someone reported on him and why he was in the town. We took a train to a resort on a mountain in the Tatras. There were posh hotels for wealthiest people on the bank of a lake. At the bottom of the hill there was a small village where railroad people lived. There were also few inexpensive and cozy recreation centers. There was a cable way from the station to the lake. It didn’t function since there were no tourists. We chose this place to be our escape.
We stayed till dark in the guide’s house without turning on the lights. The guide, his two brothers and sister, who spoke fluent Slovakian, came at midnight. We went a long way across the woods in the mountains. 3 hours later we stopped in a nice valley. The guide told us to stay there till morning, when we had to get to the railway station nearby. It was cold and the men made a fire. We had sandwiches. We tried to get a nap, but it was cold and we were worried, so we stayed wide awake. At dawn we saw a nice river in the valley, and got to the station along the rail tracks. My mother gave our companions money to buy tickets. When we were alone, a tall man in the hunter’s outfit, with a rifle over his shoulder approached us. He said he knew my mother from Kosice and advised us to get in another carriage than our companions. He said they had typical Jewish appearance and this might attract the gendarmes’ attention, but speaking good Slovakian, they would manage while for us it might be worse since Slovakian gendarmes were capturing those who crossed the border illegally. We did as he told us. It happened to be true. Gendarmes approached our companions demanding their documents and left them alone afterward. We were close to Presov, when the tall hunter told us to get off the train and walk to the town since there were many gendarmes at the station. We agreed with our companions to meet near the railway station square. They were to take us to the house where my father’s cousin Terez, daughter of Anna Hertz, and her husband lived. They were aware that we were coming and were to give us forged documents. Everything went all right. Our relatives welcomed us and we could take a rest. On the following day our documents were ready. According to the legend, my mother was a widow of landlord Vitalishov from near Presov, and we were going to the Tatra Mountains since I had tuberculosis and had to breathe fresh air in the mountains. My sister and I had chains with crosses on our necks to prove our Christian origin. A week later, on 1 May 1944, Erno joined us. We didn’t recognize him. He colored his hair to become fair and grew a beard and moustache. Erno told us he only managed to take one more group relatives across the border before Hungarian gendarmes started looking for him. Probably someone reported on him and why he was in the town. We took a train to a resort on a mountain in the Tatras. There were posh hotels for wealthiest people on the bank of a lake. At the bottom of the hill there was a small village where railroad people lived. There were also few inexpensive and cozy recreation centers. There was a cable way from the station to the lake. It didn’t function since there were no tourists. We chose this place to be our escape.
In early September we got to know that Germans started occupation of Slovakia. Our acquaintances decided to leave the place. We decided to join them. There were 3 other families, but only two men, with us. Hey found a place in the mountains and took a train carriage there. It arrived at the dead end where there was a small village. There was a windmill right by the station. We were starved and my mother went to the mill to buy a little flour. Our chains with crosses helped us there. The miller’s wife felt sorry for us. She gave us food and sold some flour and bread. She thought we were Catholics and said she hated Jews and would never help one.
When we heard that a part of Slovakia was liberated, we rushed to Brezno by train. From there we went to Banska Bystrica. The town celebrated liberation and there were crowds of people in the streets. We went to our relatives. Erno, his sister Magda and many relatives, whom Erno rescued, got together in his house.
One day in January we got terribly scared. When we went to bed, we heard shooting above us. We froze of fear, but then it turned out those were our neighbors shooting to salute the liberation of Kosice. They knew we came from Kosice and wanted to greet us. We invited them to the hut, they brought some wine with them, and we celebrated this wonderful event with tears in our eyes.
One day my mother met our family dentist and his daughter. He told us that they survived in the basement of a house, whose owner supported them. He was eager to go to Kosice to find out about the rest of the family. He offered my mother to come with him and my mother was infinitely happy with his company. We finally got to our house. The windows were broken and it was empty inside. There was light in the neighboring apartment coming from behind the blackouts. My mother rang the bell to this apartment. We recognized the janitor from a neighboring house in the woman who opened the door. Her family lived in the basement of the house. She recognized my mother and let her in. Through the open door my mother saw few pieces of our furniture, our blankets and pillows, bed sheets with my mother’s monograms on them embroidered by a craftswoman for my mother’s wedding. The janitor was rather confused. She said she saved some of our belongings from Germans and would return them. However, this did not make us happy. The janitor said that our father had come by the night before. She told him she hadn’t seen us and he went to Izabella without even coming into the house. We went to Izabella’s house, when it got dark. My mother knocked on a window. A minute later we were hugging our dearest Izabella. Izabella was struck with how we looked. We had all possible clothes on since it was cold. My mother was wrapped in some blanket shreds. Our clothes were dirty, torn and smelly. Izabella heated some water and put my sister and me in the bathtub with hot water. Izabella burnt everything we had on in the oven. After we got washed we put on our aunts’ pajamas, big, but homey and clean. When the bathtub was being filled for mama, the doorbell rang. What happened was that my father had really returned to Kosice the night before. The town party committee organized a banquet in his honor and now he returned from it. Izabella went to open the door to prepare my father to the surprise waiting for him, but my sister and I couldn’t wait and threw ourselves on this tall lean man in a military uniform. While kissing us his eyes were searching for his beloved wife whom he hadn’t seen in three years. When this strong and brave man, who had come through so many ordeals in recent years saw our mother, he couldn’t stand the test of joy and fainted. My sister looked at him with horror and screamed: “Papa died!’ He recovered his senses from her screaming. Izabella took us to the bedroom where her children were sleeping: my 8-year old cousin Gabor and his 8-months old sister Marina. My aunt put us to sleep in one bed and went to sleep on another and we fell asleep. One hours later I got high fever and began to talk deliriously. My screams woke Izabella and she gave me pills and applied compresses all night through. In the morning a doctor came and said this was a nervous breakdown. He prescribed me a sedative. Our father told us how he came to Kosice from Uzhgorod. He was secretary of the regional party committee in Uzhgorod. He got a letter from his niece Judit, Izodor’s daughter, who returned to Kosice from a concentration camp and met with her fiancé. Her parents perished in the concentration camp and since she hadn’t reached the age of 18, her marriage could only be registered at her parents’ consent. Judit asked my father to give his consent to her marriage and this was how my father came to Kosice. He got a 3-week leave and had a car to take him to Kosice.
Irina Herman
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My first bright memory refers to this time. It is probably imprinted in my memory for the rest of my life, this horror that I felt. Two days after the Germans came to the village I was playing in my grandfather’s yard. I don’t know where my parents, my brother and sister were. A half-drunk German soldier came to the yard. He began to pester my grandfather ‘Judas, Judas, give me chicken, eggs and milk’ pulling grandfather by his beard and threatening him with a gun.
My grandfather started walking toward the cellar with this German following him, when all of a sudden my grandfather jumped to me, grabbed me and jumped into the well holding the rope. We were lucky that it was a hot summer and there wasn’t much water in the well. We could hear the German cursing and shooting.
When it became quiet our Ukrainian neighbors pulled us out of the well. My mother and sister came. Although nobody thought it was a threatening incident our Ukrainian neighbors gave us shelter on the attic in their house: my mother and sister and I were hiding there.
We didn’t know where my father, grandfather and brother were. A few days later my father came. He said that he and grandfather found shelter with our Ukrainian neighbor Zenyunka.
Zenyunka actually saved my brother. When the Germans met him they called him ‘Judas’ and told him to put down his pants to check whether he was circumcised when my grandfather’s quiet neighbor Zenyunka ran out of her house, grabbed my brother and said that he was her son and had nothing in common with Jews. My brother’s Ukrainian friends had taught him a Christian prayer ‘Our Father…’ and he recited it in Ukrainian and the Germans left him alone.
My grandfather started walking toward the cellar with this German following him, when all of a sudden my grandfather jumped to me, grabbed me and jumped into the well holding the rope. We were lucky that it was a hot summer and there wasn’t much water in the well. We could hear the German cursing and shooting.
When it became quiet our Ukrainian neighbors pulled us out of the well. My mother and sister came. Although nobody thought it was a threatening incident our Ukrainian neighbors gave us shelter on the attic in their house: my mother and sister and I were hiding there.
We didn’t know where my father, grandfather and brother were. A few days later my father came. He said that he and grandfather found shelter with our Ukrainian neighbor Zenyunka.
Zenyunka actually saved my brother. When the Germans met him they called him ‘Judas’ and told him to put down his pants to check whether he was circumcised when my grandfather’s quiet neighbor Zenyunka ran out of her house, grabbed my brother and said that he was her son and had nothing in common with Jews. My brother’s Ukrainian friends had taught him a Christian prayer ‘Our Father…’ and he recited it in Ukrainian and the Germans left him alone.
German troops came to Tomashpol shortly afterward. On 4th August the first terrifying operation against Jews was conducted. On that morning my father and grandfather went to pray in the prayer house as usual. My mother, my sister, I and my aunt Rosa and her son were waiting for them at breakfast. At that moment a raid began: Germans were coming to Jewish homes chasing Jews out of their homes with whips. Some managed to hide. My mother’s sister Leya hid in her basement.
We were taken to the square where Germans read an order issued by German commandment ordering us to go to work under the fear of death. They didn’t allow us to take anything with us. We were told to line up in a column and march across the town. There were guards with dogs on the sides. Nobody thought that this was a death march.
At that time we saw another column marching along the adjunct street. There were men from the prayer house in this march and we saw my father and grandfather. My father rushed to our column, but of course, he was forced to go back. This was the last time I saw my father.
My brother hit his foot and began to cry, but my mother begged him to move on. She was afraid that they would kill us if we didn’t keep the pace. At that time a German guard noticed us. He called us to come closer and told us to go home speaking German. I still don’t know why he did this. Perhaps, he liked my mother or we reminded him of his children in Germany. He ordered a policeman to take us home. My brother ran after the column where my father was.
My mother and I went back home. My mother started cooking dinner. She was waiting for my father and grandfather to come back home. She thought they were working somewhere. Time passed, but nobody returned. In the evening we heard shooting at a distance. There were wounded people with blood on them making their way home across the gardens.
My brother came in the evening. He told us that he followed the column for a long time until my father told him to go back home. He hid in a forest and saw fascists killing Jews, but he didn’t see my father or grandfather among those who were killed.
Later Ukrainian witnesses told us that the column covered about 20 kilometers almost as far as Yampol. On the hill where an old Jewish cemetery was located Germans gave prisoners spades and ordered them to dig graves. Somebody screamed that they had to run for their life. My grandfather Bencion was among the first ones who tried to escape. A fascist ran after him and cut his body in halves with a spade. My grandfather was thrown into a ravine and then they threw there other Jews who were still alive.
A policeman, our fellow villager from Alexandrovka, who often visited us before the war, ran after my father. My father egged him to let him go and have mercy on his children, but this policeman beat him hard and then threw him into the ravine. He was still alive. People were saying that the earth was breathing for a long time afterward: there were many buried alive, including my beloved father.
After this horrible day my mother kept us in our shelter. She only went out to get some food. She took our cow to our Ukrainian acquaintance in Alexandrovka hoping that she would help us when we were in need.
We were taken to the square where Germans read an order issued by German commandment ordering us to go to work under the fear of death. They didn’t allow us to take anything with us. We were told to line up in a column and march across the town. There were guards with dogs on the sides. Nobody thought that this was a death march.
At that time we saw another column marching along the adjunct street. There were men from the prayer house in this march and we saw my father and grandfather. My father rushed to our column, but of course, he was forced to go back. This was the last time I saw my father.
My brother hit his foot and began to cry, but my mother begged him to move on. She was afraid that they would kill us if we didn’t keep the pace. At that time a German guard noticed us. He called us to come closer and told us to go home speaking German. I still don’t know why he did this. Perhaps, he liked my mother or we reminded him of his children in Germany. He ordered a policeman to take us home. My brother ran after the column where my father was.
My mother and I went back home. My mother started cooking dinner. She was waiting for my father and grandfather to come back home. She thought they were working somewhere. Time passed, but nobody returned. In the evening we heard shooting at a distance. There were wounded people with blood on them making their way home across the gardens.
My brother came in the evening. He told us that he followed the column for a long time until my father told him to go back home. He hid in a forest and saw fascists killing Jews, but he didn’t see my father or grandfather among those who were killed.
Later Ukrainian witnesses told us that the column covered about 20 kilometers almost as far as Yampol. On the hill where an old Jewish cemetery was located Germans gave prisoners spades and ordered them to dig graves. Somebody screamed that they had to run for their life. My grandfather Bencion was among the first ones who tried to escape. A fascist ran after him and cut his body in halves with a spade. My grandfather was thrown into a ravine and then they threw there other Jews who were still alive.
A policeman, our fellow villager from Alexandrovka, who often visited us before the war, ran after my father. My father egged him to let him go and have mercy on his children, but this policeman beat him hard and then threw him into the ravine. He was still alive. People were saying that the earth was breathing for a long time afterward: there were many buried alive, including my beloved father.
After this horrible day my mother kept us in our shelter. She only went out to get some food. She took our cow to our Ukrainian acquaintance in Alexandrovka hoping that she would help us when we were in need.
About two weeks later I fell ill with scarlet fever. There were no medications available. My mother carried me to an infectious diseases hospital in Komargorod, about 15 kilometers from Tomashpol. Doctor Drozdovski, either Polish or Ukrainian, was the director of this hospital. The doctor knew very well that I was a Jew, but he ordered me to not say a word in Yiddish and taught me to cross myself. He told everybody else that I was his distant relative. He brought me food and toys.
I stayed there over a month until my mother took me back home. As it turned out I was not the only one whom Drozdovski helped. Fascists hanged the doctor for helping Jews in the central square in early 1942.
I stayed there over a month until my mother took me back home. As it turned out I was not the only one whom Drozdovski helped. Fascists hanged the doctor for helping Jews in the central square in early 1942.
In October 1941 a ghetto was organized in Tomashpol. Our street and a few adjunct streets were fenced with barbed wire and there were guards at the entrance gate.
I cannot tell any details about our life in the ghetto. Few episodes are imprinted in my memory. They are associated with a common feeling of fear, hunger and cold. When we managed to get some potato peels we baked them on a makeshift stove and my mother made flat cookies of them. Fascists occasionally threw sausage and sandwich leftovers to the children as if we were dogs. This was a luxury.
I cannot tell any details about our life in the ghetto. Few episodes are imprinted in my memory. They are associated with a common feeling of fear, hunger and cold. When we managed to get some potato peels we baked them on a makeshift stove and my mother made flat cookies of them. Fascists occasionally threw sausage and sandwich leftovers to the children as if we were dogs. This was a luxury.
My brother was a very bright boy. He managed to get out of the ghetto and somehow he brought sugar beetroots from the sugar refinery that saved us. He was captured by policemen several times. Once they beat him so hard that he was ill for a long time.
I also remember when a Romanian guard came for my brother. He had a gun and wanted to shoot my brother when he saw our dog with its puppies near the doorway. The puppies were white and furry and the guard began to play with them and probably forgot why he came there.
There was no more shooting, but inmates of the ghetto were dying from hunger, cold and diseases. In late 1943, before liberation, Germans took over the ghetto again. The situation grew worse.
I also remember when a Romanian guard came for my brother. He had a gun and wanted to shoot my brother when he saw our dog with its puppies near the doorway. The puppies were white and furry and the guard began to play with them and probably forgot why he came there.
There was no more shooting, but inmates of the ghetto were dying from hunger, cold and diseases. In late 1943, before liberation, Germans took over the ghetto again. The situation grew worse.
In March 1944 Soviet troops liberated Tomashpol.
In 1946 I went to a local Ukrainian school. Life was improving. My mother began to receive monthly allowances for us. They were peanuts. My aunt Rieva provided the most sufficient assistance to us sending my mother some money each month. We wouldn’t have survived if it hadn’t been for Aunt Rieva’s support.
My mother worked a lot washing floors, doing laundry, whitewashing and cleaning houses for other people. However, she couldn’t earn enough for a living and so my mother began to sell things. She went to purchase goods in Vinnitsa. She bought soap and paints and sold them a little more expensive in our village. It was against the existing laws and my mother was often arrested. I already knew that if my mother didn’t come back home in the evening I had to take her some soup or boiled cereal to a militia office. Sometimes she was released a few days later and once she was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment.
There were many Jewish children in my class and there were no negative attitudes toward us before the Doctors’ Plot 14, when in the newspapers and on the radio they spoke about doctors being poisoners. This period of anti-Semitism made the attitude toward us at school much worse.
I remember when Stalin died in March 1953 I was standing on guard of honor by his portrait at school.
I didn’t take an active part in public life, but I became a pioneer 15 and joined the Komsomol 16 of course, since without this it was impossible to continue your studies or have a career. Besides, if I hadn’t done it, it would have raised suspicions and questions.
My mother tried to observe Jewish traditions after the war. She didn’t work on Saturday. There was no synagogue in Tomashpol, but my mother got together with other widows like her to celebrate holidays. They even baked matzah in our stove. She often visited my grandfather’s second wife Rosa. Rosa didn’t remarry.
I finished the 10th [last] grade in 1956 and moved to my brother in Odessa. There was nowhere to study in Tomashpol. My brother worked at a plant and rented an apartment. I was living with him. In Odessa I entered the Faculty of Economics in the School of Heavy Industry.
When I was in the 9th grade at school I met Yefim Rozenberg, a Jewish guy. Yefim was born into the poor Jewish family of a tailor in 1937. We met when he came on vacation during his studies in a Navy School. Then he went back to his school and corresponded. I liked him a lot. Yefim came to visit me in Odessa and proposed to me. I wrote my sister asking her consent. She was a year older and it was a Jewish custom that older daughters had to get married first.
In late 1956 we registered our marriage in a registry office in Odessa and that evening we had a celebration with our friends. In February 1957 we came to our hometown and celebrated our wedding at home. There were many guests. They were Jews from our town. There was Jewish food at the wedding: gefilte fish, chicken broth and stewed meat. Besides traditional food there were no other rituals observed at our wedding party.
In late 1956 we registered our marriage in a registry office in Odessa and that evening we had a celebration with our friends. In February 1957 we came to our hometown and celebrated our wedding at home. There were many guests. They were Jews from our town. There was Jewish food at the wedding: gefilte fish, chicken broth and stewed meat. Besides traditional food there were no other rituals observed at our wedding party.
My husband sailed on his boat and I worked as a rate setter at the clock plant.
I didn’t have a vacation once in all those 19 years that we lived together while my husband spent his vacations in the Crimea and the Caucasus and he never offered to take our children with him. They spent their vacations with me at home and he was seeing other women. I divorced him in 1976. Now he lives with his third wife in Germany.
I worked a lot. I was director of a small store where I did all kinds of duties: of accountant, shop assistant or loader. I unloaded trucks with bread and other food products. I realized I had to complete my education and entered the extramural department of Vinnitsa Trade College. After finishing it I went to work as an economist in the trade department.
I got along well with my colleagues. We celebrated Soviet holidays together. However, I didn’t have close friends. My colleagues were Russian and Ukrainian. There were no Jewish employees in the department and I always sensed some tense attitude toward me. I guess it had something to do with my nationality, though I can speak fluent Ukrainian.
I sometimes went to the cinema with my children and occasionally – to the theater.