But when the Second World War began, in 1939, when we saw the first refugees from Germany and Western Europe, we saw some Jewish children. In our yard we saw some people dressed in a strange manner. Those were refugees from the West. In our class we had a new boy by the name of Grisha Kotlyar. He was Jewish; he and his parents fled from Western Europe.
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Anna Iosifovna Ulik
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In our class we had children of different nationalities, but we all were friends and did not know each other’s national belonging.
I remember our vice director Olga Sergeyevna, who was a strict middle-aged woman; she liked her students to march like soldiers. I remember that in 1936 she went to the famous “Winners’ Congress” of the Communist Party. She returned to Kiev in delight from Stalin and everything she saw in Moscow.
We went to school #79, which was next to the Ivan Franko Theater. It had wonderful teachers. It was interesting and easy for us to learn.
I remember the hard times: 1931, 1932. I remember Postyshev making pictures with children. I remember the coming of Voroshilov, how he stood at the balcony of his hotel “Continental” and examined the city, and passers-by looked up to him in delight.
I remember the famine very well. It could be seen in people who fell down on the streets because they starved to death. Many families moved in the streets like today’s homeless people. I remember I brought home one woman with children. My mother settled them in our corridor, gave them a chance to wash and provided a little bit of food. It was real famine at the time.
I remember the famine very well. It could be seen in people who fell down on the streets because they starved to death. Many families moved in the streets like today’s homeless people. I remember I brought home one woman with children. My mother settled them in our corridor, gave them a chance to wash and provided a little bit of food. It was real famine at the time.
We were children; I finished only 9 grades of school before the war.
Kiev was a small, nice and elegant city, where everything was concentrated in the center. Street cars ran in Kreschatik, the main street, full of stores and lines of people. Prewar Kiev is associated, in my mind, with our street.
Nobody ate anything special. We were left some slices of bread with jam and with instructions: “Eat this” or “Don’t eat this”. We allowed be only small slices, part needed was to leave for other members of family and for us on the evening. Mama always wrote in note how much and what we can eat.
It was during the time of dispossession of the kulaks [rich peasants], and many people starved, very many. So, this girl was recommended to us. She settled with us, in a separate room in our flat.
We had a nanny. It was during the time of dispossession of the kulaks [rich peasants], and many people starved, very many. So, this girl was recommended to us. She settled with us, in a separate room in our flat. She helped my mother, as well as aunt Lyuba.
Our teacher was a former ballet dancer. She is on that picture as well.
My father was working as the vice director of the Opera Theater then.
We played music endlessly: mother played piano, father played violin, Vera was the conductor and I danced. I liked to dance very much; I even took dancing classes at the Opera Theater Choreographic College. I remember Tairov, the famous chief choreographer, how her personally admitted me to the College, examined my feet and discussed them with my father.
So, back to the description of our house in Kiev. Our room had two pianos.
As a result of some changes she found herself at the Kazan Russian Drama Theater where she realized herself as an actress and where she was awarded the title of the Honored Actress. Then she moved to a few more theaters for various reasons. At that time actors were allowed to travel abroad, so she had a chance to visit the United States, where a famous director staged the play “Good Night, Mother” together with her. The same play was staged by Rozovsky [a very famous Russian stage director] after she came back from the States. She also visited Poland and Denmark, was awarded first prizes for roles in plays. One of the plays was staged by the book of Grossman “Life and Fate”. It was recorded on video, and my friend once called me from the USA and said she had just seen Vera on TV in that play. She also had a few good roles in the cinema.
Nevertheless, Khokhlov, on his own initiative, made it so that she was taken as an actress to the Russian Drama Theater. But some time later pressure was put on the directorate and on my sister to quit her work there. It was prior to their tour to Moscow. My mother heard from a high-ranking official that at one meeting it was said that my sister has a “wrong nose”. I remember this phrase all my life.
After school my sister entered the Theater Institute of Kiev and graduated from it with honors. The chief director of the Lesya Ukrainka Theater, honored actor of USSR Professor Khokhlov and then director of the theater Gontar asked the Arts Committee of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic to send three graduates to them. I remember that two graduates were admitted immediately – Yury Shevchuk and Boris Kashirin. But my sister was not. We certainly understood why: because of her nationality.
I think the whole flat belonged to her before the revolution, but after the revolution all people who owned flats had to share these flats with other families. Klavdia Vasilyevna lived with two beautiful wonderful grown-up daughters, Tanya and Tasya. They loved us very much: both children and my parents. Then Klavdia Vasilyevna disappeared somehow; she was arrested. And a man by the name of Samokhin settled in the third room. He worked in NKVD.
We also had teachers who taught us English and other things.
Vera was a unique person, a very talented girl. I remember one situation when a teacher came to teach her violin. She did not want to have that particular lesson and she acted as if she passed out. When I looked at her, I thought I was losing my sister, and that’s when I realized what a talented sister I have.
I remember some people disappearing, for instance, there was a couple, Professor Zavyalov and his wonderful wife who looked like Marlene Dietrich. They always walked together, hand in hand. They also disappeared. Maybe they were arrested. Every time somebody disappeared it would worry my parents very much and they would talk in whispers to each other.
Our kitchen was small. We did not have much food and we were often hungry. I remember endless lines to get food; people had to register to get into line.
We had a room in a communal flat, whose landlady’s name was Klavdia Vasilyevna. I think the whole flat belonged to her before the revolution, but after the revolution all people who owned flats had to share these flats with other families.
Nobody kept Shabbat at our house: life in theater envisages a lot of activities on weekends, that is, on Saturday and Sunday.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
But grandmother was not religious. It was a family of Russian intellectuals of Jewish origin. She did not go to the synagogue.
Grandmother had a small room in a communal flat, and when we wanted to get to her flat we had to cross a big hall that was divided into sections in each of which different families lived. Her little room had old furniture and was decorated with her beautiful needlework. I even remember the slippers she made and embroidered herself.
When she was young, Zionism was born, and the advanced Jewish youth got involved in this new movement. I not know belonged she to some Zionist organization. And certainly when we look at a picture and see a woman wearing a homemade Zionist dress with a six-point star with photos of outstanding figures of Zionism, we certainly can understand that she was also interested in these issues.
Grandmother was an educated woman. She finished high school. At the graduation ceremony she wore the costume she sewed herself – you can see it at the picture. And for this dress she was awarded with a prize at graduation ceremony at a Russian school. She was an educated person, read a lot, and tried to understand things around her.
The most interesting of them is the one with grandmother, Esther Iosifovna Shulfental, wearing a Zionist dress.
All her family – sisters, brothers and other relatives – moved to the United States, and she was the only who refused to emigrate in 1905 together with her husband Zakhariy.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview