In 1920 Latvia gained independence. There wasn’t as much anti-Semitism there as in tsarist Russia, and the Jewish quota was cancelled.
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Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
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- 151 Hospital 1
- Fire of Thessaloniki (1917) 9
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- 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
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- Romanian Annexation of Bessarabia (1918) 25
- Returning of the Hungarian rule in Transylvania (1940-1944) 43
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Holocaust
9685
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Communism
4468
- Life in the Soviet Union/under Communism (in general) 2592
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- Life after the change of the regime (1989) 493
- Israel / Palestine 2190
- Zionism 847
- Jewish Organizations 1200
Displaying 26161 - 26190 of 50826 results
Irina Golbreich
Yakov Rozenblit, my maternal grandfather, came from Odessa [4], southern Ukraine. He had graduated from Odessa University before getting married. He was a chemical engineer. He must have been very intelligent, if he managed to get a higher education in Russia, being Jewish. There was a quota for maximum five percent Jewish admission [5]. My grandfather must have had many merits to have overcome this barrier.
In the 1970s large numbers of Jews were moving to Israel. This was actually the only possibility for the Soviet Union to move to another country. Many of our friends and acquaintances left at that time. We knew they were leaving to have their children grow up free people, having their rights respected, to never know the feeling of being treated as people of the second or third rate. These people were moving to their historic Motherland. This was a brave move on their part. We knew it, but we did not dare to make this move. We supported those who were leaving. Things were not easy for them. Authorities took every step and effort to make their life complicated.
We corresponded with our friends in Israel and were happy for their successes. None of them regretted taking this decision. We were probably very inert. It was difficult to take this decision and to make this decisive step in life. Besides, my parents were old and suffered from hot weather. I couldn’t leave them, or take them with us where they would suffer from the hot climate, and I would be to blame for their suffering and would be able to do nothing about it. So we stayed.
However, we never lost interest in watching news from Israel. During the Six-Day-War [39] and the Judgment Day War [40], we watched the course of military actions and were worried about Israel. We were on the side of Israel, and felt happy about its military successes. The official Soviet mass media deployed a wide-range anti-Israeli campaign calling Israel an aggressor and invader. The bigger Israel’s victories were, the stronger the hysteria was.
We corresponded with our friends in Israel and were happy for their successes. None of them regretted taking this decision. We were probably very inert. It was difficult to take this decision and to make this decisive step in life. Besides, my parents were old and suffered from hot weather. I couldn’t leave them, or take them with us where they would suffer from the hot climate, and I would be to blame for their suffering and would be able to do nothing about it. So we stayed.
However, we never lost interest in watching news from Israel. During the Six-Day-War [39] and the Judgment Day War [40], we watched the course of military actions and were worried about Israel. We were on the side of Israel, and felt happy about its military successes. The official Soviet mass media deployed a wide-range anti-Israeli campaign calling Israel an aggressor and invader. The bigger Israel’s victories were, the stronger the hysteria was.
During perestroika the Jewish life in Latvia began to revive. In 1988 the Jewish cultural society was officially registered. In recent years it has significantly grown and strengthened. Jews finally felt themselves to be Jewish. My husband Aron returned to Jewish life. He read many books about the history of the Jewish people and their religion. Aron knew Hebrew in his childhood. He restored his knowledge to read the Torah and prayers. Aron went to the synagogue on Sabbath, and on Jewish holidays he and I went to the synagogue together.
We observed Jewish traditions at home. On Friday evening I lit candles and prayed over them. On Saturday my husband went to the synagogue. I stayed at home, but I did no work at home. I left whatever chores I had for Sunday. On Saturday my husband and I read aloud and visited our friends or went for a walk. We celebrated Pesach, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Chanukkah and Sukkot, the biggest Jewish holidays, at home. We just couldn’t follow all traditions strictly, but we did our best.
Mama died in 1987. We buried her at the Jewish cemetery in Riga. However, we didn’t arrange a Jewish funeral. In 1993 we buried my father beside Mama’s grave. My husband died in 2004. His funeral was a traditional Jewish one. This was my husband’s wish, and I followed it.
We observed Jewish traditions at home. On Friday evening I lit candles and prayed over them. On Saturday my husband went to the synagogue. I stayed at home, but I did no work at home. I left whatever chores I had for Sunday. On Saturday my husband and I read aloud and visited our friends or went for a walk. We celebrated Pesach, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Chanukkah and Sukkot, the biggest Jewish holidays, at home. We just couldn’t follow all traditions strictly, but we did our best.
Mama died in 1987. We buried her at the Jewish cemetery in Riga. However, we didn’t arrange a Jewish funeral. In 1993 we buried my father beside Mama’s grave. My husband died in 2004. His funeral was a traditional Jewish one. This was my husband’s wish, and I followed it.
There are two choirs in our Jewish community. One is Shofar, and the second one is Rahamim. The Shofar members are younger, and Rahamim is attended by older people like me. I joined the choir in 1994. Since then the choir has become a part of my life. We sing Jewish songs in Yiddish and Hebrew. Only few singers know the languages, and the others, like me, just learn the words off by heart. All members of the choir are fond of Jewish music and Jewish songs, and this common activity has made us friends. Our choir is one big family. We need each other and we care about one another.
All children received secular education. I know no details, but they must have studied at the gymnasium [grammar school]. At least, my father did. After finishing it he entered the Agricultural Faculty of Riga University. He moved to Riga and rented a room. Anti-Semitism in Latvia was strong at the time. One lecturer told my father that he might study at university and graduate from it, but there was little chance he would find a job. Perhaps, his words affected my father so that he never finished his studies. He quit university and took a course for amateur radio engineers. After finishing the course he went to work as a radio engineer. Besides repairing radios, he also modified them.
My father’s family was very religious. My grandfather had a beautiful voice. He was a chazzan at a synagogue in Daugavpils. The family observed all Jewish traditions. The family celebrated Sabbath and all Jewish holidays. My grandfather and his sons went to the synagogue on Saturday, and on holidays the whole family went to the synagogue. The sons studied at the cheder, which was mandatory for Jewish boys. At 13 the sons had their bar mitzvah, the coming-of-age ceremony. My father’s family spoke Yiddish.
My grandfather was a grain dealer, and my grandmother was a housewife.
Ella Perlman
My grandfather was a tailor. I don’t mean to say that he was like those many tailor guys in Jewish towns, having to alter clothes several times. No, he was a real good tailor. He made new clothes for his wealthy clients.
Liepaja was a Jewish town within the Pale of Settlement [3]. Its population was Jewish and German, for the most part. The Russian and Latvian population was smaller. The majority of the Jewish population were craftsmen, but there were also Jewish lawyers, doctors and tradesmen. There were many wealthy Jews in Liepaja. They owned houses, shops and stores. There was a synagogue and a Jewish cemetery in Liepaja. Residents of the town communicated in German, for the most part, even when Russian was the state language.
My grandfather was religious. I believe all Jews, irrespective of their wealth or skills, belonged to the Jewish culture. The wealthy and the poor alike observed Jewish traditions, went to the synagogue and celebrated Jewish holidays. My father’s family also observed Jewish traditions. They celebrated Sabbath and Jewish holidays at home, went to the synagogue and followed the kashrut.
My father and his younger brother studied in cheder. They also finished a Jewish general education school. Then they went to study for a vocation. My father became a barber’s apprentice, and later he worked in his tutor’s barber shop. Max studied the jeweler’s profession. He became a very skilled jeweler, and even opened his own shop. They both lived in Liepaja.
They were a religious Jewish family and observed all Jewish traditions. My grandfather owned a bakery and an inn where rafts men were customers. They rafted wood down the Daugava River. My grandmother helped him with cooking for the customers.
Then another sorrow hit the family. Uncle Mikhl, while working at the shoemakers’, talked to other employees, and once he mentioned that life in Latvia had been much better before the Soviet times. Somebody reported on him and he was arrested. There were investigations and then a trial. Fani died on the day of the court sitting. My uncle was sentenced to five years in the Gulag.
A few days later Mama, my sister and brother arrived. We had to start our life from scratch. Mama and I worked at the local factory. In winter we tousled the wool that made the material for making felt boots. In summer Mama worked as a janitor at the factory. Life was very hard. Abram cut wood at the lumber storage. He suggested I went to work with him. We went to the wood where he cut trees, and I was to pull them to the road. The snow was deep and the tree trunks were heavy. This was hard work. It was more difficult than cutting those trees. In summer we went to work at our vegetable garden. We had to cover 25 kilometers to get there. At times we were lucky when somebody gave us a ride on a wagon or in a tractor. When the weather was agreeable, we stayed overnight in the woods near the vegetable garden.
I remember a postman walking along the streets in Badyn at night. The women ran out into the streets and stood stock still wondering if he would pass by or bring them a letter or a death notification. We also looked forward to letters from the front. Zalman sent two or three letters before we received a notice that Private Zalman Monchnik had perished in action near Leningrad in November 1942. Motl sent his last letter from Poland in 1944. He wrote that the Germans were retreating, the Red Army was chasing the enemy away and the war would be over soon. We never heard from him again. No letter or death notification.
On 9th May 1945 we heard on the radio that Germany had capitulated and the war was over. Everybody was happy, greeting each other, but this happiness was mixed with sorrow and tears for those, who never lived to see this day. We were waiting for news from my father, hoping to go back home together, but there was nothing from him. We finally left, hoping that my father would find us.
Kalnynsh also told me that my uncle Hershe Shmakovich returned from the [Riga] ghetto [22] and lived in his apartment. We went to see my uncle. He was there alone. His family had died in the ghetto. He was also in the ghetto with his family, including his daughter Taube and her two-year-old son, who had come from Palestine to visit the family. Sara, Hershe’s second daughter, was killed by Latvians before the Germans came to Riga.
Uncle Hershe was in the ghetto. Able-bodied men were separated from women, children and old people. Prisoners of the ghetto were killed in the Rumbula forest [23]. They were to walk there, and if somebody fell exhausted they were killed on the way. The Germans needed specialists. They needed food, clothes and needed people to fix those. They were in need of shoemakers, tailors and barbers. My uncle was one of them. My uncle worked as a butcher. He didn’t only cut meat, but also made sausages and smoked meat. He was also the best at making salt meat. I’ve never had such delicious salt meat as he had made. He made salt beef for holidays. He took brisket meat and tongue, rubbed them with salt and garlic and added some saltpeter to make it pinkish.
These workers were kept in separate quarters that were guarded. They were taken to work on trucks. Later they were kept in the Salaspils [24] camp for some time, and from there they were taken to a ‘Dulag’ in Liepaja from where prisoners were sent to concentration camps in Germany. [Editor’s note: ‘Dulag’ is an abbreviation of the German word ‘Durchgangslager’ meaning ‘transit camp.
Uncle Hershe was in the ghetto. Able-bodied men were separated from women, children and old people. Prisoners of the ghetto were killed in the Rumbula forest [23]. They were to walk there, and if somebody fell exhausted they were killed on the way. The Germans needed specialists. They needed food, clothes and needed people to fix those. They were in need of shoemakers, tailors and barbers. My uncle was one of them. My uncle worked as a butcher. He didn’t only cut meat, but also made sausages and smoked meat. He was also the best at making salt meat. I’ve never had such delicious salt meat as he had made. He made salt beef for holidays. He took brisket meat and tongue, rubbed them with salt and garlic and added some saltpeter to make it pinkish.
These workers were kept in separate quarters that were guarded. They were taken to work on trucks. Later they were kept in the Salaspils [24] camp for some time, and from there they were taken to a ‘Dulag’ in Liepaja from where prisoners were sent to concentration camps in Germany. [Editor’s note: ‘Dulag’ is an abbreviation of the German word ‘Durchgangslager’ meaning ‘transit camp.
The prisoners of the ‘Dulag’ were liberated by the Soviet Army in Liepaja on 8th or 9th May 1945. My uncle told me about this day. Prisoners were allowed to move around the camp without restriction, but then, when the Soviet Army was already near Liepaja, there were many more armed guards in the camp. Somebody told my uncle that when the Russians broke through to the town, the Germans were going to kill the inmates of the camp. My uncle knew it was time to escape. He ran to the kitchen where Latvian cooks worked and asked them to shelter him. They were probably afraid of the Germans and the Russians and told him to go away.
The Germans didn’t have time to kill the other inmates of the camp and they were also liberated by the Soviet army. My uncle and Zalman Shmakovich, who served in the Latvian division, were the only survivors of their family. Zalman demobilized in 1946 and returned to Riga. Grandmother Haya and her husband Gordon died in the ghetto. My father’s brother Max Greenfeld, his wife Gusta and their daughter Meriam were in the ghetto and then killed in the Rumbula forest.
Other Jewish tenants of our house were also killed. The majority of the Jewish population of Riga was killed by the Germans.
We were very poor and even starved at times. My father received a low pension of an invalid and Mama didn’t work. I was the only one to work, but I had no vocation. Since my father was an invalid of war, the chairman of the district social security office helped me to get a job at the invalids’ garment shop [cf. artel] [25], making shirts for men and children. Each employee was responsible for a single operation. I sewed cuffs on sleeves. It wasn’t too hard, but this job required accuracy and attention. It didn’t take me long to learn. This wasn’t the best paid job, but then each kopeck counted. I joined the Komsomol [26] in this shop.
I was eager to study. I had finished six grades of the Jewish school before the war. There were no Jewish schools left after the war. They became Russian schools. My Russian was poor. I learned to speak it during evacuation, but I could hardly write in it. So, instead of going to the seventh grade, I had to go to the fifth grade of a Russian evening school. My sister and brother also went to the fifth grade, and so it happened that we were in the same grade, with the only difference that they went to the daytime school.
Sometime later I quit work in the invalids’ shop and became an apprentice at the garment factory. It didn’t take me long to learn the profession. A very nice lady was the forewoman of the shop. She had no children, and treated me like her daughter. She cooked at home and brought me lunches. The factory provided free lunches to its employees. In fall, employees helped farmers with the harvest. This was a good time. We were young and went to swim in the Daugava River or had dancing parties after work.
After the war we observed Jewish traditions. However difficult life was, we celebrated all Jewish holidays at home according to the rules. There was no place to buy matzah, so we made it ourselves, and later we accepted orders from others. My uncle and his wife Gita, our family and Iosif Perlman were involved in the process of matzah baking. We made plain matzah or egg matzah. People brought us flour and eggs and then came back to pick their matzah. Mama and Gita made the dough and this was the most difficult part. Someone rolled the dough, someone made little holes with a wheel and another person was responsible for the baking. Each person was responsible for an operation. We had our clients for whom we made matzah for years.
Mama also made special wine for Pesach for our family and for others. This took a lot of effort. My brother always helped her. First he had to beat raisins in a bag that he hit with a stick. Mama had special cloth bags for this purpose. Then these raisins were placed in bottles, and the bottles were left for fermenting. When the wine was ready, it was to be filtered several times through special paper filters. The wine turned out delicious, and our clients were very happy with it. Nowadays special wine for Pesach is sold in stores, and I can assure you that Mama’s wine was no worse.
We started preparations for the holiday in advance. Gita worked and came back home late. Mama and Aunt Liebe spent their days cooking. We were a big family and needed lots of food. They made gefilte fish, forshmak from herring and beetroot kvas drink. There were no sweets in the stores, and Mama and Aunt Liebe made pomerantzn. This required a lot of effort. They cooked ground carrots with sugar, watching it to keep it from burning, added ginger, cinnamon, zest, honey, raisins and eggs. When sugar turns into caramel, the mass is scooped onto a dish and cut finely when it gets dry. It took a lot of time, but it was worth it. I used to make it for my daughters. They also made strudels and puddings. We did our best to make it a holiday.
Mama also made special wine for Pesach for our family and for others. This took a lot of effort. My brother always helped her. First he had to beat raisins in a bag that he hit with a stick. Mama had special cloth bags for this purpose. Then these raisins were placed in bottles, and the bottles were left for fermenting. When the wine was ready, it was to be filtered several times through special paper filters. The wine turned out delicious, and our clients were very happy with it. Nowadays special wine for Pesach is sold in stores, and I can assure you that Mama’s wine was no worse.
We started preparations for the holiday in advance. Gita worked and came back home late. Mama and Aunt Liebe spent their days cooking. We were a big family and needed lots of food. They made gefilte fish, forshmak from herring and beetroot kvas drink. There were no sweets in the stores, and Mama and Aunt Liebe made pomerantzn. This required a lot of effort. They cooked ground carrots with sugar, watching it to keep it from burning, added ginger, cinnamon, zest, honey, raisins and eggs. When sugar turns into caramel, the mass is scooped onto a dish and cut finely when it gets dry. It took a lot of time, but it was worth it. I used to make it for my daughters. They also made strudels and puddings. We did our best to make it a holiday.
We also celebrated Victory Day [27] on 9th May. This was the biggest holiday for all of us. If it hadn’t been for the Soviet Army, there would have been no survivors, and we knew it well.
On Jewish holidays we went to the synagogue. Of course, the Soviet authorities didn’t appreciate such activities. It was common knowledge that party members weren’t supposed to attend the synagogue. It became known at work and they were sure to have problems. As for common people, this was no problem. Only two of eight synagogues in Riga operated after the war. One of them was also closed sometime later. On holidays there wasn’t an inch of room inside and outside the synagogue.
Soviet holidays were just additional days off for us. We celebrated them at work and went to parades. We couldn’t help going, since the management wouldn’t have given us bonuses, and they made up a significant part in our family budget.
It goes without saying that we were very happy, when in 1948 Israel was officially recognized.
I knew my uncle’s friend Iosif liked me. He was the same age as my father, born in 1901, and I thought he was an old man. However, some time passed and my relatives and Iosif’s relatives started telling me to marry him. Life after the war was very hard, and I knew it would be less difficult, if I had a husband like him. Of course, I was thinking of having a younger husband and having more in common with him, but circumstances forced me to sacrifice my youth and marry Iosif Perlman, who was 25 years older than me.
I didn’t regret it. Iosif was a good husband. He cared about me and helped me with everything. He went shopping with me, didn’t allow me to carry heavy things and stood in lines to buy food. There were always lines in Soviet stores. He was a very kind and caring man.
We got married in 1948. We had a chuppah in my uncle’s apartment and had a traditional Jewish wedding. Mama and my aunt did their best cooking. We only invited our relatives, but there happened to be a lot of them. We celebrated our wedding and then lived together in the little room in my uncle’s apartment.
I didn’t regret it. Iosif was a good husband. He cared about me and helped me with everything. He went shopping with me, didn’t allow me to carry heavy things and stood in lines to buy food. There were always lines in Soviet stores. He was a very kind and caring man.
We got married in 1948. We had a chuppah in my uncle’s apartment and had a traditional Jewish wedding. Mama and my aunt did their best cooking. We only invited our relatives, but there happened to be a lot of them. We celebrated our wedding and then lived together in the little room in my uncle’s apartment.