Once I was planning to go to the cinema with my friend, but she refused. So I offered the ticket to Abram Aisikovich. He sent Alexander Gavrilovich instead, who started to court me. Everyone at the institute, where I worked at the library, noticed that Alexander Gavrilovich was not indifferent to me. I came home from work at 9-10pm and he already waited for me. In the evening we went for a walk and everybody saw it.
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Major events (political and historical)
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Holocaust
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Communism
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Displaying 26701 - 26730 of 50826 results
Fanya Maryanchik
My husband spent the beginning of the war and the first blockade winter in Leningrad. He was evacuated from Leningrad along the Road of Life [22] in a very grave condition in 1942.
We got married in 1944 and lived together for 35 years.
We did not really have any wedding. When our baby was born we went to the ZAGS [State institution, which registers acts of civil status – birth, marriage, death] and registered our marriage. We did not celebrate the event and had no feast.
We did not really have any wedding. When our baby was born we went to the ZAGS [State institution, which registers acts of civil status – birth, marriage, death] and registered our marriage. We did not celebrate the event and had no feast.
My son, Nikolai Alexandrovich Karandin, was not raised as a Jew. He understood his identity as a Jew on his mother’s side, but he was more attracted by the Russian Orthodoxy. He lived in Leningrad, finished the Electrical and Engineering Institute and worked there for some months as a laboratory assistant. But as I mentioned before, he died in Leningrad in 1970 of a sarcoma.
After Kiev was liberated I made an inquiry at the District Soviet [local state authority] about my relatives who stayed in Kiev during the war. I knew that all the Jews, who stayed in Kiev at the beginning of the war, perished at Babi Yar. My mother, father, grandmother Rivka, two of her sisters and her grandson perished there in 1941. I do not know exactly how my parents died. However, I know that it happened at Babi Yar, because our former neighbors, Russians, told me about it. My relatives’ names are not written down anywhere. Though someone told me that he saw their names in some museum, but I couldn’t find them in the books. On my visit to Israel I made an inquiry at Yad Vashem [23], where all Jews, who died during the Holocaust, are being registered. I never received a reply from them.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
In 1953 I wanted to find a job. Those who saw my labor book, which said that I worked as a Chief Librarian in Kiev, were very much surprised and said to me, ‘You’ve reached the position of a library General!’ But when I asked why they did not give me a job, they simply had nothing to reply. The reason was clear: I was a Jewess [24]. In 1953 I had been working for two months at the Library of the Botany Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Later on, in 1954 I managed to get a temporary job at the Library named after Pushkin [25] in Petrogradsky district. At first I borrowed books there and later on I offered my services. I was asked to prepare a catalogue, which I fulfilled. I worked in this library for 20 years. Later on I organized an affiliate of this library at the Leningrad telephone station, where I stayed to work. From 1982 I was managing the technical library there, which I also organized. After 1994 all pensioners were fired.
When we came to Leningrad after the war and got a room, it was luxurious for those times, we even had hot water! In 1988 I exchanged my room for a small, separate, bedraggled single-room apartment on Leninsky Prospekt.
In 1994 I visited my niece in Israel. I meet some of my relatives and keep corresponding with my half-cousin. Some of my relatives on the Slutsky side live in America. I liked Israel, though its climate is too hot for me. Besides, I love Leningrad too much and I got used to living here.
. When I came to Hesed to the Yiddish club and saw the books, I started to work as a volunteer at the library in Hesed. This is how Judaism reveals itself in my life. I never attended the synagogue and I do not attend it now. The life of the Jewish community is very tangible in our city: Jewish music concerts, major holiday concerts. A lot is done for the revival of Jewish traditions. And I think it is good.
Motel Meilakhs
In his childhood my grandfather studied in a сheder. All Jews without exception studied there. If it was a son of a poor man, the community paid for his schooling. And what was paid to the teachers was considered to be money just to support them, not payment for the schooling itself. Because money can’t be taken for the word of God. Children were taught free-of-charge. Grandfather wore everything that tradition required: a beard, payes, a long frock coat, a lapserdak [upper man’s coat; an old-fashioned long frock coat made of cheap rough wool] and a hat.
Grandfather and Grandmother were especially religious, they observed absolutely all Jewish traditions: kosher food, Sabbath, they went to the synagogue every day. My grandmother didn’t wear a wig, it wasn’t generally accepted then; women would just cover their heads with kerchiefs. Men would wear caps or hats. There was only one cap-maker in Tyrlitsa, and hats would be brought from the town and sold in the settlement. Also, they celebrated absolutely all Jewish holidays at home. Nobody in their family ever changed their names [to Russian ones].
Grandfather couldn’t read or write Russian and didn’t think of politics.
Their relations with neighbors were very good. In our settlement there were only Jews. And the Ukrainians lived all around us. The attitude towards each other was really very warm. And in time of pogroms [2] they protected us. We ran to the peasants and they hid us and then they would go out and ask the bandits to leave.
People had rest only on holidays. Holidays and Saturdays were strictly observed, it was a rule. On Friday absolutely everyone attended a banya [steam-house; it was not a mikveh or a ritual bath]. If it was a summer day and the market place was close by, say, in the next village, people went there, but tried to return in time for the banya, and in time for the synagogue. Every regulation was observed very strictly. It was engraved in my memory from the age of eight-ten. Children weren’t taken to other settlements. They would study in сheder from five in the morning.
Grandfather helped Grandma to keep the house and manage the store. They spoke Yiddish and Ukrainian with each other. The topics of conversations were mainly domestic. They read nothing; they were illiterate. They only knew all prayers by heart.
Grandmother Meilakhs was a housewife, she spent all day long by the Russian stove [3]: cooked galantines of hot and salty fish, prepared hors-d’oevres for vodka from salty fish or beef legs, sold vodka. Grandmother put on the simplest long clothes. I can remember that usually on the eve of Sabbath, on Friday morning, white bread would be baked for Saturday and Sunday. On Monday rye bread was baked for the whole week.
The house was like this: a large room, where vodka was sold, a small bedroom, a small kitchen, behind which there was a large room, where visitors spent the night, because the house also served as an inn, and the countrymen led their horses in the big courtyard, and slept on the straw. Four rooms without cellars. Earth floor. Furniture – tables and benches – was made by the local joiners. There was no water supply or electricity. In the settlement there was a water-carrier, and he brought water. The house was heated by firewood. Firewood was bought at the market. There was neither garden nor animals, because houses were built very close to each other and there was no free space. There were no maids or assistants either.
Grandmother Dvoira received a home education. The level of her religiosity was high. She knew all prayers and regularly prayed, and she could read Hebrew. She helped my grandfather, her husband, and was engaged in housework. Her mother tongue was only Yiddish.
Their house survived, there were no pogroms in the area. The local peasants understood that Jews brought them profit, because the Jewish settlement provided the villagers with craftsmen. In the Ukrainian villages there were no smiths, or coopers, or shoemakers, or tailors. All these services were provided by the settlement. Therefore they understood the advantage of the existence of the Jewish population. And Stolypin [4] reported to the Tsar that in areas of Jewish settlement local peasants lived better than in those places, where there were no Jews. Because, as he explained, Jewish settlements gave them the handicraftsmen, and bought natural products from them. The Jews didn’t keep cows, sheep, or kitchen gardens, they bought all of these. So they provided both the demand for food products and the supply of labor.
The typical occupations of the Jews in that area were commerce and craft. Dealers made up to 30 percent of settlement’s population, handicraftsmen – 40 percent: smiths, shoemakers, tailors. Craftsmen made carts, coopers made barrels. And they serviced five villages. And peasants themselves had no time to do all this work. But they sold their produce in the settlement’s market place. When Stolypin reported to Nikolai II, he underlined, that in Jewish settlement areas peasants always paid taxes in time. And outside of settlement limits there were tax shortages, because countrymen had no one to sell their produce to.
Once a week a trade fair was held in the settlement and peasants from the neighboring villages arrived. On such days my father used to put up a tent in the market place, and in this tent he and Mom sold ready-to-wear clothes, which they sewed. They bargained and they ‘shook hands.’ There were many other Jewish tents. And it was only Jews who sold clothes. A little bit aside was another market, where peasants sold meat. Meat was sold only by villagers. Jews didn’t show up there at all. And further away there was a ‘torgovitsa’, a market place in Ukrainian. There they sold cattle and horses. In that market Jews actively participated. There were Jews, who bought cattle for slaughtering, and Jews, who bought horses and then resold them. The Jews bought only kosher meat.
The population of the settlement amounted to a little bit over one thousand men; there were five streets. One-storied houses from east to west, unpaved streets. No conveniences in the houses. No electricity or water supply. In each house there were kerosene lamps for illumination. Toilets didn’t exist. It was everyone’s own business. You could seldom see real floors in a house, usually they were just earthen floors. We had a wooden floor in our house. Furniture: table and stools. And only our family as a relatively well-to-do one had some chairs.
Once a week a trade fair was held in the settlement and peasants from the neighboring villages arrived. On such days my father used to put up a tent in the market place, and in this tent he and Mom sold ready-to-wear clothes, which they sewed. They bargained and they ‘shook hands.’ There were many other Jewish tents. And it was only Jews who sold clothes. A little bit aside was another market, where peasants sold meat. Meat was sold only by villagers. Jews didn’t show up there at all. And further away there was a ‘torgovitsa’, a market place in Ukrainian. There they sold cattle and horses. In that market Jews actively participated. There were Jews, who bought cattle for slaughtering, and Jews, who bought horses and then resold them. The Jews bought only kosher meat.
The population of the settlement amounted to a little bit over one thousand men; there were five streets. One-storied houses from east to west, unpaved streets. No conveniences in the houses. No electricity or water supply. In each house there were kerosene lamps for illumination. Toilets didn’t exist. It was everyone’s own business. You could seldom see real floors in a house, usually they were just earthen floors. We had a wooden floor in our house. Furniture: table and stools. And only our family as a relatively well-to-do one had some chairs.
There were three synagogues in the settlement. There was an old bet midrash [synagogue and study house], there was a newly constructed synagogue and a small synagogue for the handicraftsmen. The handicraftsmen went to their synagogue separately from others. This was a tradition. There was a rabbi in the settlement, a very respectable and honest man called Berkhard Berezhansky. The rabbi was above medium height, broad-shouldered, with a thick beard and gentle face, very kind and clever. Many residents of the settlement would seek his advice. He was our neighbor. But it was impossible to live on the income of a rabbi, and his wife was engaged in commerce.
He studied in a сheder, and could write neither Russian, nor Ukrainian, only Yiddish and Hebrew. But he knew the Torah by heart. He was an Orthodox Jew. He observed the kashrut, absolutely all holidays and prayers.
Father served in the imperial army between 1897 and 1901. And the commander of their regiment was very insistent in persuading him to get christened. Father was a very good soldier, first in all affairs, and he had constantly heard: ‘Get christened, we will teach you, we will help you’ [10].
From 14 years of age Father worked as a sales assistant in a shop of a rich Jew. Later my father became a tailor, and was engaged in small trade, and Mom helped him. Daddy worked as a sales assistant for my mother’s uncle, a very well known man called Neller Shlay. Obviously, it is through him that they got acquainted. They got married in a synagogue. Civil marriages were very much condemned at the time. They got married in a synagogue, in accordance with all customs, everything was done as necessary. Their marriage was registered in 1903 in the settlement of Tyrlitsa, and in 1904 my sister was born.
My father was the village headman. All the provisions for the poor, all donations and mutual aid went through him. On Friday morning bread for Saturday was baked in each Jewish family. And each family baked a small bun for paupers. And my granny would send her elder grandson to collect them. When I grew up and was about eight years old, we used to wander with a basket around the settlement from house to house, and the folks gave us those buns. We brought them to Grandmother, from one street, from another, from the third, and then she arranged, who of the beggars the buns should be taken to. And thus, from my childhood I’ve seen enough of the real beggars. Usually they were sick people. In the synagogue you could also meet poor men, but not from the nearby settlements. The beggars would leave their native places not to dishonor their relatives. In the synagogue on Friday night there also were about eight to ten beggars. It was seen to it that each well-off Jew would take a beggar to his home for Friday and Saturday. And in our house, as a rule, there always was a poor man sitting at the table with us on Friday. I saw many of them in our house.
Mom had three cousins. One of them was executed with his family by the Germans, shot in 1942 in the settlement of Dashev.
,
1942
See text in interview
My mother, Neila Skhovof Isaakоvna, was born in 1878 in the settlement of China-Town in Vinnitsa province. What the origin of this name is, I have no idea. It is about 12 kilometers away from Vinnitsa. And she died in Kazakhstan, in Alma-Ata, one year after Father’s death in 1971. She received a home education. Anyway, I remember her sitting and tracing words with her finger in some fairy tales, however, not Jewish ones, but I can’t remember what language it was. And she knew the Jewish language; she read prayers freely. The level of her religiosity was extremely high. She prayed all her life. She knew prayers by heart, and she observed all holidays. She was a very strong believer. And she helped the poor very much. Our family believed that help to the poor was a serious God-pleasing deed. Her mother tongue was Yiddish. She helped my Father in sewing and trade. She went around market places. My mother spoke Yiddish and poor Ukrainian. It was necessary to communicate with the buyers. So Mom learned to read Russian by herself.
My parents had enough food to eat and enough clothes to put on and were very happy with their life. They never aspired to richness. It wasn’t even discussed. Our house was one of the best in the settlement. Father built it himself. He employed workers to help. A small living room of about three by four meters, a small dining room and a kitchen. Between the living room and the dining room there was a wall with a stove, heated by firewood. And a similar wall separated the bedroom with two wooden beds made by the local joiners. There they slept. The furniture was all made by the local Jewish joiners. Only a couple of chairs had been brought by Father from somewhere else. A big table separated the kitchen and the workshop, where there were three sewing machines. Father would cut, and Mom would sew, and later they hired two Jewish girls, who helped them. And they used to sell their produce. Besides, there was a small store in the same house. And when it was raining and you couldn’t go out, they sold ready-to-wear clothes to peasants in this store.
I had a nurse, Marika, her surname was Kolmiychuk, an Ukrainian girl, who, as I was told, cared very much about me. When pogroms began, I was nine to ten years old and I lived with her. She cared about me so much that she remained in my memory as a close relative. She died during the famine [13]. If I hadn’t been so small then, I would have taken all the possible care of this girl, who was so good to me, who actually had brought me up. I would have done my best to save her.
We had a Derek-сheder for junior students, who were only taught the Torah, and a Gemara-сheder for the seniors, after three years of studies. The Derek-сheder occupied a small room. All teachers were men with full beards, wearing kippot. All boys wore caps. All of us went to the сheder by five or six o’clock in the morning and were released for lunch at eleven-twelve. The school was not far from our homes. An assistant, we called him ‘beelfe,’ would take us home and back. I started to attend сheder at the age of five. I learned the alphabet from the Torah. From the first day I would sit down at a table, open the Torah, and study the letters. The Torah has 52 chapters, and each week we studied one of them. The following year we went through the same chapters with comments of Rashi [14]. Each year we studied the Torah: In the first year with one kind of comments, in the second year with another.
Then I passed on to Gemara-cheder. In the сheder for older children they studied the Talmud. [Gemara, a part of Talmud embracing the latest and detailed interpretations of principal laws of Talmud, Mishnah.] That school was located in a small room, which you entered through the kitchen without doors. There was a rough wooden table. Ten boys sat at this table with Talmuds, and the rabbi sat at the head of the table. We read and translated classical Jewish texts. That’s all we did. There were no breaks. If one needed to go to the toilet, he was let out in the street. There were no toilets in the settlement, so we did what we had to directly on the ground.
Then I passed on to Gemara-cheder. In the сheder for older children they studied the Talmud. [Gemara, a part of Talmud embracing the latest and detailed interpretations of principal laws of Talmud, Mishnah.] That school was located in a small room, which you entered through the kitchen without doors. There was a rough wooden table. Ten boys sat at this table with Talmuds, and the rabbi sat at the head of the table. We read and translated classical Jewish texts. That’s all we did. There were no breaks. If one needed to go to the toilet, he was let out in the street. There were no toilets in the settlement, so we did what we had to directly on the ground.