My mother mainly cooked kosher food. Dairy and meat products were never mixed. We didn’t have pork. Chickens were taken to a shochet. It was my duty to go to shochet. There was a big market in Zhmerinka where mother bought sour cream, milk and cottage cheese. We bought sugar and pasta in stores, but we didn’t buy many products there. My mother made noodles at home. She also baked delicious pastries, although she didn’t do it often. She made pies with cherries and poppy seed rolls.
- Traditions 11756
- Language spoken 3019
- Identity 7808
- Description of town 2440
- Education, school 8506
- Economics 8772
- Work 11672
- Love & romance 4929
- Leisure/Social life 4159
- Antisemitism 4822
-
Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
- Soviet invasion of Poland 31
- Siege of Leningrad 86
- The Six Day War 4
- Yom Kippur War 2
- Ataturk's death 5
- Balkan Wars (1912-1913) 35
- First Soviet-Finnish War 37
- Occupation of Czechoslovakia 1938 83
- Invasion of France 9
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 65
- Varlik Vergisi (Wealth Tax) 36
- First World War (1914-1918) 216
- Spanish flu (1918-1920) 14
- Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920) 4
- The Great Depression (1929-1933) 20
- Hitler comes to power (1933) 127
- 151 Hospital 1
- Fire of Thessaloniki (1917) 9
- Greek Civil War (1946-49) 12
- 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
- Kishinev Pogrom (1903) 7
- Romanian Annexation of Bessarabia (1918) 25
- Returning of the Hungarian rule in Transylvania (1940-1944) 43
- Soviet Occupation of Bessarabia (1940) 59
- Second Vienna Dictate 27
- Estonian war of independence 3
- Warsaw Uprising 2
- Soviet occupation of the Balitc states (1940) 147
- Austrian Civil War (1934) 9
- Anschluss (1938) 71
- Collapse of Habsburg empire 3
- Dollfuß Regime 3
- Emigration to Vienna before WWII 36
- Kolkhoz 131
- KuK - Königlich und Kaiserlich 40
- Mineriade 1
- Post War Allied occupation 7
- Waldheim affair 5
- Trianon Peace Treaty 12
- NEP 56
- Russian Revolution 351
- Ukrainian Famine 199
- The Great Terror 283
- Perestroika 233
- 22nd June 1941 468
- Molotov's radio speech 115
- Victory Day 147
- Stalin's death 365
- Khrushchev's speech at 20th Congress 148
- KGB 62
- NKVD 153
- German occupation of Hungary (18-19 March 1944) 45
- Józef Pilsudski (until 1935) 33
- 1956 revolution 84
- Prague Spring (1968) 73
- 1989 change of regime 174
- Gomulka campaign (1968) 81
-
Holocaust
9685
- Holocaust (in general) 2789
- Concentration camp / Work camp 1235
- Mass shooting operations 337
- Ghetto 1183
- Death / extermination camp 647
- Deportation 1063
- Forced labor 791
- Flight 1410
- Hiding 594
- Resistance 121
- 1941 evacuations 866
- Novemberpogrom / Kristallnacht 34
- Eleftherias Square 10
- Kasztner group 1
- Pogrom in Iasi and the Death Train 21
- Sammelwohnungen 9
- Strohmann system 11
- Struma ship 17
- Life under occupation 803
- Yellow star house 72
- Protected house 15
- Arrow Cross ("nyilasok") 42
- Danube bank shots 6
- Kindertransport 26
- Schutzpass / false papers 95
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) 24
- Warsaw Uprising (1944) 23
- Helpers 521
- Righteous Gentiles 269
- Returning home 1090
- Holocaust compensation 112
- Restitution 109
- Property (loss of property) 595
- Loss of loved ones 1724
- Trauma 1029
- Talking about what happened 1807
- Liberation 558
- Military 3322
- Politics 2640
-
Communism
4468
- Life in the Soviet Union/under Communism (in general) 2592
- Anti-communist resistance in general 63
- Nationalization under Communism 221
- Illegal communist movements 98
- Systematic demolitions under communism 45
- Communist holidays 311
- Sentiments about the communist rule 930
- Collectivization 94
- Experiences with state police 349
- Prison/Forced labor under communist/socialist rule 449
- Lack or violation of human and citizen rights 483
- Life after the change of the regime (1989) 493
- Israel / Palestine 2190
- Zionism 847
- Jewish Organizations 1200
Displaying 31801 - 31830 of 50826 results
Grigoriy Fihtman
We only spoke Yiddish at home, but we also knew Russian well.
My mother and father weren’t fanatically religious, but they always celebrated Jewish holidays. They went to the synagogue on holidays. My mother only used special crockery at Pesach. We didn’t have anything non-kosher at home through 8 days of Pesach. We dressed up on holidays. My mother made matzah pudding, very delicious. The table was set according to the rules: something bitter, matzah and everybody had their own wine glasses. I don’t remember any details, though. I can still see my little blue cup with ‘Pesach’ engraved on it. I remember well that there was the first night and the second night. My father recited the prayer and told me a little about the history of this holiday. He said it was necessary to drink four glasses of wine, but we only sipped wine from our glasses. There were no guests; everybody celebrated with their own families. I also remember that my mother treated the Studzinskiy family to her Pesach dishes.
We also celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. My mother and father fasted. I began to fast when I studied in the 6th or 7th grade. We also lit candles at Chanukkah: another candle each day, 8 candles in total. I liked playing with a whipping top. I also received Chanukkah gelt of few kopecks. I don’t remember much of Purim, but I remember that my mother baked hamantashen and told me why they had to be this shape.
I don’t know how many synagogues there were in Zhmerinka. I remember one located nearby. My parents went to the synagogue and when I grew older they took me several times for a minyan. I felt honored to be invited to the synagogue. However, I had to go in and out of there unnoticed since I was an active pioneer. I found everything interesting: a nicely decorated rostrum, an ark containing the Torah with a beautiful velvet curtain. Everything looked festive. There was a balcony for women on the second floor. Men sat in the pits, speaking theatrical language. Women were in kerchiefs and men wore their yarmulkes or hats. I’ve never tried on a yarmulka. I had a tubeteika cap. Actually, most people wore headpieces at the time. Boys like colorful embroidered tubeteika caps. It was allowed to wear it to the synagogue.
There was famine in Ukraine in 1933. I remember my mother and father getting corn flour, though I don’t know how and where they got it. They made flat breads called ‘malaih’ that were cut to pieces and my mother gave us some of it, but they were mainly made for sale. My mother and grandmother Haya went to sell this bread at the market. They bought flour for the money they got and then sold bread again. There was a Torgsin store [5] in Zhmerinka. I even remember the street, but we didn’t have anything to take there. Thus, we received some money from my father’s brother in London few times and bought food products in Torgsin. We bought sugar, rice and flour. My father was afraid of authorities, though. They didn’t appreciate any ties with foreigners, particularly, with the Joint that was considered to be a counterrevolutionary organization.
I went to a Ukrainian school at the age of 8 in 1934. Children went to school at the age of 8 then. Since my father was a railroad worker I went to the railroad school that was prestigious in the town. It was located near the railway station. There were best teachers and classrooms were better equipped in this school. There was electricity at school and I liked coming there. There was light at school! I liked literature, history and geography. I had all excellent marks in these subjects. I didn’t do so well at physics or mathematic.
There were many Jewish children at school and there were also Russian and Ukrainian children. I got along well with all schoolmates, but there was one anti-Semitic boy named Grigoriy Zabolotny. Since I was short I sat at the first or second desk. Grigoriy sat behind me and constantly picked on me. I said to him: ‘But your name and mine is Grigoriy’ and he replied: ‘Yes, but you are a different Grigoriy’. He made it clear to me that my name wasn’t Grigoriy, and in truth I was Gershl, Jew. Zabolotny and his buddies were meeting schoolchildren by the front door before school. They lined up by the walls in the corridor and pushed everybody from one wall to another. If you dropped your bag, for example, and bent to pick it, they hit you on your back. So I tried to come to school shortly before classes and when the bell rang they had to go to the classroom and I followed them. Zabolotny pulled girls, particularly Jewish girls, by their plates and wrote things with chalk on their back. However, I never heard him saying ‘zhyd’ [abusive word for a Jew].
Zhmerinka of my childhood was a small town. There were one-storied building with few two-storied houses in the center. There was a nice park founded by a landlord named Belinskiy and this park was named after Belinskiy. On Soviet holidays and weekends people enjoyed walking in this park. Zhmerinka was a big railroad junction and had one of the best railroad stations in the south of Ukraine: it was a big and beautiful stone structure and there were few platforms. There was an underground passage leading to one platform.
Cinema was the main entertainment in Zhmerinka. There were few Soviet movies that they showed many times in a row. We went to watch ‘Chapaev’ movie as many times as they showed it at the cinema theater. It was the same with the ‘We are from Kronshtadt’ movie. When the ‘Circus’ and ‘Merry guys’ arrived we enjoyed them to the utmost. I liked to sign songs from these movies at our school concerts. I knew all songs by Dunayevskiy [Isaac Dunayevskiy, (1900-1955) a popular Soviet composer, Jew], sung by Utyosov [Leonid Utyosov (1895-1982) popular Soviet singer and movie actor, Jew]: ‘A merry song makes us at ease’, ‘Heart, you don’t want to know piece’. I remember every word and every note of this song. Then there was a movie ‘Captain Grant’s children’. We often watched it. We never got bored with it! Tickets cost 15-20 kopecks: this was nothing. The cinema theater was not far from my house and it was a nice building for a small provincial town. There was an orchestra of 5-6 musicians playing popular melodies in the foyer before a movie. Then the bell rang three times and after it rang the third time the audience went into the hall. I often went to the cinema with my friends and sometimes – with parents.
Cinema was the main entertainment in Zhmerinka. There were few Soviet movies that they showed many times in a row. We went to watch ‘Chapaev’ movie as many times as they showed it at the cinema theater. It was the same with the ‘We are from Kronshtadt’ movie. When the ‘Circus’ and ‘Merry guys’ arrived we enjoyed them to the utmost. I liked to sign songs from these movies at our school concerts. I knew all songs by Dunayevskiy [Isaac Dunayevskiy, (1900-1955) a popular Soviet composer, Jew], sung by Utyosov [Leonid Utyosov (1895-1982) popular Soviet singer and movie actor, Jew]: ‘A merry song makes us at ease’, ‘Heart, you don’t want to know piece’. I remember every word and every note of this song. Then there was a movie ‘Captain Grant’s children’. We often watched it. We never got bored with it! Tickets cost 15-20 kopecks: this was nothing. The cinema theater was not far from my house and it was a nice building for a small provincial town. There was an orchestra of 5-6 musicians playing popular melodies in the foyer before a movie. Then the bell rang three times and after it rang the third time the audience went into the hall. I often went to the cinema with my friends and sometimes – with parents.
I lived there until autumn 1943. Within this year of my life I finished a FZU (factory vocational school). I became a tinsmith, worked for two months before I was mobilized to the army.
Young men went to the army at the age of 17 at this height of the war. This was 1943, when Ukraine was to be liberated and Byelorussia and there was a long road to go before the victory. –During the war I served in the army for a year, four months and nineteen days. I remember this duration very well since presently the state counts every day of military service at wartime as three days paying pensions. At that time every day of the war meant thousands of deceased. Every day! Before going to the army I joined Komsomol [9]. It was mandatory for recruits to become Komsomol members since we were to be trained to go to the front. It was a routinely process: chief of the military registry committee called secretary of the district Komsomol committee and informed him: ‘Admit this recruit to Komsomol since we are recruiting him to the army tomorrow’. I served at the border with Afghanistan where we fought basmachi gangs. Those gangs consisted of former kulaks, as Stalin called them, from Central Asia republics who escaped to Afghanistan in the early 1930s during collectivization [10]. They took advantage of the war situation and engaged us into combat action in the south. I became a sergeant there and had a squad under my command.
In May 1945 we were finishing our school. I met victory there. I remember this day very well. We lined on the drill square and waited there for an hour. We didn’t know anything and were trying to guess: what’s happening? Chief of our school came to the square and explained: last night Germany signed its capitulation and the war was over. We began shouting ‘Hurrah!’ and officers who had guns fired out all their bullets saluting. We had tears of joy in our eyes – from then on there was to be no more killing. We understood that the war was going to last five-ten days more, and everybody knew what kind of work we would be given work. So we met Victory Day and from that day Victory Day has been the dearest holiday for me and also, for my family.
My father and I returned to Zhmerinka. Again we were having a problem with getting a place to live. My father had been a pensioner for few years and I began to look for a job. I couldn’t find one for a long time. I heard, though that Stalin issued an order obliging all military registry offices to find employment for veterans of the war. My registry office argued with me: ‘We didn’t recruit you, an office in Kurgan-Tubeh did’. I replied: ‘That’s true. You didn’t, but I was born here and studied here. I came back to my hometown’. ‘We are having problems with employment and we can help only those who had been recruited here’.
We met in 1946 and in 1947 we registered our marriage. My wife Raisa Shraiman was born in Komargorod village Toimashpol district Vinnitsa region in 1927.
They were in the ghetto from the first days and were liberated when Tomashpol district was cleared in middle March 1944.
After we got married we lived in Raisa parents’ house. I occasionally visited my father in Zhmerinka. Komargorod was a big village, about five thousand residents. I know this number since I was a member of electoral commission on al elections. There were few hundred Jews in the village before the war. There was a Jewish kolkhoz named after Petrovskiy [11]. When I got married there were about one hundred Jews in the village. The kolkhoz was not Jewish any more. Jews took to other crafts: two Jewish families were in sewing business, two families of tinsmiths, few Jews worked in the village department store and few Jews were teachers. There was a kolkhoz, sovkhoz, a big hospital, an agricultural school and a big part established by landlord Balashow before the revolution in the village. However, there was no electricity before 1968 in the village. So we lived with kerosene lamps.
My wife’s family was more religious than mine. Although they didn’t have anything after the war they began to save every kopeck to buy crockery. There were to be plates for Pesach and plates for everyday use. There were to be plates for meat and for dairy products. My wife still follows these rules. My sons were circumcised on the eighth day like we used to do it at home. I didn’t get involved in those proceedings since following my Komsomol membership I became a Party member.
After we got married I went to work as senior pioneer tutor in the local school. I taught children singing, dancing, drawing and made pioneer fires for them. Everything that I was so fond of in my childhood. I was one of the best pioneer tutors in Vinnitsa region. I had awards for my accomplishments. I was a member of the teachers’ team at school, but I had to study to work at school. I studied in a physical culture school for four years and then I became a teacher of physical culture. Then I entered extramural department of the Historical Faculty of Odessa University.
I joined the party in 1952, at the period when ‘doctors’ plot’ [12] was at its height. This was a splash of anti-Semitism and you should have seen how they jeered at me at the ceremony of admission to VKP(b) (All-Union Party of Bolsheviks). It’s hard to find words to describe it! I was born Grigoriy and everybody called me by this name, though my parents knew that I wasn’t Grigoriy. One of the Party bureau members asked me all of a sudden: ‘What’s your real name?’ I said: ‘Grigoriy’. ‘And your patronymic? ‘Samuelovich’. ‘No, you tell us the truth. Why would you want to hide it? Just tell us your name'. I said: ‘This is the only name I have’. They wanted me to pronounce the name of Gershl. Anyway, they admitted me. Chairman of the village council and chairman of the kolkhoz gave me recommendations to join the Party. They were both Ukrainian. Two recommendations were required. The third recommendation was to be issued by the Party district committee. I had three recommendations and they had nothing else to do, but admit me, but those provocative questions! ‘When was the last time you worked electors? – ‘I was an agitator-propagandist in a tractor operators crew. They pounced on me ‘He hasn’t met with his people for 48 hours! You should have talked with them yesterday! You should have seen them today! And you only were there the day before yesterday’. The situation was terrible at the time: director of school was a Jew, he got fired, chief of district department of education was a Jew and he was fired, chief of financial department of the district military office, captain, was a Jew and was fired. On one of those days they told me to make my appearance at the bureau of the district Komsomol committee. By that time I was one of the best pioneer tutors and I taught physical culture. The bureau jerked on me and threatened to fire me from my position of senior pioneer tutor. That meant depriving me of my piece of bread. They were just following instructions of higher authorities. About ten years later I met with those people and they told me they were forced to do this and in truth, they didn’t have anything against me personally.
I also remember another episode in 1952. A lecturer came from Vinnitsa. Kolkhoz members, agronomists, teachers and students of technical school gathered at the club. There were about 150 of us there. The lecturer spoke about ‘monsters in white robes who received a task from the government of Israel to destroy the soviet government’, and so on and so forth. So, when the lecture was over one teacher expressed her admiration: ‘What a lecture! I wish we had more of such lectures! They’ve opened our eyes on where the evil generates!’ Here you are: this is anti-Semitism. She was an ordinary teacher. After Stalin’s death when this campaign crashed my wife’s brother Leonid asked this teacher: ‘What do you say now?’ – ‘Well, you know this was the way it was at the time’. Everybody calmed down and we continued to work in team. I worked in this Komargorod village from 1947 till 1969.
When Stalin died in March 1953 I wore a mourning armband for three days like everybody else. It couldn’t have been otherwise. The leader! The leader of the state. Generalissimos! Stalin became the leader of our country before we were born. We were raised with the name of Stalin. Stalin in the army and Stalin, Stalin everywhere. We though the world was to turn upside down. This was all to it! Life couldn’t go on! Stalin was not there and it meant that there could be nothing else!
In 1956, by the time of the 20th Party Congress [13], I had been a member of the Party few years. In February 1956 we were invited to a Party meeting at 8 o’clock in the evening. –This meeting lasted until 2 o’clock in the morning. They read Khrushchev’s [14] report to us about who Stalin was and who was Beriya [15], and so on and so forth. They told us that what we were going to hear was not to be disclosed. Later newspapers published it. They couldn’t keep it a secret for longer. People got to know about it. It was a shock. We sincerely believed that Stalin was not guilty for arrests and that Stalin didn’t know about them. If he had known, he wouldn’t have allowed them.
In 1960s I had a full workload at school. I also conducted extra-curriculum activities. I also taught in senior classes where they paid more. I got five, ten years of employment records at school and they gave a raise of salary for the duration of school employment. We lived with my wife’s parents and we all contributed our salaries into our common family budget. We also had a vegetable garden where we grew potatoes. There was a food store and a market in the village. We bought our first TV in 1968 after power supply wiring was installed in Komargorod. Our family was the first one to buy a TV set. We bought it on installments. I had seen a TV before when I went to take my exams in Odessa University. Our neighbors came to watch our TV.
Alexandr went to school in 1955 and Leonid - in 1961. They studied with all excellent marks in my school. They had many friends. They spent their vacations at home for the most part. They were not demanding about buying things. They understood our possibilities. We celebrated Soviet holidays: 1 May, October revolution Day and Victory Day. New Year was a family holiday. We decorated a New Year tree when our sons were small.
After the ninth form Alexandr entered the Assistant Doctor Faculty in the medical School in Odessa. After finishing school he was recruited to the army. He served as chief of sanitary services in strategic Rocket army in Moscow regiment until 1971. After the army Alexandr worked in the ambulance unit in Mogilyov-Podolskiy for a long time. He married Inna, a Jewish girl. In 1972 their daughter Maya was born. They received miserable salaries. They earned 150 rubles per month: he, and his wife who was a nurse. Work in ambulance is very hard: he had to be a surgeon and a therapist or whoever else in one person. A small salary and huge responsibility. Alexandr got tired of this miserable salary and he volunteered to the army. He served as an ensign of medical services in Kleipeda. He received an apartment there and in 1978 their second daughter Svetlana was born.
We moved to Odessa in 1977. We bought this apartment where my wife and I live now. It’s our property. In Odessa I worked as a teacher at the railroad training school for locomotive operators. I taught political economy, basics of political studies and civil defense. I worked there teaching these three subjects for 12 years. I retired at the age of 62 in 1988.
My younger son Leonid studied in the evening school for working young people in Mogilyov-Podolskiy and worked as a laborer at the tinned food factory. After this school he entered Odessa School of Railroad Transport and finished it with a ‘red’ diploma [Diploma with a red cover issued to graduates that had all excellent marks. Other diplomas had a blue cover], and his profession was refrigeration car mechanic. He decided to continue his education and submitted documents to the Faculty of Public Economy Planning of the Odessa College of Public Economy. Since he had a ‘red’ diploma he was to take one exam and skip the others if he passed it with an excellent mark. He lost three kilograms in one day before this exam. By that time, by that time, we already knew that there were limitations to the number of Jewish students. If he received a ‘4’ in his exams he was to take all other exams. And they would pluck him for sure at one of them. When he came out of the examination room and said that he had a ‘5’ he was on the edge of fainting. So was I. He finished his college successfully in 1978 and was allowed to chose his job assignment [16] location being one of the best graduates. He chose Odessa footwear association. He worked as a rate-setting engineer. Few months after he started work he was recruited to the army. He served in Odessa regiment in the Crimea. After the army he returned to his factory. He was appointed a shop superintendent within a short period of time.
During perestroika [17] the association crashed and he became unemployed. He received an unemployment allowance until he found a job of an economist on the outskirt of Odessa. In 1999 Leonid won competition for the position of assistant director in the Gemilut Hesed, a Jewish charity association in Odessa. V. Goldman, director of the association died in 2002 Leonid became director of Gemilut Hesed. His older son Boris studies in Odessa Academy of public Economy and his younger son Ruslan studies in the Jewish religious school ‘Or Sameach’ [18].
When in 1985 Gorbachev [19] came to power and perestroika began I was working as a teacher in the school for locomotive operators. My salary was 180 rubles before Gorbachev and it remained 180 rubles during his rule. Nothing changed in material way, but it was a different story when the USSR broke up [20] in 1991. This was liquidation of people’s lifetime savings. When my wife turned 55 in 1982 she began to receive a beggar’s pension of 15 rubles. We decided to deposit this pension to a bank when the USSR burst apart and so did our savings. Everybody in the country suffered at this time. Now the situation is different: there is mass unemployment and it has its impact on every family. A big state was created through centuries: by fair means or foul they managed to make it, but then they broke it apart. Ukraine became independent, but does it move ahead? What’s going on now? Chairman of Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian Parliament] Has to close up their session because they begin to fight. They really begin to fight! Now they are thinking of having a group of police officers to help out the deputies who interfere with the legislation generation process. So there we are: this is independence.
In 1990 my older son Alexandr and his family moved to Odessa and settled down in Slobodka [Neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa]. His older daughter Maya got married. She has a son. Her husband was eager to move to Israel and they left here in. 1995. Alexandr’s younger daughter Svetlana followed them in 1997. When their both daughters were in Israel, Alexandr and his wife Inna decided to join them there. We all do sympathize with Israel very much, but when we discussed this issue in our family Leonid strongly refused to go to live there and my wife and I also wanted to stay here. Alexandr and Inna hesitated for a long time, but three years after Svetlana move there they went to Israel. Maya and her family and Inna and Alexandr live together in Migdal Haemeq town in the north of Israel. Svetlana graduated from University in Haifa and married a former resident of Vinnitsa region. His name is Yuriy and he is a Jew. In late 2002 Svetlana and Yuriy won a ‘green card’ lottery for residence in USA. Again there was consideration in the family. Should they go or should they ignore this card? In March last year Svetlana and Yuriy moved to USA. They live and work in San Francisco. Yuriy is a computer programmer and Svetlana also works in a company. They are happy now.