Uncle Mendel, whose common name [12] was Michael, finished a Construction College and built bridges.
- 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 37171 - 37200 of 50826 results
Israel Shlifer
![](/themes/custom/centro/flags/ua.svg)
He got married before the war, but when his wife heard that he was severely wounded and became handicapped she left him.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
She finished a Jewish primary school and a school for girls. She had music lessons at home. She had Karl Bluthner grand piano bought particularly for her to study music. She also had German classes with a teacher that came from the German colony [13].
In 1917 my mother moved to Kiev. She lived in grandfather Beniamin’s apartment in Nizhni Val Street in Podol [14]. Grandfather supported her.
They got married in Rzhishchev in 1921. Although my father wasn’t religious they had a traditional Jewish wedding with a rabbi and chuppah and everything else that had to be at a Jewish wedding.
After the wedding my parents went to Kiev where my father worked at the department of education and studied at the Faculty of Mathematics at the University.
She entered the Faculty of Philology at the University and I stayed with my grandfather and grandmother.
Even when I banged on my mother’s grand piano with my feet or stole my grandfather’s little boxes [tefillin] that he put on his hand and head to pray they didn’t tell me off. My mother explained to me that there were little scrolls of the Torah in those boxes and that I was not allowed to touch them. [Editor’s note: Not the whole Torah, but two passages from Deuteronomy and two from Exodus, in which Jews are required to put ’these words’ (of the Law) for ’a sign upon thy hand and a frontlet between thine eyes’ are put int he teffilin.] From then on I enjoyed watching my grandfather putting on his beautiful tallit and tefillin, taking his book of prayers and praying rocking to the sides. While doing this he kept watching workers in the yard giving directions to them every now and then. Even then it seemed to me that my grandfather was praying following the rules rather than feeling the need to pray.
On Saturday my mother’s family got together to have a festive meal. Her older brothers came with their families. I do not remember my grandmother lighting candles on Friday.
The family also celebrated Jewish holidays. The only one I remember was Chanukkah. I remember it since we got money gifts on this holiday. It was a joyful holiday, but I only learned the history of this holiday as well as other Jewish holidays recently.
At the age of 6 my parents took me to Kiev where I went to kindergarten since my parents believed that a child had to get used and develop in a collective of other children.
My father finished the University and became a financial officer within the Ministry of Industry. He often traveled on job assignments to other towns and then I went to Rzhishchev since my mother followed my father. My parents traveled to many towns: Dnepropetrovsk, Dneprodzerzhinsk and Kharkov where my father held official posts.
In early 1930s the state nationalized [16] my grandfather’s plant and house. We were happy that they didn’t arrest him.
My grandfather Beniamin and grandmother moved to Kiev and settled down in their apartment in Nizhni Val.
In sometime my grandfather’s plant and house were burnt down. I don’t know who or why did this.
In sometime my grandfather’s plant and house were burnt down. I don’t know who or why did this. During famine in 1932 [Famine in Ukraine] [17] my uncles, grandmother and grandfather returned to Rzhishchev where they hoped it was easier to survive. They only found ashes of their big house with my mother grand piano’s frame. We moved into one of my uncles’ house.
My mother’s brothers and their wives worked hard growing vegetables to feed the family. In winter we found dead people on the porch of our house. They knew how kind our family had always been and hoping to find shelter they fell asleep and died from cold and hunger. My grandmother kept her door open for starving people and shared no matter how little we had. Fortunately, all members of our family survived.
We often moved from one town to another and I changed schools. My first school in Kiev was Russian, then I went to a Ukrainian school in Rzhishchev and then I lost count of them. We lived in Ukrainian and Russian towns. One of them was Magnitogorsk in Siberia. I enjoyed my studies and liked all subjects.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Grandfather returned to Kiev in 1934 after the famine was over. Grandfather sold his apartment in Nizhni Val and bought a smaller one in Spasskaia Street.
Grandfather worked in a joiner shop. My grandparents didn’t have much to live on. I liked to go to work with him. I liked it more than going to school.
In Kiev my grandmother and grandfather celebrated Jewish holidays. One of them was Pesach. However, my grandfather stopped praying. He didn’t wear a kippah any longer and my grandmother didn’t cover her head. On some big holidays she went to synagogue. Sometimes I went to visit my paternal grandfather Idel with my grandfather Gersh. If we had to wait until grandfather Idel finished his prayer my grandfather Gersh winked at me mocking the excessive, as he saw it, religiosity of Idel. Nevertheless, grandfather Gersh treated Idel with respect and sympathy and often supported him.
Larisa SHYHMAN
![](/themes/custom/centro/flags/ua.svg)
My father father’s name was Haim Trahtenberg. He died before the revolution of 1917 [3] and I don’t know his date or place of birth or anything about his family. They said he was a construction contractor.
My grandmother told me that before World War I [4], during pogroms [5] in Grebenki she kept her brothers in hiding in cells and she proudly walked in the streets, a beauty that she was, and everybody greeted her ‘Miss, Miss’. She didn’t fear anyone and nobody did her any harm. She sang Ukrainian songs beautifully and spoke Ukrainian and Yiddish. She didn’t know Russian. When I remember her, she spoke Yiddish little. There were Slavic members of the family and she spoke Ukrainian.
Shortly after their daughter was born my grandfather died leaving my grandmother with six children to take care of. She went to work as a broker to be able to give education to her children. They finished a secondary school and some of them continued studies.
Their family wasn’t religious and I don’t know why. They didn’t celebrate holidays or Saturday. The only Jewish sign was matzah that my grandmother’s brother sent them from America at Pesach, but my grandmother never showed her appreciation of it…
After the revolution, when the Pale of Settlement was annulled, the family moved to Lipki, an aristocratic neighborhood in Kiev. Only wealthier and intelligent families lived there before the revolution. During the revolution they were forced out of there and Party authorities and NKVD [6] bosses and department moved to Lipki. Only high-level Party and military bosses lived in Lipki. There was a huge apartment where we lived, but it was like a communal apartment [7]. I don’t know how my grandmother managed to move there with her family. Later my grandmother leased or sold two rooms, I wouldn’t tell… There was a Jewish family living there.
Uncle Mikhail was an NKVD officer. When arrests and purges [10] began in 1937 he started drinking and quit his job. He couldn’t bear it: they were arresting decent and intelligent people…
Uncle Mikhail perished like a hero near Smolensk during the Great Patriotic War.
After finishing school my father went to work. During WWI he was a private at the front fighting against Germans… He also served in The Red Army during the revolution and Civil War [11]. This is the way he was. He was a communist and believed in all these ideas… As for my grandmother, she couldn’t care less about politics, so it was his own choice.
My grandfather lived in Dymer. He was big, handsome, tall and broad-shouldered. He didn’t look like a Jew, perhaps, only his Jewish accent betrayed him. He spoke Ukrainian and Jewish. They said that during pogroms he pretended to be deaf and mute to conceal his accent. His friends plotted this disguise. They said: ‘You, Shlyoma, pretend that you are mute and we would talk for you’. So he was surviving. He had many friends in Dymer and they were Jewish and Ukrainian. They came to see him and sat at the table to have a shot of spirit, he used to drink spirit and smoked self-made cigarettes. I remember them sitting at the table recalling their youth. It even seems to me that my grandfather had more Ukrainian friends. In the past, at the time of Jewish towns, people didn’t have conflicts… There was no segregation, all were equal. However, my grandfather was wealthy and greedy. He was manager of a manor in Dymer and kept livestock at home: cows and goats…
, Ukraine