The newly weds did not enjoy their marriage for a long time. Recha’s husband had heart trouble since childhood and he died in about two years after wedding. Recha and her son Iosif, born in 1939, stayed on their own. After war Recha did not come back to Lithuanian and happened to be in Kazakhstan with her son. Iosif got married there. He inherited father’s disease and also died young. In 1990 Recha and her grandson left for Israel. To my regret, I found out about it only several years ago. When I was in Israel, I was not aware that my aunt was there. So I did not see Recha there. She died three years [in 2002] ago in Israel.
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Major events (political and historical)
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Displaying 44851 - 44880 of 50826 results
Boris Shteinas
Recha was born after Feige. She was a gorgeous lady. She married a Jew Feinstein in 1938 (I cannot recall his first name). I remember her wedding vividly. It was a real Jewish wedding. The bride and the groom were wed under chuppah in the synagogue. The wedding party was arranged in our house with great many guests invited. There were Jewish musicians, a lot of fun and dancing.
My father was the eldest. He was born in 1904. His brothers were Feivl, Sholom and Meishe and sisters Feige and Recha. Feiga was born after father. She remained single and lived with parents after war. Feiga worked at a factory and helped grandma about the house when she had a chance. Feige died by hunger in 1943, when she was in evacuation in Kazakhstan during the war.
Grandpa Shneer was a true head of the Jewish family. He had his place at the head of the table, which was not taken by anybody. Lunch never started without grandpa. Almost all children worked. Every Friday ( at that time salary was paid weekly) grandpa sat at the head of the table and all children gave him the money the earned. Grandpa took care of family budget and grandmother submitted to him unconditionally. Shneer loved, us grandchildren, very much and gave a little bit of money every Friday.
I knew two brothers of grandmother Ester- Pina and Kushiuel. They were much younger than Ester. Pina and Kushiel lived with their families in Vaskiai before the outbreak of great patriotic war [5]. Kushiel had one son Yuda, and Pina had six children. His eldest daughter Etka is currently living in Israel. Her younger sister Cheva is also living there. Leya died young. Avrum and Tsima also passed away. Mina is living in the USA. Pina and Kushiel survived the times of evacuation and helped our family quite a lot in postwar times. Pina died in Israel in 1970s and Kushiel in Siauliai in 1970s.
, Lithuania
She was a stout lady, which was about 10 years younger than him. Though, she was not as religious as grandmother Chaya, her head was always covered with a kerchief.
Grandpa was a glazer. I remember perfectly well that every morning ( we lived in one house, but in different apartments) grandpa Shneer left for work carrying on his shoulders a heavy box with glass. If the day was lucky, he came home to take more glass and have a lunch, which was served by grandmother Ester.
Shneer was born in 1870s. He was a tall and handsome man, with neat moustache (which aristocratic Lithuanians used to have. The latter mocked at long untidy khasid [4] beards and considered themselves European.
I think my grandpa only finished cheder or elementary Jewish school.
My mother Gitl Kagan was born in Seduva in 1900. She was the youngest in the family. Mother did not tell hardly anything about her education and life in Seduva. She got elementary education and knew hot to read and write in Yiddish. When she was in her teens, she became the apprentice of a milliner. Mother turned out to be a good seamstress. After World War One, mother’s family moved to Siauliai, where there were good conditions for development of private business. It attracted Jews from small towns, so they sought worthy opportunities in Siauliai and Kaunas. I think my parents met in Siauliai with the help of shedchans. They got married in 1927 with all rites and traditions being observed. My parents were wed under chuppah in choral synagogue of Siauliai.
When grandpa died, grandmother Chaya lived with our family. I loved her very much. I can say that it was she who raised my siblings and me. I do not know her maiden name. She was born in Seduva in 1860s. Chaya was a true Jewish lady. She was a true Jewish woman. She did not just mechanically follow traditions, but was a deeply religious woman. While she was alive, kashrut was observed at home, Sabbath and all Jewish holidays were marked. She was the pivot of religious life of our family. She did not let us forget about traditions of the ancestors. My parents worked hard, and feeling tired they most likely would not observe the traditions as ardently, but out of respect to grandmother, they went to the synagogue every Friday and Saturday. Friday evening grandmother lit candles being the oldest lady in the family. She had a white laced kerchief on her head. I had never seen her with her head uncovered.
, Lithuania
I was born, raised, in Lithuania, and lived here most of the time apart from the period of evacuation and service in Soviet Army [1]. I love this country and think it to be my motherland.
, Lithuania
My mother Gitl Kagan was born in Seduva in 1900. She was the youngest in the family. Mother did not tell hardly anything about her education and life in Seduva. She got elementary education and knew hot to read and write in Yiddish. When she was in her teens, she became the apprentice of a milliner. Mother turned out to be a good seamstress.
Her daughter Leya Dveira, who married a Polish Jew, lived in Bialystok in Poland and also turned out to be in the occupation. .Leya Dveira and her husband were in ghetto and fortunately they survived. After war they lived in Bialystok and even wrote letters to my mother for a while and sent her pictures. With time, they stopped keeping in touch. I do not know further fate of Leya Dveira.
Poland
Mother’s sister Golda lived in a town Osmiani in the vicinity of Vilnius. Mother had not seen her sister for many years. Only in 1940 after Vilnius had been annexed to Lithuania [3], she visited us with her family. Golda did not have a chance to get evacuated. She and her husband perished during occupation in Oshmiany.
She died in spring 1940 shortly before the Soviets came to power in Baltic countries [2]. She was buried in Jewish cemetery without a coffin and according to the rite she was carried across the city on the boards in white shroud. We observed shivah after the funeral and I remember that father cut the collar of his clothes which was the sign of the mourning.
Grandmother Chaya was fluent in Yiddish and Lithuanian, therefore I think she should have got some elementary education. Grandmother did not know Ivrit. She must have learnt prayers by heart, as she did not read from the prayer book.
Riva Smerkoviciene
They were ready for evacuation of party activists. The three of us – I, Gutman and Hanna – took one of the buses. We thought our trip would last for about three days until the Red Army would defeat the enemy and banish the Fascists. We didn’t say goodbye to our parents, sister Rochl and brothers. On our way the Fascists were close on our heels. We passed through Latvia and reached the former border with the USSR. Here we took trains and went through the huge territory of Russia. We met our brother Berl Idl on our way and found out that our parents, sister and brothers had managed to leave Kaunas on a horsed cart. Berl Idl joined a group of young people and got evacuated with them.
Gutman was willing to go in the lines. He wanted to fight the Fascists, besides he would be able to send me his certificate. At first, Lithuanians were not drafted into the army. As soon as my husband found out about the formation of the Lithuanian division [14], he said goodbye to us and left for Balahna, where the division was being formed. It was early 1942.
Hanna, Lena and I moved to Konstantinovo, where my sister and I were given a job as mentors in the orphanage. By that time we found out that my parents were in Udmurtia. Soon they joined us in Konstantinovo.
My husband wrote heart-breaking letters, full of love. He was in a training unit of the 16th Lithuanian division, and then he was deployed deep in the front, in the vicinity of Orel, where the huge Kursk battle [15] took place. Fyodor Filimonov, Hanna’s husband and my brothers were also in that division. My husband and Fyodor survived that battle. All of the other Jewish guys were killed in action. Unfortunately, both of my brothers, Efraim and Berl Idl Gershenovich, were killed in action in that brave battle. When we were notified of the death of our brothers, my mother started getting sick.
My parents tried to stick to Jewish traditions, even in evacuation. Every morning they prayed for us, our children and husbands.
My mother couldn’t overcome the grief after her sons’ death. She died from starvation in winter 1943. She was buried at the municipal cemetery. It was hard to dig the burial hole for her as the ground was frozen. Father observed the shivah and read a prayer. In general he tried to observe Jewish traditions.
As soon as Lithuania was liberated, Hanna was called there to be a manager of Party nationalized assets. Soon my father also came there. My daughter and I stayed in Konstantinovo till December 1944 until the entire orphanage was re-evacuated.
I was offered a job to be in charge of the Jewish kindergarten. It was established under the auspice of the Jewish orphanage. I went to work in the kindergarten and occupied a poky room on the premises with my daughter. It was hard work as I had never held an administrative job before. I had no other way out as I had no place to live. By that time our house in Zelyonaya Gora was unoccupied, but I couldn’t live there as it took me too much time to get to work. We had no right to live in the kindergarten. In accordance with the law I wasn’t entitled to live on the premises of the kindergarten and some commission had my daughter and me leave the place.
The kindergarten was in the same house where the Jewish orphanage was, on Kestuchio Street. The Jewish community, founded upon liberation, was also located there. The orphanage and kindergarten were under the aegis of the Jewish community. Many Jews helped out the best way they could. There were orphans in the kindergarten, who lost parents and felt the horrors of war in early childhood.
Rebelskiy helped the orphanage for a couple of years. Later, in 1948, with the outbreak of Stalin’s repressions against Jews [17], he was arrested and declared an enemy of the people [18]. Rebelskiy vanished into thin air. He was most likely executed by the NKVD [19] in the early 1950s.
Being employed by the Jewish orphanage, I witnessed many dramas which were the consequence of war. I remember that one common Lithuanian woman brought in a Jewish boy. She rescued him, by hiding him at her place during the occupation. She put her life at risk. After the war, when there was a food card system, the woman had to take the boy here in order to rescue him as at that time many people were starving. She had nothing to feed the boy with, so she brought him here.
Upon arrival in Kaunas, Gutman found out that his loved ones had perished in occupation. His mother Leya was executed during the first big action in Kaunas ghetto. His sister Riva, not having found her daughters Rozele and Gitele, who were taken away during the action against children, surrendered for an execution.
Gutman found a job. First he was a staff journalist, then he became the director of the Communist paper ‘Communism Banner’. It was a party paper, meant for the denizens of rural areas. My husband worked really hard, went on frequent trips. Right upon his return, we addressed the municipal Ispolkom [20] with the request to provide us with an apartment. First, we were given a room in a communal apartment [21] on Donelavichus Street. We lived there for two years. Then we received a small isolated apartment on Laivess Lane [in Soviet time that central street was called Stalin avenue]. We celebrated New Year 1959 in our new apartment. I am still living in that apartment. The house on Nemanas Street was built for party activists and leaders. Part of the apartments was given to people like us, former underground members. We got a wonderful three-room apartment.