After I finished the 5th form in 1941 the Great Patriotic War began. I remember the day when the war began. Our relatives from Kazakhstan were visiting us. We went to swim in the lake: I, Esfir, Boris, Ania, my mother’s cousin sister and Sopha, my mother’s niece. We were going past the club where we used to go dancing in the evening when we heard Levitan 11 on the radio. He broke the news that the war began.
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Displaying 49081 - 49110 of 50826 results
Faina Melamed
During the war we were selling our belongings and books (my father had a big collection) to buy food. Esfir continued her studies in college during the war. During their practical training my sister was so accurate with her diagnostics that it surprised her teachers. My sister received food coupons in college. My mother made zatirukha [a kind of porridge] from corns. We ate everything eatable to survive. It was possible to buy bread, but it was far too expensive and besides, one had to stand in line a whole night to get it. But when we managed to buy a loaf of bread how happy we were! My mother made lemonade, we cut bread in small pieces and enjoyed the meal to the utmost. We were always feeling hungry!
My brother Boris was mobilized to the army in 1943 and in a month went to the front. My mother kept praying for Boris and for father. She lit an oil wick (there were no candles) and recited prayers. My father perished in 1943. We received a notification that my father perished defending our Motherland. My mother kept this notification for a long time, but it got lost when we were moving into a new apartment and I don’t know where my father perished. My brother was an attendant and then a medical nurse assistant in hospital. He was wounded and was taken to hospital and then demobilized.
I remember 9 May 1945 [Victory Day] very well. The radio announced that the war was over. People hugged in the streets and we hopped and screamed. Our housekeeping manager kept telling people that it would be good to hang a red flag. Where would one find a flag? I had a cherry dress that I cut apart and hanged it as a flag. It looked different, but people didn’t mind. They were crying and rejoicing. Of course, we were in the rear and didn’t go through all horrors of the war, but we saw people in evacuation dying of cold and hunger, even though we were trying to support and help them as much as we could.
After finishing school in 1946 I entered an advanced three-year course at the medical School. After finishing it I began to work in an infectious hospital. Once I went to a kishlak on business trip. There were many severely ill patients in this village. I got scared that I might fail to help them and I ran away. I was afraid of going back to hospital to pick my documents and I was hiding away. Later my sister and I went there to pick my belongings but still I didn’t pick my documents. I never went back to work. I was young and stupid. Once I bumped into chief doctor of our hospital. He said ‘It’s only because I respect your sister I shall not sue you’. This was the end of my medical career and my only practice was looking after my mother.
In the late 1940s we got to know from the radio about the establishment of Israel. At that time I had a vague idea what it was all about, but now, when we hear about military actions there we get very concerned. As for Buchara Jews grew up among, kept saying ‘Jerushalaim, Israel!’ They want to move to the Israel.
In 1953, when Stalin died I grieved a lot after him. I collected newspaper articles about him and reread them crying. My mother reprimanded me that even when my father died I didn’t grieve as much as I did after Stalin.
My brother Boris was calling us to Odessa. In 1954 we sold everything we could and moved to Odessa where we rented a room in Peresyp [in an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of Odessa]. I couldn’t find a job in Odessa for a long time. Wherever I came they asked me ‘Where have you come from?’ The second question was usually the last one ‘Your nationality?’ And they refused. Besides, I didn’t have a residence permit 14. It lasted so long and I started to have depression. I came to the bakery in Lenin Street looking for a job. One shop superintendent of this bakery told me that he would help me with the permit, but that he could do nothing about a job. He told me to go to a clerk in the militia department in Frantsuzski Boulevard. They asked me few questions and issued a residence permit for one year. Later my brother Boris came to Odessa. He had many friends and acquaintances and one of them, whose surname was Goryunov, helped me to obtain a permanent residential permit in Odessa. My brother’s friends also helped me to get a job of secretary at food storage. Its manager Ivanov who was Russian was raised in a Jewish family and had a good attitude toward Jews. I worked for him 8 years.
We got married two years after we met. In 1959 we had a civil ceremony in a registry office. My mother cooked something and we ground some coffee. I invited my Russian neighbor Nadia. She was my friend. Efim's mother and my distant relative also came to the wedding. My sister Esfir was away from Odessa at this time. In general, we had a small wedding party. I didn’t have a wedding gown.
In 1966 I received a two-bedroom apartment with all comforts in a 5-storied building in Primorskiy district in Odessa. We were so happy about it. Two rooms: one passage room 20 square meters and a bedroom, 16 square meters. 6-square meter kitchen with a gas stove. There was a bathroom. Our neighbors were young and all had children.
My husband earned well and we traveled a lot. We went on cruises on the Black Sea several times. We visited Sochi, Yalta, Novorossiysk, Batumi and Sukhumi. They were fascinating, but expensive trips. We went to the Baltic Republics where we visited Riga, Tallinn and Yurmala. I liked going to Moscow and Leningrad. We had a good time in Minsk. We liked the town. There were many of my friends from Samarkand. In 1976 my husband and I took a 2-month trip to Uzbekistan. We visited Tashkent, Buchara and Samarkand, the town of my youth. I felt like being young again; I breathed in the air of my childhood: pise-walled huts, meandering streets and rich bazaars in Samarkand with plenty of fruit, greeneries, heaps of dried apricots and melons.
About this time I also took trips to Bulgaria and Romania. However, there was a woman from Ovidiopol in our tourist group who kept talking about zhydy [abusive word for a Jew] all the time. She treated me all right and I said to her ‘But you hurt me!’ and she replied ‘It has nothing to do with you’. When we were in Bucharest, during the excursion, when our tour guide was telling us about a picture of a Jewish artist she gathered people around her and began to talk about zhydy. Her presence spoiled my whole trip.
In 1968 my mother-in-law Maria Shpielberg died. We buried her as older people recommended. There was a group of older Jews at the cemetery. They recited the Kaddish for some compensation. In 1976 my mother Leya Melamed died. She was ill for a long time and we attended to her. We also buried her in the Jewish cemetery. Older Jews at the cemetery recited the Kaddish for some compensation.
I remember once I wet to a grocery store pushing the pram with Igor when he was a baby. They were selling pineapples and there was a long line. I asked the to let me buy ahead of the line and people didn’t mind. One woman, however, didn’t like it at all and tried to push me out of the line with her elbows. I managed to buy these pineapples and when I was leaving the store I heard ‘Look, this zhydovka ignored the line!’ This was the first time in my life I heard anything like this. I grabbed her shopping bags from her and hit them on her head. An elderly old man standing in line said loudly ‘You’ve done it right, woman!’ This was the only time in my life when I heard an abuse.
In 1995 the Jewish school Or Sameach 16 opened in Odessa. Igor went to study in this school. One year later he was circumcised and got a Jewish name of Igal. Yulia also studied in Or Sameach. The children studied Jewish traditions, Ivrit, Jewish prayers and observed Jewish holidays. They go to the synagogue on Jewish holidays and take us with them. Sometimes they ask me to cook for a holiday. They like to observe Pesach. I make wonderful gefilte fish and broth with matzah. Before Pesach Yulia helps me to clean the apartment. I made for the grandchildren holiday supper. When the children grew bigger they went to live with their father, but they often come to see us.
Of course, we are in need. It’s impossible to live on our pension and we don’t have any additional allowances. We receive food packages from Gmilus Hesed, a Jewish organization, and my nephew Yuri supports us with money. My husband does exercises and goes to swim in the sea in Arcadia every morning, but his age speaks of itself, nevertheless. He has been in hospital twice or three times. He had a heart problem and pneumonia. Yuri paid for his stay in hospital. We receive Jewish newspapers and magazines Or Sameach, Shamrey Sabboth and Lechaim, and we get invitations to various events in Hesed.
Zinaida Minevich
Many things have changed in our life. Jewish life has been restored. We are very interested in everything that has to do with the Jewish way of life. We have learned so much about Israel. We have many friends there. We keep in touch with them. We attend Jewish events and receive food packages and medication in the Hesed. We shall not move to Israel, because our son is staying here.
My grandfather had a beard and long Jewish hair locks. He never cut them, only trimmed, kept them very clean and combed often. He had two long jackets: one casual linen jacket for everyday wear and one fancy satin jacket for holidays. Grandfather only spent Saturday and Sunday at home. The rest of days he was in villages buying cattle (calves or cows), taking it to the shoihet that was slaughtering them for kosher meat. Then he sold the front part (kosher) meat to Jews at the local market and the rear part meat (non kosher) – to customers of other nationalities. In this way he earned few rubles per week that was hardly enough to buy food for the family.
My grandfather’s family was considered wealthy. They had a vegetable garden and kept a cow. On Saturday my grandmother baked halas. On holidays they ate meat or fish. In summer they made food products stocks for winter: flour, cereals, beans, peas and salted meat, potatoes, onions and garlic. They made pickles and sauerkraut. They also fed geese to sell fat at the market in Malin and freeze the meat. They also made stocks of wood, hay and straw for the cow.
The family lived in a small house with thatched roof. All houses in the village had thatched roofs, except for the priest’s house and school building. My grandfather and grandmother slept on the narrow wooden beds. They had planks instead of mattresses. The children slept on wooden divan beds covered with sacking. There was a wooden termite corroded cupboard, a big plank table and few stools in the dining room. There were many plants in the pots in the room.
The family lived in a small house with thatched roof. All houses in the village had thatched roofs, except for the priest’s house and school building. My grandfather and grandmother slept on the narrow wooden beds. They had planks instead of mattresses. The children slept on wooden divan beds covered with sacking. There was a wooden termite corroded cupboard, a big plank table and few stools in the dining room. There were many plants in the pots in the room.
My grandfather was a very religious man. He observed all Jewish traditions and celebrated Sabbath and holidays. He said that one had to follow all rules as specified in the Torah. He followed the law himself and demanded that his children observed the rules, too.
My grandmother on my father’s side Riva finished a religious school. She could read and write, but she didn’t know Russian. She spoke a mixture of Yiddish and Ukrainian.
In 1918 my grandfather was killed by a shot through the window during one of Petlura’s1 pogroms2. He was praying at that time. He was buried withjó étvágyat! his thales and tfiln at the cemetery in Malin. The pogrom makers must have seen him through the window and shot him deliberately. The whole village came to his funeral. In few days the family moved to Malin in fear of pogroms.
I know little about my father Abraham Minevich. He was born in 1909. He went to cheder at 6 like all other boys of his age. He finished school in Kiev and worked in an office in Kiev.
My mother Dvoira (Vera) Minevich, nee Kolchinskaya, was born in Genichesk, Kherson region, in 1912. She finished a Russian secondary school in 1927. I don’t know how my mother turned out to be in Kiev or how she met my father. They got married in 1934. I’ve never heard them recalling any wedding or a big party. I think they had a civil ceremony and no celebration.
My father earned well and the family was wealthy. In 1939 Western Ukraine joined the USSR and my father was offered a position of store director. We moved to Lvov. My mother was a housewife before the war. We had a housemaid as well. When we arrived in Lvov we got accommodation at a communal apartment. A Polish family was living there. I remember beautiful furniture and carpets in the apartment.
My father, mother, my mother’s mother, my younger brother and I moved on to Russia. Ukraine was occupied at that time and going to Russia was the only direction we could take. We arrived at Ivanovka village, Sorochinskiy district, Orenburg region. We rented a room from a very nice older couple.
My father was summoned to the army. The military didn’t summon him from Kiev because he had jaundice. My mother showed me the photographs of my father, but I called any man on a photo wearing a military uniform “Papa”. My father perished on the front at Balagoye station, Russia, in 1942.
In 1942 I turned 7 and I went to school in Ivanovka. It was an ordinary school and the only one existing in this village. Children went to school at 8, but I went to school myself, sat at the desk and began to attend school. My mother didn’t mind. My mother worked very hard in the evacuation. She was a cart driver. She transported firewood on her cart.
In 1946 my uncle Isaac came to Orenburg region to take us to Kiev. My grandmother Malka lived with her son Mikhail and his wife in Kiev. We moved in with uncle Isaac. He lived in a two-storied wooden house in the suburbs of Kiev. Isaac had three children. The owner of this house was an 80 years old man. He bought it in 1885 when he was a bread dealer. We were renting one room on the 2nd floor facing the street with a streetcar rail track and a small kitchen with a big stove that occupied most of the space. There was a small window in the kitchen. There was a veranda at the entrance to our apartment. There was a primus stove and buckets with water on the veranda. It was always cold and damp in the apartment. The stove didn’t help.
My uncle held a high official post and provided well for his family. He was Deputy director of a big office, involved in sales of paper. His wife was a typist in a store. My brother and I went to school. I became a pioneer.