At those times parents gave their kids Jewish names as they wished. However, when mother obtained her passport during the Soviet time, she was told that there cannot be such a name. They offered her to change her name, to become Kseniya or Yekaterina, but mother insisted that her name remained as her parents had given her.
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Displaying 19531 - 19560 of 50826 results
Serafima Staroselskaya
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Festive shoes were worn only on Pesach. Synagogue was attended obligatorily. A certain number of men gathered for a prayer in the houses. All in all, they led their own Jewish township life. My mother spoke Yiddish since childhood, it was her mother tongue and everybody at home spoke Yiddish.
There were a lot of Jewish houses in Nevel and they were all very different. Mom told me that, unfortunately, many of the houses were dirty and slovenly. Grandma’s house was always very clean and full of flowers.
All Jewish traditions were observed by the family: grandma wore a traditional Orthodox wig, Sabbath was strictly observed, there were special Sabbath candlesticks and kosher utensils and mom remembered it all. Matzah was always baked for Pesach.
They fished themselves and sometimes fishermen brought the fish to us. Children had fun boating not only in boats but also in wash-tubs out on the water. Boys certainly were very naughty. Though there was a huge fruit garden of their own, they stole apples in neighboring gardens. The house was rather big, the family lived moderately but the children were always full. They kept two cows and lived owing to their own work.
Two years after the war ended, in 1947, when dad was in a bad condition after being wounded and had to get about on crutches, he went to get some milk, one tram stop away. He brushed against a woman with his crutch, she called him a “Jewman”, and dad responded something. But the woman appeared to be a militia officer. He was immediately arrested, and dad spent 8 or 9 months in Kresty [Leningrad prison]. It was very difficult to get a permit for him to stay in Leningrad, it became possible only owing to his many orders and war wound. There was a criminal case brought against him, but he was acquitted. It is possible to talk about repressions today. But at that time everything was concealed, so I found out about that case only when I was a grownup. It was a real shock for me. A man, who had done so much for people, who participated in the war! After that dad’s health was undermined. And all this happened because he could not keep silent when he was called a “jewman”.
All our men relatives participated in the war and the women remained in besieged Leningrad, some managed to get evacuated. Mom’s elder sister Sonya and many other relatives stayed in besieged Leningrad. They almost starved to death when dad returned from the frontline after he had been wounded. He found a dead horse on the way. He managed to get some horse-flesh and brought that meat to his relatives who lived on Fontanka embankment, when they already could not move and lay motionless. There were five of them. Finally they had something to eat. They recalled this story with gratitude all their lives, because dad saved their lives.
My dad lived through two wars: the Finnish and the Great Patriotic wars. He was a volunteer at both wars. He served as a medical assistant having finished special courses. He was not even wounded during the Finnish war. Later he was at the Leningrad frontline and took part in military operations. I know that he save a lot of people, because even after the war people came to us and dad could not even remember them. They expressed their gratitude to him for saving their lives. In 1943 dad was wounded in his leg. He stayed for half a year in a hospital near Leningrad. The wound was very severe and they thought that the leg could not be saved. But they did save it, though he had to get about on crutches for a long time after. He managed to find mom in Belibey. She recalled the scene – when someone suddenly told her: “Kisya, go meet your one-legged!
Thus my sister was saved, as mother took her to Leningrad. When the war broke out, children were evacuated from the city with their kindergartens, separately from their parents. So mom sent Nina with the kindergarten. When she had left, mom understood what she had done and got frightened that she had sent a 3-year old child alone. So she left with the last special train to look for Nina, as she knew approximately where to look. She found her in the town of Nikopol. In September 1941 they were evacuated to the town of Belibey in Bashkiriya, not far from the town of Ufa, because two father’s sisters were evacuated there.
Mom told me a lot about evacuation. She left Leningrad together with her friend, who had two kids. They stayed together during the war. It was very difficult to find a place for living in Belibey, though finally they found a 5 meter poky little room, with hoarfrosted walls. Mom was lucky, because in evacuation she met a good friend of hers, who helped her to get a job at the officer’s canteen. So she always had food. They lived in evacuation until 1944.
Mom told me a lot about evacuation. She left Leningrad together with her friend, who had two kids. They stayed together during the war. It was very difficult to find a place for living in Belibey, though finally they found a 5 meter poky little room, with hoarfrosted walls. Mom was lucky, because in evacuation she met a good friend of hers, who helped her to get a job at the officer’s canteen. So she always had food. They lived in evacuation until 1944.
War caught them there. Mom decided to go to Leningrad. Grandparents said to her: “Leave Ninochka with us”. Mother hesitated for a long time, but finally took my sister away. Grandparents stayed in Nevel but later decided to leave. They had friends among peasants, who loved them very much and offered them a hiding place in case the Germans arrived. And they did really hide them for two years. I found out about it just recently. I thought that they were executed in Nevel at the beginning of the war. Later, they were either betrayed or someone told them that there were no Germans in Nevel anymore, so they returned back to the town and the Germans grabbed them. I know it happened on September 16th, 1943, because mom always lit a candle on September 16th in their memory. It was a massive execution of the Jews. Some Jews dug trenches, then they were shot and the rest of the Jews buried them. I found pictures of the execution in Nevel at the Hesed Center not long ago. It was a real shock for me to see this big picture of the monument at the place where my grandparents were executed. I only heard from mom before that the place was called the Blue Dacha (summerhouse).
In half a year after mom and dad got married they moved from Nekrasova Street to 85 Sadovaya Street, into a huge communal apartment without any conveniences.
I am not sure what dad’s occupation before the war was; he was some type of an office worker. He had no higher education. He finished a Russian school in Gorodok, but he spoke Yiddish very well. Dad carried the spirit of Judaism throughout his life.
My parents got married on November 7th, 1937. The wedding took place on December 5th, it was the holiday of Stalin’s Constitution Day. Dad wanted to present mom a golden ring, but she told him that Comsomol members do not wear golden rings. So dad gave her a golden watch, which I still keep. They did not have a Jewish engagement ceremony and wedding. A trip to Leningrad was not possible for mom’s parents, so it was difficult to reach our relatives, who lived 40 kilometers from Nevel (in Vitebsk), and they did not see each other for years. The wedding was a fairly typical civil one.
Grandma Sima was very kind and sympathetic, everybody loved her. She was a person easy to get along with. They owned an inn. There were a lot of villages around Nevel and Russian peasants, who brought foodstuffs for sales, stayed at my grandparents’ inn. As far as I know, they had no education, though outwardly they were very intelligent people.
Great grandmother was religious; she thoroughly observed all religious rules and the family celebrated Sabbath.
Shimon Danon
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Grandpa and granny’s house was made of sun-dried bricks with Turkish roof-tiles. [These are curved tiles, unlike the Bulgarian ones, which are usually flat.] The rooms were painted with various patterns that continued from one room into the other. All the children used to sleep in the bedroom.
My paternal grandfather, Shimon David Danon, whom I was named after, was born around 1853/55 in Odrin and died in Pazardzhik in 1918/19. He was a craftsman – a leather-worker. I know this, even though he died before my birth, during the European war [WWI]. My grandmother, Simha Danon was also born in Odrin around 1858/59 and died around the same time, also in Pazardzhik. They had both been strongly religious because they came from Spain where the persecutions had been mostly religious. During the Inquisition everyone who did not profess Christian faith had to leave the country. Therefore tradition was the thing that really ‘sealed’ the Jewish community. My father told me that in his family they very strictly observed Jewish tradition, especially Sabbath. Yom Kippur was considered a more important holiday than all the rest. They believed that [every year] from that day on they would start a brand new life, having been forgiven all the bad things they had done. Thus, tradition had a great impact on the relations within the family and outside it, accounting for a better way of living.
The path of my paternal family, after the crusades and the Spanish persecutions, passed through the Mediterranean and Turkey. The ancestors of my father Eshua Danon settled in Odrin [Turkey]. The aftermath of the wars for the liberation of Bulgaria from the Turkish yoke [1] created better living conditions. The economic situation, the relations with authorities, the fact that Bulgarians had recently undergone the hardships of the yoke – and this made them more tolerant and understanding to Jews who had similar fate – made most of the Jewish population that lived in the area of Odrin and Lyule-Bourgas move to the Bulgarian part of Thrace. Many of those Jews were primarily craftsmen, or eventually became traders.
I completed elementary and secondary school in the Jewish school in Pazardzhik. We studied Hebrew and Jewish literature, as well as the Tannakh there. The other school subjects were the usual ones, the same as in the Bulgarian school. Until the 4th grade we also studied mathematics in Hebrew, as well as the Torah. I graduated from high school in Pazardzhik also – but from the Bulgarian one. At that time there wasn’t a Jewish high school in Bulgaria. The Jewish school in Pazardzhik was very interesting. There was a teacher there, Geveret Semo [geveret is Hebrew for teacher], who lived more than a hundred years. She settled in Israel. On her 100th birthday all her former students from Pazardzhik, who lived in Israel, prepared a great celebration. There were really a lot of people – now there are some 30 Jews in Pazardzhik left of the thousand Jews who once used to live there. Geveret Semo was a very interesting person. She only spoke Hebrew with her students. In the end her persistence proved helpful for those who left for Israel, as they had already acquired a considerable knowledge of the Hebrew language.
I was born in 1927. I have a sister, Simha Moshe Danon, born in 1923 and a brother, Shemuel Danon, born in 1943. My brother was born ‘thanks to’ the Holocaust, so to speak, because the whole family was gathered in a small room. The house was crowded with exiles from Sofia. When he was born, I was 16-17 years old and our sister was 20. We took care of our brother. The situation was quite delicate, as our sister could already have her own children. My mother gave birth initially thinking that she had a terrible disease. The cancer that the doctors diagnosed actually turned out to be her pregnancy with my brother.
My mother and my father didn’t marry for love – because of those times and an age-difference of thirteen years that separated them. My father got married quite late – in 1921 – because of the wars between 1913 and 1920 [the Balkan wars and WWI]. They certainly had a religious marriage in the synagogue, as secular marriage wasn’t a common practice then.
My father had a medal for bravery from the Balkan war [1912-1913]. Can you imagine a Jew having a medal for bravery, when everywhere Jews were denounced as the most cowardly people – and a ‘faint-hearted’ Jew used to be a byname? My father was a corporal in a battery – 6 men for 1 gun – that was surrounded during the war at the pass of Odrin [in Turkey]. The sergeant major in charge pulled out his sword and cried: ‘Onward - for mother Bulgaria!’ in order to show patriotism, and the Turks killed him. My father was left alone with the 6 soldiers, who wanted to surrender. My father saw that night was falling and tried to raise their spirit. He told them to hold on until it got dark. He examined the area and saw that there was a covered ravine to which they could possibly withdraw. He took the responsibility for the battery and gave orders to carry out the withdrawal. Some had to keep up fire while the rest stripped the gun and divided it amongst each other. And they succeeded in withdrawing to that ravine; and thus, he saved the 6 soldiers and the weapon. He was awarded with a medal for bravery in front of the whole regiment. It was noted that in spite of his bravery, the sergeant major had shown a rather meaningless patriotism – unlike my father, who had done a truly courageous deed by saving the battery and the 6 men, who certainly would either have been captured or killed, if it hadn’t been for him. Because of this medal my father was a little more privileged in comparison to other Jews. When everyone, including me, wore yellow badges, my father wore a yellow button, which was meant to show that the fascist country was somehow obliged to him.
My father had a good knowledge of French – he could write and speak well, without having studied it anywhere, just due to his own interest. My father never went to bed without turning on the radio to hear the International. And he always cried at it. He imagined that the International would bring the liberation of people all over the world, with equality and respect to their national interests. He also wanted to be seen as an equal among others; therefore, whenever he heard the International, the inspiration usually brought tears to his eyes. At the time of the Holocaust, around 1941, the radio was first stamped and later on we were obliged to give it away. It was as if something had been torn from us.
My father’s courtyard in Pazardzhik wasn’t big, but we had fruit trees and a hencoop, in which some 15-20 hens were looked after. My father had various interests, which definitely enhanced the modern development of the village. Pazardzhik was an agricultural region, and there was hardly any industry. In order to improve village life, there had to be some way to make a living. My father took care of this. He organized the breeding of silkworms. Mulberry trees had to be planted, special rooms and pottery also had to be provided. It is true that nothing effective came out of it, but my father was, so to say, the founder of the whole initiative. After that, some 200-300 villagers started do breed silkworm.
My father also cultivated rice, he rented land, hired people, because rice growing was not traditional for Pazardzhik (wheat was usually grown there), and it required a unique approach. Special irrigation ‘cells’ were prepared. The technology that he used was different to the one used in traditional agriculture. My father, who was one of the innovators of the Pazardzhik district, actually introduced rice growing – even though he didn’t make much profit from it.
Later on he started hemp cultivation. All these initiatives didn’t come from the village people, but came from a few enterprising people, one of whom was my father. Hemp growing was very difficult; it had to be reaped, forged out, stapled.
Although it sounds rather unlikely, my father also had a herd of sheep. He had some ideas about changing the old mode of non-profitable sheep breeding. I remember that one of the shepherds he had hired simply robbed him. Every time he came, he responded with the simple ‘They died’ to the question about what had happened with the sheep. At home we had medicines against all sorts of sheep-diseases. My father wanted to make full use of the sheep: for example, to process their fleece into fine, not rough, wool for cloaks. My father, who saw that innovations could bring greater profit than tradition, enthusiastically experimented with lots of things, even though he didn’t benefit much himself. He was an avant-garde thinker.
My father also cultivated rice, he rented land, hired people, because rice growing was not traditional for Pazardzhik (wheat was usually grown there), and it required a unique approach. Special irrigation ‘cells’ were prepared. The technology that he used was different to the one used in traditional agriculture. My father, who was one of the innovators of the Pazardzhik district, actually introduced rice growing – even though he didn’t make much profit from it.
Later on he started hemp cultivation. All these initiatives didn’t come from the village people, but came from a few enterprising people, one of whom was my father. Hemp growing was very difficult; it had to be reaped, forged out, stapled.
Although it sounds rather unlikely, my father also had a herd of sheep. He had some ideas about changing the old mode of non-profitable sheep breeding. I remember that one of the shepherds he had hired simply robbed him. Every time he came, he responded with the simple ‘They died’ to the question about what had happened with the sheep. At home we had medicines against all sorts of sheep-diseases. My father wanted to make full use of the sheep: for example, to process their fleece into fine, not rough, wool for cloaks. My father, who saw that innovations could bring greater profit than tradition, enthusiastically experimented with lots of things, even though he didn’t benefit much himself. He was an avant-garde thinker.
My father, Eshua Danon, was a very interesting person. He was a gabbai – this is something like an elder - the first man after the rabbi. People addressed him as a public figure. The gabbai was responsible for solving any problem that proved interesting to visitors of the synagogue. 99 % of the rabbis who read the prayers were not quite aware of what they were actually reading. They used to say the words only by heart, without knowing their meaning. Unlike them, my father knew what he was reading. He used to translate the prayers into Latino [Ladino], as it was the spoken language among Jews. Especially during the family holidays, prayers were usually first said in Hebrew and then in Ladino, which made them clear and understandable for the people present. My father wasn’t a religious fanatic like my maternal grandfather. He made religion somehow close and comprehensible. He ‘updated’ it. He was a progressive man.
The Jewish community in Pazardzhik numbered some 900-1,000 people. There were about 350 families with 3-4 persons on average. There were streets known as Jewish streets. There were only two Armenian families in our street and one Bulgarian in the next one. It is not true that there wasn’t any anti-Semitism in the Bulgarian circles. There was fear of Jews, as well as envy for the support that we gave each other. The notion that Jews are ‘blood-drinkers’ was constantly imposed on Bulgarian children. [The interviewee refers to the century-old blood libel accusations.] Fights between Jewish and Bulgarian children from close neighborhoods happened quite often. There was always someone who shouted, ‘Why do you drink Christian blood? Why do you slaughter Christians?’ and so on.
The strong sense of mutual aid had motivated Jews never to deviate from their Jewishness. For example, when endowments are made, they are not intended for one person only but for the support of poor people in general. Before Yom Kippur, a sacrifice with the slaughtering of birds was performed for the sake of each family member’s health – a cock for men, and a hen for women. [The interviewee refers to the custom of kapores.] In the years before my brother Shemuel Eshua Danon’s birth we used to slaughter 4-5 hens but we couldn’t consume them. It was obligatory for us to give part of this meat to poorer people. Jews who were invited to the synagogue to say the kiddush, were supposed to make matanah after that, which means ‘a gift.’ It was made by the one who had been honored to go up to the almemar. This mutual aid had other material forms. All poor Jews used to study free of charge in the Jewish school. It was also a common practice for all children of poor families to receive clothes that were sewn especially for them for Rosh Hashanah. Shoes, warm clothes and, above all, food had to be provided for the poorer people. There was an organized soup kitchen for the poor children in the Jewish school where I used to study. Each one of them had to receive warm food at lunch. There was an appointed day for every wealthy family, on which the housewife had to provide food for the soup kitchen. Our family was also allotted such a day. There was some kind of a competition for providing better food, or at least food of the same quality that we ate daily at home.
My maternal grandfather was a religious fanatic. He knew he had to pray and never missed a prayer. He was of those orthodox Jews who were so devoted to religion that every morning and evening they visited the synagogue to pray. There had to be something really unavoidable – some great event – for example, illness, for him to miss his usual visit to the synagogue. He observed the canons of religion without actually understanding its core, without delving into its deep meanings. My grandmother observed religion as far as she was able, as she got paralyzed very early and spent one third of her life in a chair. She had to be looked after. There wasn’t anything particular in the way my grandparents used to dress. They wore normal clothes, nothing especially connected with traditions.
The Jewish quarter in Plovdiv, where my grandfather’s house used to be, had a much clearer and firmer distinction than the one in Pazardzhik, where my maternal grandparents lived. About fifty meters away from grandpa’s house was the so-called ‘cortiso’, which means ‘yard’ in Spanish. The houses of some fifty families were situated within that inner space. There weren’t any Bulgarian families there, and Jewish integrity was taken care of.
My maternal grandpa Nissim Assa was born in Stara Zagora around 1871/72. I don’t know where and when my granny Dudu Assa was born. They lived in Plovdiv. They had a house before my birth that I don’t remember. Then they built another one, in which an enormous clan used to live – the families of my grandfather and his brother. Their wives had the same names [Dudu Assa]. The land on which the house was built was their property. Whenever a child was born in one of the families, a newly born child in the other family usually followed within 6 months – my mother Ester Danon, born in 1898, matched my aunt Fortuna Assa and so on. If my grandpa’s family had 6 children, doubtlessly my grand-uncle’s family would have 6 also. My grandma died in 1939/40 and my grandpa at the beginning of the 1960s.