In the morning, Daddy used to pray in the dining room, putting on his Tfilin. We would not go in, so as not to disturb him. He put leather boxes on his arms. When he prayed at home, Daddy did not put on his tales, a large white silk scarf with black strips on the sides and fringes. He put it on only when he attended synagogue on the holidays.
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Displaying 20161 - 20190 of 50826 results
Rachel Averbukh
Mom gave me the job of setting the table for dinner. Every day I would cover the dining room table with a beautiful table cloth. Then I would ask Mom, what sort of dinner are we going to have today - dairy or meat? According to her answer I put out the right dishes. I remember very well that we had a buffet with two large sections, both of which could be locked with a key.
One whole section was filled with utensils for use at Passover - there were plates, spoons and forks. The other section held everyday dishes – those not used for holiday dinners. The cooking utensils were in the kitchen, but stored separately in different places. For meat dishes we would use certain bowls and pots, for dairy dishes – other ones. We certainly knew that for dairy dishes you were not supposed to use meat utensils and vice versa.
One whole section was filled with utensils for use at Passover - there were plates, spoons and forks. The other section held everyday dishes – those not used for holiday dinners. The cooking utensils were in the kitchen, but stored separately in different places. For meat dishes we would use certain bowls and pots, for dairy dishes – other ones. We certainly knew that for dairy dishes you were not supposed to use meat utensils and vice versa.
I remember that in 1918, during the Civil War, the Balakhovich gang was active in Pskov. This leader of this group was as well known as Denikin; he used to hang the Reds. The war went on furiously. I was about three or four years old, and Mom and I and the nurse would hide under the window sill so as not to get hit by a stray bullet.
I can’t remember all the details, but I do remember that my nurse once took me out for a walk, and by chance we suddenly came into a square where corpses were hanging on gallows. I remember that we were very frightened. These were not pogroms, they did not touch Jews. It was basically the communists who were executed.
I can’t remember all the details, but I do remember that my nurse once took me out for a walk, and by chance we suddenly came into a square where corpses were hanging on gallows. I remember that we were very frightened. These were not pogroms, they did not touch Jews. It was basically the communists who were executed.
Mom and Dad always and without fail prayed before meals. They would wash their hands, wash them in a bowl, and then rinse them with water from a jug three times on each side. They pronounced the blessing for the meal: "Borukh ato adoinoi eloheinu…" After dinner the housemaid cleared the table and washed the dishes. I remember that Mom wouldn’t leave the kitchen -- she lost a part of her beauty in that kitchen! She did not trust the Russian housemaid – she was constantly afraid that she would break the rules of kashrut.
There were usually Russian housemaids in the house, but mother never let them cook lest they make something treif (not kosher) and violate the kosher requirements by mixing dairy products with meat and so on.
Once I started to cut butter with a knife for meat and spoiled the kosher knife. Mom snatched it away from me, and thrust it in a slot in the wooden floor. In such cases you have to stick the knife in the ground and keep it there for some time. In this way the object regains the property of being kosher, of being pure.
Once I started to cut butter with a knife for meat and spoiled the kosher knife. Mom snatched it away from me, and thrust it in a slot in the wooden floor. In such cases you have to stick the knife in the ground and keep it there for some time. In this way the object regains the property of being kosher, of being pure.
On Saturday we did not warm up the food, because you were prohibited to make fire, but the Russian stove stayed warm all the following day until evening. Mum didn’t even turn on the electric light on Saturdays. You were not allowed to work, it was a complete Sabbath. But I don’t remember that we had a mezuzah on our doors.
On Friday, in the first half of the day before the Sabbath began, Mom would go to the market. There she would buy a chicken, which I then took to the synagogue, to the old shoikhet, ] Gelikman, for hito slaughter it in accordance with all the rules. As I recall, he would pronounced a prayer holding the chicken above his head, making the sacrifice.
I would give him some money for that ceremony. He would give me back the chicken, and I would bring it home to Mom. She then plucked the chicken, singed it, and salted it – it was a very long procedure. Then she boiled or stewed it. Sometimes she prepared tsimes. Tsimes is a sweet tasting dish of carrots and prunes all stewed together with goose or duck fat. We always had compote and fruit on the table, too. Chicken soup was served on the table in a porcelain tureen. We lit two candles, and Mom baked challahkhalas. Everythingovered with a napkin. Mum would pray, and Dad would pray. I didn’t have to recite the prayers, I would simply sit and listen.
I would give him some money for that ceremony. He would give me back the chicken, and I would bring it home to Mom. She then plucked the chicken, singed it, and salted it – it was a very long procedure. Then she boiled or stewed it. Sometimes she prepared tsimes. Tsimes is a sweet tasting dish of carrots and prunes all stewed together with goose or duck fat. We always had compote and fruit on the table, too. Chicken soup was served on the table in a porcelain tureen. We lit two candles, and Mom baked challahkhalas. Everythingovered with a napkin. Mum would pray, and Dad would pray. I didn’t have to recite the prayers, I would simply sit and listen.
There were very many Jews in Pskov before the war. In Yedinstva Street there was a synagogue, I remember it perfectly. It was wooden building on a hill, not so large, approximately for 100 persons. I went to the synagogue only on holidays.
On Yom Kippur, the Judgement Day, Daddy and Mom would fast; they wouldn’t eat anything for 24 hours. But I was given food. On that day I always went to the synagogue with Mom.
There was singing and praying and people cried. I remember a beautiful prayer Kol Nidrei. It was forbidden to carrying anything in your hands, and Mom even had to fasten her kerchief to her wrist in order not to hold it in her hand.
There was singing and praying and people cried. I remember a beautiful prayer Kol Nidrei. It was forbidden to carrying anything in your hands, and Mom even had to fasten her kerchief to her wrist in order not to hold it in her hand.
During Purim mother would bake the triangle cakes with poppy-seed and with raisins, we call them Hamantaschen, ] d she also made krebhen - small triangles of dough and meat. These were boiled in meat broth to make in a dish similar to pelmeny [pelmeny are a Russian variety of ravioli made of dough with minced meat inside.
You can boil them or you can fry them]. On Pesach at one time, matzah was baked in the synagogue, and Mom and my aunts would go there to help roll the dough. Before that we would all together make a thorough cleaning up of the house, so that there wouldn’t be a single crumb of bread anywhere. On this single occasion each year, that treasured buffet was then opened, and Passover utensils were taken out.
Everything was done very solemnly. Sometimes the family of Aunt Bertha, mother’s sister, would come for Passover. Mom made wine in a linen bag similar in its form to a cow’s udder. There was always stuffed fish on the table, with horseradish on a plate besides it.
You can boil them or you can fry them]. On Pesach at one time, matzah was baked in the synagogue, and Mom and my aunts would go there to help roll the dough. Before that we would all together make a thorough cleaning up of the house, so that there wouldn’t be a single crumb of bread anywhere. On this single occasion each year, that treasured buffet was then opened, and Passover utensils were taken out.
Everything was done very solemnly. Sometimes the family of Aunt Bertha, mother’s sister, would come for Passover. Mom made wine in a linen bag similar in its form to a cow’s udder. There was always stuffed fish on the table, with horseradish on a plate besides it.
Later, in the Russian school, we were taught atheism, against religion, that there was no God. Once, when I probably was in the 7th form, on one Passover evening I went to attend an anti-religious meeting instead of taking part in the seder at home. We had a Jewish theater, and we held meetings like this there. It was interesting. I had had a negative reaction to religious fanaticism from childhood.
Mom didn’t read anything in Russian. She only read religious books in the Jewish language. I didn’t read them myself, but I think it was Tanach.
He taught me to swim, to skate, to row! In summer we usually went to our summer residence, we rented it from some Russians each summer. It was on the Velikaya River.
Let me tell you how I studied. The school was organized according to the “Dalton’s method.” I don’t remember now what it was all about, I only remember the name, and there was a special team method of teaching, by which one team studied one particular topic and the other another topic, and then they reported to each other. I left school in Pskov - after finishing 9 grades - almost illiterate, I didn’t know arithmetic, nothing!
Such teachers we had, that’s how they taught us! The history of the Communist Party - oh yes! – that we surely knew by heart! And none of my classmates anything, either, except for the history of the Communist Party!
Such teachers we had, that’s how they taught us! The history of the Communist Party - oh yes! – that we surely knew by heart! And none of my classmates anything, either, except for the history of the Communist Party!
In 1931 I finished school and came from Pskov to Leningrad, in Tavricheskaya Street, to live with the family of Uncle Efim, mother’s brother. They lived in a communal (shared) apartment. I had to stay somewhere. The shared apartment was large, 5 rooms. All the neighbors were Russians, except for two Jewish families - the Zarkhins and Berkals. We lived very amicably.
All of us helped each other. Neither I, nor our neighbors the Zarkhins ever experienced anti-Semitism.
All of us helped each other. Neither I, nor our neighbors the Zarkhins ever experienced anti-Semitism.
In the next room lived the Zarkhins with their son Solomon. Father rented a room for me from Russian neighbors.
When he was there, he asked Solomon Zarkhin: "You are a student, please, look after her, so that she behaves the right way". Solomon was 27 years old then, and I was 17. We fell in love with each other. He took me to the skating-rink, and once he exclaimed: "Why should I take care of her for someone else? Why don’t I make her my own wife? " I married him in 1932.
The wedding was a civil one, not Jewish. We had the usual party for friends. A friend of my husband was getting registered in the ZAGS [Civil Registry Office] that day too. My husband was an atheist. After were registered our marriage in the ZAGS, a group of friends and my Dad gathered for a party. Mum didn’t come, because there was no chupa.h[
My husband Solomon was categorically against having a religious ceremony, and Mom was terribly upset that her daughter’s wedding was not going to be celebrated in the religious way. So Mom didn’t come to my wedding in Leningrad at all!
When he was there, he asked Solomon Zarkhin: "You are a student, please, look after her, so that she behaves the right way". Solomon was 27 years old then, and I was 17. We fell in love with each other. He took me to the skating-rink, and once he exclaimed: "Why should I take care of her for someone else? Why don’t I make her my own wife? " I married him in 1932.
The wedding was a civil one, not Jewish. We had the usual party for friends. A friend of my husband was getting registered in the ZAGS [Civil Registry Office] that day too. My husband was an atheist. After were registered our marriage in the ZAGS, a group of friends and my Dad gathered for a party. Mum didn’t come, because there was no chupa.h[
My husband Solomon was categorically against having a religious ceremony, and Mom was terribly upset that her daughter’s wedding was not going to be celebrated in the religious way. So Mom didn’t come to my wedding in Leningrad at all!
My husband’s parents, Isaak Iosifovich Zarkhin and Lyubov Borisovna Zarkhin, were also religious people. In my husband’s family, when he was a boy, all the Jewish traditions and customs were observed. His mother was a housewife who brought up many children - 4 sons and 2 daughters. They came from the small town of Krasnye Strugi, not far from Pskov.
In Soviet times, my husband’s father, Isaak, was considered a lishenets3 , therefore my husband Solomon could not enter an institute of higher education after finishing grammar school. Only much later, when he was working as an ordinary machine operator and electrician, was he able to enter the Polytechnical Institute when the so-called “Workers’ call-up” was organized by the Bolsheviks. [“Workers’ call-up”– the draft of workers from factories to higher educational institutions.
One of the methods to create “people’s intellectuals” to substitute for the bourgeois specialists, invented by Bolsheviks]. From the fifth year of that institute he was taken into the Military Artillery Academy as an excellent student. They admitted 5 men, and all of them turned out to be Jewish.
In Soviet times, my husband’s father, Isaak, was considered a lishenets3 , therefore my husband Solomon could not enter an institute of higher education after finishing grammar school. Only much later, when he was working as an ordinary machine operator and electrician, was he able to enter the Polytechnical Institute when the so-called “Workers’ call-up” was organized by the Bolsheviks. [“Workers’ call-up”– the draft of workers from factories to higher educational institutions.
One of the methods to create “people’s intellectuals” to substitute for the bourgeois specialists, invented by Bolsheviks]. From the fifth year of that institute he was taken into the Military Artillery Academy as an excellent student. They admitted 5 men, and all of them turned out to be Jewish.
When I got married I took the my husband’s surname - Zarkhin.
Near my home in Leningrad they opened evening courses to train teachers for elementary school. On my student’s grant we were able to hire a Russian housemaid.
I completed the courses, compensating for the poor education I had received in grammar school. For one year I worked as a teacher at a Russian elementary school. There were no Jewish schools in Leningrad then! After I left my parents’ home 1931, I no longer observed Jewish traditions!
I completed the courses, compensating for the poor education I had received in grammar school. For one year I worked as a teacher at a Russian elementary school. There were no Jewish schools in Leningrad then! After I left my parents’ home 1931, I no longer observed Jewish traditions!
In 1934, when we already had a baby, I fell out with my husband because he was so jealous, and we even got divorced. I took back my maiden name Averbukh. But after that "divorce" we came home again together that very day, and never parted again for a single day, living together again; it was all like a game.
I was young, only 19, and that divorce didn’t scare me in the least. It is only now that divorces are serious, and back then – it was not so. Solomon was very jealous by nature.
I was young, only 19, and that divorce didn’t scare me in the least. It is only now that divorces are serious, and back then – it was not so. Solomon was very jealous by nature.
We officially registered our marriage for the second time only in 1947, when I was to be assigned a job after graduation from the Medical Institute. But I preferred to keep my maiden name Averbukh; I didn’t change it anymore. Two of my kids [Larisa and Gennady] were officially born outside wedlock.
When boys were born to my relatives’ families, they were circumcised on the eighth day. But they did not have a bar- mitzvah at 13, nor did I have a bat-mitzvah, because it was the Soviet regime.
My husband’s sister Frida Kotik suffered the arrest and execution of her husband, who was a Bolshevik who was shot in 1938 in Leningrad. She was left with a daughter, born in 1928, and a son, born in 1935. They were exiled to Rybinsk, and she died there soon after. The kids were sent to an orphanage.
I entered the workers' faculty in the First Medical Institute, and then, in 1938,I was admitted without any problems to the institute itself. Studies began on September 1, and on September 29 I gave birth to my second daughter, Larisa! After that I took an academic leave for one year, and in 1941, when I was taking examinations for the second year, the war began.
, Russia
I left for Malmysh in Kirov region to stay with my parents. They had already been evacuated from Pskov to Malmysh in the beginning of July, 1941. It happened like this: It was a Saturday, and they were standing in Yedinstva Street in Pskov, thinking about what they should do now, with the war having broken out, when an old Jew came by and addressed them in Yiddish, saying: "Iden, was steiten?!", which means:
"Jews, why are you standing here?! Do you think they are the Germans of 1918?? There - the Russians are running, and you must run away!!" And so they fled without anything, just small suitcases, and escaped on the first freight train. They found themselves in the Kirov region, in the town of Malmysh.
"Jews, why are you standing here?! Do you think they are the Germans of 1918?? There - the Russians are running, and you must run away!!" And so they fled without anything, just small suitcases, and escaped on the first freight train. They found themselves in the Kirov region, in the town of Malmysh.
Solomon was at the front line near Leningrad, in Peterhof, as the commander of an artillery unit in the national irregular army. He went to the front as a volunteer, and I approved this choice. I told him: "If healthy Jews like you don’t go and fight, who will?!"
On September 31, 1941 a shell exploded right at his feet. People around got killed, but he miraculously remained alive. He didn’t lose his legs, but he could only walk on crutches. There was a wound 13 by 12 centimeters on his right hip.
He survived only because a medic gave him blood on the spot, and in the ambulance they gave him a direct transfusion of blood, otherwise he would have bled to death. Everything turned out fine, but he was very lucky. They began to treat him in Leningrad and then evacuated him to a hospital in Chita.
On September 31, 1941 a shell exploded right at his feet. People around got killed, but he miraculously remained alive. He didn’t lose his legs, but he could only walk on crutches. There was a wound 13 by 12 centimeters on his right hip.
He survived only because a medic gave him blood on the spot, and in the ambulance they gave him a direct transfusion of blood, otherwise he would have bled to death. Everything turned out fine, but he was very lucky. They began to treat him in Leningrad and then evacuated him to a hospital in Chita.
Many Jews stayed in Pskov during the war. All of them died. All of them were taken to the Vauliny hills in the suburbs of Pskov, forced to dig trenches and were buried in those same trenches alive. And then the Germans drove over those trenches in their tanks. Only one little girl named Galperina survived, she was sheltered by a Russian teacher in her cellar. I learned this from people whose relatives died there.
All 4 daughters and 2 sons of my grandparents Leibe and Hana Berkal were evacuated to the East of Russia during the war [1941-1945]. Grandfather was left alone with his neighbors [grandmother Hana had died much earlier]. They looked after him. But that family and my grandfather were all executed during the war. Grandfather was more than 70 years old then, and the Germans hung him.
Solomon was treated in a hospital in Chita and recovered. He then joined us, his evacuated family, in Malmysh, and worked as a mechanic at an alcohol producing plant there in the beginning of 1943. Our son Gennady was born in 1942.
In 1944 Solomon, as an invalid of war, received a call either from the military committee or from his factory to return to Leningrad. It was only possible to return there on the basis of such a summons, because the war was still going on. So we packed our things. We had no money for the trip. Solomon was given a large flask of spirit at his factory instead of money. He paid for everything with that spirit. Solomon also received winter felt boots from his military committee.