My grandfather was born in Kharkov in 1860. He went to grammar school and had a special technical education, but I don't know where he studied. There were no signs of religiosity in the interior of the house - it was the standard home of a rich European man not a Jew. What I mean by that is that they didn't have special dishes for Pesach, silver chanukkiyah, religious literature, mezuzah on the door or any other general accessories of the Jewish way of life.
- 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 2491 - 2520 of 50826 results
Dimitri Kamyshan
![](/themes/custom/centro/flags/ua.svg)
My grandfather was a professional and his printing house was very profitable. In 1918 it was nationalized by the Soviet power. My grandmother told me that its employees went on strike when the printing house was expropriated by the Soviet authorities. They wanted their master back. And so the authorities appointed my grandfather director and then executive manager of the factory.
My grandmother, Raissa Zilberberg [nee Umanskaya], was born in Nikolaev, a regional town, in 1865. She came from a rich assimilated family. Their family also had the right to live in Nikolaev [outside the Pale of Settlement]. Her father must have been a merchant of Guild I or a doctor. Many talented people that contributed to the Russian Empire - and later to the Soviet Union - came from such families.
The Umanskiys and the Zilberbergs identified themselves as Jews and were proud of it. I believe my grandmother and grandfather had a Jewish wedding - otherwise their marriage wouldn't have become valid - but later didn't observe any traditions. They were in those circles of society where nationality didn't matter. They named their children to their liking and didn't care about naming them in honor of their deceased relatives or giving them traditional Jewish names.
My father was my grandparents' favorite son. He studied at the classical grammar school for boys in Kharkov. He was supposed to get a higher education later. They had classes in religion where they were divided into three groups, according to their religion. The classes were conducted by an Orthodox priest, a Catholic priest and a rabbi. Being a Jew, my father studied religion in the Judaism group, but his family paid little attention to religion, and he was growing up an atheist. My father studied well. He was easy-going, cheerful and popular. Nationality didn't matter to them at all. My father was fond of Russian literature and was very good at mathematics. He finished grammar school during the Civil War 7, so he couldn't enter a higher educational institution, according to new Soviet laws. He came from a bourgeois family and their children had no right to get a higher education. My father finished a course in accounting and became an accountant.
My mother was 18 years old at the time. She was Russian and born in 1905. Her father, Peter Kamyshan, staff-captain in the tsarist army, was commander of a battalion. He was a brave Russian officer. He perished in August 1914 during World War I. He ordered his battalion to attack, stood up as he did so and was shot.
I remember the two-storied mansion in the center of Kharkov, where we lived, and our cozy shady yard. Each member of the family had a room of his own. Later the house was turned into a shared apartment block 8. The family of the chief of the town police lived on the first floor, and my grandmother and her daughters occupied the second floor, an area of about 100 square meters. Their apartment was richly furnished, and there were very expensive dishes and table sets in the cupboards. My grandmother cooked a dinner of three or four courses every day. At weekends we had little pies stuffed with rice. They were supposed to be cut in order to be able to put a slice of sturgeon inside before eating them. She also cooked meat with white sauce at weekends - this was traditional Jewish food. She didn't share her recipes with anybody. The whole family sat at the table together. Everybody had a silver ring with the initials of the owner on it and a snow-white starched napkin pulled through it. There was always a clean tablecloth on the table, and soup was served in a soup bowl. My grandmother was trying to keep the pre-revolutionary traditions of the family intact.
My parents went to work and didn't have time to look after me. I spent a lot of time walking and playing in the yard. There were German, Jewish, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian families in the surrounding buildings. All neighbors got along well and spoke Russian. Nationality was of no significance at that time. My friends were Ira Chapanskaya and Bronia Chapanskaya, Valei Ledler, a German girl called Bella Bart and her brother Boris, among the Jews, the Yakshlis, who were Lithuanians, the Askovskis, a Polish family, and Vera and Lyonchik Kirilenko, Ukrainians. We played hide-and-seek, football, and so on.
I wasn't affected by the famine of 1933 [famine in Ukraine] 10. My family fed me well, but I remember starved and begging people in the streets. They often knocked on the door of our apartment begging for a piece of bread. My grandmother always gave them something. A farmer, whom we called 'You-are-welcome', delivered food to our house. He knocked on the door and when asked, 'Who's there?' he replied, 'You-are- welcome'. He brought us products in 1933, too. I was only 6 years old and have no other memories of this horrible time.
I began to study at a Russian secondary school when I was 7. My aunts dressed me up and took me to school on the first day. There were children of different nationalities at school. When I was asked about my nationality I said, 'I'm a Ukrainian Jew' or 'I'm a Jewish Ukrainian'. My class tutor used to laugh at this and said, 'Your name is Zilberberg, and this means you are a Jew'. 'But my mother is Ukrainian', I said. 'Yes, but you have your father's last name. This means you are a Jew, and that's the nationality I'll put down in my register', he replied. I said, 'I don't care what nationality you put down in your register'. My classmates were: Benia Goldwasser and Izia Belenkiy, who were Jews, Gleb Kashyrin, a Russian, Lena Sidorenko and Galia Shkolnik, Ukrainians, and many more. Almost all of our teachers were Jews. Noah, our history teacher, Rebecca, our biology teacher, Esther, our geography teacher, Abram, the director of the school, and so on. We had Ukrainian teachers in mathematics and Ukrainian language. There was a Jewish Technical College near our school, and its name was written in Yiddish. Nobody in our family spoke, wrote or read in Yiddish.
I remember 1937, because quite a few of our acquaintances were arrested. [The interviewee is referring to the so-called Great Terror.] 12 I remember an overwhelming fear in the air. We came to school in the morning and heard that somebody's father had been arrested for being an 'enemy of the people'. Such children were expelled from the Pioneer League. There were many such cases.
We believed that everything we were told about 'enemies of the people' was true. We believed that our country was the best.
We believed that everything we were told about 'enemies of the people' was true. We believed that our country was the best.
My parents took me on vacation to the Crimea every year. Now I understand that my father and mother didn't earn enough to afford such trips, and that they were probably using my grandmother's savings.
In 1941 I was to go to a pioneer camp for the first time. I was to depart on 23rd June, and on 22nd June my friends and I were planning to go into the wood. I was a little bit afraid of the camp, because my friends told me about the strict discipline there etc. At about 12 o'clock in the afternoon there was an announcement on the radio. 'Listen to an important governmental announcement,' it began. And then we heard the speech of Molotov 14. My father was in a bar at the time - he was very fond of beer.
I heard about the war and was very glad that we would be soldiers and defeat the enemy.
I heard about the war and was very glad that we would be soldiers and defeat the enemy.
Evacuation began in the town. People were arguing about evacuation. My grandmother was convinced that the Germans would not hurt people, that they were cultured and educated people. My grandmother was very authoritative in the family and so it was decided that we would stay. Our friends advised my parents to change my last name to my mother's if we were going to stay. On 1st October 1941, two weeks before the Germans reached Kharkov, my mother had my last name changed to Kamyshan in a local registry office.
We were very scared. The ghetto was established at the end of November 1941, and when we were on the way there we didn't know what our point of destination was. We were to move to the ghetto, but my grandmother was hoping that we would be able to ransom ourselves, so she took all her gold with her. All Jews of Kharkov were walking along the main street of the town. People were joining the march on the way. My mother was seeing us off walking on the pavement. She couldn't get me out of the crowd, because nobody dared to violate the order for all Jews and half-Jews to get on the way. She was Russian and was not supposed to be with us. Arkadiy, Ludmila's husband, was carrying little Valentina, and my mother begged him to leave the little girl with her. But he refused saying, 'She was born a Jew and she will die a Jew'. Valentina was crying. She was freezing.
We walked and walked leaving the houses behind and entering the industrial zone in Kharkov. We were escorted by policemen and German soldiers, and they shot everyone who tried to escape. We came to some barracks with no heating or any other comforts. The Germans were just beginning to work on the fencing and took no notice of our discomforts. My father and other younger men were taken away. We came inside a barrack with broken windows and doors, no stove, nothing. Ludmila, Arkadiy and Valentina went to the corner and Ida and Mara burst into tears. I said, 'Don't cry, it'll be fine'. After about an hour and a half a German soldier was passing by, and my grandmother said to him, 'These are people, you know, and it's impossible to live here'. Without saying a word he took out his gun and shot my grandmother. My family buried her near the barracks. Ida said to me, 'Dimitri, this is death here. You need to escape from here in the dark'. My father came to see us later, and I told him that Ida had told me to escape. He said he agreed. I asked him about himself, and he said he would try to find me later. I went to the fence and crawled underneath it.
We walked and walked leaving the houses behind and entering the industrial zone in Kharkov. We were escorted by policemen and German soldiers, and they shot everyone who tried to escape. We came to some barracks with no heating or any other comforts. The Germans were just beginning to work on the fencing and took no notice of our discomforts. My father and other younger men were taken away. We came inside a barrack with broken windows and doors, no stove, nothing. Ludmila, Arkadiy and Valentina went to the corner and Ida and Mara burst into tears. I said, 'Don't cry, it'll be fine'. After about an hour and a half a German soldier was passing by, and my grandmother said to him, 'These are people, you know, and it's impossible to live here'. Without saying a word he took out his gun and shot my grandmother. My family buried her near the barracks. Ida said to me, 'Dimitri, this is death here. You need to escape from here in the dark'. My father came to see us later, and I told him that Ida had told me to escape. He said he agreed. I asked him about himself, and he said he would try to find me later. I went to the fence and crawled underneath it.
I headed home to my mother. My mother loved her mother-in-law dearly and we mourned my grandmother's death. In the morning our neighbor Marfusha came to tell us that our neighbors wrote a report on us saying that my real name was Zilberberg and that my mother was a communist. She said we had to leave. We didn't take any luggage and left for Zhuravlyovka in the suburbs of Kharkov, where Marfusha's relatives lived. Marfusha was a housemaid and worked for our neighbor one floor below. She was a very decent and honest woman. She didn't only save my life - she also saved all our family valuables and photographs and documents and returned them to my mother.
My mother got to know that her stepfather was chief of the address agency. She went to him asking him to save my life. He said, 'The life of this zhydyonok?'. My mother said, 'Yes, that's what my mother called him, but in the memory of her, who you loved, please help me to save her grandson'. He removed a card with my name and the names of my parents from his desk and destroyed it. We moved into an abandoned apartment. Kharkov was liberated in February 1942. A colonel from a rifle division stayed in our apartment, and I was very happy about it. He gave me his rifle and I began to shoot at German planes flying in the sky. I went to the district Komsomol committee to become a Komsomol member 16.
About 15 of us came to the Komsomol committee in Kupiansk at the end of March 1942. Nobody waited for us there. They sent us to Grecheno village [30 km from Kupiansk]. We all stayed in one room, but at least we were given a bowl of pea soup once a day. I became a shoemaker's apprentice. I went to the military registration office asking them to send me to the army. But I was under 16 years old and the chief refused me every time. Once I went there in June 1942 and the chief I knew wasn't there any longer. His replacement was a Jewish man, one of my father's acquaintances, from Kharkov. He asked me how I was, and I burst into tears telling him that my whole family had perished. He told me to come back the following day, and on that day I joined a reserve tank regiment in the village of Grecheno.
I also faced anti-Semitism in the army. I looked like a typical Jew. On my 16th birthday on 23rd September a soldier said to me, 'You zhyd [kike] with payes!'. He was referring to the the first traces of a beard on my face. I jumped onto him hitting him with my fists. We were both punished for fighting. We had to dig a pit and were both put into it and stayed there for four hours. Then our commanding officer asked us whether we would continue fighting. That soldier replied that he wasn't going to stop calling me names. That was the first time I faced such anti-Semitism, and I found it ugly and couldn't understand where it came from.
I was awarded a medal for 'Service in the Battle'. I took part in the liberation of the towns of Artyomovsk and Krasnoarmeysk in Donbass. People in those towns, that were almost completely destroyed, rejoiced seeing us. We saw heaps of dead children's bodies. The Germans and the policemen had grabbed them by their legs and swung them against the edge of a well. We were told to follow the murderers and kill them. We shot their truck and drove over the ones that jumped off the truck in an effort to run away.
The most memorable and unforgettable event was the liberation of Zaporozhiye in October 1943, because it was the first time in the history of the Great Patriotic War when tanks were involved in a night attack. The tanks had floodlights on them, and the attack started at 11 pm. The Germans were so lost that they began to climb out of their trenches. Later they pulled themselves together and began to shoot at the tanks. We were sitting on the tanks and many soldiers were falling under the tracks of the tanks they were sitting on. There were ten to twelve soldiers on each tank. There was a handrail around the tank tower on some tanks. We were holding onto the rail with our left hand while holding a gun in our right hand. There were some tanks without such handrails and there was nothing soldiers on top of them could hold on to. Only three of 86 gunmen in the unit survived the battle of Zaporozhiye. Twenty years later I was awarded a medal 'For Bravery" in this battle.
The most memorable and unforgettable event was the liberation of Zaporozhiye in October 1943, because it was the first time in the history of the Great Patriotic War when tanks were involved in a night attack. The tanks had floodlights on them, and the attack started at 11 pm. The Germans were so lost that they began to climb out of their trenches. Later they pulled themselves together and began to shoot at the tanks. We were sitting on the tanks and many soldiers were falling under the tracks of the tanks they were sitting on. There were ten to twelve soldiers on each tank. There was a handrail around the tank tower on some tanks. We were holding onto the rail with our left hand while holding a gun in our right hand. There were some tanks without such handrails and there was nothing soldiers on top of them could hold on to. Only three of 86 gunmen in the unit survived the battle of Zaporozhiye. Twenty years later I was awarded a medal 'For Bravery" in this battle.
The Zilberberg's apartment was occupied by some people, and my mother and I were afraid of going back there. We still remembered so clearly the tragedy of our family. We got a small room in a shared apartment. My mother went to work at the same book agency where she had worked before the war. She was an accountant.
I had finished 6 years at a secondary school before the war and needed to complete my studies. There was a technical college not far from our house. It used to be a Jewish technical college before the war, but later it was converted into a machine building college. I went to see the director of this college and explained my family situation to him. I told him that I was probably too old for the 7th grade, and he agreed to take me on at the college for a probation period.
We celebrated Victory Day in the college on 9th May 1945. We had a dancing party. Our Komsomol unit was responsible for order at the party.
I quit college and finished an evening secondary school in Kharkov to obtain a certificate saying that I had completed secondary education. I went to Moscow to enter the Institute of Oriental Studies. The competition was high - 14 applicants per admission unit - but I was successful and stayed in Moscow. But this Institute didn't have a hostel for students and my Uncle Dimitri, who I was staying with, had problems at work during the campaign against cosmopolitans 17. My uncle, who was deputy director of the Sovinformbureau before the war, was about to lose his job, and I couldn't stay with him much longer. I had to move to Lvov.
I entered the Pedagogical Institute there without exams, but I was very upset believing that my life was lost, as my dream was the career of a diplomat, and I was to become a teacher instead. I thought so until I had practice in my 3rd year of studies. I conducted my first lesson and earned applause for it, and I liked it. I never regretted becoming a teacher. I like children and teaching.
I entered the Pedagogical Institute there without exams, but I was very upset believing that my life was lost, as my dream was the career of a diplomat, and I was to become a teacher instead. I thought so until I had practice in my 3rd year of studies. I conducted my first lesson and earned applause for it, and I liked it. I never regretted becoming a teacher. I like children and teaching.
There was anti-Semitism in Lvov after the war, but nobody asked me questions about my nationality, and I didn't tell anybody about my father. Sometimes fellow students that came to visit us said, 'Hey, you look so very much like your mother, and your mother looks like a typical Jew'. 'Yes, she does', I said, 'only she's not a Jew'.
There were quite a few Jewish students at the Russian Philology Faculty of Lvov Pedagogical Institute. I studied at the Faculty of History and there were only two Jews in my group: Fania Idnevskaya and Gregory Ivoyev. My co-students called Fania 'zhydovka' [kike]. I was deputy chief of the Komsomol unit of the Pedagogical Institute and said to such students that calling someone names like this was a violation of the law. Then I heard someone say, 'Look, the boy protects his own people'. I studied well and received the highest grades, but when there was the issue of a Lenin scholarship - it was awarded to the best students - it was decided to give it to a local guy that had lower grades than I did. But he came from Western Ukraine and 'student Kamyshan' came from Eastern Ukraine, so the latter could do very well without a Lenin scholarship. Western Ukrainians were awful anti- Semites. They hated Jews, but they also hated Russians and everything Russian.
I graduated from the Pedagogical Institute in 1951 and was supposed to receive a job assignment in the girl's school in the center of Lvov, where all best students were sent to work. But this vacancy was given to the daughter of the first secretary of the town party committee. I got an assignment as inspector of the district education committee in a town in Lvov region instead. I worked there for a month and a half until I was appointed deputy director in the village of Dobrotvor. It was a big lower secondary school with some 430 pupils. It was housed in a long barrack. This barrack was a shabby facility. I was young and full of energy and kept writing letters to the district management saying that it was necessary to build a new school in Dobrotvor.
The local citizens didn't hide their joy on the day of Stalin's death on 5th March 1953. I thought his death was a loss for the country. I thought things were not going to be right afterwards. His role in the war was great. It was only due to his cruelty that we won, due to his orders of 'Not a step backwards', and to shoot anybody retreating without a commander's order.
Well, the next event in my life was that I was put into prison. Here is what happened. The local children weren't willing to become pioneers. They were against the Soviet power. Many families were arriving from Eastern Ukraine. Their children came to school and they were pioneers. Once a local boy hit a boy from Eastern Ukraine demanding that he took off his pioneer's necktie. That pupil was a big boy and he began to smother that boy with his red necktie. I came to his rescue and hit that boy on his face several times. The other children were watching the scene. An investigation officer came and opened a case against me. The trial was scheduled for 17th June 1953 during final exams. My pupils came to school early in the morning to take their exams in history, and later we all went to the court sitting in the district town.
I was sentenced to three years imprisonment for exceeding my office commission and was deprived of the right to be a teacher in the future. I was put into jail in Lvov. What saved me was my good memory and the possibility to read. There was a thief in this jail that held a higher hierarchal position among inmates. He liked to listen to stories I told him. I told him a lot from the historical novels and other books that I had read. He took me under his guardianship: The others didn't touch me, nobody opened the parcels that my mother brought me, and I had the best spot in the cell.
There were usually several inmates in one prison cell. The attitude towards newcomers was cruel. They were beaten and punished for everything they did and weren't allowed any freedom. They got a place to sleep near the toilet. Once the thief asked me why I was sentenced and advised me to submit a request to transfer me to a camp. I submitted quite a few such requests. There was no anti-Semitism in jail. I stayed in this prison in Lvov for over a year. My mother brought me parcels and supported me in every possible way. Later I was sent to a camp to cut wood in the Belyie Sady, near Moscow. I worked in the library and club of the camp.
I was sentenced to three years imprisonment for exceeding my office commission and was deprived of the right to be a teacher in the future. I was put into jail in Lvov. What saved me was my good memory and the possibility to read. There was a thief in this jail that held a higher hierarchal position among inmates. He liked to listen to stories I told him. I told him a lot from the historical novels and other books that I had read. He took me under his guardianship: The others didn't touch me, nobody opened the parcels that my mother brought me, and I had the best spot in the cell.
There were usually several inmates in one prison cell. The attitude towards newcomers was cruel. They were beaten and punished for everything they did and weren't allowed any freedom. They got a place to sleep near the toilet. Once the thief asked me why I was sentenced and advised me to submit a request to transfer me to a camp. I submitted quite a few such requests. There was no anti-Semitism in jail. I stayed in this prison in Lvov for over a year. My mother brought me parcels and supported me in every possible way. Later I was sent to a camp to cut wood in the Belyie Sady, near Moscow. I worked in the library and club of the camp.
She promised to speak only Russian in the family, not a word in Ukrainian, because Russian was my mother tongue, and my Ukrainian was very poor. Although she was a teacher of Ukrainian she followed our agreement. We had a civil wedding ceremony in the local registry office and rented a room in the village where I worked.