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Displaying 26491 - 26520 of 50826 results
Tamara-Alexandra Goldenberg
Meanwhile the institute life continued. We got together in the conference hall to listen to Stalin’s speeches on the radio or to watch modern movies. There were also a lot of circles. I was fond of literature and enjoyed studying in general. On the weekend my friends and I used to go to the cinema, theater and museums. We also went dancing and met with boys. I remained timid and shy, and did not date anybody.
I graduated from the institute in the full swing of the Spanish events [cf. Spanish Civil War] [17]. When I was in the fourth year, we were taught Spanish. After graduation I got a mandatory job assignment [18] in Obninsk [about 100 km south of Moscow], at the Spanish orphanage, where children of Spanish anti-fascists stayed. Obninsk was a hick town, though picturesque. That orphanage was meant for Spanish children. Some of my fellow students left with me. We settled in the local hostel. Our life there was tedious and monotonous.
Father was severely ill at that time, and before leaving for work I decided to visit my parents. My father passed away on the day of my arrival. He did not recognize me. He confused me with his younger sister Adelaida. But I was told he was awaiting me that night. It was the year of 1938. Almost the whole city was at my father’s burial. He was so revered. There was a report on his death in the Sevastopol paper of 12th September 1938. Father was buried in the Jewish cemetery, in the shrine built by Grandfather.
Mother got into trouble after Father’s death. They tried to evict her from the apartment. It was so good that many officials would have liked to settle in there. We lived in the city center. We had only two rooms left, but still they were hunkered for. It was a very difficult year for my mother. They harassed her a lot, called her to the NKVD [19], terrorized her. They considered that she trespassed against the Soviet regime as her rich father had left Russia after the revolution. While the father was alive, nobody made attempts on that apartment as he was well-respected in the city. My mother, having been confused by those indecent people, suffered in Sevastopol.
I worked in the Spanish orphanage for half a year. Then I was offered a job in the French chair of the Moscow Foreign Languages Institute, I had graduated from. It took pains to be lodged in the institute hostel. The hostel looked like a wooden barrack, located on the outskirts of Moscow. I shared a room with the English teacher. Soon she left, I do not even know where to. I suppose she was imprisoned. It was the time when people vanished into thin air.
My husband, Andrey Shamardin, was born in 1907 in some tiny hamlet of Kursk region. He came from a common family of a Russian peasant. I have never met his parents. I do not even know their names. He finished compulsory school in 1925. When he left school, he went to the navy as a volunteer. He was allocated in Sevastopol. He lived there and was an active member of OSOAVIACHIMA. [The society of assistance in defense and aviation and chemical construction, it was a mass volunteer organization of USSR citizens, existing from 1927 till 1948. The aim was to assist the army in military training of the civilians and nurturing patriotic spirit in them.].
Then he had one of the leading positions in the party work in Sevastopol, where we bumped into each other in 1937 during one of my holiday trips home.
Then he had one of the leading positions in the party work in Sevastopol, where we bumped into each other in 1937 during one of my holiday trips home.
We got married at the end of 1939 in Moscow. We just went to the marriage registration office and got registered there.
After his departure from Sevastopol, there was a court hearing, where somebody else’s negligence was appended to him. Some people were blaming him. As a result, he was expelled from the party and had to leave Sevastopol. Soon he found a job as a locksmith and retired from that organization. He worked for different companies involved in water supply, such as ‘Mosvodokanal’ [Moscow water channel].
On 22nd June, 1941 the war was unleashed. My husband and I were about to go for a stroll as it was broadcast on the radio that the war had been unleashed.
. My husband was waiting for mobilization. He was drafted a month after the war began. He was in the Baltic navy, and stayed there until the end of the war. He was demobilized in June 1945, and he came back to Moscow.
My mother and I stayed in Moscow during the war. In October 1941, when the Germans came close to Moscow, people started panicking and fleeing from the city. The rector of our institute was gone, he must have escaped the city, too. Our institute was not evacuated, even during constant bombing and when the Germans approached the city.
We had very little food. Mother tried to make some variety, and changed things for provision. It was very cold. Students sat there wearing their coats during classes. I went to the markets near Moscow to buy warm clothes, but my trips were not always successful. I was robbed of the purchased things or my money was stolen. Mother learned how to type and I had odd jobs typing. My mother typed for some employers of our institute, and they highly appreciated her work, since she was a literate typist.
My ancestors settled in the Crimea long before I was born. My father Jacob Goldenberg’s generation lived in Simferopol [about 1350 km to the south from Moscow]. My parental great-grandfather, Shlema Malinskiy, settled in Simferopol in 1856 after his army service in Sevastopol was over [Sevastopol is about 1430 km south of Moscow]. He was in the Black Sea Fleet [1] of the tsar’s army during the Crimean war [2]. By the tsar’s decree Jews who had defended Sevastopol were entitled to settle in that city. [In Tsarist Russia Jews were allowed to settle only in the Jewish Pale of Settlement [3], apart from merchants and doctors, who were permitted to settle in larger cities too. In this case an exception was made based on military merits.] That is why my ancestors settled in the Crimea.
Grandfather lived in Simferopol. He was bourgeois, owned a house at Gogolevskaya Street, and sold things. I do not know exactly what he sold. Grandfather was married twice. I do not know anything about his first wife. She must have died. I also have no information about his education. I do not know whether he was religious. I do not think he was very religious and neither was Grandmother.
When my husband came back from the front, he worked for different companies in Moscow. First he went to work for the same organization he had worked for before, ‘Mosvodokanal,’ as a locksmith. Then he worked in the brewery. All his jobs were connected with administrative support. He changed jobs very often because of the conflicts with directors, though he was not a conflict person.
At the beginning of 1942 Germans captured the city. On July 22 they shot Jews. We had a lot of relatives in Sevastopol. All of them perished. I remember there were two of my mother’s cousins. They lived with their blind mother Sonya. She passed away during Sevastopol’s siege. Her daughters were taken to Balaklava along with other Jews, and shot there. Nobody survived from our relatives in Sevastopol.
We lived in the hostel with one shower on the floor and a toilet at the end of the corridor, one common kitchen with two gas cookers, cockroaches and rats until 1977.
I never gave up teaching. I taught French and practical French grammar. It was a difficult job. I would not wish anybody such a job. In 1954 I defended my post-graduate thesis, and was conferred with a scientific doctorate degree in philological science. I took pains to defend the thesis. I was working on my dissertation and teaching full time.
When I defended my scientific work and graduated from post-graduate school I was appointed a job. They tried to send me to Gorky in spite of the fact that my husband worked in Moscow. I objected to it. I was expelled from the institute. I was unemployed for some time. Then I went back to the institute. I worked as a senior teacher, and my salary was inconsiderable increased.
Our life was difficult and joyless. I used to get ill very often, my mother was constantly unwell. I kept late hours at work, had classes with my students, but still we could hardly make a living. Mother took care of the household, cooked, cleaned and went shopping. I still remained modest and shy, did not want to be a burden to anybody.
I did not get along with my husband. He had his own life: friends, carousing. He stopped to care about my opinion, did not spend nights at home. I did not even try to change anything. It was of no importance or interest to me. Our upbringing, education and values were way too different, but we still lived together. We did not have children. We lived modestly, did not have any guests or receptions.
I did not get along with my husband. He had his own life: friends, carousing. He stopped to care about my opinion, did not spend nights at home. I did not even try to change anything. It was of no importance or interest to me. Our upbringing, education and values were way too different, but we still lived together. We did not have children. We lived modestly, did not have any guests or receptions.
In the article he responded to the question of one student of the German department. Our teachers, who followed Marr’s studies, were publicly reprimanded at general meetings. Many people were fired, or assigned to lower positions just for the bravery to speak their minds. After that any methodological work had to start with the words about Stalin, about his discovery, which turned things over making one step ahead. Stalin should be given credit for writing his articles by himself. He had a simple and legible style, explaining things very well. As compared to Lenin’s works, which were difficult to read, Stalin’s clear and understandable works conveyed verity, pushing to follow instructions without pondering and doubts.
I did not enter the party, though I was suggested to do so on a number of occasions. I was apolitical as I knew that my husband had been expelled from the party.
In 1948 a remarkable Jewish actor, Mikhoels [22], perished tragically, then there was a struggle against cosmopolitans [23]. At first, I did not understand that all those actions were directed against Jews. I was very gullible. Gradually there were less and less Jewish teachers at the university. I was astounded why I was not touched before retirement. Maybe, for the reason that I was neither bellicose, nor an upstart, but remained in the shadow.
When the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee [24] was imprisoned and shot, and doctors were put behind bars [cf. Doctors’ Plot] [25], I understood that all those actions were against Jews. It was a dreadful time. What could we have done? Only sympathize. Jews were squeezed out from jobs. Finally I was the only Jew that remained in our faculty. There were much less Jews among students as well.
I took Stalin’s death in March 1953 as a tragedy just like the overwhelming majority in my country. It was unimaginable what happened in the country. The coffin with Stalin’s body was placed in the column hall of the Kremlin. Thousands of people were streaming there to say good-bye to Stalin. The line to the column hall started at Trubnaya Street, which was several kilometers away from the Kremlin. There was a terrible jostle, and many people died in the throng. I was trying to get there with my neighbor and his pal, but it was useless. Nobody made it mandatory. It was a huge emotional outburst. There was a meeting in the institute. Teachers and students took the floor. People cried.
Perestroika [26], which began in the 1980s, was good from the standpoint that people were able to communicate with their relatives overseas, write to them, visit them, and even immigrate abroad, if they wished. I could not have believed changes for the better. I was not interested in politics, just had the same hard and tedious life. With perestroika life turned out to be even more difficult: money depreciated, it was hard to buy food and even the simplest medicine.
I read a lot about Israel. It was interesting for me to empathize. Neither Mother nor I admitted a thought to immigrate there. Who would need elderly and ill people in a foreign country?
Now I am sick, helpless and lonely. The charitable organization ‘Yad Ezra’ from Joint [27] has helped me a lot. When my husband was severely ill, there was a nurse who gave him injections, and bathed him. He also helped me, the helpless at that time. He brought us food. They have been taking care of me since 1987. This organization gives me products monthly. A house-keeper lives with me. She cleans the apartment, does the laundry and cooks. The organization Joint does a very good job, and I am extremely grateful.
I am really worried about the large archive that I keep at home. There are my documents that used to belong to my parents, grandparents and their ancestors, their letters, pictures, and other belongings. This archive is the only precious thing I’ve got. I have kept all those things all my life, and now there is nobody I can bequeath it to. Nobody from my grand-nephews, mostly residing in France, knows anything about our family’s history. They are not interested in the past. Some of the documents in this archive were given to the Sevastopol museum. But now it is a different state [Ukraine], and things are overly complicated.