Tag #117607 - Interview #100514 (Frieda Shteinene)

I vividly remember the house, where I spent my childhood. It was a small house for two apartments- the smaller one was occupied by two disabled people Meer and Golda. Meer was deaf and Golda was blind. Parents worked hard and had a pretty good living. There were three rooms in the apartment. Mother’s workshop was in the largest room. It was a corner room where three sewing machines were places, one for mother and the other two for her apprentices. Mother always apprenticed two people the way she was in Kaunas and they did simple work. There was a large wooden table, used for ironing and two large pig iron presses. They were heated with coals. They took them to the river as we did not want any sparkle get on a fabric. It was fun at home. Mother joked and sang. I liked to spend time with her apprentices. I remembered two sisters- Itele and Etele Spits best of all. They were beauties with long eye lashes and huge eyes. Both of them were killed during a big action in October 1941 in Zagare when grandmother and Basya also died. Apart from the workshop. There were two more rooms- a small room with the door with the exit outside and parents’ bedroom with a large bed and a small cot for me. The kitchen door was opening to the garden. Both apartments were heated with the Russian stove, which was stoked by our neighbors. There was an oven in the kitchen for cooking. Our yard was neighboring with the baker Oliferiy Mitrofanov. He was a baker at the bakery of the Jew Narta. The pretzels he made were the best and we bought them. Oliferiy was an old believer [14], a kind person and my parents were friends with him. I played wit his daughter Valya. She was 'handed over' the fence to play with me. We had been playing for hours and started speaking good Yiddish like me. When I was to go to the Jewish kindergarten, Valya went with me as there was other place for her.