Tag #118499 - Interview #78080 (Isroel Lempertas)

Our family lived the way all common families lived by the soviet regime- from check to check. We did not have any riches, but our life was pretty decent. My wife worked as a doctor. Children, like others, went to the kindergarten, then to school. Mother helped us the best way she could. In early 1960s she was getting more and more unwell. She took to her bed and in died in 1965. She was buried in the Jewish sector of the cemetery [34], but without any Jewish rites being observed. We went on vacation every year, sometimes with children. Like most people from Vilnius we went to the spas [Recreation ?enters in the the USSR] [35] in Palanga [popular resort in Lithuania on the coast of the Baltic Sea]. We got trade-union travel vouchers and had to pay only 30% of the trip, so we could afford to take a vacation every year. Children went pioneer camps on the territory of Lithuania. In early 1970s I bought a car and we took an interest to travel around Lithuania. We went to Crimea and the Carpathians [Ukraine]. In couple of years I got a land plot for my orchard. At that time there collective horticulture was developed and workers were given land plots of 600m2. The land plot was small and the cottage built could not exceed 30 square meters. We enjoyed taking care of our garden, orchard and flowerbeds. All could fit in our house- we, our children and grandchildren. When the restrictions as for the size of cottages were cancelled, I expanded my cottage. Now we have a pretty decent heated dacha [summer house].