Tag #132847 - Interview #78145 (Simon Gutman)

We went to the synagogue when daddy died. My brother and me would go there daily, three times a day, to recite the Kaddish - the prayer of repentance. My elder brother, Yakov, didn't go. There were situations during the Civil War, when there was shooting, but all the same we used to attend the synagogue. My brother Solomon was fanatically religious in those years. He even read prayers for the night, lying in bed. But, you see, to offer a prayer you need a kippah! So he pulled a blanket over his head to say the prayer. Mum was religious, too. That was her family feature. She spoke extremely good Yiddish. And we haven't learned to speak Yiddish, whereas she taught all of her sons Hebrew. Wherever we lived, a teacher came to us, we always had a teacher of Hebrew. Many words I know up until today. A comrade taught us to read in Yiddish, when we were in the Komsomol [3]. He was a highly principled, noble lad. He had taught us, and I felt somewhat comfortable at once. I still read in Yiddish today.