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My friends were Jewish, Ukrainian, Russian and Polish boys. We spoke Russian. We went swimming in a pond. We were friends. Sometimes we had fights but no nationality conflicts. We didn't differentiate between Jewish and non-Jewish friends. I went to the Jewish 4-year school in Zemikhovo. We studied in Yiddish, but we didn't study any special Jewish subjects. All schools in the USSR had to comply with the standard and mandatory program. We also had Russian and Ukrainian classes. I shared a desk with Liza, a beautiful girl. Later her family moved to Russia.
I was a pioneer like everybody else. Once there was a relay race with a baton in our school. I didn't have any idea what it was like to run with a baton, but I was a good runner. There were many people on the route, which went uphill. When a boy gave me the baton he injured my hand, and I ran without the baton. Then I had to return to pick up the baton. Because of this delay another boy outran me, but he pushed me and I fell and tore my pants. I felt hurt that I had lost, and hit that boy in the face so hard that his nose started bleeding. There was a tailor at the competition, and he wanted to mend my pants. I went to his home. I had never seen such poverty before. He had a plank table and a sewing machine. That was all. I felt so sorry for him. I wrote a little poem in Yiddish about the poverty and misery of this man. He was a small man. Since I was the editor of the school newspaper, I placed my poem where it would be seen best. The director of the school, Smotritskiy, a Jew, called me into his office, said that I was talented and asked me if I wanted to write poems. I said that I did. My poetic activities ended where they began though. I had to move to Nova-Ushytsya to continue my studies in the 5th grade because there was only a primary school in our village.
After 1917 the lives of many people in Zemikhovo became much worse, and they wanted to move somewhere else. It was at that time that my older brother, Misha, got into trouble. He was the secretary of the village council, which was an official position. He was the second most important man in the village, after the chairman of the village council, and he issued two certificates to his Ukrainian friends. They wanted to continue their studies in town. During this period people weren't allowed to move from villages to towns, and the village authorities weren't allowed to issue such certificates. Misha was taken to court for issuing these two certificates and sentenced to imprisonment in jail in Dnepropetrovsk. He worked at the Petrovskiy plant. I visited him once in 1934. I spent three days with him and that was the last time that I saw him. Later he went to work in Ulan-Ude, Kazakhstan, as my brother Yasha told me. Yasha also found out that Misha perished in 1943. I have no idea whether he had a family or not.
I was a pioneer like everybody else. Once there was a relay race with a baton in our school. I didn't have any idea what it was like to run with a baton, but I was a good runner. There were many people on the route, which went uphill. When a boy gave me the baton he injured my hand, and I ran without the baton. Then I had to return to pick up the baton. Because of this delay another boy outran me, but he pushed me and I fell and tore my pants. I felt hurt that I had lost, and hit that boy in the face so hard that his nose started bleeding. There was a tailor at the competition, and he wanted to mend my pants. I went to his home. I had never seen such poverty before. He had a plank table and a sewing machine. That was all. I felt so sorry for him. I wrote a little poem in Yiddish about the poverty and misery of this man. He was a small man. Since I was the editor of the school newspaper, I placed my poem where it would be seen best. The director of the school, Smotritskiy, a Jew, called me into his office, said that I was talented and asked me if I wanted to write poems. I said that I did. My poetic activities ended where they began though. I had to move to Nova-Ushytsya to continue my studies in the 5th grade because there was only a primary school in our village.
After 1917 the lives of many people in Zemikhovo became much worse, and they wanted to move somewhere else. It was at that time that my older brother, Misha, got into trouble. He was the secretary of the village council, which was an official position. He was the second most important man in the village, after the chairman of the village council, and he issued two certificates to his Ukrainian friends. They wanted to continue their studies in town. During this period people weren't allowed to move from villages to towns, and the village authorities weren't allowed to issue such certificates. Misha was taken to court for issuing these two certificates and sentenced to imprisonment in jail in Dnepropetrovsk. He worked at the Petrovskiy plant. I visited him once in 1934. I spent three days with him and that was the last time that I saw him. Later he went to work in Ulan-Ude, Kazakhstan, as my brother Yasha told me. Yasha also found out that Misha perished in 1943. I have no idea whether he had a family or not.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
grigoriy sirotta