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My younger brother Efim was born in Tashkent in 1944, and that same year, when he was only one month old, our family returned to Kiev. We settled down in my father’s parents’ apartment in Gorky street, where he had grown up. It was a poor communal apartment, and our family lived in one room. My father’s brother Iosif and sister Rachel’s family lived in the room next door. We had another neighbor: Ida Kotlar, a Jew. They all tried to support and help each other. When we arrived, our Ukrainian neighbors gave us some bed linen and furniture, as we didn’t have anything at all. The toilet and water were in the yard. We cooked our food on kerosene stoves.
My father went to work at a factory, and my mother stayed home with us kids. Later my mother also went to work, leaving us in the care of our elderly neighbors. Ours was a multinational courtyard – one could hear a mixture of three languages: Russian, Ukrainian and Yiddish. I remember that we were always hungry. There were ration coupons for bread. Sometimes my father brought lumps of sugar from his work that he got as food rations for the employees. We used to sit at the table and my mother broke these lumps in pieces, saying “Here is a piece for Zina, this one for Fima and this is for Daddy and Mommy.” Of course, those lumps for Daddy and Mommy were tiny, purely symbolic. My younger brother would eat his sugar quickly and then ask me to share mine with him. I felt so sorry for him that I would give him some of mine no matter how much I wanted to eat it myself. When my parents left for work, all that we had at home were onions and some bread. I used to cut a slice of bread, then I fried some onion with a little piece of pork fat and made a sandwich with this fried onion. Mommy told us to divide what we had, so when we ate we pushed some of the onion to the side, to leave it for the next meal. One of our neighbors had a vegetable garden in the yard, where she grew corn and various vegetables. We stole onions, carrots and cabbage from her garden and ate them raw to keep it a secret from our parents. We also stole corn and cooked in on the fire. Some people kept chicken, geese and even goats. Sometimes older boys caught a chicken and roasted it on the fire. I was scared to look at them killing it, but then I enjoyed having a piece of chicken when the boys gave me one. Of course, our parents had no idea about this “business” of ours. If they had found out it would have caused a terrible scandal, because they always taught us to be honest and never steal. But we were doing this because we were so hungry. Later we were sent to kindergarten. Our tutor was Musia, the daughter-in-law of my father’s brother Leonid. Life became easier in kindergarten, as we had meals there, even if they were scanty.
My father went to work at a factory, and my mother stayed home with us kids. Later my mother also went to work, leaving us in the care of our elderly neighbors. Ours was a multinational courtyard – one could hear a mixture of three languages: Russian, Ukrainian and Yiddish. I remember that we were always hungry. There were ration coupons for bread. Sometimes my father brought lumps of sugar from his work that he got as food rations for the employees. We used to sit at the table and my mother broke these lumps in pieces, saying “Here is a piece for Zina, this one for Fima and this is for Daddy and Mommy.” Of course, those lumps for Daddy and Mommy were tiny, purely symbolic. My younger brother would eat his sugar quickly and then ask me to share mine with him. I felt so sorry for him that I would give him some of mine no matter how much I wanted to eat it myself. When my parents left for work, all that we had at home were onions and some bread. I used to cut a slice of bread, then I fried some onion with a little piece of pork fat and made a sandwich with this fried onion. Mommy told us to divide what we had, so when we ate we pushed some of the onion to the side, to leave it for the next meal. One of our neighbors had a vegetable garden in the yard, where she grew corn and various vegetables. We stole onions, carrots and cabbage from her garden and ate them raw to keep it a secret from our parents. We also stole corn and cooked in on the fire. Some people kept chicken, geese and even goats. Sometimes older boys caught a chicken and roasted it on the fire. I was scared to look at them killing it, but then I enjoyed having a piece of chicken when the boys gave me one. Of course, our parents had no idea about this “business” of ours. If they had found out it would have caused a terrible scandal, because they always taught us to be honest and never steal. But we were doing this because we were so hungry. Later we were sent to kindergarten. Our tutor was Musia, the daughter-in-law of my father’s brother Leonid. Life became easier in kindergarten, as we had meals there, even if they were scanty.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Zinaida Leibovich