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I went to the Ukrainian school in Chernovtsy in 1945. I studied there for two years. I remember my first teacher, Nadezhda Alexandrovna. We liked her a lot. She told us about Lenin. In the 1st grade I became a Young Octobrist [13] and proudly wore my star badge. After I finished the 2nd grade a separate educational system for boys and girls was introduced, and boys went to a Russian school. There were 28 Jews out of 32 children in our class. It was easier for us to talk in Yiddish than in Russian. Besides, half of our teachers were Jews. In the 3rd grade I became a pioneer. We celebrated Soviet holidays at school: 1st May and 7th November [October Revolution Day] [14]. We went to the parades and then came back to school for a meeting and a concert. After the parade we had ice cream, which was an event in itself for us, considering that this was the period of lack of food. We didn't celebrate Soviet holidays at home.
In the 5th grade we got a new class tutor, Artyom Terentievich Molchanov. He was Byelarus, a retired military, and married to a Jewish woman. We all remember him with respect and love. He ignored mandatory political information requirements, but each week one of us had to prepare a report about an interesting historical event that happened during that week in the past. These reports taught us how to use the library and work with historical data. We also learned to speak in front of the an audience and keep them interested.
In the 8th grade I became a Komsomol [15] member. I had been looking forward to it. I believed that my life would change and become more interesting. After I had been a member for some time I realized that two copeckthe two-copeck fee per month I paid was all that it was about it. When I was a student at university I 'lost' my membership card with all my great pleasure.
Many children in our class went in for sports. I couldn't catch up with them. I was weaker than the others due to the years I spent in the fascist camp. Therefore So, I had very little interest in sports. I read and was fond of theater instead. They established a people's theater in the Jewish theater. Mihail Loev, the producer at the Jewish theater, was its director. I took part in their performances and continued, even later when I became a school teacherschoolteacher.
In 1948 I was 11. I remember the campaign against cosmopolitism, although it didn't touch our family. I was the only boy in our class that had a father. The others perished at the front. Other boys had only mothers that were working hard to raise their children. Accordingly, none of them had anything to do with ideology. I remember that our deputy director Maria Abramovna Levina lost her position. She worked as a chemistry teacher. I was too young then to understand what was going on. There was no real anti-Semitism at school, but I remember one incident. In 1954, when we were in the 10th grade, one boy called another boy 'zhyd' [kike] because that other boy didn't let him rewrite something in mathematics. We didn't beat him. We knew that we couldn't use physical strength. We had a Komsomol meeting where everyone spoke. That boy felt that everyone despised him for what he had done and left our school.
In the 5th grade we got a new class tutor, Artyom Terentievich Molchanov. He was Byelarus, a retired military, and married to a Jewish woman. We all remember him with respect and love. He ignored mandatory political information requirements, but each week one of us had to prepare a report about an interesting historical event that happened during that week in the past. These reports taught us how to use the library and work with historical data. We also learned to speak in front of the an audience and keep them interested.
In the 8th grade I became a Komsomol [15] member. I had been looking forward to it. I believed that my life would change and become more interesting. After I had been a member for some time I realized that two copeckthe two-copeck fee per month I paid was all that it was about it. When I was a student at university I 'lost' my membership card with all my great pleasure.
Many children in our class went in for sports. I couldn't catch up with them. I was weaker than the others due to the years I spent in the fascist camp. Therefore So, I had very little interest in sports. I read and was fond of theater instead. They established a people's theater in the Jewish theater. Mihail Loev, the producer at the Jewish theater, was its director. I took part in their performances and continued, even later when I became a school teacherschoolteacher.
In 1948 I was 11. I remember the campaign against cosmopolitism, although it didn't touch our family. I was the only boy in our class that had a father. The others perished at the front. Other boys had only mothers that were working hard to raise their children. Accordingly, none of them had anything to do with ideology. I remember that our deputy director Maria Abramovna Levina lost her position. She worked as a chemistry teacher. I was too young then to understand what was going on. There was no real anti-Semitism at school, but I remember one incident. In 1954, when we were in the 10th grade, one boy called another boy 'zhyd' [kike] because that other boy didn't let him rewrite something in mathematics. We didn't beat him. We knew that we couldn't use physical strength. We had a Komsomol meeting where everyone spoke. That boy felt that everyone despised him for what he had done and left our school.
Location
Ukraine
Interview
efim pisarenko