Selected text
After the October Revolution of 1917 when the famine began in St.
Petersburg, my grandmother and her husband Zalman moved to Kiev.
(After WWI, St. Petersburg, the former capital of the Russian Empire,
was cut off from food supplies and actually blocked. Food industries
were impacted by the general chaos and long war in the country.) They
rented an apartment in the center of the city. During the civil war of
1916-1919, the regime changed 11 times in the city: the Reds (the
Soviet Army), the Whites (fighting for the Russian monarchy), and the
Greens (a well-known ataman, a leader of robbers and bandits, was
nicknamed Zeleniy, Russian for "green")-all took it several times.
I asked my grandmother about pogroms and she said "I guess there were
some in Podol, but I didn't know for sure."
"Did they happen when Denikin units were in town?" I asked. General
Deniken led a counter-revolutionary gang of White Guards, famous for
their brigandage and their anti-Semitic actions all over Russia;
legends were told of their cruelty. Few survived their pogroms.
"I don't know," my grandmother said, "Denikin officers were polite and
saluted me in the streets."
The pogroms happened in Jewish neighborhoods. My grandmother was a
beautiful, well-dressed, noble woman. However, she always remembered
her identity and was a Jew to the marrow of her bones. When I asked
her about the Bolsheviks, she called them bandits. The Bolsheviks
threw her family out of its house in 1918. The house was siezed to
become the Revolutionary Military Council office. The Bolsheviks took
away all the people's possessions. She saw them shaking chandeliers
where people had hidden their diamonds, and the diamonds falling from
there. However, they didn't throw her out of the house. Men were
always impressed by her beauty and manners. She told me that they gave
her a ring and earrings, which she exchanged for a quart of milk and
half loaf of bread during the blockade. After the civil war they
returned to Leningrad where her husband died.
Petersburg, my grandmother and her husband Zalman moved to Kiev.
(After WWI, St. Petersburg, the former capital of the Russian Empire,
was cut off from food supplies and actually blocked. Food industries
were impacted by the general chaos and long war in the country.) They
rented an apartment in the center of the city. During the civil war of
1916-1919, the regime changed 11 times in the city: the Reds (the
Soviet Army), the Whites (fighting for the Russian monarchy), and the
Greens (a well-known ataman, a leader of robbers and bandits, was
nicknamed Zeleniy, Russian for "green")-all took it several times.
I asked my grandmother about pogroms and she said "I guess there were
some in Podol, but I didn't know for sure."
"Did they happen when Denikin units were in town?" I asked. General
Deniken led a counter-revolutionary gang of White Guards, famous for
their brigandage and their anti-Semitic actions all over Russia;
legends were told of their cruelty. Few survived their pogroms.
"I don't know," my grandmother said, "Denikin officers were polite and
saluted me in the streets."
The pogroms happened in Jewish neighborhoods. My grandmother was a
beautiful, well-dressed, noble woman. However, she always remembered
her identity and was a Jew to the marrow of her bones. When I asked
her about the Bolsheviks, she called them bandits. The Bolsheviks
threw her family out of its house in 1918. The house was siezed to
become the Revolutionary Military Council office. The Bolsheviks took
away all the people's possessions. She saw them shaking chandeliers
where people had hidden their diamonds, and the diamonds falling from
there. However, they didn't throw her out of the house. Men were
always impressed by her beauty and manners. She told me that they gave
her a ring and earrings, which she exchanged for a quart of milk and
half loaf of bread during the blockade. After the civil war they
returned to Leningrad where her husband died.
Period
Location
Kiev
Ukraine
Interview
Roman Barskiy
Tag(s)