Tag #145141 - Interview #96838 (Igor Brover)

There were about 500 people working in our kolkhoz. Probably, about 150 of them were Ukrainians and the rest were Jews.  Chairman of the kolkhoz was a Jew. His surname was Fabricant. The kolkhoz members built houses and they are still there, one and all beautiful, under the red tile roofs. They built a school. This was a Jewish school before the war. They taught children in Yiddish. After the war they switched to Russian. The kolkhoz was in the steppe and there were fields all around. There was no water reservoir and they made an artesian well, the first in this area, installed a pump and it pumped water for the whole village. We had running water in the house. Only in our village there was electricity. A generator supplied power to houses between 8 in the morning through midnight. Our kolkhoz 'Schtern' was one of the best in Rasdelnia district. There was a big orchard. Apricots were transported to Leningrad. They grew wheat, vegetables, melons and watermelons in the kolkhoz. The kolkhoz members were paid in agricultural products for each working day. While in other kolkhozes the rate was 200 grams per day, in our kolkhoz it was 2 kg. There was no market in the kolkhoz. Every family kept livestock and received food products as payment for work in the kolkhoz. Life was good before the war. However, there was no Jewish community or rabbi or synagogue.  I don't think there was one religious Jew in the kolkhoz.