Tag #149761 - Interview #92024 (Naum Bitman)

When I grew older I tried to figure out why the word “zhyd” was so widely used to abuse the Jews. Podol where we were living was historically the place where many Jewish people were living. And so, we had about 80 per cent of Jews in our class and for some time we didn’t feel any anti-Semitism because there were quite a few of us. Eizenstein, Rubinstein, Golberg were my classmates. Then it occurred to me that when it was said: people, friendship of the people, we all went through the war – Ukrainians, Russians, Byelorussians, Lithuanians, Uzbek – they never mentioned Jewish people. Not even as an example. It happened so that there was a small group of Jewish students in our class – about seven of us. We were friends, spent much time together, but we never spoke about our nation then. Nobody talked about Babiy Yar then. If, for example, somebody asked: “Where is Zhenia Goldinova?” – “She went away to Babiy Yar”. This could only be said in everyday conversation, and with lowered voice. Nobody said then that Kiev was a place of mass tragedy like Treblinka, Auschwitz, Buchenwald.