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Therefore, when in 1937 I was offered a job at the Komsomol construction site in Nakhodka [Far East, in 8000 km from Kiev] where they were building a shipyard he was even glad that I got an opportunity to move away. Even thought this meant that we were not going to see each other for a long while, he was glad that I would be away from Podol and the synagogue and would be involved in the construction of a new life. My friends and I went to the Far East on a Komsomol assignment. We traveled by train. Our trip lasted for over two weeks. In the carriage we sang new patriotic songs from the movies that we liked: ‘ Spacious is my native land’, ‘March of enthusiasts’ and others.
There was a big shipyard to be built in Nakhodka. This was a gigantic construction site and there were probably about ten thousand workers to be involved in it. We were accommodated in barracks and in few months we moved to a hostel that was like a barrack only there were more comforts. We worked three shifts and the night shift was the most difficult, but we were young and made a strong team. There was no national segregation: workers were the children of proletariat and peasantry. They came from various towns of the USSR. We didn’t have these Komsomol meetings to condemn ‘enemies of the people’. We were far from the Central Party and Komsomol offices and it made our life there more democratic. We worked and were equal. I was soon elected a crew leader of our crew of ship mechanics. Since we completed our five-year plans and did higher scopes of work than scheduled I was awarded a medal ‘For work achievements’ by the government. It was a very honorable award handed by high officials in the Kremlin. We were invited to Moscow to receive our awards, but it was too far from where I was and I decided to postpone this trip until I went to visit my parents in Kiev. My plans were not to come true: the Great Patriotic War began.
There was a big shipyard to be built in Nakhodka. This was a gigantic construction site and there were probably about ten thousand workers to be involved in it. We were accommodated in barracks and in few months we moved to a hostel that was like a barrack only there were more comforts. We worked three shifts and the night shift was the most difficult, but we were young and made a strong team. There was no national segregation: workers were the children of proletariat and peasantry. They came from various towns of the USSR. We didn’t have these Komsomol meetings to condemn ‘enemies of the people’. We were far from the Central Party and Komsomol offices and it made our life there more democratic. We worked and were equal. I was soon elected a crew leader of our crew of ship mechanics. Since we completed our five-year plans and did higher scopes of work than scheduled I was awarded a medal ‘For work achievements’ by the government. It was a very honorable award handed by high officials in the Kremlin. We were invited to Moscow to receive our awards, but it was too far from where I was and I decided to postpone this trip until I went to visit my parents in Kiev. My plans were not to come true: the Great Patriotic War began.
Period
Location
Russia
Interview
Semyon Levbarg