Tag #153429 - Interview #78479 (Irina Lidskaya)

There were pogroms against the Jews in Artyomovsk before the Revolution, my Mamma told me. My mamma’s face was the most typically Jewish of all the children.  During one terrible pogrom their neighbors, who were orthodox (Christians) hid Mamma and put an icon in the window. People who had icons in their windows sometimes avoided pogroms. But they all knew that if they found out that they were hiding somebody in the house, it put all the tenants in danger.  The neighbors covered Mamma’s head with a shawl and told her to remember that she was not Dina but Dunia. Mamma  managed to survive, but many Jews were killed. It wasn’t the only pogrom in Artymovsk, but I remember this story of my mother.  There were pogroms in Mariupol, too, but my father’s family avoided them.