Tag #154440 - Interview #97841 (Hertz Rogovoy )

After father’s return my brother Grigoriy moved to Kiev with his family. At that time there were few people who even got the middle technical education. In spite of the fact that my brother graduated from a mere vocational school he worked as a chief engineer for a construction trust in Kiev. In 1936 Stalin constitution was brought into action [on 5 December 1936 the second Constitution of the Soviet Union was adopted and it was commonly called the Stalin’s Constitution. It existed till 1977], which abolished ’suppression of rights‘. My brothers had nothing to fear. Grigoriy’s elder daughter Tsilya was born in Konstantinovo in 1935, and the younger daughter Liudmila was born in 1937. Brother was very talented, he had a wonderful voice. He was sent to talent contests in Moscow, where he won 1st prizes. There were articles about him in the paper Izvestiya [one of the most popular communistic papers in the USSR, issued in the period of 1917- 1980s, with the circulation exceeding eight million copies]. If brother had finished conservatoire instead of technical vocational school, he would definitely become a well-known singer.

As a rule my parents spoke Russian to me at home, and they spoke Russian between themselves. If they wanted to conceal something from me, they spoke Yiddish. I felt insulted because they kept secrets from me. That is why I voluntarily got the rudiments of Yiddish, and later on I began to comprehend all they were saying. Of course, I pretended I did not understand a thing. I was pleased to find out their secrets without them knowing about it.