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Shortly after we returned from evacuation my sisters Sarah and Manya got married and so did our brother Naum. Sarah married Aron Rubinshtein, a Jewish man. Sarah finished an accounting school and worked at the ‘Progress’ shoe factory, her husband worked there as production engineer. In early 1950s her son Isaac was born, named after my mother’s father. In 1970s Sarah and her family moved to the US. They live in New York.
Manya married Izia Grinwald, a Jewish man. He was a shop assistant in a store and Manya went to work there, too. Their only son Lyova went to serve in the Soviet army and his unit was sent to Afghanistan. His parents didn’t know where he was since he didn’t mention it in his letters. He was brought home on a stretcher in 1985 – he was shell-shocked and paralyzed and died soon. Manya and her husband moved to Israel – they reside in Beer-Sheva. My brother Naum finished a school of household services and became a watchmaker. In 1979 Naum, his wife Lena and son Misha moved to New York.
The Party district committee in Lvov gave me an assignment to hold a position of director of a food store. I was doing well at work. In early 1950s, at the height of anti-Semitic struggle against cosmopolites [11] I had continuous audits in my store. Auditors were looking for any violations, but couldn’t find any. Once an auditor said fretting ‘People told me that this zhydovka had things in order – she spoke Ukrainian. Auditors didn’t find a thing to blame me in violations. We took Stalin’s death in 1953 without any emotions; we understood that ‘nature abhors vacuum’. Besides, we had our own problems – so why would we be grieving about a person that was stranger to us. There was always anti-Semitism in Lvov: in the streets, in transport, at work one could hear this «zhydy are to blame for everything’. Here I have to mention that I never heard anything like that said to my children or me. We had Jewish, Ukrainian and Polish friends – we celebrated Soviet holidays together, went to the cinema, theaters and supported one another. I retired from the store I worked at in 1976.
Manya married Izia Grinwald, a Jewish man. He was a shop assistant in a store and Manya went to work there, too. Their only son Lyova went to serve in the Soviet army and his unit was sent to Afghanistan. His parents didn’t know where he was since he didn’t mention it in his letters. He was brought home on a stretcher in 1985 – he was shell-shocked and paralyzed and died soon. Manya and her husband moved to Israel – they reside in Beer-Sheva. My brother Naum finished a school of household services and became a watchmaker. In 1979 Naum, his wife Lena and son Misha moved to New York.
The Party district committee in Lvov gave me an assignment to hold a position of director of a food store. I was doing well at work. In early 1950s, at the height of anti-Semitic struggle against cosmopolites [11] I had continuous audits in my store. Auditors were looking for any violations, but couldn’t find any. Once an auditor said fretting ‘People told me that this zhydovka had things in order – she spoke Ukrainian. Auditors didn’t find a thing to blame me in violations. We took Stalin’s death in 1953 without any emotions; we understood that ‘nature abhors vacuum’. Besides, we had our own problems – so why would we be grieving about a person that was stranger to us. There was always anti-Semitism in Lvov: in the streets, in transport, at work one could hear this «zhydy are to blame for everything’. Here I have to mention that I never heard anything like that said to my children or me. We had Jewish, Ukrainian and Polish friends – we celebrated Soviet holidays together, went to the cinema, theaters and supported one another. I retired from the store I worked at in 1976.
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Ukraine
Interview
Faina Saushkina Biography
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