I remember my parents and uncle Lyova fasting at Yom-Kipur. My mother said that fasting wasn’t necessary for us, children. I remember the bronze Hanukkiah and my mother lighting one candle every day. I also remember the gelt that children received at Hanukkah.
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Major events (political and historical)
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Displaying 49141 - 49170 of 50826 results
Revekka Mexina
In 1921 I went to the Russian school. It was a very good school. Our school was a grammar school before the revolution. We loved our teacher Serey Alexeevich. He was our teacher until we went to the 5th form. Since then we had a different teacher in every subject. Our teacher of mathematics was the daughter of director of the grammar school. She was a good teacher and I took to liking mathematics. I have always been very fond of it since then. There were quite a few Jewish children in our class. My best friend was Hana Elkenbard, a Jew. There were also Jewish teachers. Nationality wasn’t a matter of significance at that time and there was no anti-Semitism.
I became a pioneer at school. There was an active anti-religious propaganda at that time. We were taught that there was no God and those that believed in it were behind their time. Religion was called vestige of the past and the pioneers were called to fight against it. I was suffering so that my parents believed in God being such intelligent people and took every chance to convince them that there was no God. I must admit that all my anti-religious discussions had no results.
In 1920 my brother Israil finished school. At that time it was a problem for children of the higher class parents to enter a university, when the children of proletariat had all privileges. We came from a wealthy family for that time. My grandfather owned a store once and my father worked at his own timber storage facility. This was sufficient to refer us to the class of wealthy people. Proletariat families were those that starved and were poor and had nothing of their own. This new power and new society declared that it was going to give all privileges to the working and poor people. My brother went to work at the plant “Red Star” in Kirovograd. He was a molder apprentice at first and then became a molder himself. In 1922 my brother entered the Department of Industrial Electrical equipment at the Polytechnic University in Kharkov.
After finishing school I went to work at the “Pomosch” (”Help”) association. This association provided help to the starving people. I was responsible for gluing bags. I was a foreman of a crew of teenagers.
We moved to Donbass to join my brother there. It was a small house with two apartments. There was a kitchen garden near the house. My brother was the only one of the four of us (my brother, my mother, my father and I) that had a job. In 1930 I went to the school at the factory and got the profession of lab assistant/electrician. I also became a member of Komsomol5. After finishing this school I got a job assignment at a big machine-building plant in Lugansk. I worked as a lab assistant at the power plant on this enterprise. I worked for over a year and then decided to continue my studies. I found out that there was an Electric Engineering Institute in Shterovka, Donbass and decided to go there. That very same year this Institute was reformed into an electromechanical college. I entered this college in 1934 and finished it in 1938. I lived in the hostel sharing a room with six other girls. I was the only Jew among them. There were other Jews in this college: students and lecturers. We had no conflicts associated with the nationality. We had fun together and we had common problems. We celebrated the Soviet holidays together. My attitude towards religion that had formed at the time when I was a pioneer didn’t change. I didn’t conceal the fact that I was a Jew, but the Jewish traditions and religion were in the past for me. They began to close churches and synagogues by that time6. The Jewish schools were closed. I didn’t have any doubts that it was a correct step. I thought, like many others that this was the right thing to do.
1932-33 was the period of famine in Ukraine7. Fortunately, we didn’t feel it. Donbass had good supplies of food, being the miners’ region. We could receive all our food per cards. Besides, we had a kitchen garden near our house in Stalino. We were mainly growing potatoes. It was an additional support for our family.
In 1933 Hitler came to power in Germany. We could find information about what was happening in Germany in newspapers or hear about it on the radio, although it wasn’t complete, as I realized later. However, at that time I cared little about the political events. I was 20 and had totally different interests.
Repression of 19368 and the following years didn’t touch our family, except for uncle Lyova – I told about him already. We were sure that he was innocent, of course. This resulted in our doubts that the others arrested were guilty. We already realized that many innocent people were arrested often for slanderous accusations. But we didn’t associate what was happening with the name of Stalin. At that time NKVD managers were fired and taken to court every now and then for the allegedly deviations from the directions of Stalin. Those were public cases that ended in sentencing to death, as a rule. And we believed that Stalin knew nothing about the arrests of innocent people and that those giving direct orders were just using his name. I lived with this belief until the ХХ Party Congress9. When Stalin died in 1953 I cried all day through. I felt like the whole world crushed and there was only uncertainty ahead of us.
Alexandr also came to Dmitrov and we had a civil registration ceremony in August 1938. My mother organized a small family dinner. Then we left for Leningrad.
In April 1939 my husband got a job at the “Barrikady” plant in Stalingrad (Volgograd at present). We moved there and received an apartment from the plant. In August 1939 our son Valery was born in Stalingrad. My mother lived with us for some time. She was taking care of my son and I could go to work. I got a job at the power plant of the tractor plant. When Mama had to leave I hired a babysitter for our son. In 1940 my husband was transferred to Kramatorsk. There was the biggest machine building plant in the USSR. I also got a job at this plant and Valery was with the babysitter.
Life was beautiful: I had a loving and well-loved husband, a wonderful son, interesting job and many friends. We celebrated all Soviet holidays at home with big gatherings of our friends. There was a war in Poland at that time, but we didn’t have a feeling that it was going to have anything to do with us. We were finally calmed down by the Peace Agreement10 between the USSR and Germany.
On Sunday 22 June 194111 my husband and I went to do some shopping in the town. After we returned home the speech of Molotov12 was already broadcast on the radio. Thus, we heard that the war began.
My husband was summoned to the army right away. His parents, sister and her son came to Kramatorsk from Kirovograd. The power plant where I worked was considered to be a strategic site and I couldn’t obtain permit for the evacuation right away. All seven of us left in November 1941 when the Germans were already bombing Kramatorsk. We decided to go to Novosibirsk. My husband’s older sister Tsylia was living there and we received a letter of invitation from her.
I went to the recruitment office and when they heard that I was a power-engineering specialist they sent me to work at the power plant. It was a hard work there – the old equipment constantly got out of order. We didn’t quite get along with our landlady. She was constantly picking on us without any reason. I heard that there was a new power plant built near Novosibirsk and I requested to be transferred there. I worked there until the end of the war. There was also an apartment house built for employees. We received an apartment and it was a great relief for us. In March 1942 we crossed the frozen Ob River to reach Krivoschokovo where the station was located.
I was receiving the employee’s card for 800 grams of bread and my mother and son were receiving 400 grams of bread. Besides, there was a canteen at the power plant, and we received one hot meal during a shift. This was a huge support, as we were working 12 hours per shift. Besides, there was a big abandoned area near the building where employees of the power plant could keep their kitchen gardens. We kept our crops in the pits and they could stand even severe frosts there. We didn’t suffer from hunger, but we were bothered by the uncertainty.
I was receiving the employee’s card for 800 grams of bread and my mother and son were receiving 400 grams of bread. Besides, there was a canteen at the power plant, and we received one hot meal during a shift. This was a huge support, as we were working 12 hours per shift. Besides, there was a big abandoned area near the building where employees of the power plant could keep their kitchen gardens. We kept our crops in the pits and they could stand even severe frosts there. We didn’t suffer from hunger, but we were bothered by the uncertainty.
I heard about the victory on 8 May 1945 when I came back home from a night shift. The people kissed and hugged in the streets and there were lots of people. It was such joy – victory, thank God.
Our life in Chernovtsy was on the way to improvement. I got a job as an electrical engineer at Chernovtsy military unit. I was supervising the work of 18 electricians. I worked there for 23 years. My husband also had a job and nobody in our family faced any anti-Semitism. I know that there were expressions of anti-Semitism after the war both on everyday life and state levels. Of course I need to give tribute to the commanding officer of our garrison that neither persecution of cosmopolitism in 1948 nor the “doctors’ case”13 at the beginning of 1953 touched any of us. This commanding officer was a very decent man. We had a meeting where we were supposed to condemn the doctors. He spoke at this meeting saying “We have people of different nationalities in our team, including Jews. I do request you to treat each other well to avoid any misunderstandings”. I remember every word that he said. It was important that he said this at the height of the “doctors’ case” period, before it became known that this whole case was slanderous. I also remember people not allowing Jewish physicians to visit them at home, so strong the Soviet propaganda was. Our acquaintances told me that they were feeling how the attitude towards Jews changed. I do think that I avoided it due to the efforts of our Chief. There were quite a few Jews at where I worked and none of them suffered in any way. Besides, Chernovtsy was an international town. Representatives of many nationalities lived there and there were no conflicts in this regard.
My mother was living with us. At that time the synagogue was closed and my mother was praying at home. She kept observing the Jewish traditions. I was trying to help her. We were cooking the Pesach dishes together. I bought matsa from a private bakery. My mother observed Sabbath, we lit candles at home and cooked meals for Saturday. My husband and I weren’t religious, but we understood how important this was for mama and that we had to support her. We are not religious people and our son isn’t either. My mother didn’t insist on our following religious rules or traditions.
Our son grew up a Soviet man and a person without a nationality. He is an atheist, although he identifies himself as a Jew. We couldn’t give him any religious education, as we ourselves were atheists.
My son went to a Russian school in 1947. He studied well and was especially fond of mathematics. In 1957 he finished the secondary school with a silver medal. He wanted to study at the university in Moscow, but it was difficult to enter there and I convinced him that it would be better for him to study in Chernovtsy and live at home rather than at a hostel in Moscow. My son worked for a year and entered the Department of Mathematics at Chernovtsy University in 1958. Rector of the university told us that they were planning to open the department of cybernetics that same year at the university and that he was going to transfer Valery there. In 1963 my son Valery graduated from the University and received a diploma with distinction. That same year he became a post-graduate student at the Novosibirsk Institute of cybernetics. It was the leading research center of cybernetics at that time. Valery became a candidate of science in mathematics. He has over 150 publications now. He is Chief of the laboratory of cybernetics in Novosibirsk.
We were very happy when we heard about Israel. It was so nice to think that Jews got their own state at last. It is so terrible that there is no peace there and the people cannot live, work and raise their children in peace. I know what a war is like, but terrorism seems a lot more scaring for me. What kind of people they are to kill and blast people in buses and at discotheques. I am a mother myself and I believe that people of Israel have the right to defend their country, their life and the life of their children, their future from the terrorism.
My husband has visited Israel twice and admires this country. We have never considered emigration. Our only son is here. Of course, if he wanted to go to Israel we would follow him, but he doesn’t want to go. He can visit us at least once a year.
My husband attends the events arranged by Chesed and the Jewish Charity Committee and tells me about them. He attends lectures in history of the Jewish people and we discuss them when he comes home. I have a need in this information. Since I retired I began to fast at Yom-Kipur. I don’t always strictly observe it but my mother said that an ill person could afford to eat something extra – it is only good for his or her health. We receive and read Jewish newspapers and magazines. Chesed sends a nurse to help us. Volunteers visit us. We enjoy care and attention. I would like to wish all Jews in whatever country they live happiness and peace.
Boris Molodetski
My grandfather was deeply religious. His co-villagers called him ‘tzaddik’. He had taught in the cheder until Soviet authorities closed it in 1922.
He dressed as a Jewish man should: a long black kitel, a black vest and a black quadrangular cloak with tassels on edges. He wore a black cap and a greasy kippah underneath. My grandfather’s true faith also expressed itself by the fact that he never shaved in his life, was never photographed or went to the cinema.
During collectivization 2 authorities demanded that they gave their cows to kolkhoz, but Basia managed to stand for one cow for the family. Roitershtein was a cheese maker and worked in a kolkhoz 3 decently. Even in 1933, when the children starved [during the famine in Ukraine] 4, he didn’t steal from the kolkhoz and didn’t allow the others to steal.
They got into a Jewish camp in Bogdanovka. Romanians treated tem more loyally than Germans, but they took away their valuables. They hardly got any food and every day another group of Jews was taken away to be shot. Yenta, Basia, her husband and son Shaika were shot on 21 December 1941. When Soviet troops were approaching in 1944 Romanians dismissed the camp and Rieva survived.
My father Gersh Molodetski was born in Grosulovo in 1891. The whole family built up their hopes with him as an older son. He studied in cheder and later learned to read and write in Russian by himself. My grandfather wanted him to become a rabbi and sent him to yeshivah in Kishinev when he turned 16. After studying there a year my father decided he didn’t like it and ran away to Odessa. He stayed at the railway station in Odessa. He had no documents until Odessa police office issued a temporary residential permit to him. He managed to find a job. In 1912 my father was recruited to the army. At first he served in an artillery unit in a fortress in Vladivostok and in 1913 he moved to Kharbin. In spring 1917 their regiment was sent to the Southern Front. When the train was in about 30 km from Grosulovo my father jumped off and walked to his village: he deserted the army. Nobody searched him. During the Civil War 8, in 1918 he was in a group of a self-defense unit consisting of local residents who were trying to defend their town from gangs 9 raging in the vicinity. Once bandits requested a truce envoy to be sent to them. My father went there carrying a white cloth. They didn’t reach any agreement, but when my father was on his way back they wounded him in his leg. In late 1918 my father moved to Odessa. His acquaintance from Grosulovo let him stay in his dwelling and helped him to become an assistant accountant apprentice. Shortly afterward my father met my mother. I don’t know any details.
Grandmother Matlia knew Yiddish, but she usually spoke Russian. She wore black clothes and a black shawl. At home she wore a kerchief. She was very religious. On Yom Kippur, when grandmother Matlia spent all day through at the synagogue and fasted she got so weak that my mother and I went to the synagogue to pick her up and had to lead her by her elbows two blocks. She had special crockery to use at Pesach, but she was the only one to use it since her daughters were not religious and didn’t observe these traditions.
When the war began grandmother Matlia didn’t want to evacuate however hard her daughters tried to convince her. She said ‘Be what may’. Her younger daughter Ghenia stayed with her. My neighbors told me afterward that when Romanians came they took them along with other Jews to powder storages in Tolbukhin Street and burned them in autumn 1941.