My father and his brother studied at cheder located near the synagogue. My father told me that he had a very strict teacher that could punish the boys if the didn’t do their homework appropriately. They learned to read and write in Yiddish and Hebrew, studied the Torah and Talmud. They also studied mathematic, literature, history and geography.
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Displaying 50671 - 50700 of 50826 results
Elizabeth Waiser Biography
When my father turned 13 he had Barmitzva at the synagogue. My grandmother arranged a festive dinner at home.
Most of the population in Bairamcha was Jewish. Thee were also Moldavians and Russians. Jewish families lied mostly in the central part of the town and non-Jewish population lived in the outskirts, as they were involved in farming for the most part. Like in most of small tows Jews in Bairamcha were handicraftsmen and tradesmen. There was a very skilled hat maker in Bairamcha. He was a Jew. He had customers come even from distant villages to have him make a hat or a winter coat for them. There was a shoihet in the town and butchers sold kosher meat at the market. There was a big two-storied synagogue in town. All Jew attended it on Saturday. They had a very good rabbi. Jews came from other towns to listen to his sermons. My grandfather and father had a pew at the synagogue.
My father helped my grandfather in the store since he was in his teens. He managed very well and it gained good experience. At 18 my father became a clerk at a garment store. My father was a very decent employee and his customers were very pleased with his services.
My mother’s family lived in the town of Ataki. There was Jewish, Moldavian and Russian population in Ataki. Ataki belonged to Russia before 1918. After the revolution in Russia Pridnestroviye became part of Rumania. Russian was spoken there as much as Rumanian.
My mother told me that my grandfather came from a very poor family that had many children. He had to work very hard to build up his own life.
My grandmother’s name was Pesl and she came from a village near Ataki. My grandfather was introduced to her by matchmakers. I don’t have any information about my grandmother’s family. My grandmother was born in 1870s. I only know that she came from a poor family and had many sisters. It was difficult for a girl from a poor family and with no dowry to find a match at that time. There were matchmakers that traveled from one town to another offering their services. My grandfather accepted their services and liked the girl that they suggested. He decided that she was not spoiled and would not nag to him about his not earning much enough. They got married and my grandmother moved to her husband in Ataki.
They lived in a small house near the Dnestr.
My grandmother and grandfather came from religious families. They observed all traditions, celebrated Shabbat and all Jewish holidays.
My mother and her sister had classes with a teacher that taught them at home. My mother could read and write in Hebrew and studied the Torah.
They spoke Yiddish at home.
My mother told me how she met my father. He came to Ataki on his business related to purchase of goods for his store. He saw my mother and liked her a lot. My mother was very pretty. My father came to Ataki several times and then he finally asked my mother whether she would marry him. He met my mother’s parents and they liked him. My father was a very reserved and calm man. They got married shortly afterward.
They had a traditional Jewish wedding with a huppah in Bairamcha. My mother wanted to keep her wedding gown for her daughter or granddaughter. I loved to try it on when I was small. It was a white silk gown decorated with laces. When we were going to evacuation in 1941 we left the gown at home and it burnt along with the house.
After their wedding my parents rented a 3-room apartment.
My father worked at the store and my mother was a housewife. The owner of the store noticed my father’s skills and appointed him as supervisor at the store.
My father’s younger brother Berl met my mother’s younger sister Frida at my parents’ wedding and fell in love with her. She was as beautiful as my mother. Berl decided to marry her. Jewish rules didn’t allow brothers to marry sisters. They say that if this happens God will give everything best to one family and everything bad including ailments and poverty – to another. But Berl didn’t want to believe any of this. My mother said that he probably obtained rabbi’s consent to this marriage. One way or another they got married in two or three years after my parents’ wedding.
It was a very small provincial town with small houses and the population of about 150 families.
Natalia Zilberman Biography
During famine in 1933 my mother was working at the railroad medical facility and received 8 kg of corn flour per month. This saved us from starvation. I remember dead people lying in the streets – this was so awful. The daughter of our former gardener Philimon used to come beg for food and my father always gave her something. Philimon lived in a village near Nemirov. Some time later my father heard from an acquaintance that Philimon had died a long while before and his daughter begged for herself. My father was upset with this news and my mother commented that it was not decent on her part to behave in this manner. My father told her to keep quiet because she didn’t know what it was like to starve.
In 1935 I finished lower secondary school -8 years with highest grades. There were 3 best students in our class: Tania Sekunova, Itzyk Shoihet and I.
I entered Kiev Medical Institute. I rented a room in Rognedinskaya Street and earned my living by making injections as my mother taught me to my neighbors and acquaintances. My parents also supported me.
That year Revekka, the daughter of my father’s sister Manya, came on a visit from America. She was in Lutsk and then in Kiev. Manya’s son Pepo got business education and Emil was a musician. He played saxophone. Revekka and her husband took Emil to America pretending that he was their daughter Silva’s fiancé. This pro forma marriage became a real one.
In 1937 went past our family, but it affected my cousin Lisa. Her husband Aron, born in 1902 became a communist party member in 1918. He was in the Red army, but in 1937 he was arrested and shot. The father of my classmate Odia Serdyuk that was chief accountant of Nemirov forestry was also arrested and shot in 1937.
I met a young man in Nemirov when I was 16. Odia Serdyuk, my classmate, had a gramophone and Syutka Finkelshtein my best friend and I came to her to dance on the verandah. Once an acquaintance of mine Vassia Rudenko brought a young man wearing glasses. He was a student of Leningrad conservatory David Matzyevskiy, Jew. He played the violin. He courted me. His mother turned out to be a christened Jew. He left for Leningrad and we began to write letters. I learned a lot about Leningrad, because he sent me many cards with views of the city. He came from Kharkov where he finished music and drama institute. He took part in an international contest of violinists. Next summer David came to Nemirov again. He fell in love with me, but I wasn’t in love with him. I enjoyed his company, but my mother wasn’t very happy with this development of events. The following summer she took me to her brother Naum in Uglich to keep me far from David. My mother believed that it was necessary to get education before thinking about marriage. I continued writing letters to David. He graduated from the Conservatory and returned to Kharkov where he became the first violin at the opera theater and assistant in the Conservatory. He was earning lots of money. He was waiting for me to graduate from the Institute and marry him. I got a job assignment to the district center of Andrushevka, but I knew that I was going to Kiev. I liked Matzyevskiy, but I didn’t love him.
My parents moved to Kiev in 1936 to stay closer to where I was. They rented an apartment in Zhylianska Street and bought a dentist office. They worked at home. Our house in Nemirov was leased.
I lived with my parents and we began to celebrate Pesach again. My mother brought matsah and we made a general cleanup of the apartment. We took out our Pesach dishes and cooked borsch vegetable meal, gefilte fish and sweet and sour stew. I didn’t go to synagogue at that period.
Once my mother had a patient. That woman broke her artificial teeth and my mother treated her. In half a year after her visit her son returned from the Finnish war and came to my mother to have his teeth fixed. I was sitting on the sofa reading for my final exam. He came nearer to me asking “May I see what you are reading?» I raised my head and saw that he was blushing like he never blushed in the following 44 years. On a 3rd day he proposed to me. He was my husband to be Boris Zilberman.
, Ukraine
He graduated from Aviation College and was a student of Bataysk pilot school. He understood that piloting was a risky profession and entered Kiev Polytechnic Institute.
During the Finnish war in 1939 he was a pilot. His plane fell on a forest. One pilot was killed and another pilot and Boris survived. They were both wounded. Boris climbed down a pine tree and fainted. He had his forearms fractured and he was shell-shocked. He stayed in hospital for a long time and almost lost speaking abilities.
My husband to be, Boris Zilberman was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Kiev in 1913. His father Isaac Zilberman had a very high position.
Before the revolution Isaac bought a 6-room apartment in Kiev.