I remember Tatiana’s nephew Bencion Krupnik leaving for Israel in the 1970s. He was manager of a shop at a plant and workers of the plant condemned him at the meeting, although his colleagues had always respected and valued him for his qualifications. Thank God the attitudes have changed.
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Major events (political and historical)
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Displaying 37441 - 37470 of 50826 results
Semyon Tilipman
In 1986 Tatiana visited her niece Raisa in Lod, Israel. I wished I could go with her, but our family circumstances didn’t allow me to travel there. Tatiana was very impressed with what she saw in Israel. She told us how beautiful the country is. Our relatives live in Israel and we always watch everything they show about Israel on TV. We sympathize with this country. There is no war, but people die at peaceful times because of the terrorism.
We believed that perestroika 26 initiated by Gorbachev 27 was a big step forward comparing to the period before. We got more freedom. We were allowed to socialize with our relatives abroad. But most important is that the attitude toward Jews has changed. There is no state-level anti-Semitism. As for our material situation it became worse, but not as bad as it became with civilians since retired military receive higher pensions.
In the 1990s the rebirth of the Jewish life began in Odessa. My wife and I are members of the Front Line Fraternity – the association of Jewish veterans of the Great Patriotic War at the charity organization of Gmilus Hesed. We get together every other week and celebrate birthdays. On 9 may we celebrate Victory Day. Besides, we attend Sunday parties at the Moadon club in Hesed where they invite musicians from the Philharmonic or amateur performers. Recently the Jewish theater from Chernovtsy came on tour. My wife organizes celebration of Sabbath at home and tries to do no work on Saturday. Sometimes we go to synagogue on holidays. Tatiana lights memorial candles in commemoration of our deceased relatives.
Anna Iosifovna Ulik
She and her son evacuated separately from us. She found herself in Rostov that was occupied by the Germans. A local family rescued her. Her life was very hard as we learned later from her stories. Some people betrayed her, but that local family told the Germans that she was Armenian in order to save her life.
George, Lyuba’s husband, was killed on the first day of the war.
She had no profession, so she worked at a factory and was in great need. Our life was not very good either, but we did our best to help them.
Her second son wanted to emigrate during the Revolution. He went somewhere to the East, towards China, but nobody knows where he went and what happened to him.
,
1917
See text in interview
From mother’s stories I know that being a young man he went to St. Petersburg on foot and graduated from the Higher Agricultural Academy there. He majored in agriculture and forest estimation. It was an interesting and prestigious work requiring special skills. He worked for big land owners. He was given a special house and a cart – and every other thing he needed for his work.
My mother’s parents certainly came from a more well-to-do family with a higher cultural level, with the knowledge of languages, with great love to music. They had special musical evenings at home. When guests came over, they always played music together.
I can only say that during the war, her daughter, whose name was Runya, went to fight as a volunteer.
Both he and grandmother were killed in Babiy Yar.
Know only that family an grandfather was very religious he prayed, attended synagogue, kept Shabbat and kosher laws, celebrated Jewish holidays Both he and grandmother were killed in Babiy Yar.
His mother was a seamstress and father – a cabinetmaker.
He paid a lot of attention to his studies, he always wanted to hear on all as large as possible, he also studied music. He went to Kharkov on his own to finish his musical education, simultaneously finishing secondary school. He began to work very early. He worked in various symphonic orchestras, and then he held many administrative offices in Kiev, starting with 1926. All his offices were related to the cultural formation of Kiev and Ukraine. He worked at the Ivan Franko Theater, in the Opera Theater, was vice director of the philharmonic society, and at the “Ukrainian Concert” company. He came from an ordinary family.
The Germans were attacking; they were already in the Northern Caucuses. There was danger that they could capture those territories. My father went away with the group, while we were first sent to Sverdlovsk and then to Semipalatinsk where we had to join the Ivan Franko Theater.
Semipalatinsk was a terrible steppe town. It cannot even be described. It was full of famine, cold, diseases, steppe; it was not just cold – it was arctic frost. I remember how my mother had to go outside with our neighbor and saw wood woods; they could not do it during the day because they were all too busy. Workers of the theater labored as hard as people of other professions. There I was the first-year student of the Teachers’ Institute. I majored in mathematics. I remember I had to walk a long distance, several kilometers, in order to get to that institute. But I lost two years of studies anyway, and when I went to university in Kiev I was already 19, and even though I studied there for two years, it was all in vain.
Then we went with the theater to Tashkent, where the Kiev Polytechnic Institute was located at the time, and I again became a first-year student of the physics and mathematics department. I spent one semester there. So, on the one hand, I studied mathematics all that time, but on the other hand I lost 2 years of studies, because my major in Kiev was absolutely different.
Semipalatinsk was a terrible steppe town. It cannot even be described. It was full of famine, cold, diseases, steppe; it was not just cold – it was arctic frost. I remember how my mother had to go outside with our neighbor and saw wood woods; they could not do it during the day because they were all too busy. Workers of the theater labored as hard as people of other professions. There I was the first-year student of the Teachers’ Institute. I majored in mathematics. I remember I had to walk a long distance, several kilometers, in order to get to that institute. But I lost two years of studies anyway, and when I went to university in Kiev I was already 19, and even though I studied there for two years, it was all in vain.
Then we went with the theater to Tashkent, where the Kiev Polytechnic Institute was located at the time, and I again became a first-year student of the physics and mathematics department. I spent one semester there. So, on the one hand, I studied mathematics all that time, but on the other hand I lost 2 years of studies, because my major in Kiev was absolutely different.
,
1942
See text in interview
We returned to Kiev together with the Ivan Franko Theater, where our mother worked. We returned right after it was liberated, in 1943. Our father stayed in Semipalatinsk. We saw that everything was destroyed completely, all houses; it was impossible to walk the main street. When I began to study, us, students, were sent to Kreschatik and we cleared it of roadblocks and prepared for the future building of houses. The columns of captured Germans walked Kreschatik when it was a little bit cleared. We witnessed the execution of some German officers in today’s Independence Square. The whole square was full of people. I personally was unable to watch it all. It was impossible to see the process of execution.
At that time a group of outstanding actors was evacuating to Uzbekistan. They had to go to Baku, cross the Caspian sea and there, in Krasnovodsk they were divided. I remember that we went one direction and that group – another. I remember that train station near seaport, and I remember the mad face of a woman who was carrying her dead baby along the railway. Famine, cold, all military hardships and disasters were certainly felt everywhere, absolutely everywhere.
,
1941
See text in interview
In Tbilisi we got off the train at dawn. I saw oranges of great beauty that were bought for us for the first time in many years. We stayed with one landlady in Griboyedov Street, which was downtown.
n Tbilisi I finished the 10th class of school. I remember that our teachers were very good. Once we had to write compositions. The next day after we turned them in, the teacher said, “Children, you all wrote good compositions, but the best one was written by…” then she made a pause and called my name. I understand that it was all due to the good training at our Kiev school. My sister was also a good student, but I was a better student because she was thinking of theater more, so she was naughtier.
My father was sent to Tbilisi as an administrator of the theater.
We spent two or three months in Kislovodsk. There I went to school and we stayed with a woman who rented us a part of her room.
After Kislovodsk we went to Tbilisi. The Germans were getting closer. The situation grew dangerous.
After Kislovodsk we went to Tbilisi. The Germans were getting closer. The situation grew dangerous.
,
1941
See text in interview
My mother sewed us bags from bed sheets and put some stuff there. I was amazed to see that she put some photos there as well. We also carried some things in our hands. In 1939 the Ivan Franko Theater toured in Lvov, which was considered a very western city of Ukraine. From there, my mother brought us some things we had never seen before. For instance, she brought me a winter coat with a very nice fur collar, and a very nice suitcase. So, we took such things with us as well. I remember how we all ran to the train station. But it was absolutely impossible to get on the train, even to get on its steps. We tried but failed. Then we ran to the Dnepr. There we were told that we could jump on a barge that would soon leave for Dnepropetrovsk. It is impossible to describe the situation there: no water, no food, constant bombings, no place to lie down. I understand that our parents did their best to provide security to their children. We, children, thought only of ourselves, without thinking of the feelings of our parents. We cried a lot. In Dnepropetrovsk we were put on trains, into wagons without doors or windows, without food or drink. It took us 18 days to get to the Northern Caucuses by that train. People got sick and died. Only our family was allowed to get off that terrible train, upon great request from my parents and only because they had documents of figures in culture.
Something happened at that moment, and people began to plunder flats, take out everything they could find from people who fled. Everything was confused; it was horrible and complicated… Some Jews welcomed the coming of the Germans; they thought it would save them. The family of my friend Nina Korotkina was not going to flee anywhere. They stayed deliberately – and were all killed in Babiy Yar [they remembered the Germans in the First World War, when the Germans treated Jews in a good way]. When Kiev was liberated I got a letter from somebody who said that Nina was killed. Later, my parents told us that our grandparents had also been killed. They came on foot from Zhitomir to Kiev, to my father, that is, to their children, but we had left Kiev by that time. So, they stayed in Kiev and were shot in Babiy Yar on the order of the Germans.
The family of my friend Nina Korotkina was not going to flee anywhere. They stayed deliberately – and were all killed in Babiy Yar [they remembered the Germans in the First World War, when the Germans treated Jews in a good way]. When Kiev was liberated I got a letter from somebody who said that Nina was killed. Later, my parents told us that our grandparents had also been killed. They came on foot from Zhitomir to Kiev, to my father, that is, to their children, but we had left Kiev by that time. So, they stayed in Kiev and were shot in Babiy Yar on the order of the Germans.
After the start of the war, very soon after that, many a few weeks after, I heard the word “kike” for the first time. Since that time we always felt who we were. I realized that the problem was pretty bad. I am not even speaking about the after-war period.
I remember June 22, 1941, very well. My sister and I were outside of Kiev in a pioneer camp. My mother was on tour with the Ivan Franko Theater in Moscow. Our father came to take us to Kiev. My mother was also allowed to go to Kiev, while the theater team was evacuated to Semipalatinsk.
But the shaking of hands between Ribentrop and Molotov was pictured in newspapers and it shook me, because I thought that friendship or cooperation between the Soviet Union and the fascist Germany was some kind of a terrible betrayal.
And a man by the name of Samokhin settled in the third room. He worked in NKVD.
Prior to the war I never heard the words “kike” or “Jew” or anything like that.
We heard about fascism, but never saw it and did not believe it was possible.
We heard about fascism, but never saw it and did not believe it was possible.