First we took soviet regime calmly. Then the change started in our lives. Father had to close down his business, and mother’s store was nationalized by the state. Mother found a job as a saleswoman and father went to work for the state enterprise. He was fluent in Russian, was a good expert, so they willingly offered him a job. The firm, I was working at, was liquidated, and I remained without a job. I went to work in administration of power station. I was writing bills for electricity.
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Displaying 44101 - 44130 of 50826 results
Rosa Linger
I got married in July 1940.
I met my future husband Naum Linger near the cinema building during the weekend. He was a soviet military officer, senior lieutenant. Naum lived on military base in Liepaja. He was a Jew, his Jewish name was Nuhim. He took part in Finnish war [15], and after war he was assigned in Liepaja. The militaries were permitted to go in the city during the weekend. He was going to the cinema. I was strolling with my friends, and we also decided to watch a movie. He liked me and started a conversation. Naum was a handsome and an interesting man. He was seven years older than me. He was born in 1914 in Ukrainian town Dnepropetrovsk [about 500 km from Kiev]. I know hardly anything about his family. Naum had elder brother, whom I had never seen. He died in early 1950s. Naum graduated from some technical institute, worked as per mandatory job assignment for three years [16]. After that he was drafted in the army for mandatory military service and then went to Finnish war. Then Naum was convinced to stay in the army. We did not date for a long time. Naum proposed to me rather soon.
My parents were against our marriage , though Naum was a Jew. Father tried to convince me that soviet Jews and Baltic Jews were totally different and said that it would be hard for us to get along. Besides, parents were afraid that Naum might have a family in USSR and he was just fooling around. I directly asked Naum and he told me his story. He got married at a very young age, and divorced his wife a long time ago. I loved Naum, and firmly decided to marry him. Youth and love can do a lot, and my parents gave in. Naum was an officer, the member of the party, so there was no way we could have a traditional Jewish wedding. Our marriage was registered in marriage register and that was it. It was painful to my parents, but they were wise people and loved me, so they found strength to abide by that.
I did not fully observe Jewish traditions when I got married. Of course, I never mixed meat and milk products. I still keep that rule. I did not have kosher meat. Soviet regime closed down all kosher stores. Mother got kosher meat in synagogue. I was working and it was hard for me. We did not mark holidays at home. Husband was the member of the party so he could not observe Jewish traditions in his family. On all Jewish holidays he and I went to my parents and we marked the holidays with them.
Ilia’s brit-milah was to take place on the 22nd of June 1941. Father was proud of his first grandson and was looking forward to his brit-milah. He stayed over night on 21 /22 June to help me get things ready for the rite. At night I was awaken by the blasts. I asked father what it was and he assumed that there were maneuvers. At noon on the 22nd of June we found out that Germany [Great Patriotic War] [17] unleashed the war. Night explosions were not connected with training. It was German air-raid.
Husband had stayed in the barracks for couple of days. For some reason my husband was told to stay there. He called me and said that we had to leave at once. Of course, I did not want to go anywhere as I was scared to think that I would be on the road with a two-week infant. I talked mother into going with me and help me with a baby. Younger sister Sarah was just 10 years old and mother took her with us. Father and my sister Hinda refused from leaving Liepaja.
The whole kin, both cognate and agnate, stayed in Liepaja. Paternal grandfather Iosif was about 90 year’s old. Apart from us only 5 people survived out of our huge kin. Grandfather Iosif lived with Zina’s family at that time. I was told that he put tallith, tefillin on every morning and sat on the porch of his house waiting for Germans to come and get him. It happened in spring 1942, he was just shot on the porch of his house. Max Brutskus, Zina husband, was shot in Liepaja in December 1941. Zina and her children were in Auschwitz camp. It was improbable for the three of them to survive in concentration camp.
The rest perished in holocaust. Uncle Nohum, who lived in Riga, was the first victim of fascists. He was captured in the street and locked up with other Jews in choral synagogue at Gogol street in Riga [18]. All those people were burned alive in the synagogue. His wife Etle and three children perished in Riga ghetto [19]. Mother’s elder sister Mushl Knyaseva, her husband and two children- Isaac and Taube, mother’s brother Gershen and his son Shalom, the family of mother’s sister Hanna Katsizna: Hanna, her husband and three children, 2 sons and a daughter , mother’s brother Neham, his wife and son Abram, husband of mother’s sister Mina, who died in 1940, their two children, mother’s brother Girsh with his wife Dora and two children were shot by Germans in Liepaja in 1941 or 1942. My father and my sister Hinda perished. We found out about that after our return, when the war was over.
On the 14th of June 1941 soviet regime deported citizens of Baltic republics [20], including Latvia. There were a lot of Jews among the deported. They were not deported by nationality factor. Those were deported who were rich, and owned property as well as political-minded and religious activists. Fortunately, our family escaped deportation. At that time we thought that we were lucky. Then in postwar years I understood if God had had more mercy on our peoples, more Jews would have been deported. In spite of hard living conditions in Siberia, many of them would have survived and there would have been more survivors than those who were captured by Germans. Of course many of the exiled died, especially those, who were in Gulag [21]. Their exiled families also had a hard life, but still they were not exterminated, executed. Many of those survived came back to Latvia from exile.
My paternal grandpa Iosif Kagan was born in the 1850 on the territory of present Byelorussia, which belonged to Russian Empire at that time. Grandfather was a Cantonist [2]. He had served in Nicolay’s army for 25 years [3] and was granted the permit to live in Kurland [4]. He chose Vitebsk province, the village Borovka. Now it is in Byelorussia. Government gave grandfather a land plot. Probably grandfather learnt the craft of a blacksmith in the army. He built a house, smithy on his land plot and got married.
Grandparents definitely knew Yiddish and Russian, which was a state language on the entire territory of Russian Empire. Grandmother was also fluent in German and French. Part of Riga population spoke German, but French could be taught only at the lyceum or by a tutor.
When living in Borovka, grandmother worked as a teacher in a rural school.
Borovka was a rather big village. It was couple of kilometers away from Latvian town Dvinsk, present Daugavpils [about 200 km from Riga]. I have never been to Borovka, but from father’s stories I know that there were a lot of Jews in Borovka. They made 30-40% of village population. There was everything in the village a standard Jewish community needed. There was a synagogue, cheder, shochet, Jewish cemetery. Borovka Jews were religious people. They observed Jewish traditions. Grandparents were very pious people. They were a traditional good Jewish family. Grandfather, like other Jewish men from Borovka, prayed thrice a day. In the morning he prayed at home before going to work, in the daytime and in the evening he went to the synagogue. Grandmother went to the synagogue on Sabbath and Jewish holidays, the rest of the days she prayed at home. She knew how to read from prayer book, and also knew the prayers by heart. Though there was a synagogue in Borovka, there was no mikvah. There was a bathhouse in the yard of grandfather’s house, which was by the bank of the lake. Grandmother used the lake for mikvah. In summer the water in the lake was warm and there were no problems. In winter grandfather made a hole in the iced lake and grandmother dipped there for three times the way it was supposed to. Of course, grandmother strictly observed kashrut.
My father got Jewish education in childhood. There was a cheder in Borovka and father had studied there until he reached 13, bar mitzvah. Then he went to eshivah somewhere in Lithuania. Father said he lived in eshivah. Every day the students of eshivah went to have lunch in some family in accordance with the custom. There were seven families for each eshivah student. Each of the families by turns fed eshivah student. Grandmother came to see my dad and brought the products to the hostesses who fed my father. For some reason father had not studied at eshivah for a long time. I do not know why grandfather took him home. Father did not become a rabbi, he was not a religious figure, but religion was the main thing in his life. Father did not get secular education. Maybe the reason why father did not go to lyceum was his being older than other students. Grandmother taught him. Father was a rather literate man. His Russian, Lettish and Yiddish were perfect. Not only his spoken language was excellent, he also had good reading comprehension and writing skills.
I do not know what my father dealt with before he was drafted in the army. In 1908 when father turned 18, he was drafted for the mandatory service in the tsarist army.
Father was demobilized in 1911, when he was 21. In 1914 when the First World War was unleashed, father was drafted in the army again. He was in the lines in the vicinity of Warsaw, then his squad was positioned close to Riga. This is all I remember from my father‘s tales. He was demobilized in 1918.
Grandfather had the business of selling kosher meat. He had his own stores and a house. Grandmother was a housewife. They were very rich.
Mother said that the elder children were educated at home. The tutor came and taught all of them at once, age difference of one or two years was not important. The teacher taught them rudiments of reading, writing and counting. The four younger beginning from Hanna went to lyceum and got good education. Everybody got Jewish education. Boys went to cheder, melamed came home to teach the girls. They were taught Jewish traditions, religion, how to read prayers in Ivrit. All family members were pious.
In 1918 Latvia declared its independence [6]. Soon Russian Bolshevik [7] army came in Latvia. In 1919 Bolsheviks occupied Dvinsk. Since my grandpa Avrom was a well-off man, he did not want to meet Bolsheviks. Mother said that grandpa ordered from carpenter a cart with double bottom where tsarist golden coins were hidden. On the top of that they put blankets, pillows and other house utensils and left. The whole family left with the exception of mother’s married sister Musya. They crossed Lithuania and then came back to Latvia, Liepaja [about 200 km from Riga]. Two grandpa’s nephews Fleishmans lived there. Grandfather decided to stop in Liepaja, have a look and then take further steps. Everybody liked Liepaja. It was a beautiful town on the sea coast. The decision was made not to return to Dvinsk, but to stay in Liepaja. When in fall 1919 Latvian army squeezed out Bolsheviks, grandfather and his sons went to Dvinsk. Grandpa liquidated all his businesses in Dvinsk, sold houses and the family finally settled in Liepaja.
Father came to Liepaja after mother’s family had moved there. In late 1919 my future parents got married. Their wedding was the next day after the wedding of mother’s elder brother Nohum and his wife Etle. Soon mother’s younger sister Hanna got married. Her husband’s last name was Katsizna. I do not remember his first name. All of them had traditional Jewish weddings, and grandfather looked into that. My mother and all her siblings did not have prearranged marriages, but love wedlock. After Musya’s unhappy marriage, grandfather said that he would not interfere in the choice of his children. Let them choose their spouses and take a responsibility for their choice. Grandfather was a very smart man. The seven of his children had love wedlock and lived happily in their marriage till the end of their days. There were neither tiffs nor divorces in our big family. After moving to Liepaja neither grandparents nor their children had their own place to live. Soon Musya and her family moved to Liepaja. They were the only ones who had their own house, the rest rented 4-5 rooms apartments. Of course everybody married only Jews, marriages with people of other nationalities were not acceptable in our families.
Mother started her own business after getting married. Her two sisters Hanna and Mina became housewives when married, mother’s elder sister Musya and mother were owners of kosher meat stores. Both of them were very clever, energetic and entrepreneurial women and they probably felt bored at home. I general, mother’s family was involved in business of selling kosher meat. Apart from mother and Musya, all mother’s brothers owned stores of kosher meat. In 1920s mother’s elder brother Nuhim moved to Riga with his wife and four children and opened up a kosher sausage store. Father had his own business- he dealt with wholesale trade of products and had contracts with Germany and England. Our family belonged to middle class. We were neither poor nor rich.
Parents ran business, so we always had maids at home- to cook food and watch children.
She had to open the store by 7 a.m.- the time when the hostesses and maids from rich houses came to buy meat for lunch. Mother had a lot of clients as Jewish ladies saw that we were a righteous Jewish family, observing Jewish traditions, so mother was trusted. Certainly, mother would not be able to cope with all that work herself, so she had an assistant working for her in the store. Apart from business father was also a representative of the Council of Entrepreneurs in Town Duma, Seim. The latter determined the amount of tax to be paid and father was involved in tax commission. Father was elected for that position unanimously year in, year out. He was much respected in the town: father was a very intelligent, kind and decent man. He was trusted.
The first words spoken by me were in Russian. People spoke Russian to me at home until I turned the age of three. Since most population of Liepaja spoke German, I went to private German kindergarten to learn German. At home parents spoke Yiddish between themselves and I was well up in that language pretty soon. In pre-school age I spoke three languages fluently. Besides, father was fluent in Polish as village Borovka was on the border with Poland, and many Borovka dwellers spoke Polish.
When I was a child, Liepaja population was about 100 000 people, and about 10 000 were Jews. Of course, not all them were equally pious, but everybody Jewish mode of life. There were four large synagogues in Liepaja. One of them called Lithuanian, it was built by Lithuanian Jews, and there were a lot of them in Liepaja. Another synagogue was called Hasidic [8]. My father and all our kin went there. When many rich Jews left from Daugavpils escaping Bolsheviks and got settled in Liepaja, they built separate synagogue for them as local Jewish population was more liberal in religion.
There were big beautiful stone houses in the center of Liepaja. Two-storied houses were rare. The most common were three or four-storied houses. There were even several five-storied ones. There were small one-storied wooden houses on the outskirt. They were without conveniences, but in the center the houses were comfortable and well-equipped. Jews did not cluster together in Liepaja. The place where people rented or built houses was determined by financial factor.
Jewish community was large in Liepaja. Apart from synagogues and praying houses, community also had cheders, Jewish compulsory school and lyceum. There was also a Jewish hospital, asylum for elderly and feeble. Of course were mikvahs by the synagogues, shochets worked. There was a very beautiful Jewish community house. It was right in front of our house. That building is still there. Rabbi Garaf Polonski was the head of Jewish community in Liepaja. It was likely that there were some other rabbis, but I being a little girl was not interested in that. I remember when Jews had some misconceptions they came to rabbi for him to settle their argument. Garaf Polonski invited my father as a neutral party for such events, who could dispassionately elucidate the issue. When rabbi said his judgment on the case, the contending parties fulfilled it unconditionally.
Jewish community was large in Liepaja. Apart from synagogues and praying houses, community also had cheders, Jewish compulsory school and lyceum. There was also a Jewish hospital, asylum for elderly and feeble. Of course were mikvahs by the synagogues, shochets worked. There was a very beautiful Jewish community house. It was right in front of our house. That building is still there. Rabbi Garaf Polonski was the head of Jewish community in Liepaja. It was likely that there were some other rabbis, but I being a little girl was not interested in that. I remember when Jews had some misconceptions they came to rabbi for him to settle their argument. Garaf Polonski invited my father as a neutral party for such events, who could dispassionately elucidate the issue. When rabbi said his judgment on the case, the contending parties fulfilled it unconditionally.
All members of our family were pious. On Fridays parents finished work earlier and went to mikvah. When they came back, mother lit candles and prayed over them. Then everybody sat at the table. Father said kidush over bread and everybody started festive dinner. On Saturday parents went to the synagogue obligatorily. None of my parents did work about the house on Saturdays. Father had a very beautiful voice so she worked part-time as a chazzan in Hasidic synagogue. When father came back from the synagogue, he read torah, and then all of us went to see some of our relatives.
We took very few things with us. I had a small suitcase with the swaddling clothes and undershirts for my son, sister had another suitcase where she put a little bit of rice, soap and underwear for each of us. We left with the clothes we had on and that was it. The rest was left at home. The truck took us to the train station in Liepaja. Father and Hinda went to see us off and we took the train heading for Russia. We reached Riga safe. We got off in Riga and stayed with the family of mother’s brother Nohum. Then Germans started bombing Riga and at nights we could hear air-raid alarms. We had to leave again. I managed to get on the truck to take my family to the train station and get on the train. It was next to impossible for us to live, but we left by chance. God’s will is in everything! I believe in fate, that God leads everybody’s lot. It seems to me that our torah and the whole Jewish history prove that all thoughts we have and actions we take are predetermined by God. Not much depended on us, it was God’s will to let us survive. Pskov was the first stop after Riga. Then we came to Staraya Russa. We had been traveling in the middle of bombings. There we got off the train. One Jewish family let us stay in their place overnight. Staraya Russa was bombed at night. Mother said that we could not stay there and returned to train station. One goods train was about to start and we got on that and just went in the unknown direction. We were taken out of Moscow, Yaroslask oblast. There were thousands of carts to take the evacuees to the villages, to kolkhozes [22].
,
1941
See text in interview
I talked my mother into making one stop in Kirov. We had stayed there during the entire period of evacuation. It was a rather large city with wooden houses. There was a good climate and pretty good people. We were lucky to be housed on the first day of our arrival. We were lodged in the house of the chief of local militia. During our conversation I mentioned that I knew foreign languages. I even did not have a passport, but the chief of militia guaranteed for me and I was given a job in military censorship office of NKVD [23]. My job was to check incoming letters to Kirov oblast. There were a lot of letters in Yiddish and German. I was proficient in those languages.