On 22nd June 1941 Molotov [29] held a speech regarding the outbreak of war. All schoolchildren who were in Moscow rushed to school. We were taught how to quench fire bombs. We took part in fighting battalions [30]. When Moscow was bombed, peoples' volunteer corps' were on the roofs of the houses equipped with boxes with sand and tongs. Luckily our house wasn't hit by the bomb. Mother, Grandmother and my sister stayed in the subway every night. Metro trains weren't operating, the rails were covered with wooden cover and people slept on them. In the morning, people went back home. At night I stayed to watch the apartment.
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Naum Kravets
I don't remember how I got home. I only remember my mother and grandmother bursting into tears when they saw me. They tucked me in bed and called a doctor. I had pneumonia, hepatitis, dystrophy and all kinds of other diseases. Mother and Grandmother took care of me the best way they could.
Father wasn't with us at that time. In August 1941 he went to the front as a volunteer.
Mother went to the plant in the morning, but it had been closed down. She rushed home and started hastily packing the most important things. Grandmother flatly refused to leave with us saying that my mother had a lot of things to do even without her. She said she would be waiting for us to come back. Mother hired a cabman, and we loaded our things in a barrow truck. Our eyes were full of tears as we said goodbye to Grandmother. Grandmother didn't see us again. In late October she went to a bread store while Moscow was being raided. There were our anti-aircraft guns near the store and a shell pierced my grandmother's head. She died at once.
It took us more than a month to get to Sverdlovsk, covering over 800 kilometers to the north-east of Moscow. It was winter when we arrived in Sverdlovsk. We settled in the club on the train station square. We went to the bathhouse. While we were bathing, our clothes and boots were sanitized. We were given food cards for three days. Three days later, my mother received a job assignment to work as a typist in the district Ispolkom of the village Zaikovo, Sverdlovsk oblast. We went to Zaikovo. The local population wasn't very amiable: we weren't the first evacuated people in the village. Mother was employed at the Ispolkom.
In January 1942 I went to the 9th grade of the local school. I had missed a year and a half, so I had to study hard to catch up.
I started working in the kolkhoz [32] during the summer vacation to get some products for the workday units - trudodni [33]. Besides, we were fed in the kolkhoz canteen.
One day I read an announcement in the paper regarding preparatory courses by the Ural Industrial Institute. I sent my application there. Soon, I got an invitation letter from the institute.
The classes started in late May 1942, so I went to Sverdlovsk. I started studying. Then my mother and sister came to me. Mother left her previous work-place and found a job in Sverdlovsk in the electroplating shop of a machine building plant in order to get a food card [see card system] [34]. After classes I worked as an assistant of a turner in the mechanics workshop of the mining institute, so I also got a food card. So, we had two food cards given to workers and one dependence card given to my sister, and thus managed to get by somehow. I also did some odd jobs. I was loading shells and aviation bombs.
The classes started in late May 1942, so I went to Sverdlovsk. I started studying. Then my mother and sister came to me. Mother left her previous work-place and found a job in Sverdlovsk in the electroplating shop of a machine building plant in order to get a food card [see card system] [34]. After classes I worked as an assistant of a turner in the mechanics workshop of the mining institute, so I also got a food card. So, we had two food cards given to workers and one dependence card given to my sister, and thus managed to get by somehow. I also did some odd jobs. I was loading shells and aviation bombs.
We were notified that my father, Lev and my grandmother had died. We also were informed of the mass execution of the Jews in Uman. In late 1941 we received a notification that my father Somolon Kravets was reported missing. Only after the war some of my father's front-line fellows came to my mother and told her the details of how my father died. Their unarmed battalion left Moscow and went to Mozhaisk, the point where they were supposed to join a certain military unit and get ammunition. But they didn't manage to reach that place. On their way German spies on motorcycles chased them down and killed almost everybody, including my father. Few survivors came back to Moscow. So, that was the way my father died.
I was assigned to Squad 38 consisting of 50 people. Then the officer came, looked through the list, aligned us and we left for the train station. I didn't doubt that we would be taken to the lines. We arrived in Perm late at night. We got off the train, aligned and came to a building with a big iron gate. They let us in, closed the gate and told us to have a rest. The following morning two marine officers and our commander came. They took us to a classroom and told us that now we would be taking exams in Russian language and literature and mathematics. We were told that those who passed the exams would go to the navy school, and the rest would go to the replacement depot. It was a navy school, evacuated from Azov to Perm. In the morning we had breakfast and then sat our exams. From our entire group only five of us got excellent marks for all exams, including me.
The five of us were taken to the navy school base. We were taught the navy courses. We had to learn the statute. In two weeks there was a board meeting of the mandate committee of the school. The chairman of the board was the general-lieutenant Kvade. I must have looked feeble because the members of the board suggested teaching me weaponry, signaling, and tooling. Finally the headmaster of the school asked me what I wanted to do. I said firmly that I would like to be an aircraft mechanic. Everybody burst into laughter. Somebody said that I wouldn't reach the airscrew. Then one of the members of the board, Captain Danchenko, asked to transfer me to him. He heard the objection saying that I was feeble and had no stamina for big physical exertion. The doctor who was also a member of the board asked me to squat for ten times, then he checked my pulse, and then he asked me to squat again. He checked my pulse again and said: 'By looking at him he seems feeble, but his heart is working like a clock.' After his words I was sent to Captain Danchenko. Four of my friends were already with him. We were trained to be operators of aircraft radar stations for the USSR Navy. He picked five people, because there were five fleets in the USSR, so one of us for each fleet. We studied for half a year, until December 1942. We graduated as air navigators-radar operators in the rank of master sergeant.
Then I was to leave Moscow for besieged Leningrad via the 'Road of Life' [37] over the frozen lake [Ladoga], accompanied by incessant firing. The regiment was positioned in a Leningrad suburb. From there I took a car to Oranienbaum bridgehead. [?ranienbaum was the name of the town of Lomonosov before 1948, in Leningrad district, with a dock on the Southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. Oranienbaum bridgehead was built in September 1941 during defense actions at the Leningrad front.] There were four navy bomber reconnaissance ICBM-2 on the lake by the city of Valdai [now Lomonosov]. I didn't have to serve there for a long time, because when German aviation attacked, those four aircrafts burned down like candles. I came back to Leningrad, where the main regiment forces were positioned. I was assigned as operator of the radar station.
My cockpit crew was transferred to dive bomber remodeled into bomber- reconnaissance. The plane didn't have a radar-set so I had to take the place of radio-operator gunner. At school we were taught how to use onboard guns. One thing at school, but in the battle it is quite different. My first battle flight was very sad for me and for our plane. We were in the air for 15 minutes when a German plane showed up above the sea. It made a run-in immediately. I was supposed to repel the attack. I was supposed to take out the gun from the well of the left board and carry on the top edge to fire on the top. I started to fire from the well and crashed with bullets the right board of my plane with the control cables: steers of depth, turn, altitude. Having fears that the plane might crash, I decided to fasten those cables somehow. I unzipped the parachute, took my fur overall off and covered those steel cables with my overall. In a jiff, I was freezing. It was frosty and windy winter-time. The cockpit was open. I could hear over my headphones that the commander talked to the air navigator saying that is was such a pity the gunner had been killed in his first battle flight. They didn't understand that it was me who was shooting; they thought it was the Germans. He made only one run-in, and it was me who crashed our plane.
On the day scheduled for the operation we flew to the designated point and Skvirskiy firmly and accurately released two depth bombs in the river, which reached the dam and exploded. Water flooded the German positions and our troops advanced to attack the Germans. The operation was under command of Marshal Meretskov [Meretskov, Kiril Afanasievich (1897-1968): Soviet military commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1944). During the Great Patriotic War he was commander of a number of armies and fronts.] It was a success giving an opportunity to Marshal Bagramyan to attack on the Baltic front.
My last flight was to the German town of Gartz early in the morning of 8th May. We headed towards Botanic bay, then to Elsa island in Estonia. We were allowed to take a rest after the flight. It was noon, so I decided to take a nap as I didn't have any other flights scheduled for the day. Hardly had I fallen asleep when I was woken by shooting and loud voices. I felt warm in the fur sleeping bag and wasn't willing to leave it. Suddenly one of the pilots rushed into the room and cried, 'Victory! Victory!', and shot a string of bursts in the ceiling. We always slept in underpants, so I hurriedly put my pants and jacket on and rushed outside. The pilots of our regiment were aligned. They were shooting in the air and crying, 'Victory, Victory, the war is over!' I took out my pistol and started shooting as well. I wasted all cartridges. That was the way I celebrated victory day. Then our squad commander came and took a picture of us. On the occasion of the victory I was awarded an Order of the Great Patriotic War [40] of the 2nd class and a Medal 'For Victory in the Great Patriotic War' [41].
,
1945
See text in interview
There was no anti-Semitism on the fleet. People were assessed by their personal traits and by battle experience. There were no other criteria. One of the best pilots of our regiment, Pavel Skvirskiy, was a Jew; the squadron commander, Babadjan, was an Armenian. Nobody was even giving it a thought that nationality made a person different. There was no anti- Semitism when I did my post-war army service. Maybe, my authority of battle- seasoned front-line ace was the reason for it. They might have said something in my absence, but I never came across disrespect in my presence.
I wasn't demobilized after the war and stayed in the army for involuntary service. Men born in my year were supposed to demobilize in 1950. I was sent to the town of Mamonov, the extreme Western point in the Soviet Union, bordering on Poland. The town was named after the Hero of the Soviet Union Mamonov, who had liberated that town. I had finished only nine grades of school before the war, so I decided to take the opportunity to finish the 10th grade. One of our officer's wives was a teacher and she decided to help me get ready for the final exams of the 10th grade. I went to her place for private lessons. Then, that woman made arrangements with one of the teachers from the compulsory school of Konigsberg [Kaliningrad at present] for me to take final exams with the graduates of that school. I was given a leave to take my exams and we went to Konigsberg. I successfully passed all exams and obtained my secondary education certificate.
The commander gave me two strong sailors, sent me to take a military plane leaving for Moscow and issued a letter for the commander of the military enlistment office saying: 'Provide an apartment for the mother of officer Kravets. Commander of regiment # 115.' He gave me three days to take care of things. We came up to the door. One of the sailors pushed and all locks fell off. The neighbor started screaming. People gathered in the street. I took Mother from the shed and the sailor started pointing at the neighbor's things and taking them outside. The house manager came over and showed the record of our inventory, the one I had made before leaving for the front, and the payment receipts and also the letter of the regiment commander. The house manager temporarily let my mother move in and filed the case in court. For the reason that I had to leave soon, the lawsuit was the next day and the court made a ruling stating that the apartment belonged to us. The house management was supposed to find lodging for the evicted neighbors. My mother and sister remained in our apartment. I came back there after demobilization in 1950.
I didn't want to join the Party neither in the lines, nor later on. Once, at the beginning of the war, I was present at a party meeting where they considered the case of one of the pilots and edified him for a minor offence, and I remembered that the party activist kept on saying that such an offence wouldn't be taken into account if he wasn't a party member. He was a communist, and such things couldn't be forgiven. After this incident, I didn't even think of joining the Party.
Once a month I bought tickets for the whole repertoire of the Moscow theaters, almost every night I went to the Bolshoi Theater [43], Maly Theater [44] or some other theater. I decided to visit all Moscow restaurants. Sometimes I came home at dawn, and Mother was very worried, didn't go to bed.
One year passed, and I decided to look for a job. Again I got lucky. By chance I read an announcement in the street about a job opening in a design bureau for radar experts. I was offered a job immediately and was assigned to the flight test laboratory. In the 1970s the bureau was turned into the corporation Phasotron-NIIR Scientific Research Radio Institute. The corporation still exists, and I'm still working there.
In spite of the fact that the cosmopolitan trials [see campaign against 'cosmopolitans'] [45] were over in the USSR, Jewish life was haltered and anti-Semitism was strengthened. Still, I never came across anti-Semitism at work, not even in the hardest years. In our bureaus Jews were respected, more than half of the members of the scientific council were Jews. The director of the design bureau, and later scientific research institute, never paid attention to the nationality factor. Professional skills were always the most important for him. The chief designer was the Jew Vitaliy Kunyavskiy, my director, the creator was a Jew, Solomon Roshal, and the scientific consultant was Boris Bramberg. In the museum of our institute there are pictures of the persons who made the biggest contribution in the creation of the modern equipment, shown in the exhibits. There are a lot; I cannot name all of them. If not every second, every third there is a Jew. Anti-Semitism has never been observed in our company, neither in the USSR nor in today's Russia.
I graduated from the institute in 1958 and obtained a diploma of an engineer on radar location. After graduation Kunyavskiy promoted me and I was assigned the director of the test stand. My salary wasn't as high. I didn't have test flights, so I wasn't paid an additional premium. But I was a go-getter. I was promoted again and again at work. I became chief engineer and then leading project engineer.
I got married in 1953. Mother managed to find a wife for me, the daughter of her friend. I liked quite different girls, but I couldn't explain that to my mother. Besides, she would have never approved of my marriage to a non-Jewish girl. Strange as it may be, I was an obedient and loving son and it was easier for me to agree with my mother than to hurt her with my disobedience. My future wife, Anna Kurnik, was an only daughter. Her mother worked as chief of a canteen. Her father was an accountant. Anna was born in Moscow in 1928. She graduated from the foreign language department of the Moscow Teachers' Training Institute and worked in a secondary school as English teacher. We hadn't been dating for a long time. All the same mother wouldn't have let me dodge from marriage this time, so we sent the documents to the state marriage registration office. The registration of our marriage was scheduled for 5th March 1953.
When I found out about Stalin's death in the morning, I flatly refused to get married on that day. At that time Stalin's death was a tribulation for me, and not only for me. Instead of getting married Anna and I decided to go to Stalin's funeral. There was a huge crowd moving towards the column hall, where the coffin with Stalin's corpse was placed. When we were in the throng, I understood that it would be next to impossible to get out of it. The crowd moved slowly, but soon I understood, that Anna was being taken away from me and there was nothing I could do about it. Cars were closely parked along the curb. People were walking on the road and it was impossible to get to the pavement. I managed to reach Anna's hand and pull her to the curb taking advantage of the turns of the crowd. When we came close to the curb on the corner, I pushed her and told her to creep under the car to get to the pavement. I followed her. That way we got out of the crowd. We were lucky, as there were a lot of people who fell victims to the crowd. My cousin Lazar, the son of my father's brother Isaac came to Moscow from Leningrad to attend Stalin's funeral. He came back alive, but he lost his coat, hat and boots in the crowd. There were people who were trampled to death.
We went to the marriage registration office ten days later, when the mourning was over, viz on 15th March. The head of the marriage registration office didn't want to register our marriage, because we hadn't come on the assigned date. I explained the reason to her and she registered our marriage. We were ashamed to celebrate our wedding. The whole country was mourning; how could we have a feast? Mother made a modest dinner, attended by us and Anna's parents. It was a quiet evening.
Two years later I returned to Moscow. We lived with my mother, who loved my daughter a lot. I went back to my former work place and was assigned to the same position - leading engineer of the project. I worked in my position until 1964. Then new experts came and I understood that I couldn't compete with them as they were better qualified. I decided to resume my studies. I didn't tell anybody of my intention and sent my application to the Moscow Institute of Electronic Machine Building, Computer Engineering Department, and passed the entrance exams for the evening course. When I found out that I had passed the exams, I told the chief designer, Kuniavskiy, that I had become a student and wouldn't be able to go on business trips. Of course, he didn't like that. Our relationship became slightly tense. They tried to talk me into taking short trips, but I refused because the trips were only to the military units. There the passport was taken upon arrival, so there was no way I could leave earlier, and I couldn't study without my passport. I said that during the war they were studying while I was in the lines. I said it was time for me to study and for the others to go on the business trips. I was threatened that they would cut my bonus and I would be transferred to another department. In 1970 I finished my higher education. Of course, I wasted a lot of time on unneeded, but mandatory subjects: Marxism-Leninism, philosophy etc. I regret that time was spent on useless things.
When at the Twentieth Party Congress [46] Nikita Khrushchev [47] held a speech divulging Stalin's cult, my belief in Stalin collapsed. I understood who Stalin was and what terrible crime he had committed. Of course, we were in the battles fighting under Stalin's name, but if he hadn't decapitated the army with the pre-war repressions, perhaps we wouldn't have had such casualties?! At that time junior officers were junior commanders of regiments, battalions. They didn't have proper experience. Maybe Hitler wouldn't have attacked us, if we hadn't had those repressions. I thought over all those things after the war, but thanks to Khrushchev I became more aware of it and saw things in a different light.
I was happy to learn the news that the state of Israel was founded in May 1948. I had never concealed my nationality. I take pride in the fact that so many remarkable people in all branches of science, culture and art came from the Israeli nation. I was worried about Israel when the Six-Day-War [48] and the Yom Kippur War [49] took place. I wished Israel would gain victory. I was rejoicing like a kid when this small country defeated huge Arab states. Being a former front-line soldier I was rapt by the victory of Israel and its army. Of course such events were covered in the Soviet press with bias - at that time the USSR didn't have any relationship with Israel, but the majority of the Soviet people was looking for the implication in the press and I was able to see that.
When mass immigration of Jews started in the 1970s, I wasn't willing to go, though I wasn't judging those who did. My relatives were leaving: the children of my mother's sister Bronya who fled from occupied Poland in 1939, and the children of my mother's sisters Maria and Genya. They also spurred me to go with them, but I stayed adamant. I cannot even say what made me stay. Probably my character was the main factor or the principle of 'the dog kennel' or 'my house is my castle.' I have always been conservative. I am like a bob - even with the coming wave - I would turn left or right, and still remain in the same place. I have never changed jobs and have stayed in one city all my mature life. I am aware that I would have a good living in Israel and would settle well because I'm a good expert. But I cannot get over my conservatism.