My mother bought vegetables and meat from the local Ukrainian farmers - it wasn't kosher. My mother was a wonderful cook. She baked delicious bread.
- Traditions 11756
- Language spoken 3019
- Identity 7808
- Description of town 2440
- Education, school 8506
- Economics 8772
- Work 11672
- Love & romance 4929
- Leisure/Social life 4159
- Antisemitism 4822
-
Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
- Soviet invasion of Poland 31
- Siege of Leningrad 86
- The Six Day War 4
- Yom Kippur War 2
- Ataturk's death 5
- Balkan Wars (1912-1913) 35
- First Soviet-Finnish War 37
- Occupation of Czechoslovakia 1938 83
- Invasion of France 9
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 65
- Varlik Vergisi (Wealth Tax) 36
- First World War (1914-1918) 216
- Spanish flu (1918-1920) 14
- Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920) 4
- The Great Depression (1929-1933) 20
- Hitler comes to power (1933) 127
- 151 Hospital 1
- Fire of Thessaloniki (1917) 9
- Greek Civil War (1946-49) 12
- Thessaloniki International Trade Fair 5
- Annexation of Bukovina to Romania (1918) 7
- Annexation of Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union (1940) 19
- The German invasion of Poland (1939) 94
- Kishinev Pogrom (1903) 7
- Romanian Annexation of Bessarabia (1918) 25
- Returning of the Hungarian rule in Transylvania (1940-1944) 43
- Soviet Occupation of Bessarabia (1940) 59
- Second Vienna Dictate 27
- Estonian war of independence 3
- Warsaw Uprising 2
- Soviet occupation of the Balitc states (1940) 147
- Austrian Civil War (1934) 9
- Anschluss (1938) 71
- Collapse of Habsburg empire 3
- Dollfuß Regime 3
- Emigration to Vienna before WWII 36
- Kolkhoz 131
- KuK - Königlich und Kaiserlich 40
- Mineriade 1
- Post War Allied occupation 7
- Waldheim affair 5
- Trianon Peace Treaty 12
- NEP 56
- Russian Revolution 351
- Ukrainian Famine 199
- The Great Terror 283
- Perestroika 233
- 22nd June 1941 468
- Molotov's radio speech 115
- Victory Day 147
- Stalin's death 365
- Khrushchev's speech at 20th Congress 148
- KGB 62
- NKVD 153
- German occupation of Hungary (18-19 March 1944) 45
- Józef Pilsudski (until 1935) 33
- 1956 revolution 84
- Prague Spring (1968) 73
- 1989 change of regime 174
- Gomulka campaign (1968) 81
-
Holocaust
9685
- Holocaust (in general) 2789
- Concentration camp / Work camp 1235
- Mass shooting operations 337
- Ghetto 1183
- Death / extermination camp 647
- Deportation 1063
- Forced labor 791
- Flight 1410
- Hiding 594
- Resistance 121
- 1941 evacuations 866
- Novemberpogrom / Kristallnacht 34
- Eleftherias Square 10
- Kasztner group 1
- Pogrom in Iasi and the Death Train 21
- Sammelwohnungen 9
- Strohmann system 11
- Struma ship 17
- Life under occupation 803
- Yellow star house 72
- Protected house 15
- Arrow Cross ("nyilasok") 42
- Danube bank shots 6
- Kindertransport 26
- Schutzpass / false papers 95
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) 24
- Warsaw Uprising (1944) 23
- Helpers 521
- Righteous Gentiles 269
- Returning home 1090
- Holocaust compensation 112
- Restitution 109
- Property (loss of property) 595
- Loss of loved ones 1724
- Trauma 1029
- Talking about what happened 1807
- Liberation 558
- Military 3322
- Politics 2640
-
Communism
4468
- Life in the Soviet Union/under Communism (in general) 2592
- Anti-communist resistance in general 63
- Nationalization under Communism 221
- Illegal communist movements 98
- Systematic demolitions under communism 45
- Communist holidays 311
- Sentiments about the communist rule 930
- Collectivization 94
- Experiences with state police 349
- Prison/Forced labor under communist/socialist rule 449
- Lack or violation of human and citizen rights 483
- Life after the change of the regime (1989) 493
- Israel / Palestine 2190
- Zionism 847
- Jewish Organizations 1200
Displaying 8821 - 8850 of 50826 results
Moisey Goihberg
The Jews lived in Yaruga and the Ukrainian farmers lived in the adjacent village. The Jews were involved in vine growing and crafts and the farmers grew wheat and vegetables and raised livestock. The craftsmen included tailors, shoemakers, roofers, coopers, barbers, and so on.
There was a church in the central square in Yaruga - it seemed very big and beautiful to me when I was small. Many years later I saw its green cupolas and crosses in my dreams. My father and I visited Yaruga once after the war and I was surprised to see how small the church actually was. There were 3 synagogues in Yaruga. Each one was attended by members of different professional guilds. This was a tradition. Perhaps, it was for the sake of seeing and talking to one another. Besides, they all contributed money and it was good to know that the money went to their own group. My parents attended the largest synagogue of vine growers only on holidays. There were rabbis, a schochet and a melamed in Yaruga. There was a cheder at the synagogue. I didn't attend it, but I remember other boys going to the cheder wearing kippot and carrying huge volumes of the Talmud.
On Sundays there was a market in the central square where farmers from the surrounding villages came to sell their food products. They came on horseback or in bull driven carts or on foot. Those who came on foot put on their shoes before they entered the town, as they were walking barefoot. Girls, women and men wore beautiful embroidered blouses and shirts. Men wore sheepskin hats at rakish angles. The market lasted a whole day. By the end of the day many men got drunk and there were fights. But they didn't touch Jews. I don't remember one single expression of anti-Semitism in pre- war Yaruga. This bright, colorful market existed until the late 1920s.
There was also a cultural center or club in Yaruga. People turned one of the bigger sheds into a club. There was an amateur theater organized in this club in the late 1920s. They staged some plays by Jewish writers; one of them was Sholem Aleichem [10], whose plays were staged in Yiddish. The local Jews spoke Yiddish. They communicated with the Ukrainian farmers in Ukrainian. Ukrainian farmers also knew some Yiddish. My parents also talked in Yiddish to one another, but they spoke Russian to me. I also remember the musician. He had something like a street organ. There was a dove on his organ and for a small fee it picked fortune-telling notes out of a bag. This musician was blind and I felt sorry for him. My mother always gave me some food to give him.
There was a church in the central square in Yaruga - it seemed very big and beautiful to me when I was small. Many years later I saw its green cupolas and crosses in my dreams. My father and I visited Yaruga once after the war and I was surprised to see how small the church actually was. There were 3 synagogues in Yaruga. Each one was attended by members of different professional guilds. This was a tradition. Perhaps, it was for the sake of seeing and talking to one another. Besides, they all contributed money and it was good to know that the money went to their own group. My parents attended the largest synagogue of vine growers only on holidays. There were rabbis, a schochet and a melamed in Yaruga. There was a cheder at the synagogue. I didn't attend it, but I remember other boys going to the cheder wearing kippot and carrying huge volumes of the Talmud.
On Sundays there was a market in the central square where farmers from the surrounding villages came to sell their food products. They came on horseback or in bull driven carts or on foot. Those who came on foot put on their shoes before they entered the town, as they were walking barefoot. Girls, women and men wore beautiful embroidered blouses and shirts. Men wore sheepskin hats at rakish angles. The market lasted a whole day. By the end of the day many men got drunk and there were fights. But they didn't touch Jews. I don't remember one single expression of anti-Semitism in pre- war Yaruga. This bright, colorful market existed until the late 1920s.
There was also a cultural center or club in Yaruga. People turned one of the bigger sheds into a club. There was an amateur theater organized in this club in the late 1920s. They staged some plays by Jewish writers; one of them was Sholem Aleichem [10], whose plays were staged in Yiddish. The local Jews spoke Yiddish. They communicated with the Ukrainian farmers in Ukrainian. Ukrainian farmers also knew some Yiddish. My parents also talked in Yiddish to one another, but they spoke Russian to me. I also remember the musician. He had something like a street organ. There was a dove on his organ and for a small fee it picked fortune-telling notes out of a bag. This musician was blind and I felt sorry for him. My mother always gave me some food to give him.
My father was also kind and intelligent. He was a very respectable man in Yaruga and people chose him to be a judge in resolving routine disputes.
My parents weren't religious people. They went to synagogue only once or twice a year. I don't remember them praying at home. However, they honored and celebrated the Jewish holidays, the Sabbath in particular. On Fridays my mother cooked Sabbath dinner. We had a nice dinner on Friday, but nobody said a prayer or lit candles. Mother made stuffed fish, chicken broth, cracklings and pastries. She didn't cook on Saturday. She wouldn't even light a fire. My parents didn't work on Saturday. They rested, read books or went to see their friends or relatives. So work on Saturday became my chore. My parents didn't follow the rules strictly and they thought it was all right for me to do it. My mother always invited poor people and visitors to our Sabbath dinners.
Pesach was my favorite holiday. Firstly, there was warm weather on this holiday. We could run barefoot on the grass outside. Our feet could feel the warmth of the soil. The housewives prepared thoroughly for Pesach, buying eggs, chicken and geese. Two or three families in Yaruga had machines for making matzah. My neighbors had one of these machines and we bought matzah from them. I watched them making matzah. It was all so very interesting to watch them making the dough and putting pieces of it into the machine, then to see the thin sheets of matzah coming out of the machine, and afterwards I like to watch the people packing the matzah into baskets and covering them with clean cloths. At home preparations for the holiday started in advance. We did a major clean up. Chametz was removed from the house. We also took fancy dishes down from the attic. The food at Pesach was very delicious. There were mandatory dishes on seder night: matzah, bitter greens, chicken, potatoes, eggs and kosher wine. My father didn't conduct the seder ritual, a tradition for religious Jews. We just had a fancy dinner. We also sent treats to our Ukrainian neighbors at Pesach, and they sent us their treats at Christian Easter. This exchange was customary among Jews and non-Jews in Yaruga.
When I turned 13 my grandmothers demanded that I had bar mitzvah, the celebration of the coming of age of Jewish boys. Circumcision is traditionally done in infancy. My father invited a man who knew Hebrew and Jewish traditions to teach me the prayer that I was supposed to recite. So, I had my bar mitzvah in secret at the age of 13, because at that time the authorities did not allow religious rituals. A rabbi presided at the ritual and many of our relatives and friends attended. My mother made a lekkah, a type of traditional egg caketraditin. She cut it into small slices, put a few into a letter, and sent them to my grandmother Zlata in America.
Our town was small and poor. We didn't have electricity or radio. Only the central street was paved. Sometimes in the spring the unpaved streets turned into impassable mud roads. On holidays the town changed. People dressed up and couples walked in the central square. Later there was another entertainment besides the Jewish theater. It was a cinema that came to town once a week. The cinema showed silent movies, but we enjoyed them. The film projector was manual and sometimes when operators got tired they allowed us to turn the handle, which was the greatest fun ever for us.
In the late 1920s, during the period of collectivization and dispossession of kulaks [11] someone named Firyubin came to supervise these processes. Firyubin was a communist, although he had no education whatsoever. He organized a meeting, and the people attending the meeting took a unanimous decision to join the collective farm [12] voluntarily. But in reality this decision was not voluntary. Before this meeting Firyubin and his assistants made the rounds of all the families, offering them the chance to enroll in the collective farm. If people didn't agree they were declared kulaks and enemies of the Soviet power. Some of these people ran away and others were sent into exile to Siberia. My father entered the collective farm. There were 3 collective farms in Yaruga. The Jewish farm was the vine growing and wine making collective farm. My father soon became chief vintner of thee Jewish farm. The two other collective farms were Ukrainian. One of them was agricultural and the other obtained sandstone and manufactured stone mills.
In 1928 I went to the Jewish elementary school. After we finished elementary school, our entire class attended the Ukrainian secondary school, and we had no problems there. We were all fluent in Ukrainian. However, I still do my counting in Yiddish because I'm accustomed to it. The Jewish school was closed down some time in 1935-36.
During the Soviet holidays there were meetings held in the central square. A stand was installed from where the chairman of the village council, chairmen of collective farms and other officials delivered their speeches, and from where I usually read a greeting from the school. I rehearsed my speech at home and my mother and father took my preparations extremely seriously.
In the early 1930s there was a great famine in Ukraine [13]. We were hungry, but no people starved to death in Yaruga or the surrounding villages, because the collective farm managed to sell enough wine to provide for those who worked there. My father helped another family that had moved with us from Ivanovka to survive through those years. It was the family of a widow with 3 children. My father supported the widow and her family until her children finished their education and could earn their living.
We moved to the town of Ovruch in the Zhytomir region. My father was offered an opportunity to establish a transport agency from scratch: to purchase horses, build stables and employ the staff. My father was a very intelligent man, and he managed to do everything promptly. He was chief of this transport agency until the beginning of the war. We received a two- room apartment in the building where the office was located. It was more comfortable than our house in Yaruga: we had electricity, a radio and a bathroom.
Ovruch was mainly a Jewish town. There were several synagogues and a Jewish lower and upper secondary school. Jews held leading positions in the municipal council and the town party committee. There was also a Ukrainian secondary school and a Russian secondary school for children of the military.
I studied in the Ukrainian secondary school because I had already been in a Ukrainian school and it was easier for me to continue there. I became a Komsomol [14] member and was very fond of various social activities. I was assistant chairman of the Kkomsomol committee and was responsible for conducting meetings and propaganda for the Soviet authorities. I was also editor of our newspaper and carried the flag at the parades on holidays.
It was during the so-called Great Terror [15] that the arrests of innocent people began. People were surprised at how it could happen that party and trade union leaders came to be branded enemies of the people. It was amazing that outstanding cultural and party leaders, comrades of Lenin, were arrested and declared enemies of the people. My father didn't believe this. A freight forwarder from my father's office was arrested. He vanished and nobody knew what happened to him. Every night when I went to bed, I would say inwardly good-bye to my father. I wasn't sure that I would be seeing him in the morning. Fortunately, he survived the ordeal.
After reading the book Investigating Officer's Notes by Leo Sheinin [16], I decided to enter the Faculty of Law after finishing school. But my father wanted me to become a doctor. I obeyed my parents, and never in my life did I regret it.
There were two medical institutes in Kiev; one of them was in the regional hospital, formerly a Jewish hospital. I gained admission to the Kiev Medical Institute #2. I had no problems gaining admission, as there was no anti-Semitism before the war.
There were two medical institutes in Kiev; one of them was in the regional hospital, formerly a Jewish hospital. I gained admission to the Kiev Medical Institute #2. I had no problems gaining admission, as there was no anti-Semitism before the war.
On the morning of 22nd June 1941 I was lying in bed reading the History of the Russian Communist Party manual, preparing for my exam in Marxism- Leninism, when my landlady Fania ran into my room to tell me that she heard stories told by farmers from Zhuliany [formerly a suburb of Kiev, presently a town neighborhood with an airport] that Zhuliany was being bombed by German bombers and that the war had begun. I ran to see my cousin Vitia. I couldn't believe that this could be true. Vitia was listening to Churchill's speech on the BBC. Churchill was talking about Germany's treacherous attack on the Soviet Union, and said that Great Britain was going to support the Soviet Union. So we heard about the beginning of the war even before we heard Molotov's [17] speech. I remember crowds of people on Kreschatik Street listening to Molotov's speech. It was a sunny day, but it seemed that there was a cloud over Kreschatik, so serious and grave were the faces of the people.
On the very first day of the war, my fellow-students and I went to the military registration office to volunteer to go to the front immediately. But we were medical students, so we had to continue our studies.
On the very first day of the war, my fellow-students and I went to the military registration office to volunteer to go to the front immediately. But we were medical students, so we had to continue our studies.
We finished our second year of studies at the Institute. The hospitals of the Institute began to receive the wounded. We helped to carry the wounded patients to the hospital. We also organized a unit to fight against parachutists. We patrolled the ravines coordinating our patrol duty with our schedules at the Institute. This was the area of Babi Yar [18]. There were 20-30 of us armed only with pistols. We were lucky to have met no parachutists. If we had, there would have been no survivors in our group, because parachuters were well armed. At that time we didn't know that Babi Yar, where we used to walk before the war, would become a mass grave for hundreds of thousands of people. We were also responsible for meeting trains of refugees from the West. These were mostly families of the military. We took them to the Botanical Garden where they fell asleep either on benches or on the ground. Kiev was often bombed and we were on duty at the Institute. We were not allowed to leave our posts during air raids. It was frightening to be there alone, and I tried to stand beside a support wall just in case a bomb hit the building.
In August 1941 our Institute evacuated. The teachers went by train and the students went to Kharkov on foot. It was fun at first. The weather was nice and the road was smooth for the first 30 km. But then it became much more difficult. We covered 500 km in about a month. We stayed in villages and farmers gave us food and milk. Sometimes we felt like staying in those villages. We came to Kharkov at the end of August. My parents found me in Kharkov. They moved on to the Gorky region with some acquaintances of theirs. We didn't know whether we were ever going to see each other again.
Our Institute was evacuated to Cheliabinsk. I didn't want to go that far away from where my parents were supposed to be. I went to Novosibirsk and was admitted to the 3rd year of Novosibirsk Medical Institute. I had to earn my living and got a job as a nurse at the radio factory. I went to classes in the morning and stayed overnight at the factory.
My father was mobilized into the army, but due to his age he didn't have to go to the front. Instead, he was sent to the logistics department of the Kiev Communications College that was located in Cheliabinsk. He organized a farmyard where they grew vegetables and raised pigs.
In 1944 the College reevacuated and my father and mother and Mura and Itshak came to Kiev.
In May 1943 the Institute was reevacuated to Moscow. The headquarters of the Military Faculty and Military Clinics were located in the old building of Moscow Hospital #2. Well-known doctors and scientists lectured there. Soon we were given the rank of lieutenants of medical services. By that time we were allowed few freedoms. My friend Volodia Shteinberg and I rented an apartment. We were lucky with our landladies. They were two very nice women who worked at the booking offices of the Stanislavskiy and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theaters. All the theaters and other cultural institutions in Moscow were operating in 1943. We often went to plays at these theaters, as well as to the Bolshoi Theater [19] and the Philharmonic. We also went to the Jewish State Theater to watch Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem and King Lear staged by the well-known theatrical producer Mikhoels [20].
At the end of 1943 we passed our state exams and became professional doctors. We were also promoted to the rank of captains of medical services. We received our diplomas and a personal stamp. I still keep it.
In January 1944 I was sent to the Karelian front. I became commander of the sanitary unit for the infantry regiment. I got a baptism of fire in February. I volunteered to go to the rear of the enemy as a doctor with a battalion. The chief of headquarters who heard of my desire to go to the rear of the enemy asked with a hint of irony, 'Captain, can you ski? Can you shoot an automatic gun, hold the all-round defense and camouflage? So, what are you butting into, you newly born doctor?' He noticed that I was hurt by his comments and advised me to be careful and to follow what the others were doing. I didn't realize then that the chief of headquarters was worrying about me and wanted to save my life. Later I became a doctor for the medical and sanitary battalion and senior doctor of the regiment, but I always remembered the wise chief of headquarters and my dangerous campaign into the rear of the enemy.
In January 1944 I was sent to the Karelian front. I became commander of the sanitary unit for the infantry regiment. I got a baptism of fire in February. I volunteered to go to the rear of the enemy as a doctor with a battalion. The chief of headquarters who heard of my desire to go to the rear of the enemy asked with a hint of irony, 'Captain, can you ski? Can you shoot an automatic gun, hold the all-round defense and camouflage? So, what are you butting into, you newly born doctor?' He noticed that I was hurt by his comments and advised me to be careful and to follow what the others were doing. I didn't realize then that the chief of headquarters was worrying about me and wanted to save my life. Later I became a doctor for the medical and sanitary battalion and senior doctor of the regiment, but I always remembered the wise chief of headquarters and my dangerous campaign into the rear of the enemy.
I became a member of the Communist Party at the front. I believed it was my duty to be a communist and to face the most dangerous and difficult tasks.
In November 1944 we left Norway to deploy in the vicinity of the town of Petsamo, in the tundra. I faced anti-Semitism for the first time there. Once we were sitting in the company of doctors. There were women doctors there, as well as the director of the hospital and the visiting chief of headquarters of the regiment. We were talking with him and he said to me, 'You are a good guy, even though you are a Jew'. I froze, but kept silent. The chief of headquarters was senior in rank and if I had decided to sort things out with him it might have cost me several years in prison camps.
At dawn on 9th May 1945 I woke up to the sound of people shouting, 'Get up all! Victory!'. People all around were saluting and shooting their guns.
My division doctor was appointed human resources manager at the sanitary headquarters of the Belomorsk Military Regiment. He offered me a position as his assistant. I served under him for two years at the construction of the Belomorcanal [21] in Belomorsk, and in 1947 he also helped me to get a transfer to the Kiev Military Regiment.
I worked as a doctor at the military unit for some time and demobilized after few months. I left my well-paying position with a salary of 2,000 rubles for the position of a common doctor with a salary of 600 rubles. But I was eager to do scientific research in medicine.
At the beginning of 1953 when the Doctors' Plot [22] started along with other anti-Semitic campaigns stirred up in Moscow, I was going through a hard time. In February 1953 I performed a surgery on an elderly man. All the other doctors refused to operate on him. They were afraid that the patient would not survive the operation. At the end of the surgery my assistant told me that by negligence we had transfused the patient with the wrong blood type. This meant death for the patient. We quickly retransfused the patient with the appropriate blood. By some miracle the patient survived. This annoying mistake that was not my fault had serious consequences. The chief doctor of the hospital believed it was his task to get rid of Jews. If the patient had died I would have been taken to court. Before his release from hospital the patient, who didn't know what had happened during his surgery, asked a nurse for my name, saying, 'My granddaughter is a schoolgirl. There are articles in newspapers about doctors that poison people. I want to go to my granddaughter's school to tell children about this wonderful Jewish doctor, Moisey Goihberg. All the other doctors refused to operate on me, but he performed this surgery and saved me.' Every day I opened newspapers with horror. There were satirical articles with Jewish names (specifying their real names in brackets). Assistant Professor Krisson and a few other Jews were fired from our clinic. The party district committee issued a decree stating that it was difficult for a Christian to get employed because many people of different faiths got jobs.