We celebrated Soviet holidays at home: 1st May and 7th November [October Revolution Day] [41], Soviet Army Day and New Year's Eve. Of course, Victory Day [42], 9th May was the most important holiday. On this day we went to the monument to the Unknown Soldier where we laid flowers. In the evening we had a gathering of veterans where we shared memories and sang wartime songs.
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Major events (political and historical)
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Displaying 10681 - 10710 of 50826 results
Osip Hotinskiy
Zoria and I wanted to make our children's life easier and registered them as Russians in their passports, though they had my surname. But they faced anti-Semitism anyway.
After finishing school Nina entered the French Faculty of the College of Foreign Languages. She had all excellent marks and took part in public activities: this was mandatory at the time. When she was a 3rd or 4th-year student, fifteen of her fellow students were sent to France on training. Nina was also on the list initially, but during the second round of selection where she submitted application forms stating her parents' nationality, she was removed from the list. She got no explanation, but did she need any?
After perestroika Nina started working for a number of publishing houses. She works at a publishing house publishing books on economics now. My daughter isn't really fond of this work, but in her free time she also translates fiction, which is more interesting for her.
After finishing college Nikolay went to work as an editor in a publishing house. He works for a number of publishing houses now. He reviews manuscripts and gives his commercial assessment of books.
In the 1970s, when mass departures of Jews to Israel began, I didn't share the common and official view that those people were traitors. I understood those people who were often driven to despair by anti-Semitism and I understood what they were driven by. However, I didn't consider departure. I grew up here, participated in the war and wanted to live here, and my family was of the same opinion.
In the late 1980s the General Secretary of the CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev [44] introduced the new policy of the Party: perestroika. This was freedom for us that Soviet citizens hadn't seen throughout the period of the Soviet regime: freedom of travel and freedom of press. Before this period we listened to Radio Free Europe [45] to hear the news, but now we were overwhelmed by the quantities of information avalanching down on us. Newspapers and magazines published articles that we would have never imagined to appear. Books formerly forbidden in the USSR were published; movies that had been kept in closed archives for many years were shown. It became possible to correspond and visit people abroad and invite friends and relatives.
At first I was enthusiastic about perestroika, but then everything went differently than expected. Unemployment, which actually never existed in the USSR, rose, prices started to go up and it became more and more difficult to make a living on existing salaries. It all ended with the breakup of the USSR. I still don't think this was worth doing. The states that emerged from the ruins of the USSR still exist in poverty and discords. I think there are no winners here.
Many Jewish communities appeared in Russia after the breakup of the USSR. I take part in the work of the Jewish Association of Veterans of the War headed by Hero of the Soviet Union [47] Moisey Marianovskiy. I take part in all events, particularly on Victory Day. People have become religious and this surprises me. What can religion give us? I think it is for humanitarians while representatives of exact sciences are atheists. My parents were communists and raised me as an atheist. I cannot believe, for example, that a dead person can rise from the dead. The Bible and the Torah are legends which are over 2,000 years old. Would anything in my life change for the better if I put on a yarmulka, started reading the Bible and murmured prayers? I prefer common human values: family, love, honesty and devotion. In my opinion, this is what can change the world.
anna schwartzman
They celebrated Jewish holidays.
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Before WW2
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Before Sabbath my grandmother lit candles at home.
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Before WW2
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My grandparents attended the synagogue.
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Before WW2
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My father said that his parents were religious people.
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Before WW2
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My father and his brother attended cheder.
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Before WW2
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Their mother was always concerned with feeding such a large family, she worked around the house unstintingly.
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Before WW2
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My father's family was very poor. He used to say that the children often went to bed hungry.
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Before WW2
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Paula's younger sister was named Enna. She was two years younger than Paula. Enna lives in Israel. Sometimes she calls me. Paula's older brother David, lived, in Israel. He died almost ten years ago.
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Before WW2
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The oldest daughter, Paula, was three years my senior. We were friends. Today Paula and her son live in Brooklyn, New York, USA.
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Before WW2
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The youngest of my father's sisters was Tzipa. Her married name was Rozenshtein. Tzipa's husband had a grocery store.
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Before WW2
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Rukhl and her husband ran a tavern that sold wine.
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Before WW2
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Then there was a sister named Dvoyra, whose husband's name was Iosia. He was a businessman.
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Before WW2
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The second oldest sister was Leya. She had five children: two daughters and three sons. Her husband was a tinsmith and called Srul.
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Before WW2
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Yentl was the oldest of the sisters who lived in Moldova. She was married, but I don't remember her husband's name.
Two of my father's sisters, Tuba and Beylia, and their brother, Moishe, went to America in the 1910s. My father used to correspond with his sisters but lost touch with his brother. After Moishe left for America, nothing was heard of him again. I know that Tuba and Beylia were the oldest children in the family, and Moishe was slightly older than my father. I can't recall anything about the life of the sisters that left. Of course we received letters from them, and my father read them aloud, but I just don't remember any more.
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Before WW2
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Ruvim finished school and went to work as an entry level worker for the construction company where my father worked.
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Before WW2
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The new house only differed from our previous quarters by the number of rooms. The rest was all the same - the same kitchen, the same lack of running water and a sewer system, and the same furnace heating. Now my grandfather had his own room and so did our parents. I and my brother Ruvim also had our separate rooms.
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Before WW2
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I had a longer walk to school after we moved, and we had to switch synagogues and go to the one that was closer.
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Before WW2
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My grandfather was always trying to convince my mother that it would be better to buy your own place and not pay rent when you're old. He had money which he received from the sale of his home after my grandmother died. Also, Uncle Khaim regularly sent money to him. Just like in the old place, there was a large courtyard with several houses that were referred to and numbered like apartments. The owner was a Jew and rented out these apartments to Jews only. We were the only tenants who bought an apartment from him. All the others just rented them.
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Before WW2
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My parents bought their own living quarters with my grandfather's help in 1932. It was a four-bedroom apartment, or rather the same kind of separate small house in a large courtyard we had before.
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Before WW2
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Every subject was taught in Romanian. We spoke Romanian, so it was no problem for us. The students were predominantly Jewish.
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Before WW2
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