When cooperative societies appeared in 1965 we had an opportunity to buy an apartment. There was a big rush for flats then because state-owned and state-distributed flats were put on free-market sale for the first time. Only those who had a per-head dwelling area of less than 4.5 square meters were allowed to buy an apartment. Mother and daddy were 'western' people and knew that sooner or later it would be allowed to buy and sell apartments, so they collected money all the time in order to buy a flat and get Grigory back to Leningrad from Krasnoyarsk.
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Displaying 13891 - 13920 of 50826 results
Alla Kolton
It was very hard for me to get a job. From 1959 I worked as an engineer- technologist in the Institute of Chemistry and Pharmaceutics, where I had studied earlier. Then, in 1961, daddy helped me to get employment in the Research and Development Institute of Communications. They had a laboratory there in which I worked until 1971. In 1971 my friend helped me to get a position as technologist in a blood transfusion clinic in the city of Pushkin near Leningrad. I made preparations of blood. Our station was closed in November 1998. And now I am retired. My husband Garry is a professor at the Mining Institute.
My brother comes each year and we spend our vacations together. We had a very amicable family in general. Grigory and I call each other every 10 days. I love my nephews. Earlier we spent vacations together, but then, when our children grew up, they started to spend vacations on their own. When the kids were small we traveled to different places: Ukraine and the Baltic countries, including Latvia, and to Rogachev in Belarus.
My husband's father Abram Kolton was born in 1914. Abram worked at the Stalin Metallurgy Factory in Leningrad and taught students in an institute. He was a mathematician and mechanic, candidate of sciences, and worked on the theoretical fundamentals for the design of turbines. In 1941 he volunteered to go to the front, but after the Germans demolished the Dnepropetrovsk Hydroelectric Power Station in 1942 he was summoned from the front to restore that station. In 1959 he was awarded the Lenin Prize for designing turbines for Kuibyshev Hydroelectric Power Station. Abram was always a very modest man and disliked wearing his awards.
My husband entered the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of the Leningrad State University in 1954.
I married him when I was in my last year at the institute in 1959, and soon our son Leonid was born.
Having completed my 2nd year, I left for Kiev for summer practice, and Bronya rented a summer house with Alexandra in Zelenogorsk [a resort near Leningrad]. When I came from practice, Bronya immediately told her that I had arrived. Garry was there and didn't show any visible interest in me. He wanted to meet me, but he didn't know how to do it. That time - 1956 - was a period when foreigners were allowed to visit Russia for the first time. There were many tourists coming to Leningrad and it became customary 'to go and look at the foreigners.' I lived near St Isaak's Square and Hotel Astoria [in the center of Leningrad], and there were a lot of tourists walking around. Garry began to show interest in foreign tourists, and then Bronya gave him my telephone number. Bronya didn't believe that Garry really gave me a call until Garry described her what clothes I was wearing. We went for a walk in the center with him.
Aunt Bronya had one idée fixe: to get me married. When Alexandra saw me at Bronya's birthday party she liked me very much. She asked Bronya to invite me to the birthday party of her daughter Aida. I was seventeen-and-a-half years old. I said I was not going anywhere, let alone to unfamiliar people. But Bronya did her best to persuade me! And Alexandra herself called me and said: 'I ask you very much to come.' I couldn't refuse, and my brother and I set off to that birthday party. All the family was absolutely unfamiliar to me, but I'd already heard a lot about them from Bronya. I remember how I entered and saw the very charming smile of my future husband Garry. That's how we met.
I finished school in 1954 and had no problems entering the Institute of Chemistry and Pharmaceutics. In 1953 when my brother Grigory applied he couldn't enter the college he wanted, and only managed to become a student at the Mining Institute. In 1953 there was already some prejudice against Jews. I studied decently at school and consequently passed my exams well. When I was in my 2nd year I became acquainted with my future husband.
While grandmother and grandfather were alive we always celebrated Pesach. Of the Jewish holidays in my childhood I remember only Pesach: there was matzah, galushki [noodles], stuffed fish, and that's almost all we had. Grandmother didn't try to force us to observe traditions. She was a secular woman, and my parents were non-believers. Grandfather Mordukh was already decrepit, hunch-backed. He had a long beard, and I thought he was very old. He suffered from no illnesses. He was simply a very exhausted old man. He died of old age in 1951 at the age of 72. He was buried according to Jewish tradition. A prayer was duly recited. In accordance with Jewish traditions, the eldest son is to tear or cut his clothes during the funeral. Daddy's lining was cut a little, and he even read a prayer (he knew how to pray in Hebrew). [Editor's note: The interviewee is probably referring to the Kaddish.] I remember it well because I attended the burial of both grandmother and grandfather. After their death Pesach was celebrated at home only as homage to tradition, instilled by grandfather and grandmother. We celebrated without prayers but always had matzah.
After the war grandfather spoke about his belief in God: 'I believe just in case. Just in case God exists.' He had his own judgment, his own religious views and apprehension of God. He respected atheists, but couldn't honestly accept their positions. Grandmother Golda always prevented him from preaching to children. He tried to tell us something all the time, but I started to listen to him only after grandmother's death. I was very sorry for him and I spent much time sitting with him. I spent one whole summer with him. He used to say: 'You are going to regret that you didn't listen.
In the neighboring apartment house there was a room in an apartment where Jews gathered regularly, once a week, and prayed. Ten Jews met there - this was called a minyan. Grandfather called it a synagogue. Grandfather sometimes took Grigory. Grigory would just sit beside him and listen to the adults praying. Grigory didn't have his bar mitzvah there. Girls were not accepted. Granddad had a tallit, which he took with him. When grandfather died daddy took all his books and religious accessories there. At home we had two shelves (these books survived the war) with religious books and books on Jewish history in Hebrew with gold stamping. Granddad read them all. Grandmother hadn't read these books, but grandfather did, all the time. There were prayer books, the Bible, the history of the Jewish people. Grandfather was an educated man in terms of religion. He prayed at home; he enjoyed talking about Jewish history, which he knew so well, to my brother and me.
Grandfather Mordukh resumed his crafts - soldering and repairing pans.
After the war new arrests began. There were three people keeping watch on father - to see what he said, how he behaved and whether or not he was a spy. Two of those people were his closest friends, recruited by the KGB [9]. They were supposed to meet KGB representatives once or twice a week at the Finnish Railway Station and report to them what daddy had said, whom he had met. They couldn't reject that proposal from the KGB. Otherwise they would have been arrested. But none of the three ever told the KGB anything bad about father because he was not arrested. They couldn't hide it from father and told him that they were to 'report' on him. They were even paid for that.
After the war there were many trophy German automatic telephone stations. They were called 'step-by-step' stations. Pick up the handset, press button '?', the operator says: 'Hello', and you say: 'Please, connect me to such and such number'. Daddy was the only man in Russia, who knew that step-by- step automatic telephone exchange system. He was immediately employed at the company Hyprolink and became the head of the group. I met a lot of his subordinates. They said that daddy was a very prominent expert. They wanted to take him away to Moscow, to the Scientific Research Institute of Communications, but he loved his work in Leningrad so much that he refused the invitation.
After the war mother got a job as a bibliographer in the library of the Chemistry Institute and translated texts from different languages, which she knew perfectly, for post-graduate students.
Mother was a quiet person. She was never jealous. She never let others know that she was aware of father's adventures.
I can't remember anybody calling me a Jew at school, it hardly happened. In my class I had both Russian and Jewish friends. We paid no attention to nationality and didn't speak about nationality issues. But once, when we children were playing in the courtyard, someone threw a stone at me. I still have a scar. I know that it was not just an accident.
I learned to read in evacuation, but I didn't know the multiplication table. In Leningrad I was admitted to the second grade where all pupils already knew the multiplication table, so I had to study extra hard. My favorite subject at school was mathematics.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
In Kazakhstan we lived in a barrack. I remember a long corridor and, along its two sides, an infinite number of doors, behind each of which one family lived in one room. Meals were cooked in the rooms, too. Our neighbors were also evacuated people of different origin, Jews, and non-Jews. Relations were good. There was no anti-Semitism.
In Kazakhstan we lived in a barrack. I remember a long corridor and, along its two sides, an infinite number of doors, behind each of which one family lived in one room. Meals were cooked in the rooms, too. Our neighbors were also evacuated people of different origin, Jews, and non-Jews. Relations were good. There was no anti-Semitism. We had three beds in our room. I remember that I agreed with my brother that we would take turns sleeping in my mother's bed. My brother was older and more artful than I was, and I couldn't count very well yet. He told me: 'We'll sleep in mother's bed two nights each - two for you, and two for me.' And all the time deceived me, saying: 'No, it is not your turn yet, only one night has passed.' It turned out that he slept in mother's bed all the time, and I, very rarely. Mother didn't intercede for me: I was a fretful girl, and Grigory was a kind boy.
I remember aunt Guta, to whom we arrived in evacuation, saying: 'I was afraid, that your mother, the spoiled French, wouldn't know how to behave on a state farm.' But mother was a strong-willed person and adjusted herself very easily to the unusual circumstances. I remember how we worked on the plots of land and planted potatoes. She sawed and chopped firewood. She could do anything. Mother worked as a teacher of mathematics in the senior classes of the state farm school. Aunt Guta was the deputy director of that school and she said that she was never ashamed of mother. There were only old and sick men in evacuation. All the healthy and young were at the front, therefore women had to do all men's jobs. I didn't go to school then.
I remember aunt Guta, to whom we arrived in evacuation, saying: 'I was afraid, that your mother, the spoiled French, wouldn't know how to behave on a state farm.' But mother was a strong-willed person and adjusted herself very easily to the unusual circumstances. I remember how we worked on the plots of land and planted potatoes. She sawed and chopped firewood. She could do anything. Mother worked as a teacher of mathematics in the senior classes of the state farm school. Aunt Guta was the deputy director of that school and she said that she was never ashamed of mother. There were only old and sick men in evacuation. All the healthy and young were at the front, therefore women had to do all men's jobs. I didn't go to school then.
After the war it was prohibited to listen to the western radio stations, and in general there were few receivers, but daddy and mum listened to the Voice of America.
Aunt Alya's husband, our neighbor in the communal apartment, was killed in the first days of war and she was left with children - two twins and a grown-up daughter, Tamara. They hadn't evacuated. Daddy could sometimes come home - when he was released from duty in the anti-aircraft defense troops. During leave he fed Alya and her kids, allowed them to burn our furniture to keep them warm. But all the same, both twins perished. Only Tamara survived. Aunt Alya and Tamara left Leningrad after the end of the blockade in 1943 to join her sister in evacuation.
By the winter of 1941 the most awful period had begun, the period of famine in Leningrad, and soldiers of the anti-aircraft defense troops were ordered to collect corpses in apartments and in the streets. Daddy told me that the most terrible thing was to go to sleep as because of the starvation, not everyone would wake up in the morning; people died in their sleep. Then father was transferred to the front line to defend the Nevsky Spot. [Nevsky Spot is the name of the territories on the outskirts of Leningrad near the town of Kirovsk where vehement fighting took place during the war.]
Daddy was awarded many medals, including the medal for 'Courage.' Later he was transferred from surrounded Leningrad to the active army. It was great luck because, if earlier they were dying of hunger, now they were fed with porridge, but they wouldn't be given large portions at once - after a long starvation they could die of too much food.
During the war daddy developed a stomach ulcer. In the active army he passed through Kaliningrad, Poland and Germany as a communications officer. When our army began to seize the trophy German telephone equipment, daddy became a very useful expert. For example, they got hold of a small telephone station, which was necessary in action, but they didn't know how to use it. Knowledge of languages was a rarity, and daddy read the instructions attached to the equipment, understood it, and trained other soldiers to use the trophy equipment. The soldiers taught him to pronounce the Russian 'r' in return. Father even participated in interrogations of captives. He was employed as an interpreter. He completed service in the rank of senior sergeant in Germany.
Father had always been protected by someone or something. There were two cases when he could have been killed but survived. He had been wounded: a bullet passed a few centimeters from vital organs through the soft tissues of his chin. It left a scar under his lower lip. Another time he had just left the blindage when an artillery shell exploded inside. Everyone who was in the blindage was killed. So, twice in the course of the war he survived by a miracle.
We corresponded with father all through the war. I am not very skilful in letters, but mother always wrote to him. He sent some very beautiful picture postcards with views of places where he was at war. He wrote: 'We will win very soon!' All the messages were full of Soviet patriotism. After the war I asked father: 'You knew what Stalin was. Why did you fight for this country?' Daddy answered: 'We chose the lesser of two evils.' They thought that Hitler was worse. Mother brought cards from Kazakhstan, but they didn't survive. We even received small parcels from father. Soldiers had the right to send things to their families when the Soviet troops entered Germany. The officers used to send whole coaches of trophies: furniture and clothes. Rank-and-file soldiers were only permitted to send small parcels. Father sent us paper. He also sent seven porcelain figures of elephants, bone toys - all kinds of knick-knacks; empty cologne bottles painted with Father Frost pictures. For us it was something unusually beautiful. He had sent pencils, 6 silver teaspoons, which I have kept until now. Father sent all these things from Germany. When he arrived home from the front himself he brought a bicycle and a radio-receiver.
By the winter of 1941 the most awful period had begun, the period of famine in Leningrad, and soldiers of the anti-aircraft defense troops were ordered to collect corpses in apartments and in the streets. Daddy told me that the most terrible thing was to go to sleep as because of the starvation, not everyone would wake up in the morning; people died in their sleep. Then father was transferred to the front line to defend the Nevsky Spot. [Nevsky Spot is the name of the territories on the outskirts of Leningrad near the town of Kirovsk where vehement fighting took place during the war.]
Daddy was awarded many medals, including the medal for 'Courage.' Later he was transferred from surrounded Leningrad to the active army. It was great luck because, if earlier they were dying of hunger, now they were fed with porridge, but they wouldn't be given large portions at once - after a long starvation they could die of too much food.
During the war daddy developed a stomach ulcer. In the active army he passed through Kaliningrad, Poland and Germany as a communications officer. When our army began to seize the trophy German telephone equipment, daddy became a very useful expert. For example, they got hold of a small telephone station, which was necessary in action, but they didn't know how to use it. Knowledge of languages was a rarity, and daddy read the instructions attached to the equipment, understood it, and trained other soldiers to use the trophy equipment. The soldiers taught him to pronounce the Russian 'r' in return. Father even participated in interrogations of captives. He was employed as an interpreter. He completed service in the rank of senior sergeant in Germany.
Father had always been protected by someone or something. There were two cases when he could have been killed but survived. He had been wounded: a bullet passed a few centimeters from vital organs through the soft tissues of his chin. It left a scar under his lower lip. Another time he had just left the blindage when an artillery shell exploded inside. Everyone who was in the blindage was killed. So, twice in the course of the war he survived by a miracle.
We corresponded with father all through the war. I am not very skilful in letters, but mother always wrote to him. He sent some very beautiful picture postcards with views of places where he was at war. He wrote: 'We will win very soon!' All the messages were full of Soviet patriotism. After the war I asked father: 'You knew what Stalin was. Why did you fight for this country?' Daddy answered: 'We chose the lesser of two evils.' They thought that Hitler was worse. Mother brought cards from Kazakhstan, but they didn't survive. We even received small parcels from father. Soldiers had the right to send things to their families when the Soviet troops entered Germany. The officers used to send whole coaches of trophies: furniture and clothes. Rank-and-file soldiers were only permitted to send small parcels. Father sent us paper. He also sent seven porcelain figures of elephants, bone toys - all kinds of knick-knacks; empty cologne bottles painted with Father Frost pictures. For us it was something unusually beautiful. He had sent pencils, 6 silver teaspoons, which I have kept until now. Father sent all these things from Germany. When he arrived home from the front himself he brought a bicycle and a radio-receiver.
In 1941 the war began, and our entire family (except for father) - grandfather Mordukh and grandmother Golda, mother, my brother Grigory and I - evacuated to Pavlodar territory in Kazakhstan even before the beginning of the blockade of Leningrad [8]. Daddy remained in Leningrad and at first served in the anti-aircraft defense troops. Many people were lost at the beginning of the war because the country was not ready for it, and Stalin sent thousands of people - young men - to the front, and they had nothing to fight with - neither tanks, nor planes, not even rifles - therefore all of them got killed. So if you look at the messages sent by the military command units about the death of soldiers, the majority of people were killed during the first months of the war.
, Kazakhstan
Already in pre-war time people understood everything that happened in the country. The majority of father's friends were arrested before the war and were serving their terms in camps and prisons, accused of espionage: some were declared German spies, others, French spies, and so on. Daddy was lucky with his factory situation because his boss, understanding what was going on in the country, and knowing father's biography, regularly gave him half-year business trips to the countryside far from the city to somewhere in the center of Russia. The company was installing a telephone cable there. During mass persecutions he was always sent on business trips. The boss was Russian, and they always respected each other. The people of that generation were internationalists, and we were brought up this way too: there was no difference for us between a Russian, a Jew or an Armenian.
Because father worked at a telephone factory as a communications engineer in France, he got a job here in Leningrad at a telephone factory called Red Dawn, also producing automatic telephone stations, and worked there until the beginning of the war in 1941. He even participated in the publication of the factory newspaper as its editor. It was his public assignment. Daddy knew perfect French, and he knew German too, so at the end of his life he occupied the post of senior scientific employee, even though he did not have a diploma.
Mother couldn't find employment in Leningrad for a long time. They even had to address the party committee. Finally she got a job at a paint and lacquer factory where she worked until the beginning of the war in 1941. So mother worked before the war, and grandmother Golda was ill, therefore my brother and I were looked after by a nurse, but I don't remember her. I was too small. Because father worked at a telephone factory as a communications engineer in France, he got a job here in Leningrad at a telephone factory called Red Dawn, also producing automatic telephone stations, and worked there until the beginning of the war in 1941. He even participated in the publication of the factory newspaper as its editor. It was his public assignment. Daddy knew perfect French, and he knew German too, so at the end of his life he occupied the post of senior scientific employee, even though he did not have a diploma.
In 1935 a son, Grigory, was born to my parents, and I was born in 1937. My brother Grigory was born when mother and father lived with his parents in a small room in a communal apartment [7]. With his birth the family became larger, and I was to appear soon, so the room was getting too small for all of us. My parents had to pay a certain sum to exchange it for a big angular room of 37 square meters in a communal apartment near the main post office. That room was divided into three rooms by partitions. The house and the apartment exist to this day. We moved out from it only in 1965, when the house underwent major repairs. I was born in that room, and the six of us lived there: Grandfather Mordukh, Grandmother Golda, daddy, mum, my brother and I. In total there were 7 families in our apartment. After the war there was even a bed placed in the corridor, so crowded was the flat. The people who came back from evacuation had no place to live, since a lot of houses were destroyed during the war.
Mother and father were very interesting people, very independent, and had their own vision of life. They always had many friends from Palestine and France, a large company. Mother was very hospitable. She was a modern, emancipated and well-educated woman. In character she was very quiet and restrained. Daddy, on the other hand, was always a quick-tempered man.
Mother was finishing her education at the University of Lyon, and in 1934, after graduation, father invited mum to come to Russia, to Leningrad. The time when people were put in prison for no reason hadn't yet arrived in Russia. [The interviewee is referring to the so-called Great Terror.] [6] Besides father didn't fully realize the insidiousness of the Soviet regime. If he did, he probably wouldn't have made her come at all. But she wanted to join him. Mother arrived in Leningrad in 1934 on father's invitation. During that period there was no obligatory registration of marriage, so they lived in a free civil marriage. Nobody needed a certificate for marriage then, and if you didn't want to you didn't have to change your surname. My parents were officially registered in ZAGS [state bureau for registration of marriages, births, etc.] only after the war - maybe in 1956 or 1957. It simply became more convenient to have one family name, and it was better for my brother and me to have the same surname as both mum and dad.