After Lithuania gained independence [20], my life became easier in the material and moral way. I work for a private company now. I’ve faced no anti-Semitism. I speak Lithuanian to Lithuanian people and Yiddish to Jewish people. I’ve become an active member of the Lithuanian Jewish community. I haven’t become a religious person, but I feel like supporting the community. There are fewer than 300 Jews left in Kaunas, and soon there will be hardly anybody left to attend the synagogue. I go to the synagogue for the morning prayer, and on Saturday my wife and I go there together. I keep telling my wife that we need to move to Israel and I believe she will give her consent one day, and then my dream to live in the Promised Land will come true.
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Displaying 21631 - 21660 of 50826 results
Yankl Dovid Dudakas
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I’ve visited Israel three times. I went there to my grandson’s bar mitzvah for the first time. My daughter was in a pretty tough situation, and I stayed in Israel for almost a year helping her about the house and looking after her son. I admire Israel, its people, the atmosphere of freedom and independence, its nature, the sea and the sun. Each time, when coming to Israel, I am thinking of staying there for good, but when I come back to Lithuania, I know that this is my motherland, and it’s hard to leave it.
My younger brother Simon also became a tinsmith. He married Anna, a Jewish girl. Their daughter’s name is Ella. In 1972 my brother and his family decided to move to Israel. I supported him with some money. In those yeas one needed quite a lot of money to be able to get rid of the Soviet citizenship. Simon left taking my word that I would follow him some time later. Then the Judgment Day War began, and we delayed our trip. Each time there was something in the way, and I failed to have my dream come true. Simon died in 1986. His daughter lives in Israel. She has three grown up sons.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My family has always been close. I stood on my own feet and supported my brothers. My brother Mende finished a lower secondary school and obtained the specialty of a shoe material cutter. He married Valeriya, a Russian woman. Her life story is also very interesting. She didn’t remember her parents. They said her parents were Jewish and perished in the ghetto during an action. Some locals rescued Valeriya and raised her as a Christian. Mende and Valeriya have two children: daughter Yida, born in 1959 [her married name is Batvinski] and son Lev, born in 1967. Lev lived in Israel, but returned to Lithuania. Mende continues working in his field of specialization, and Lev became my apprentice. I trained him to become a tinsmith, and now we work together.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Yelena, the younger one, finished a teachers’ training school. She worked as a tutor in a kindergarten in Kaunas. Her private life has not been successful either. Yelena’s husband Yuriy Kocherginskiy developed a severe disease of joints. He had to take lots of medications, which affected his liver. He died. Yelena moved to Israel in 1999. She also lives in Beer Sheva, not far from her sister. She works as a tutor and also hopes to improve her personal situation.
Inna, the older one, finished a medical school in Vilnius and became a medical nurse. She got married. Her married name is Furmanovskaya. In 1989 her son Arthur was born. Inna’s marriage did not last. She divorced her husband. In 1996 she and her son moved to Israel. Her ex-husband moved to Canada. Inna lives in Beer Sheva where she also works as a medical nurse. She hasn’t remarried, but she has a boyfriend. My grandson Arthur goes to school.
Inna, the older one, finished a medical school in Vilnius and became a medical nurse. She got married. Her married name is Furmanovskaya. In 1989 her son Arthur was born. Inna’s marriage did not last. She divorced her husband. In 1996 she and her son moved to Israel. Her ex-husband moved to Canada. Inna lives in Beer Sheva where she also works as a medical nurse. She hasn’t remarried, but she has a boyfriend. My grandson Arthur goes to school.
,
1996
See text in interview
I always wanted to live in Israel, but each time there was something preventing my dream from coming true. When Jews were leaving Lithuania after the war, I was just a boy and was not in the position to make decisions for myself. I’ve always taken the situation in Israel close to my heart, particularly during the Six-Day-War [18] and the Judgment Day War [19]. It was particularly hard considering the bluntly negative attitude of Soviet authorities and the Party to Israel, and sitting at meetings I had to listen to the flow of lies about the country that was my dream. My daughters must have taken in this love of Israel and implemented what I’ve failed to do. They both live in Israel.
,
1967
See text in interview
I always wanted to live in Israel, but each time there was something preventing my dream from coming true. When Jews were leaving Lithuania after the war, I was just a boy and was not in the position to make decisions for myself. I’ve always taken the situation in Israel close to my heart, particularly during the Six-Day-War [18] and the Judgment Day War [19]. It was particularly hard considering the bluntly negative attitude of Soviet authorities and the Party to Israel, and sitting at meetings I had to listen to the flow of lies about the country that was my dream. My daughters must have taken in this love of Israel and implemented what I’ve failed to do. They both live in Israel.
,
1967
See text in interview
In 1966 our elder daughter Inna was born. In 1968 Yelena, the younger one, was born. I worked a lot and provided well for the family. We had a good life. We spent vacations in Palanga, a Baltic Sea resort, and went to the Black Sea a few times. We went to the cinema and theaters. Mama lived with us until the last days of her life. She prayed and fasted on Yom Kippur. On Pesach we always had matzah. Well, we didn’t follow the kosher rules, and I had to work on Saturday, but we always celebrated Pesach and Rosh Hashanah, the biggest Jewish holidays, at home.
,
1968
See text in interview
Sophia finished school in Vilnius and found a job as a storekeeper. We liked each other and got married soon. Our wedding took place in early 1965. We had our marriage registered in a district registry office, and then had a wedding party at our home where my mother and mother-in-law made a fancy dinner. The food was delicious. We had about 30 guests. They were our relatives and friends. They were eating, drinking and having fun almost until dawn.
My private life happened to be very successful. In 1964 I went to visit my distant relatives in Vilnius where I met a Jewish girl. She became my wife some short time later. Her name is Sophia. My wife’s maiden name is Gelzina. She was born in Gomel, Belarus, in 1939. When the Great Patriotic War began, my wife’s mother and Sophia were in evacuation in Chkalov region in the Ural. Sophia’s father, Itzhak Gelzin, was at the front. His wartime service was over in Vilnius. He liked the town and stayed there. He found a job and arranged for his family to join him there.
My private life happened to be very successful. In 1964 I went to visit my distant relatives in Vilnius where I met a Jewish girl. She became my wife some short time later. Her name is Sophia. My wife’s maiden name is Gelzina. She was born in Gomel, Belarus, in 1939. When the Great Patriotic War began, my wife’s mother and Sophia were in evacuation in Chkalov region in the Ural. Sophia’s father, Itzhak Gelzin, was at the front. His wartime service was over in Vilnius. He liked the town and stayed there. He found a job and arranged for his family to join him there.
By the early 1960s our shop developed into a small factory named the ‘Metallist.’ I had a very good reputation and worked as a shift foreman. Once I was requested to act as a shop superintendent through the period of his absence, and I managed very well. Since then I often filled in for the shop superintendent, when he was on vacation or business trips. Many times through my career I was offered key positions, but during the Soviet period workers and foremen were paid way better than the engineering staff. My position was more profitable and I worked until 1997 without changing my job.
,
1963
See text in interview
In 1963, after my father died, I observed the mourning after him for a whole year. I went to the synagogue every day. Once the secretary of my party organization summoned me to his office. By the way, he was a Jew. He said: ‘You, Dudakas, are leading a double life!’ When I asked what exactly this was about, he replied that ‘the party organization was aware of my attending the synagogue.’ I replied in a rather sharp manner: ‘I am following my father’s testament and our ancestors’ traditions. If it is incompatible with my party membership certificate, I can leave it right here, on the table!’ The secretary calmed me down and never again touched upon this issue.
,
1963
See text in interview
In 1953, when I was drafted into the army, I was already a party member. I finished the training course in Vapniarka and served in an Air Force unit in the town of Stanislav [today Ivano-Frankovsk, 550 km from Kyiv]. I was an electric mechanic. I have only good memories of my service. I was surrounded by nice guys and faced no anti-Semitic incidents. I made good friends in the army. We corresponded and remained friends for many years. In the army I was actively involved in public activities as well. In 1956 the 20th Party Congress [17] denounced Stalin and his crimes, and it was a collapse of my ideals. I can say, I lost any interest in further active involvement in public activities, and from then on I was a Communist only nominally.
I got tinsmith’s training. At first I started working for a distant relative before I got a job in a shop. There was a good team in this shop. I was given an opportunity to go to an evening school where I managed to finish the seventh grade. I joined the Komsomol and was quite an active Komsomol member. I was sincerely committed to Communist ideals. I remember what a hard blow Stalin’s death in 1953 was for me. I was secretary of a Komsomol unit then, and after the death of the leader I admitted almost all the young people in the shop to Komsomol. I myself joined the Communist Party. My father was amazed at my political activities. I remember literally his words in this regard: ‘Why are you laying your sound head into a sick bed?’ However, I was attracted by the Communist ideas. They are truly attractive and very humane.
I went back to school. This time I went to the fifth grade in a Russian school. We didn’t have notebooks and had one textbook for five or six students. My friends convinced me to go to a Jewish school, and there I had to go to the third grade. My nine-year-old desk mate used to tease me continuously. I felt overage compared to my classmates, and this feeling didn’t add to my feeling comfortable in my class. At some point of time the school was closed. I was about to turn 16 and decided to quit my studies. I had to go to work to help my parents. All that my mother was capable of doing was some housework. So, basically it was because of the war that I failed to get a decent education. If it hadn’t been for the war, I would have done better in life.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Mama lived many years longer. She died at the age of 76 in 1980. I remembered what she had said during my father’s funeral, and she was buried in a coffin. However, we observed all other Jewish traditions. An old Jewish man recited a prayer for the deceased, and after the funeral we sat shivah. In 1963, a few months after my father died, my grandmother Beyle Leya died. Grandfather Girsh outlived her and my father, he turned one hundred years old and died in 1967.
My father went to work shortly after we returned from evacuation. It was hard to get a job then, particularly for those who had no education. He was employed as a loader, and later he became a vendor. When he was old he trained in glass cutting, and had this job until he retired. The period of evacuation and postwar hardships affected my father’s health condition. He had heart problems. My father died of heart disease in 1963, one year after he retired. He was buried according to Jewish traditions. He was carried to the cemetery on a board across the town, and lowered into the grave. There was no coffin. This was frightful and my mother mentioned she would not wish to lie in damp ground without a coffin.
My father found a vacant room in a damp basement in Kaunas. The water was almost flowing down the walls. We moved in there. My grandmother and grandfather lived nearby in similar conditions. In 1946 the Neris burst the banks and flooded the houses in the central part of Kaunas. However, our hovel was intact. It was located farther from the center on some elevated spot. So we managed to bargain it for a room in the center of the town. The owner of the room was frightened by the flood and wanted to move into our basement. There was a hairdresser’s next door to our new room. It hadn’t been used for a while, and my father obtained a permit to have it for us. So, we walled up the door opening, made a window and doors between the rooms, and it was a rather nice apartment that we got in the end. My parents helped our grandfather and grandmother to move in with us and since then we stayed together. Later they moved to Malka’s place. Malka was my mother’s younger sister. They stayed with her as long as they lived.
In summer 1945 we arrived in Kaunas. Grandfather Girsh and Grandmother Beyle Leya were with us. We stayed with our relatives temporarily. Esther, my mother’s brother Zalman’s widow, who married their older brother Yosif Meishe, had returned from evacuation earlier, and she was living there. We went to Jonava. There were hardly any Jews left in the town. The ones, who had stayed in the town, perished during the occupation, and survivors didn’t rush back. We knew we would not be able to live on ashes where even stones seemed to have been saturated with the blood of our close ones. It was not for nothing that they said all Jews were interrelated in Jonava. We found our former room. There was nothing left there. Someone told us of almost a fight between two neighbors arguing about my mother’s Singer sewing machine. There was only an old wardrobe with wooden carving left in the room. My father rented a wagon to ship it to Kaunas. It was a memory of our past life.
I went to school and since I didn’t know Russian, I had to start from scratch and went to the first grade. During vacations my brother and I supplied wood to the glass factory. The logs were very heavy, one of us could not lift a log, and therefore, the effort required us both to cope. In the summer we picked herbs, and Mama made soup with them. There were also mushrooms and berries, but the main product was potato. My father stayed at the labor front till the end of the war. Grandfather Meir died in Nizhniy Novgorod, and we never visited him there. When my father came back, he started making arrangements for us to obtain a permit to return home to Lithuania almost immediately.
Our mother and we, our grandmother, grandfather and Mama’s brother Zalman’s wife Esther lived on together. In 1942 we were notified that Rochl, my mother’s younger sister, had perished at the front. This news of the loss of his younger daughter, his favorite, happened to be very hard on Grandfather Girsh. He no longer went to work. He was lying for hours on his bed staring at the ceiling. He often prayed. My grandfather never came back to normal and never went back to work till the end of his life.
My father was planning to go and find Grandfather, when his call-up paper from the military commandant’s office was delivered to him. My father was recruited to the labor front [16]. My father was assigned to a mine in the town of Revda in Sverdlovsk region. It wasn’t far from the place where we were. However, my father only visited us occasionally. The discipline in the labor army was as strict as in the army.
My father was worried about our missing grandfather. He kept inquiring about him, and at some time he met someone, who could tell him good news and details of what happened to my grandfather. When we got off the train, my grandfather was on his berth, when two young Jewish girls entered the carriage. They discovered Meir on his berth, and Meir told them that his family was heading to Nizhniy Novgorod. The girls happened to be heading there, too, and they took my grandfather with them. In Nizhniy Novgorod my grandfather was accommodated with a Jewish family. He got well and even took to some commerce, and, as they told us, even managed to get some food products for the family.
My mother could hardly do any work. During the last childbirth she had puerperal fever, which affected her psyche. She was quiet and calm most of the time, but at times she suffered from attacks, when she didn’t recognize people and was rather restless. She couldn’t do any physical work, and Mende and I had to work in our vegetable garden.
People were accommodated either at local houses or in a dormitory. We stayed at a barrack before we were provided with a room in a small house. There was also a collective farm in Ufimka, and it was better to work there. In the collective farm people were paid by working days [15] and provided with food products, which was not the case at the Soviet farm where my father was working. At the beginning we were starving. We were given a plot of land of 15 hundred square meters, and we took to developing our farming skills. In summer 1942 we had our first vegetable harvesting experience with some local people helping us.
Our trip lasted ten more days, and our plans of reaching Nizhniy Novgorod were not to become true. The train arrived at Ufimka station, Ochik district, Sverdlovsk region [about 1700 km from Moscow] where all passengers got off. We were served a hot meal and sent to various collective and Soviet farms [14]. Our family stayed in the Soviet farm at this same station. A few days later our aunt and uncle, who had been lost on the way, arrived and joined us.
When the explosions stopped, we went on knowing not where to go. Fortunately we bumped into our uncle Yosif Meishe and Esther’s fiancé. We stayed overnight on the bank of a lake and went back to the station in the morning. Yosif Meise spoke good Russian, and we managed to find the way back. Our train was on the track. We were the first to come into the carriage, and my father, mother and Mende joined us almost immediately. We were very happy to reunite. They thought we were dead and didn’t hope to see us again. However, our joy was overshadowed by the fact that Grandfather Meir was not there, and we knew nothing about him. The train started and we had to move on.