Meeting with this brother, whom he loved and appreciated, never happened. Haim was considered a wise man, but the cleverest one was Itsik, he even got to know Albert Einstein. Father’s brother Jacob was busy in some religious activities at Latvia, in Daugavpils. I think it happened both when Latvia was independent (I mean 1930s) and after it became a part of the USSR (1940s-1950s). He went to the synagogue, to my opinion he even was its senior.
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Displaying 34381 - 34410 of 50826 results
David Levin
I consider that in 1930s in Vitebsk they lived a bit better than in Leningrad. They had more food and more freedom. I mean that my parents had to work hard, and in Belarus they had some jobs, taking less time. For example, uncle Boris had some official job, but still he had some free time to find something cheaper, to go to the market. We never went to the market. And they had there comparably cheap market, in Belarus everything was cheaper.
Efim was doctor’s assistant during World War II, and Mikhail was too little, so he didn’t serve in the Army. They all survived, and Boris died later, after the War.
My mother’s and father’s mother tongue was Yiddish. But mainly they spoke Russian to each other. To tell the truth, if they and their relatives didn’t want us, the children, to understand what they were talking about, they spoke Yiddish. Like that: they spoke Russian, then suddenly put some Yiddish words, and that meant that they said something, forbidden for little children. And they talked to mother’s brothers and sisters both Russian and Yiddish.
Parents had good relations. Probably, there were some scandals, but they lived friendly, and they lived together for almost fifty years.
In Leningrad we lived very poor. My parents worked very much, especially mother. She was a cashier in Leningrad House of Selling for a long while, and also she’s been working for Torgsin [10]. Those Torgsin stores were organized in middle 1920s when the Soviet authorities decided to take out gold, silver and jewelry, but legally, not due to repressions, so people came and got food instead of their gold. Mother worked there, and that was a great support. In those times it was nothing to eat, there was a few of food in whole country. There were no rich people, and if somebody war richer than others, he hide his treasures. And in Torgsin they gave ratios, and that was a big business. The ratio included the piece of sausage, the piece of cheese, some butter, and some sugar. That was a holiday to get a ratio. I know all that because I helped my mother to carry the packages. All Torgsin employees got ratios in the boxes. That was such help! Later mother worked in the famous shoe store on Nevsky Avenue, 11, between streets of Gogol and Gertzen [11]. And in front of it there was a ‘Death to husbands’ – the stockinet store [famous city shop].
And what I recalled for whole my life, till today is that when you go on Gorokhovaya street, previously Dzerginsky street, and cross Griboedov channel [one of the main channels of the city, is called after poet and diplomat], the bridge goes straight down, so I remember this bridge very well. I recalled that feeling when suddenly I went up, and nowadays often when I go there, I recall that.
We lived on the Gogol [8] (today Malaya Morskaya) street. In that shared apartment [9], in one room, we lived for almost all our life.
And I remember that I was going to the kindergarten.
When I was born, my parents rented a separate apartment in Vitebsk. They called the owner as a ‘shakhmeister’; I don’t know why, maybe, this was Yiddish word for ‘owner’? We lived just near the Russian Orthodox Church.
He had a good voice, he liked to sing, and he even bought a guitar to take music lessons and learn how to play, but never did that, and the guitar stayed to hang on the wall. He could play some very easy songs on the piano, especially he liked ‘To the position a girl...’ [The first line of the famous song by M. Isakovsky about the Great Patriotic War [7], he sang military songs with great pleasure.
My father served in the Tsar Army during the World War I. Father told me that he happened to get into the gas attack and he was demobilized after that.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Father always paid great attention to the self-education. He studied at the English language courses, read a lot. When I was employed in the Military Naval Institute, I took books in our library (we had the very good one) and brought them to my father, I also brought all the magazines, all the novelties. Once per week we met, and I brought a new book. He was in the center of all events, had wide views, and had a wish to know everything.
Father was an intellectual, wrote a book of war memories, and later he gave this diary to the Museum of Leningrad history. We have at home some notes, where he called himself Rudnitsky. He wasn’t a professional writer and was too shy to write from his own name, so he chose a nickname and wrote his blockade diaries, using this nickname. I don’t think he knew somebody, called Rudnitsky, perhaps, he just liked this family name. Those are real memoirs of the participant of Leningrad Blockade [6].
Father was an intellectual, wrote a book of war memories, and later he gave this diary to the Museum of Leningrad history. We have at home some notes, where he called himself Rudnitsky. He wasn’t a professional writer and was too shy to write from his own name, so he chose a nickname and wrote his blockade diaries, using this nickname. I don’t think he knew somebody, called Rudnitsky, perhaps, he just liked this family name. Those are real memoirs of the participant of Leningrad Blockade [6].
Then father worked on the factory named after Stalin, near Finland railway station [station, where trains to Finland and some part of Leningrad region depart from]. That was a huge factory, it had his own football team, and today it’s called ‘Zenith’ [the best football team in whole city, in 1984 wan the USSR championship, usually plays in the Premier league]. Father worked in the subsidiary department of the factory for a long while.
In Leningrad on Moika [embankment of Moika River – one of the rivers in the very center of the city] there was an artel, and he found there a job of machine operator. He was big and left-handed, and there was such a machine, which had to be revolved to the certain direction, and nobody, except him, couldn’t afford it. He showed me this place, and I saw the way he worked. Later he was a driver, worked in the subsidiary department of the Academy of Arts.
When father was yet in Vitebsk, the NEP [4] had begun, and he went often to neighborhood areas as a commercial traveler. He worked for the private firm, which made wrappers for sweets. I even saw that album with those wrappers. He traveled with this album and signed the agreements. Probably, that could continue for ages, but then 1928 came [it was officially required to close NEP, and nepmen were arrested and put to jail], his owner happened to be a clever person and closed her business just in time. It seems to me, that he had no more job and left to Leningrad.
Probably, that was a big Jewish wedding. There were plenty of gifts; I even keep some of them. I suppose that those are very expensive things (two china plates with decorations on the animal themes and a big Japanese panel). They gave them those things for the wedding, mother gave them to me and I hope to give them to my daughter.
After the war he found himself in Vitebsk, and they got to know each other with my mother. Perhaps, he came to visit for some occasion. And around 1920 they got married. I don’t know if they proposed father to my mother.
My father served in the Tsar Army during the World War I. Father told me that he happened to get into the gas attack and he was demobilized after that.
, Russia
And when they had to decide what to do, the elder brother, I don’t remember his name, said: ‘He finished four grades, that’s enough’. I don’t know what that was: cheder or something different. And he couldn’t forgive his elder brother that entire story.
Apparently, my father’s family lived in Daugavpils, or Dvinsk, which is in Latvia. Father after the [Russian] Revolution, when Latvia and Lithuania became the independent states, didn’t see them and knew nothing about them till late 1940s.
I can’t say what they thought about the soviet power, we didn’t even have such conversations.
Grandmother didn’t put on the sheitl; she had wonderful hair of her own. She wore the dress, and, naturally wore the kerchief. I don’t remember of which color, but she had it on all the time.
Naturally, parents of my mother knew Yiddish well, they spoke it. I insist that their mother tongue was Yiddish. However, Granny knew Russian too. She talked to children both Yiddish and Russian, but mainly in Yiddish. I didn’t talk to grandfather on any language because he had paralyses.
Anyway, Lesya, my grandmother taught her children to keep the house and observe Jewish traditions.
I can say even more: my mother could prepare Jewish meals, Jewish cookies, and I don’t mention my grandmother, because she was doing the same for sure.
The only Jewish thing I remember is that grandmother baked matzah.
As a matter of fact my mother’s family was a real Jewish family, which observed all main Jewish traditions and rules. You can see it, if you compared Jewish names of their children. They observed Sabbath and celebrated the holidays. But I didn’t participate in it. Being a child, I wasn’t very keen of such things.
Obviously, Granddad had some authority; I know from conversations and even more from my father’s memories (he told me about Vitebsk more than my mother), that they communicated to some public prosecutor. Even after the [Russian] Revolution [3] they had some pals and later father met them in Leningrad. Somebody took a good position here. As I understood, all they were arrested and banished. So those people were not the ordinary shtetl inhabitants.
I suppose that their guests were mainly Jews. There was big Jewish community in Vitebsk. Jewish youth came too, as far as my grandparents had many daughters, and that is always the huge attractive force.