We knew no anti-Semitism, living in the borough. There were both Russian and Jewish houses mixed up, Jewish houses were not separated. We lived in friendship both with our Russian and Jewish neighbors.
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Blyuma Perlstein
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My parents were educated people; Father could write in Russian, too. They read only Yiddish books. Since there were a lot of boys in the family, we had a small Russian library at home.
My parents were not members of any political organization.
Inside the house, at the entrance from the kitchen to the room, there was a prayer on the wall, covered with a tin, which was called ‘Matseiva’ [mezuzah]. Every Jewish family had one in their house.
Emiliya Israilovna Shulman
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Our first home in Chechersk was destroyed by arson. The second burned down in a fire that caught several homes in Chechersk (the houses had been made of wood). Then Papa was given an apartment (half a house) by his work place and there I was born. This apartment also burned down, during the bombings of the war. After the war Mother’s brother Monya bought us a very small house in front of which were a little garden and a barn. We rented the barn to some organization. They kept their horses there and in return helped us with firewood. Even thought the house was small, there was a bus stop nearby. People would come asking to rest, to feed their children or to sleep over. No one was ever turned away, neither Jews nor Belarussians.
Grandmother was with us during the evacuation.
,
1941
See text in interview
Grandmother forgave them for their traitorous weakness during the frightening minutes of the pogrom. She showed her grief to no one, meeting all with a joke and never thrusting her opinion on anyone. She was religious, went to synagogue, and followed Jewish traditions, but didn’t demand this of Papa, who was a party worker. There was kosher food in the house, we baked matza, butchered the chickens at the shochet’s, but we also celebrated Soviet holidays. Of the religious holidays, we always celebrated Jewish Passover. I remember that on Passover the food was very delicious. Grandmother also baked very tasty hamantashen (gomentashin) [triangles of pastry filled with poppy seeds baked on Purim]. My mother-in-law in Leningrad also baked gomentashes, but not only on holidays. Grandmother said that to bake them on days other than holidays was a sin.
There were flowers from Palestine in the house. In front of the house there was a garden, yard and many flowers. They had two horses, two cows and chickens. Grandmother was a strong-willed and powerful woman. She took care of the house and raised three children: my mother Galya, her sister Fira and brother Emmanuil. In addition, Grandmother dabbled in arable farming. She (with the help of relatives) cleared a piece of woodland and planted rye.
My mother’s parents were religious people -- their native tongue was Yiddish. They observed Jewish traditions, kept up a prayer chapel where the local Jewish community met. Grandfather read the prayers himself.
The victims of the pogrom were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Chechersk. The government paid for two memorials on their graves. The Germans destroyed the cemetery during the war, but after the war we found their place of burial: a row of birches had been planted between the two long graves and the trees were saved. When my mother left Chechersk, with the money that we received from the sale of the house, we put up two memorials of sandstone and wrote a modest epitaph: “perished during the pogrom on the second of May, 1922.” They say that the monuments are now in bad shape as limestone crumbles quickly.
This is what happened in Zagore in 1922. That day, when most of the residents were working in the forest (including Miron), the Savitzkys came into the village. In Grandfather David’s house, was Grandmother Klara Bolshun, Miron’s mother-in-law, with the 9-month-old baby, Miron’s first-born Yosif. After not getting any money from Grandmother, as there simply wasn’t any, the bandits chopped off Yosif’s head with and axe, in front of her, then they hit Grandmother in the stomach. In other houses the attacks on the residents were just as cruel. In Borukh Kosoi’s home, his daughter was raped, the household members were killed and the males were violently attacked. Borukh prayed and wept, he was tortured last. Miron said that there was absolutely nothing of worth for them to take. Everyone lived on their own work.
So, when Miron and Hannah returned from the forest (Miron was the head of a brigade in the woods while Hannah and Aunt Mera worked to make clearings for sowing), and came up to the house, they saw in the window a basket that had held a laying hen, but now held the expressionless head of their child. Hannah’s legs deserted her and she was instantly paralyzed. She lost her ability to speak. They carried her into the house between the two of them. Miron announced for all to hear that he would find the bandits and kill them with his own hands. And he left on their trail. The Savitzkys had done as follows: they robbed the post-office, tortured and killed the elderly postman. It was a miracle that his 15-year-old grandson who was present during the execution was left whole. He told Miron that the Savitzkys had commandeered a cart and left for the river in a great hurry.
So, when Miron and Hannah returned from the forest (Miron was the head of a brigade in the woods while Hannah and Aunt Mera worked to make clearings for sowing), and came up to the house, they saw in the window a basket that had held a laying hen, but now held the expressionless head of their child. Hannah’s legs deserted her and she was instantly paralyzed. She lost her ability to speak. They carried her into the house between the two of them. Miron announced for all to hear that he would find the bandits and kill them with his own hands. And he left on their trail. The Savitzkys had done as follows: they robbed the post-office, tortured and killed the elderly postman. It was a miracle that his 15-year-old grandson who was present during the execution was left whole. He told Miron that the Savitzkys had commandeered a cart and left for the river in a great hurry.
Miron was a member of the group of Chekists [members of the internal police, a precursor to the KGB ] that organized the pursuit of the bandits. They found the band. Under the demands of the residents, they were given the death sentence and shot. The victims of the pogrom were buried in Chechersk. Anna Vladimirovna Novikova, Hannah and Miron’s granddaughter, their daughter Sofia’s daughter, found a photo of the farewell to the victims in the archives in Minsk. She sent the photograph to my sister Anna in Gomel who, after a request from our American relatives, sent the photo to Denver. From there a copy was sent to me. In this convoluted way that photograph came to me and now to you. That was a documentary witness to the tragedy. In the foreground on boards lie the bodies of the cruelly tortured victims. Their death united those who came to display their grief and decisiveness in revenging the murderers. Above the body of Grandfather Borukh sat Grandmother in mourning (first row from the bottom, first from the left), next to her sat her children: daughter Galya (my Mama), and son Emmanuil. In the second row from the bottom, the third man from the right (with a beard) is David Bolshun, next to him with her head bowed is his daughter Galya. Miron and Hannah aren’t in the photo. Hannah lay paralyzed and Miron had left to apprehend the bandits.
Another account of these happenings was given by another of Hannah and Miron’s granddaughters (their son Yakov’s daughter), Anna Piotrovskaya, who now lives in Tver. She wrote her father’s story word for word when she was 15. According to her, she knew little, at the time, of the persecution of our nation, and this history was written down in order not to forget the details.
Another account of these happenings was given by another of Hannah and Miron’s granddaughters (their son Yakov’s daughter), Anna Piotrovskaya, who now lives in Tver. She wrote her father’s story word for word when she was 15. According to her, she knew little, at the time, of the persecution of our nation, and this history was written down in order not to forget the details.
On the eve of the pogrom, there were many guests at Grandfather Borukh’s house. Relatives had arrived from the Caucasian mountains where there was a drought and famine. With then was a young couple – bride-, and groom-to-be. Early that morning, Grandmother, along with her niece Hannah, David Bolshun’s daughter, and Miron’s wife left for the woods to “koponichit’ lyado” (to prepare a new field for planting) and to collect strochka and morels, spring mushrooms. When they were preparing to return home, Hannah noticed horsemen on the road. She said to Grandmother, “Aunt Mera! Here come riders. One of them is on your horse. And there’s the cart full of things.” The women sensed the threat and hid themselves, not going on the road.
The horsemen rode past. The women ran to the village. Already on the way they could hear screams and weeping. Around the house there was no one. The bandits had frightened the neighbors, Belarussian peasants. No one had come to the aid of the victims because the pogromists had promised to kill all those who helped the “Yids.”
When the women opened the door to the house, blood trickled out in rivers. The bandits had beaten to death with muzzle-loading guns 17 people --13 Jews and 4 Belarussians – “kombednoti” (poor people). The women were raped before they were killed, even nine-year-old Fira, Mama’s younger sister. Hannah and Miron’s first-born son, who was nine-months at that time, was put in a sitting hen’s basket and beaten with the gun, strokes in the form of a cross. Grandfather lay wrapped in the talith. He was murdered last. Before his death he prayed, watching the tortured death of his closest relatives.
The first to come and help was Uncle Misha Bolshun who had spent the night in a neighboring village. He returned to Zagore in the morning and instantly sent his Belarussian friends to warn the Jews in the village of Belyaevki. Thanks to the warning, those managed to organize defenses and didn’t let the bandits into the village. The band was forced to turn off the fields and get to the Polish borders through the woods.
Most of the peasants were terribly frightened which didn’t help their suffering neighbors. Grandmother and uncle Misha loaded the bodies of the murdered onto two carts themselves. In accordance to Jewish tradition the men and women were laid separately. In the darkness of despair, Grandmother harnessed a cow to the second cart. Thus they left in order never to return. On the road to Chechersk a crowd met them. All already knew of the tragedy and showed true solidarity. Among the group were my mother and her brother Monei. They were studying in Chechersk and stayed for the holidays with their Uncle Abram, grandfather’s brother. This saved their lives.
The horsemen rode past. The women ran to the village. Already on the way they could hear screams and weeping. Around the house there was no one. The bandits had frightened the neighbors, Belarussian peasants. No one had come to the aid of the victims because the pogromists had promised to kill all those who helped the “Yids.”
When the women opened the door to the house, blood trickled out in rivers. The bandits had beaten to death with muzzle-loading guns 17 people --13 Jews and 4 Belarussians – “kombednoti” (poor people). The women were raped before they were killed, even nine-year-old Fira, Mama’s younger sister. Hannah and Miron’s first-born son, who was nine-months at that time, was put in a sitting hen’s basket and beaten with the gun, strokes in the form of a cross. Grandfather lay wrapped in the talith. He was murdered last. Before his death he prayed, watching the tortured death of his closest relatives.
The first to come and help was Uncle Misha Bolshun who had spent the night in a neighboring village. He returned to Zagore in the morning and instantly sent his Belarussian friends to warn the Jews in the village of Belyaevki. Thanks to the warning, those managed to organize defenses and didn’t let the bandits into the village. The band was forced to turn off the fields and get to the Polish borders through the woods.
Most of the peasants were terribly frightened which didn’t help their suffering neighbors. Grandmother and uncle Misha loaded the bodies of the murdered onto two carts themselves. In accordance to Jewish tradition the men and women were laid separately. In the darkness of despair, Grandmother harnessed a cow to the second cart. Thus they left in order never to return. On the road to Chechersk a crowd met them. All already knew of the tragedy and showed true solidarity. Among the group were my mother and her brother Monei. They were studying in Chechersk and stayed for the holidays with their Uncle Abram, grandfather’s brother. This saved their lives.
In the spring of 1922 the Savitzky brothers’ band, former timber traders, tried to leave for Poland. Along the way the bandits would suddenly attack a village and knife the Jews with howls of, “Yid! Give us a grosz (Polish penny)!” They fell upon the village of Zagore on May 2nd.
There was a synagogue and Jewish community in the city, which my grandmother Mera attended. A Jewish cemetery also existed, where our relatives that had perished in the pogrom in the village of Zagore, Chechersk uyezd [district] in May of 1922, including my grandfather Borukh, mother’s father, were buried. In the city Jewish traditions were observed, especially among the older generations. All Jews celebrated Passover. Circumcision was mandatory for Jewish boys. Weddings were Jewish. There were no mixed marriages: they appeared much later, after the war. There was a stratification of the population.
In general Belarussian women did many jobs in Jewish homes. Our housekeeper Akulina was also from sloboda. I don’t remember any family in which there was a Jewish housekeeper or nanny. It just wasn’t done. We, however, did live very happily with the Belarussians. Akulina’s brother, when the war started and our house burned down, wanted to take us in himself, and my grandmother kept up a very warm relationship with her Belarussian friends from Zagore until the end of her days. Everyone respected the traditions of the other. Alas, now all has changed.
Each house had to have a stove, from which the heater ran. No matter the size of the house, it had to have separate sleeping quarters. The bedroom could consist of one bed and a chair. If there was a dresser, that was already a sign of wealth. Furniture was homemade. The central room of the house was called the ‘zal’ (room) and it could be either 8 square meters or 28 square meters, but it was necessary. The barn and cellar were located in the yard. The residents traveled by horse. The only cards were state-owned, transport and light ‘Emki.’ It was so before and after the war.
My ancestors, both on my father’s and my mother’s sides, were all from Belarus, from small Jewish settlements. Chechersk was one such settlement. It was a small, comfortable and attractive town, located on the banks of the Checheri River that flowed. Chechersk was considered a Jewish settlement because very many Jews lived there, especially before the war. Conversation at every step on the street, on the benches and in the market was held in Yiddish. This was especially noticeable in the market, where everyone talked quite loudly. This gave one the feeling that only Jews lived in the city, but there lived, of course, Belarussians as well. Russians were less prevalent.
At that time the movement to help the elderly and those who were left alone after the war was very widespread. We helped them as much as we could. The youth split wood, in the fall they helped to harvest potatoes, and in the spring they helped to plant them. We were also sent out to the collective farms to gather the harvest. We also took part in amateur artistic performances and often performed concerts for the farmers in the fields of the collective farms. In addition to this, our class rebuilt our school, which had been turned into a stable by the Germans. We temporarily studied at the Russian school. We worked all summer on the repair of our school, traveled to the forest, and prepared building materials. We were taken to plots of land, slept in peasant houses with the residents of the village Krasnii Bereg.
My favorite teacher was the literature teacher, Rykunov. He was a unique person and teacher. How much he gave to us! In Chechersk at that time it was difficult to obtain books. In those days Yesenin was forbidden - we first heard of Yesenin through him. We would gather at his home. He told us a great deal, even quoting texts from memory. He could have paid with his job and diploma for reading Yesenin’s poetry.
We read quite a lot in our free time. Books were passed on in the same fashion.
It was difficult to study at school after the war because there were few textbooks. All the schoolbooks were sorted in such a way that each student in the class knew at what time he was to come to class.
All the Jews that had stayed in Chechersk perished. The Germans had rounded them all up and put them in the town hall. One of the guards warned them that the next day they would all be shot, and one ten-year-old girl managed to escape. They were shot and thrown into one of the anti-tank ditches that the residents had dug for the defense of Chechersk. In a second such ditch lie gypsies killed by the Germans. Their graves are located at the entrance to Chechersk on the Lysukha Mountain. In 1943 a memorial was placed there.
The Germans burnt down the synagogue and destroyed the Jewish cemetery. The people in the town didn’t light fires, but many houses burned down during the bombings because they were made of wood. Our home also burnt down, and after the war we lived in a little house that Uncle Emmanuil, mother’s brother, bought for us.
The Germans burnt down the synagogue and destroyed the Jewish cemetery. The people in the town didn’t light fires, but many houses burned down during the bombings because they were made of wood. Our home also burnt down, and after the war we lived in a little house that Uncle Emmanuil, mother’s brother, bought for us.
I didn’t notice any sort of adverse reactions from my Belarussian friends. There were many Jews in our group because a large number of Jewish families had returned to Chechersk from evacuation.
In Chechersk I was afraid to go to school, thinking that here I would also be expelled because of my mother.
When the war began at the end of August 1941, we left Chechersk on foot, as the railroad was 60 km from the city. Part of the way we traveled by horse, part we hitchhiked, even in military vehicles. The group that left was as follows: grandmother, mother, me, my sisters and Yasha, Papa’s brother Miron’s son. Papa was at this time near Belostok. We arrived at the evacuation point in Gomel, which was the goods station of the Gomel railroad, under constant bombing. There we lost Anya. She had been frightened by the bombing, sat down on the ground and hid herself in some sort of garden, between the plots. We all jumped, called for her, all around us people were yelling, bombs were exploding and it was impossible to hear anything. Suddenly we saw that some man had raised his hands up high, and in them was holding our Anya. We were so thankful! We were evacuated to the village of Dobrinka-on-Hopr in Stalingrad region. There my mother worked and we went to school. The residents welcomed us well. Yasha graduated from secondary school there, and then left for the front. When the Germans began to encircle Stalingrad, we were evacuated to Siberia, to the station Moskalenniya in Omsk region. Mama worked there as an accountant.
There were two secondary schools: a large Belarussian school and a smaller Russian one. I studied in the Belarussian school, which was located in the former estate of Prince Potemkin’s niece, Countess Bezobrazova. Around this lovely building there was a very well kept park.
Her time in jail didn’t leave her without a trace. In December 1965 she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital in Beltzei Gomeliya region. At that time she lived with her younger daughter Anna in Gomel. Mama undressed and, in one robe and felt boots on the wrong feet, went walking in the winter and began to tear up her documents. She was terrified that she might have done something to her documents and she’d be put back in prison. Mama was then put in the hospital. I, at that time, was at the sanatorium. When Anya called me to say that Mama was ill, the director of the hospital let me out with the right to return when I had sorted things out. When Anya opened the door for me, she suddenly fainted on the doorstep -- she was that scared. Mama was released in April and she left for Ust-Kammenogorsk and Bronislava.
Before the war there was no anti-Semitism in Chechersk. I know this form my parents and grandmother. No one even had an understanding of this. It began to appear with the war. Mama ran into it immediately. She was hired because she was well known both as a specialist and as a good person. Then the representative of the ‘raipotrebsoyus’[regional consumers’ union] changed and she was instantly fired. She was the only Jew in the group. Her colleges loved her and went to plead for her, but could do nothing. Mama said to that person in the face “you’re a fascist.” As it turns out, she was correct. Several years later he traveled to some meeting in Western Belarus and there a woman recognized him as a member of the police. Not only that, he also took part in the execution of Jews. He was immediately arrested. So Mama was right, but he had fired her and she worked in a kindergarten, and then got sick and was forced to leave her work.
Mama was found guilty of statute 109 – negligent relationship to her responsibility at work. This charge carried 9 years in prison. She was given 8. She was put in a colony near Omsk along with political prisoners. When she returned in 1953, she told me that she had met such people and understood more of her life than she had ever before. There were very many Jews there as well. Mother’s kindness helped her even in jail. She was assigned a to a cell with criminals and was chosen as the head of the cell, as someone always kind and correct. Mother was freed during the amnesty after Stalin’s death -- she only served six years. The charges against her were dropped. She returned to Chechersk and began working as an accountant-cashier for the village shop.