We had no troubles connected with our Jewry. Probably it can be explained by the fact that we had no significant positions. Only Lubov failed to enter where she wanted. You see, she dreamed to study at the Philological faculty of the Pedagogical College named after Hertsen. We went to the College entrance commission together with her. A benevolent woman from that commission asked to show Lubov’s passport. When she saw ‘a Jewess’ in the column ‘Nationality’, she said ‘Do not wreck nerves of your girl [8]! Give her documents to the faculty of primary school education. The number of enrollees is less there and they are not so strict with THIS.‘ So we followed her advice.
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Mera Shulman
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Another example: in 1966 when I graduated from the College, I wanted to get job at the design office of Electrosila Factory. But its staff department did not permit it. And in 1960s my husband won a contest of engine projects. After that they invited him to the Leningrad Kirov Engineering Plant. He agreed, but asked to tell the staff department that he was Jewish. My husband was right: they refused to give him job and moreover – they asked him to recommend somebody also intelligent, but Russian. And one more. Possibly it is not very important, but you will understand my feelings. After my retirement I was got fixed to a job as a registering clerk in the T.B. prophylactic center. A year later I occupied there position of seamstress and worked during 8 years. Once on the eve of the New Year day I decided to please my co-workers. I dressed myself as Santa Claus and sewed small presents for all co-workers. My colleagues were delighted and thanked me very much. After that everybody went to the table, laid for festive dinner. And I was told the following ‘Take chocolates and sweets, but do not sit down to table with us. We are used to celebrate holidays only with OUR crew members.‘
Broadly speaking, as times goes by you understand that there were a lot of Anti-Semitic manifestations, but we deceived ourselves, suggesting the idea of living normal life. You see, it is difficult to confess yourself that the only life you have was not very successful.
Broadly speaking, as times goes by you understand that there were a lot of Anti-Semitic manifestations, but we deceived ourselves, suggesting the idea of living normal life. You see, it is difficult to confess yourself that the only life you have was not very successful.
Certainly, we were pleased to hear about the fall of the Berlin Wall, because nobody likes to live almost all his life behind the iron curtain [9]! Only now I understand that the events of those years resulted in fundamental changes in our life. To my mind it has changed for the best.
When we came back to Leningrad, I met my friend from Electrosila Factory and asked her where it was possible to find Jews in Leningrad. She advised me to go to the Synagogue. I had no idea where the Synagogue was situated, but I managed to find it. There two announcements arrested my attention. The first one was an invitation to become a member of cooperative society Development for persons interested in studying and teaching Hebrew. [Cooperative society is an association of people for team work in the sphere of economic activity: they offered paid services to institutions, organizations and citizens. In 1990s a lot of cooperative societies appeared in the USSR: earlier it was impossible. Teaching Hebrew was one of possible paid services.] The second announcement notified about organization of the Leningrad Society for Jewish Culture (LSJC). [The Leningrad Society for Jewish Culture was founded by Jewish activists. It was officialy registered in 1989.]
I went to the LSJC and got exactly to Hebrew lesson. I addressed the teacher on Hebrew (I started recollecting it with difficulty) and asked his permission to be present at his lesson. I did not like the level of studies at all. I realized that I wanted to teach and not to study and addressed the cooperative society Development. I have got to know that in the city there was only one expert in this sphere – Valery Izievich Ladyzhensky. My first difficult test was to understand time and place of our meeting, which he dictated me in Hebrew. But I managed and we met. Valery gave lessons at home. There were a lot of persons interested, because it was a period of great aliyah. [Aliyah means going up (Hebrew). In Hebrew they say ‘to go up to Israel’ and not ‘to come to Israel’. That is why to make aliyah means to repatriate to Israel. Great aliyah means great number of repatriates.] Groups of 10 students each, alternated each hour. Valery delivered a part of his groups over to me. And already a month later I started giving lessons to groups at home. My students were interesting people; it was a pleasure for me to teach them. Soon I finished Hebrew advanced course under Ladyzhensky leadership. I am very grateful to Valery Izevich. He left for Israel long ago, but we are still in touch. We are friends and correspond until now. I visited him in Israel.
I went to the LSJC and got exactly to Hebrew lesson. I addressed the teacher on Hebrew (I started recollecting it with difficulty) and asked his permission to be present at his lesson. I did not like the level of studies at all. I realized that I wanted to teach and not to study and addressed the cooperative society Development. I have got to know that in the city there was only one expert in this sphere – Valery Izievich Ladyzhensky. My first difficult test was to understand time and place of our meeting, which he dictated me in Hebrew. But I managed and we met. Valery gave lessons at home. There were a lot of persons interested, because it was a period of great aliyah. [Aliyah means going up (Hebrew). In Hebrew they say ‘to go up to Israel’ and not ‘to come to Israel’. That is why to make aliyah means to repatriate to Israel. Great aliyah means great number of repatriates.] Groups of 10 students each, alternated each hour. Valery delivered a part of his groups over to me. And already a month later I started giving lessons to groups at home. My students were interesting people; it was a pleasure for me to teach them. Soon I finished Hebrew advanced course under Ladyzhensky leadership. I am very grateful to Valery Izevich. He left for Israel long ago, but we are still in touch. We are friends and correspond until now. I visited him in Israel.
A year later I went to Ulpan Halom and offered them my services of a teacher. I got a job there. [Halom is a Hebrew school for children and adults, it works in St. Petersburg since 1992.] It happened in August 1991, and I work there up to the present day.
During last four years besides Hebrew I taught Yiddish at the Jewish Community Center. It seems to me that it is my teaching activity in the sphere of Jewish education that has filled my life with real sense. It is a pity, certainly, that it happened when I was already more than at mature age; and it is unthinkable that it could never happen. Just imagine! The language, which I tried to forget all my life, to suppress it in itself, has become my permit to the new interesting world.
Usually I am short of time, therefore I watch life of the Petersburg Jewish community mainly through my lessons at the Jewish Community Center. A lot of interesting events take place there: exhibitions, lectures; everyone can find interesting occupation. I do not use community services, but I remember that once I received half a kilo of matzah for Pesach.
Hesed Welfare Center [10] does not help me. You see, I live with my daughter, and I know that there are so many lonely aged people. Thank goodness, my earned income is rather high, and in our family there is nobody to spend it on drink, so we manage.
At present when I think about important events (for example, Revolution in Hungary), I feel more and more that our thoughts were in contradiction with our forced words. We understood that Hungarians did not ask to liberate them [1956] [11]. The same is with the Prague Spring [12].
As far as the Doctors’ Plot [13] is concerned, I remember strong feeling of fear and expectation of massacres. When Stalin died, I cried bitterly as all other people around. Sure, we were not sorry for him, but we were afraid that it could become even worse. We were also afraid not to cry hard, when everybody around you did it. But as I already said, all political events we could discuss only with my husband and only in a whisper.
Mother tongue of my parents was Yiddish. They both spoke Lettish [Latvian], and Mum also knew Russian. Almost all Jews in Latvia spoke 3 languages. Spending our time in a court yard, we spoke both Russian, and German, and Yiddish, and Hebrew. It was a real discordant chorus. I was surprised, when I got to know that in Russia children study only one foreign language.
At that time Daddy met my Mum. He invited her to the cinema and they went on. Certainly they got married in the synagogue under chuppah according to the tradition. My parents always dressed as secular people though.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Financial position of our family was quite stable. Mum never worked in her life. Her husband provided for the family. Children lacked nothing. Daddy commanded all money: he gave money to mother for daily needs. If Mum said reproachfully that Zelda, wife of her brother had bought a fur coat (to tell the truth, Mum wore a fur coat too), Daddy answered ’Do not look at those who are higher, look at those who are lower.‘ Daddy had the following unshakable rule: if he earned a ruble, he gave 50 kopecks for expenditure, if he earned two rubles, he gave one ruble – he saved half of his earnings, no matter how small they were. He said to Mum ‘Listen, we have two daughters, we should give dowry twice.‘ We were well dressed and our family was well-to-do, but our income was average. At school there were many children much better provided for. I remember that my uncles, my mother’s brothers were better off. When I asked, why their family had several-course dinners, and ours had only one, my parents answered ‘Everybody is different.‘ Each summer we left for the seaside [small villages near Riga at the Gulf of Riga], but not to the same places with my aunts and uncles, but you see, sea and air are identical everywhere.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
When we returned to Riga from Livani in 1925 Daddy at first rented a small two-room apartment in a large house. There was neither bath-room, nor a room for servants. Therefore we could not employ a parlourmaid. We lived there 13 years till 1938. By that time in our family there were already three children. Therefore we moved to a three-room apartment, where there was a nursery for me and my sister, a bedroom, a dining-room, a kitchen. The house was worse than the previous one. There was water supply, but no bathroom again. There was stove heating and (a sign of that time) woodsheds in our court yard. Furniture in our apartment was good as always. Of course! Both grandfather and father were professional furniture-makers! And one more: Daddy realized very well what it meant to have two daughters. We had two pianos for me and my sister, two sleeping sets: one for us, and the second one for our parents. At home we never had pets: my father did not like them at all. Because of his professional duties he had to visit many houses. You see, he was engaged not only in sale of new furniture, but also in buying up old samples for the subsequent restoration. So, after his visits he told us ‘So, I come to perform the order and see a good girl sitting, doing her lessons and having a cat on her knees. And this cat strikes her copybook with its paw and the copybook becomes dirty!‘ My father with all his respect for studying and education could not imagine anything more awful, than to spoil a copybook.
We had no garden: it was impossible to have it living in the municipal apartment.
We had no garden: it was impossible to have it living in the municipal apartment.
Only Mum helped us in our studies, we had neither nurses, nor governesses. When my brother was a little boy (do not forget that he was already the third child in our family!), we hired a parlourmaid for a short period of time to help Mum about the house.
I can not call my parents religious, but they observed the tradition. Certainly, my brother was circumcised. When he was three years old, they celebrated the Day of Opshern [hair trimming]. You see, according to Jewish Tradition, it is forbidden to cut boy’s hair before he is three years old. To tell the truth, they cut his hair before, but nevertheless the holiday was arranged. I remember quite well matzah for Pesach, dreidel and Chanukkah gelt, and we always kept the fast on Yom Kippur. I am not sure that every Saturday we lighted candles: Saturday dinner at home (as well as at my grandfather’s) was rather a family, than a religious event. My parents visited synagogue not very often, but on holidays they did it for sure. In the synagogue they had their own seats.
Uncle Lazar went to evacuation together with us in the same train carriage. Our train went by that town, where his family stayed. He decided to leave the train and try to find them and save. But he did not even reach his family: he got the lead on his way. And his wife, children and mother-in-law were also shot by Germans.
I went to school when I was seven. I started from the second form at Jewish Hebrew school.
Almost all my schoolmates perished during the war.
After finishing that school I entered Hebrew gymnasium.
In 1940 in Latvia Soviet power was established [occupation of the Baltic Republics] [3]. Hebrew was immediately declared hostile and Zionist language, and our Hebrew gymnasium was turned into Yiddish school. A lot of my schoolmates left for other schools, but I did not, because I did not want to part with my favorite teachers. Unfortunately, it was my bitter mistake: soon the best teachers were fired; both children and adults were spied on. We took cover in the cloakroom to talk in Hebrew: it was absolutely forbidden. The school lost its former prestige.
On days off we went to the park, to the Zoo, to the cinema. Daddy worked all days long, even on Saturdays. Mum accompanied us, and when we grew up, she let us go alone. On days off we visited our relatives, received them at ours. In summer we never went to children’s camps and never spent vacations without our parents.
My sister finished there 6 classes. She finished her school education already in Riga after returning from evacuation. After finishing a seven-year school she tried to enter a Law School, but failed. Then she entered some another technical school and finished it. After that she tried to enter a Department of Law in the University, but failed again: sure that was already a manifestation of Anti-Semitism. My sister got a job in a fashion atelier to sew caps. Later she entered a correspondence course of the State Latvian University and graduated from it. She worked in Riga at a factory; it seems that they produced semiconductors. She was a very talented engineer, a real expert.
I can not say that our family was religious. Perhaps the only one really religious person among my nearest relatives was my paternal grandfather. But certainly, we observed some Jewish traditions at home. Together with parents we rarely visited synagogue, but sometimes it happened. I remember that being a little girl, I kept a fast on Yom Kippur. At school they taught us religion, but our knowledge was not deep and we did not lay special emphasis on it. Nevertheless every day 15 minutes before the beginning of lessons, they lined us up in a corridor and ordered to read aloud either from the Torah or from the siddur. And I was the best reader at school, I was a real reciter. And what remarkable long hair I had! All the boys at school were mine. But I am sorry to look aside from Jewish Tradition! My brother attended neither cheder nor yeshivah, and times already changed: Soviet power came. Our parents taught us nothing regarding Tradition or religion. But there are things, which are observed in any Jewish family, even if it is far from religion. So, my brother was circumcised (they arranged bar mitzvah for him). We celebrated holidays regularly. And among other things, it gave us occasion to meet our relatives. I liked all Jewish holidays very much.
During my life I did not get to know what real Anti-Semitism felt like, but we were often bit (figuratively speaking) by people. But I realized it already after the end of the war. During my childhood, in Riga there was nothing of that kind.
In evacuation also, because nobody knew who Jews were: local residents asked my father whether he had met Jews in Riga by chance. They were told that Jews had horns and tails - that was why they wanted to make that information more exact.
For citizens of the Soviet Union the war burst out on June 22nd, 1941 [Great Patriotic War] [4]. It was the day - boundary between peaceful life and war nightmare. For Latvian inhabitants life started changing a year earlier.
In June 1940 Soviet army occupied Latvia. At midday Riga inhabitants poured out into the streets and saw tanks decorated with ribbons, flowers, etc.
Every evening in all Riga districts they started showing Soviet films about happy life of Soviet people. Right in the streets Red Army men explained everyone (who wanted to listen them) how happy Soviet people were. Soon family members of Soviet officers came to Riga. Population of Riga increased, i.e. families of officers were settled in large apartments of Riga citizens. Wives of Soviet officers behaved unusually for Riga: they wore night-dresses instead of evening ones and cooked food in chamber-pots. I do not blame them: they simply never saw this sort of things earlier. Soon we heard about nationalization of houses and shops. They started with large and rich ones. My aunt Sonya’s shop was nationalized. At that moment my father understood that he had to undertake something. His brother-in-law, husband of his sister was a real happy-go-lucky fellow.
Every evening in all Riga districts they started showing Soviet films about happy life of Soviet people. Right in the streets Red Army men explained everyone (who wanted to listen them) how happy Soviet people were. Soon family members of Soviet officers came to Riga. Population of Riga increased, i.e. families of officers were settled in large apartments of Riga citizens. Wives of Soviet officers behaved unusually for Riga: they wore night-dresses instead of evening ones and cooked food in chamber-pots. I do not blame them: they simply never saw this sort of things earlier. Soon we heard about nationalization of houses and shops. They started with large and rich ones. My aunt Sonya’s shop was nationalized. At that moment my father understood that he had to undertake something. His brother-in-law, husband of his sister was a real happy-go-lucky fellow.
Daddy always helped his family the way he could: gave them money or clothes. So that happy-go-lucky fellow immediately grasped the possibilities that Soviet authorities gave to idlers like him. He got a job of fireman. You see, there is much truth in what people say: the main examination for a fireman it to oversleep twelve hours lying on his side. But he remembered that my father had done much for him and helped him to get a job of fireman too. Father made my Mum the shop owner, and he himself turned into a worker (a fireman). It considerably strengthened his reputation in opinion of new authorities.
We ran away from Riga on June 27th, 1941. By that moment the city was already bombed, it was terrifying. All our relatives gathered together in my grandfather’s large apartment, there we slept side by side in the large internal corridor. One day my father looked through the window and saw people running somewhere. He understood that it is impossible to waste time any more and we rushed to the railway station. In the streets people stood near their houses. They looked at us in bewilderment ‘Jews, where are you running? Today is Friday, Sabbath! We will leave also, but after Sabbath!‘ But alas! Nobody of them managed to leave. Our train was the last one. All of them were lost.