Suddenly I was suggested to move to another room in our house, but on the second floor. The room was very sunny. It was about 7 square meters, very long, like a gut. So I moved there. In my tiny room there lived my friends (whose living conditions were even worse than that of mine) from the College, and later from the Theatre.
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Displaying 39361 - 39390 of 50826 results
Vera Sonina
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After that I taught callisthenics at courses for coaches. Later I worked at a House of Culture teaching dancing. [Houses of culture in the USSR were large establishments with various forms of cultural and educational activities: exhibitions, dancing parties, various circles and studios.] I do not work only 5 years. My last place of work was at school no.214 [11]. I worked there 8 years as an elocutionist, conducting a studio. I guess that the main result I achieved there was attraction of my pupils to good literature, to verses. They won different competitions, traveled all over Russia free-of-charge. Five of them visit me until now.
While I worked in the Theatre, I went for vacation in recreation centers every year [12]. Most often I went to the Black sea. I had the second sports category in swimming and spent hours in water!
When Stalin died, I sobbed madly. Now I am ashamed of myself. And at that time they gave me a role at the Theater (I do not remember what exactly); I only remember that it required make-up very difficult for realization. At our College they taught us basics of make-up: our teacher was Andrey Andreevich Bersenev, a remarkable expert. We often ran to him for consultation (since the Theatre was located near the College across the road). So I came to him and he helped me with that make-up. But at the end of my visit they said by the radio that Stalin had died. I burst in tears, and my make-up came to nothing. Andrey Andreevich shouted at me ‘What happened, as a matter of fact?! It doesn’t matter that someone died somewhere! You are an actress and you have a complex make-up, do not pay attention to nonsense!’ It was effective to sober me down.
I remember Doctors’ Plot very well [13]. At that time I already worked at the Theatre. There was an actor of heroic type. He appeared to be a terrible Anti-Semite. Together with him we played in the play Raven by Ghocci. According to the play, I had to lie at his feet. And so, right during a rehearsal he started shouting in presence of all actors ‘It serves you right, Jews! We see what you want! You have in your head idea to destroy Russian people!’ Absolute silence established. I curled myself up into a balloon on the floor and could not raise my head. I could not understand what feelings prevailed in my heart: fear or disgust. At that moment A. Bryantsev was present there. For the first and the last time in my life I saw him losing his temper. He turned white and began to tremble. He tapped the floor with his stick. And his voice pealed louder than voice of that actor Anti-Semite ‘Never say these words at my theatre! Get out of here, get out of the theatre!’ That was the way real Russian intellectuals behaved.
Certainly I was very pleased with changes [14] in our country. If people decide for themselves what to read and what to listen, they feel like human beings. Living behind the Iron Curtain [15] is not pleasant. Now everyone can go wherever they want. It seems great, but actually it is normal. Of course our life is not easy, salaries and pensions are crummy, but I hope that everything will become normal step by step. Anyway I am glad that lived to witness the events I witnessed.
My attitude towards such events as Hungarian revolution [16], Prague spring [17] was already normal, i.e. I condemned actions of our country.
Military victories of Israel [18, 19] pleased me: it seemed to me that truth and justice were on the side of Israel, not Arabs.
Falling of the Berlin wall also pleased me. [Berlin wall was erected in 1961 to divide Western part of Berlin from the Eastern one. It was destroyed in 1989. It was symbolical that its concrete was used to construct highways of the united Germany.] It is impossible to divide people of the same nationality in such a forced way.
I am connected to the Jewish community of St. Petersburg basically through the Hesed Welfare Center [20]. For holidays I receive food packages from them. Thanks to them, I always have matzah for Pesach.
Maria Rolnikayte
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My paternal grandfather’s name was Itsik Abel Rolnik. In Polish rolnik means a farmer, but as far as I know there were no farmers among our family members. He was an old religious Jew wearing beard and observing traditions. He was an owner of a small shop. My grandmother Hana was very vigorous and witty.
In 1940 the shop was nationalized and my grandmother could not stand it. That shop was her brainchild and they dared to take it away from her. Authorities took away everything, so when my uncle left the shop for ever, he was carrying in his hands a worn through teapot (they used it to water the floor while sweeping). He said ‘This is the only thing we possess now.’ Grandmother died on January 3, 1941. And nationalization campaign was finished by autumn of 1940 (when Lithuania became a Soviet Republic [1]).
Grandmother and grandfather sent my father to cheder, when he became 12 years old. It was situated in the neighboring small town. But Daddy quickly got disappointed in it and came home afoot. Later he finished a secondary school and went to Riga to study in gymnasia. Parents were able to buy him a black suit and a tie and that was all. He went to Riga having no money. Therefore Daddy worked as a porter and as a loader. When his trousers became full of holes, he made patches from his tie. He managed to finish that gymnasia in Riga (for some reason it appeared to be a Russian gymnasia).
Later he passed through examinations and became an internal student. He studied in Berlin and Leipzig. He graduated from the faculty of law and later from the College of German Language and Literature which prepared teachers of German language and literature for foreigners. I asked him ‘Daddy, what for?’ And he answered ‘It was very interesting for me.’ But the knowledge of German language appeared to be very useful, because later we got a nanny from Germany and she spoke German with us. It is useful for me now, too (many years later).
We had a housemaid, though Mom did not work.
I visited a Jewish kindergarten and later a Jewish junior high school. In 1940 it was closed and I became a pupil of a Lithuanian grammar school. But at home we spoke only Yiddish. I still can write in Yiddish.
At that time people observed traditions and respected religious neighbors. There were manifestations of anti-Semitism (some people blamed Jews for nailing Christ to the cross), but state anti-Semitism did not exist. For instance every Saturday in our grammar school we had the right not to fulfill written tasks, teachers did not ask us. We knew that during the main Jewish holidays we were allowed not to go to school.
In Russian there are 2 different words: a Jew and a Zhid. And in Lithuanian, as well as in Polish, they have only Zhid. Recently, my former classmate’s husband said ‘…and a person of your Nationality’. I corrected him: Zhid. I understood that he wanted to show himself an internationalist. He was afraid to hurt my feelings, but I corrected him. I never concealed my Nationality.
However at school I identified myself as a Jewess.
Regarding Jewish traditions, it was my grandfather who observed them especially strictly. Therefore we celebrated Pesach and I always asked those 4 questions. After that I used to get 1 kg of nuts. Together with my grandmother we lighted Sabbath candles.
And though Mom was not very religious (as well as Daddy), she observed kashrut: separated meat and dairy food. And when my grandfather visited us, he used to drink tea only with jam, because glasses were considered to be not for dairy and not for meat.
When on Rosh Hashanah blowing of the shofar opened the sky to let people’s requests go straight there, everybody cried, and my sister and I did not understand the reason. During Yom Kippur Jews prayed in memory of dead people and grandmother did not allow me and my sister to be present in the synagogue.
By the way, in ghetto there was no synagogue, only an apartment for praying. And rabbi forbade praying in memory of Jews taken by fascists to Ponary [2]. He considered it to be a sin, because some of them could be alive! Sometimes it happened that after execution by shooting some Jews remained alive, got out from under corpses and came back in ghetto. At first fascists fired without aiming and people fell down only wounded. But later they gave an order to cover ditches with burnt lime, so that no one was able to get out.
My aunt (his younger sister) got married in Riga and was killed there in ghetto. Her husband was shot among the first Jewish men. She had got 2 children (one of them was a baby), therefore she could not work. They died there from starvation. Much later 2 women from Riga ghetto told us about her.
When Hitler came to power, they broadcasted his speech. As radio receiver was only in our house, neighbors came to us to listen it. And the nanny of my little brother (a local Lithuanian girl) did not understand Hitler and used bad words, because Hitler disturbed the child who wanted to sleep.
But in 1940 according to Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact [4] Vilnius became Lithuanian, and we moved there.
And it saved our lives, because later during occupation (during the war time) 1,800 Jews of Plunge were gathered in the synagogue, taken out of town to a cemetery for atheists and executed by shooting. Fascists suggested Jews to deny Judaism to save their lives.
Some young people did, but nevertheless all of them were shot.
Some young people did, but nevertheless all of them were shot.
Before the war our family was rather large. But my grandfather, the grandmother's sister, her husband with two daughters, and my father's cousin perished in Plunge. My uncle (my mother's brother) was killed in a small town Telshe. [Telshe is a town in Lithuania, situated 200 km far from Vilnius.] When Jews of Telshe were carried to the place of execution, he managed to escape. But fascists caught him and shot individually, so to say. They forced him to dig a grave for himself. Later some Lithuanians (witnesses) told us that he had gone mad: he understood that he was digging a grave for himself and went crazy (but it is impossible to be proved). And my aunt (his wife and 2 daughters) were killed in Shaulay ghetto. [Shaulay is a town in Lithuania.]
Daddy counted 49 members of our family lost during the war: his and mother’s cousins, sisters, children …
Daddy counted 49 members of our family lost during the war: his and mother’s cousins, sisters, children …
In our family only Daddy (he was at the front line), my elder sister Miriam and I survived. Miriam was in the Vilnius ghetto [5], but she managed to survive.
On June 22, 1941 the war [6] burst out. The same day Vilnius was bombed. The Soviet army started its running fight. Hitlerites were just about to occupy the city. My parents knew that fascists hated the Jews. Besides they had another reason for anxiety: my father had cooperated with the Soviet authorities. Parents decided to leave for some place far inland, where invaders would not reach us.