On 1st September 1939 World War II began. Hitler attacked Poland. Of course, we understood that it was inevitable. We read the newspapers and knew about the tension, Hitler coming to power and his attitude toward Jews.
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Displaying 4831 - 4860 of 50826 results
Yakov Honiksman
All poor people had big hopes for the Soviet Union and so did poor Jewish people. Polish newspapers wrote about Stalin's terror and the famine in 1933 4, but we believed it was bourgeois propaganda intending to blacken the Soviet reality. We only believed what the Communist Party said. All poor people believed that the Soviet Union was paradise on Earth. My friends and I attended underground party meetings and distributed communist flyers and newspapers. We dreamed about communism and equality.
On 1st September 1939 our town was bombed. Our small house caught fire. This was at Rosh Hashanah. Older people didn't do anything about it. They kept sighing and praying and I yelled 'Don't pray, just fight the fire!' We 15 and 16-year-olds carried in buckets of water until the fire died down.
Later, it was Sukkot, Soviet troops arrived. How happy and euphoric we were. The first thing they did was loot the Jewish stores. They forced store-owners to open their stores in order to buy what they wanted. We were surprised since Jews weren't allowed to work on holidays. Since nobody knew what Soviet money looked like we accepted some bond paper notes. We didn't understand what was going on, but we still believed that everything was for the better. All Jewish families were overwhelmed with joy. We were happy to live under a red banner.
Our joy faded when in October 1939, under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact 6 between the USSR and Germany, Lublin became a part of Germany. On 17th October Soviet troops left the town and German armies invaded the streets. Germans captured Jews in the streets and sent them to work. I was also captured and taken to work. We loaded furniture from wealthier Jewish families and it was removed to a storage facility. But we were very surprised that when it was time to get a meal we were made to stand in different lines: for Polish and Jewish people. Polish workers got enough bread while we didn't. In a few days we were allowed to go home. My mother said that I had to get away. My friends and I decided to leave.
I left home again on 23rd October 1939. I had a certificate from the evening school with me and when I was stopped I explained that I was heading to my uncle in Brest [a town in Belarus on the border with Poland 180 km from Lublin]. Many people, Jews for the most part, were moving to the east. We walked at night and during the day we found shelter in the woods or abandoned sheds. It was getting colder and it got dark early. I don't remember how long our trip was, but it seemed very long to us.
About 25 of us moved on by truck. In the evening we arrived at 'Mayak' kolkhoz 7. We came to the cultural center of the village. It was 7th November [October Revolution Day] 8 and there was a celebration in the center and an optimistic Jewish man was making a speech in front of villagers. His speech was interrupted and we were distributed to the houses of collective farmers. I spoke some Russian that I had picked up back in Poland. My friend and his sister were accommodated in a house of a poor villager while I got accommodation in the house of the wealthiest one. Some time passed, but we didn't get any food. The kolkhoz was supposed to receive some food supplies for us, but this didn't happen. We began to harvest potatoes in a field. It was cold and we were falling ill, but we kept working. I stayed in the house of the director of the kolkhoz shop.
There was a conductor who asked me for my ticket. I said I didn't have one. He began to yell at me, but other passengers stood up for me saying that I was a refugee and didn't really understand the language and he finally left me alone. In the morning we arrived at Mahilyow [320 km from Kiev, in the east of Belarus, on the Dnepr River]. There were thousands of refugees in Mahilyow. Somebody explained to me that I wasn't supposed to leave the kolkhoz without a permit, but that I could obtain one at the local executive committee office [Ispolkom] 9. I went there. There was a Jewish man at the head of this office wearing a Stalin hat [a khaki cap popular with many Soviet officials parroting Stalin]. This officer didn't even want to see me, but there were women working there; they sympathized with me. One gave me a bun and another gave me some milk. I told them that I needed a document issued by their office, to allow me stay in Mahilyow. I was there a whole week. I slept at the railway station until those employees got him to sign this permit.
I remember that they allowed me to work as a loader at a garment factory in Mahilyow. I earned 152 rubles. I carried 10 kilogram packages to the fabric cutting shop on the third floor. There were only Belarus loaders at the factory and all other employees were Jews. I slept in old barracks 10 kilometers from Mahilyow. All refugees stayed in those barracks. It was a severe winter and many people got frost-bitten feet. I didn't suffer since I was strong.
I remember that they allowed me to work as a loader at a garment factory in Mahilyow. I earned 152 rubles. I carried 10 kilogram packages to the fabric cutting shop on the third floor. There were only Belarus loaders at the factory and all other employees were Jews. I slept in old barracks 10 kilometers from Mahilyow. All refugees stayed in those barracks. It was a severe winter and many people got frost-bitten feet. I didn't suffer since I was strong.
They told me that there was a course where they trained teachers of history. The next day I went to this teacher's college and told them that I wanted to study. I lied for the first time, that I had a secondary education.
In late December 1939 I passed my exams successfully and was admitted to a group of rural elementary school teachers. I had to work and study. I left my barracks at 4am and walked 10 kilometers to the town where I worked from 7am 'till 4pm and then attended classes. Somebody told me to talk to the management of my college and request a stipend. I did so and was approved to receive a stipend of 175 rubles - that was more than I earned. I also got accommodation in the hostel at 39, Lenin Street. There were five other tenants in my room, Belarus boys. They never asked me about my nationality. They asked me my name. I said, 'Yasha.' I liked it in the hostel. I had a bed with a white sheet. In the morning I attended classes. I had friends and nobody called me 'zhyd.' I liked everything there. I also attended a theater studio for Polish Jews. To cut a long story short, we had a wonderful life.
In late December 1939 I passed my exams successfully and was admitted to a group of rural elementary school teachers. I had to work and study. I left my barracks at 4am and walked 10 kilometers to the town where I worked from 7am 'till 4pm and then attended classes. Somebody told me to talk to the management of my college and request a stipend. I did so and was approved to receive a stipend of 175 rubles - that was more than I earned. I also got accommodation in the hostel at 39, Lenin Street. There were five other tenants in my room, Belarus boys. They never asked me about my nationality. They asked me my name. I said, 'Yasha.' I liked it in the hostel. I had a bed with a white sheet. In the morning I attended classes. I had friends and nobody called me 'zhyd.' I liked everything there. I also attended a theater studio for Polish Jews. To cut a long story short, we had a wonderful life.
The rector of my college helped me to get a job. There was a big chemical plant and a recreation center near Mahilyow. I went to work as an entertainer there. I got a wonderful meal: two eggs and bread and butter. However, since I spoke poor Russian they sent me away in two weeks since I failed to do my job. In order to continue my studies I had to take several exams. I went to the library where I learned everything by heart and recited pieces word by word at the exams. Teachers were amazed at my memory and admitted me to the second course of the Faculty of History of Mahilyow Pedagogical College. I was the happiest person in the world: I was a student, had a place to live and received a stipend.
In fall 1940 I had practical training at school. There were young girls in the 9th and 10th grades, staring at me. Once I got a note from a schoolgirl in which she wrote that she knew that I came from Poland and that Jews were oppressed and abused there and that she was happy to meet me and hoped to support me. She was in the 10th grade and I was a 2nd year student. We started seeing each other. She was a Jewish girl and her name was Rosa Sheinina. Her father was the director of confectionery factory. Theirs was a rich family. I began to court her.
Once a teacher of mathematics, a Jewish man, asked me whether I knew Hebrew and Yiddish. I said I did and he offered me a job as librarian at the Jewish library in a small house near our college. I became a librarian and worked from 4pm. I read books and Rosa visited me there. We flirted when there were no visitors. I was happy.
Once a teacher of mathematics, a Jewish man, asked me whether I knew Hebrew and Yiddish. I said I did and he offered me a job as librarian at the Jewish library in a small house near our college. I became a librarian and worked from 4pm. I read books and Rosa visited me there. We flirted when there were no visitors. I was happy.
I had obtained a Soviet passport by then. It was a 'category 24' passport [Passport 24] 10 It meant that I wasn'tt allowed to reside in 24 large towns. I joined the Komsomol 11 and became an active Komsomol member. I liked taking part in meetings and attending parades on Soviet holidays. My friends and I marched along the main street of the town carrying red flags, portraits of the leaders and posters with communist slogans. We were proud of our country and believed that everything happening was just. I liked the Soviet system and didn't think about any difficulties or contradictions.
On 22nd June Lyova Rotenberg, another boy and I were taking a walk discussing Russian classics when we heard on the radio that the Great Patriotic War 12 had begun.
We had about five exams ahead of us. Students of our college were immediately mobilized to remove all furniture from a school in the neighborhood where they were going to deploy a hospital. We worked all night.
We had about five exams ahead of us. Students of our college were immediately mobilized to remove all furniture from a school in the neighborhood where they were going to deploy a hospital. We worked all night.
I was called into our Komsomol Committee, which enrolled me on the lists of a 'fighting battalion.' We were to capture German parachutists that landed in the area. We got wooden rifles. There were 800 of us in this battalion. We were distributed in groups of three. There were many refugees from Minsk in Mahilyow and we understood that the situation was difficult. I hoped to see my friend Pinia who used to write me from Minsk, but I didn't find him. I also looked for him after the war, writing to various agencies, but I didn't get any information and never found out what happened to him or his sister.
We were sent to the woods near Mahilyow. In a week I found out that there were 24 of us left from the 800. The rest of the fighters had perished.
We were sent to the woods near Mahilyow. In a week I found out that there were 24 of us left from the 800. The rest of the fighters had perished.
I returned to Mahilyow where I met Rosa's father. We went to the railway station where he put me on a train. His wife and Rosa were there already. I was evacuated with the Sheinina family. This was 5th July. Our trip lasted for about a month until we reached Chistopol' in former Tatarstan [a small town on the Kama River flowing into the Volga]. Rosa's father was recruited to the army on the way. We were accommodated in a room. Rosa lost interest in me and I had no feelings left and I decided to go to a bigger town. Chistopol' was a small town, overcrowded with evacuated people. There was no job or place to study. I heard there was a barge from Chistopol' to Kuibyshev [today, Samara, a regional town on the Volga, about 2300 km from Kiev. During the war many governmental agencies were evacuated to this town]. I got on this barge.
I decided to find the Pedagogical College.
The Pedagogical College was located at 65, Stepan Razin Street. There were a few people unloading books and I decided to join them. I worked a little and addressed their supervisor. I said I was hungry and he sent me to their canteen where I had a bowl of soup and returned to work. We worked until evening. This same supervisor sent me to Nadia, the manager of their hostel. Nadia accommodated me in a room where I was alone; other students were still on vacation. The next day I went to work again. Then I went to get registered at the college. They admitted me to the third course. I unloaded books until the academic year began and had meals at the canteen. There was only one thing I didn't like: this supervisor Nadia came to my room every night. She was about 30 and I was 19. She was a beautiful woman, but I had other things to think about.
I became a student. I got a residence permit 13 to live in this hostel even though I had a 'category 24' passport and wasn't allowed to live in Kuibyshev. They stamped my passport along with other passports without taking a closer look. Students received 400 grams of bread per day. It wasn't enough for me. The academic year began and then there were six of us in the room. Four were Russian guys from the Volga and one was a Jew. His name was Fima. He was from Mahilyow. He kept himself separate and kept his own food in his locker. There was no anti-Semitism between us, but we didn't really like Fima. Once we broke the lock on his locker, got his bread and pork fat from there and ate it. All Jews forgot kashrut rules and ate what they had. When he came back he began nagging about it. We saw that this shlemazl [a weak person in Yiddish] was worthless. We had no respect for him. He perished on the way to the front later.
The Pedagogical College was located at 65, Stepan Razin Street. There were a few people unloading books and I decided to join them. I worked a little and addressed their supervisor. I said I was hungry and he sent me to their canteen where I had a bowl of soup and returned to work. We worked until evening. This same supervisor sent me to Nadia, the manager of their hostel. Nadia accommodated me in a room where I was alone; other students were still on vacation. The next day I went to work again. Then I went to get registered at the college. They admitted me to the third course. I unloaded books until the academic year began and had meals at the canteen. There was only one thing I didn't like: this supervisor Nadia came to my room every night. She was about 30 and I was 19. She was a beautiful woman, but I had other things to think about.
I became a student. I got a residence permit 13 to live in this hostel even though I had a 'category 24' passport and wasn't allowed to live in Kuibyshev. They stamped my passport along with other passports without taking a closer look. Students received 400 grams of bread per day. It wasn't enough for me. The academic year began and then there were six of us in the room. Four were Russian guys from the Volga and one was a Jew. His name was Fima. He was from Mahilyow. He kept himself separate and kept his own food in his locker. There was no anti-Semitism between us, but we didn't really like Fima. Once we broke the lock on his locker, got his bread and pork fat from there and ate it. All Jews forgot kashrut rules and ate what they had. When he came back he began nagging about it. We saw that this shlemazl [a weak person in Yiddish] was worthless. We had no respect for him. He perished on the way to the front later.
We received our diplomas at the military registry office. We were to be sent to the Military Academy in Baku. Once I jumped off a tram between stops and was captured by a militiaman who took my passport. When they found out that I had violated my ban to live in Kuibyshev they put me on the list of the Labor army. We did any sort of hard work. I was sent to work as an equipment operator at a special expedition of the Oil Ministry of the USSR.
I had to join a field group in Kokand [a small town in Uzbekistan, 3,000 km from Kiev]. My journey there took seven or eight days until I arrived at the 'Karakum geological group.' Kokand was a small town on the Sokh River flowing into Syrdarya in Fergana region, Uzbekistan. There were few pise- [rammed earth] walled houses in the town. Uzbek people wore heavy cotton gowns and tubeteika caps that looked like a kippah to me. [Editor's note: tubeteika is a small cap worn by men in Middle Asian countries; it's very much like a kippah.] There were a few Jewish specialists who had come there from the European part of the Soviet Union before the war. During the war the population of Kokand expanded due to the arrival of evacuees.
Camels were the main form of transport. We were to collect yellow stones and some sand and send these to Moscow to be studied . We were told that they were studied to find oil and it was only 20 years later I came to know that they had been looking for uranium. In a few weeks I went into the desert in a vehicle. There were about 200 Tajik and Uzbek people there already. They were wild, uneducated people and I was to be their supervisor since I had an education. I was to explain to them what they were supposed to do. Once every two to three weeks we got food supplies and we loaded stones that we'd collected, to be taken away. Once nobody came for three or four weeks.
We were starving, but we weren't allowed to leave our work area. I took a risk, although I didn't know it was a risk. I asked the workers where they lived and it turned out that the nearest houses were 100 kilometers from where we were. I told them to bring any food they could from their homes. They returned in one week's time and the food they brought lasted for another couple of weeks. When my supervisor came and I told him what I had done, he cursed me and said that I deserved to be shot. I told him that I had to do it to save people and he replied that I could have written them off if something happened. This was when I came face to face with the Soviet mentality. They didn't care about an individual. An individual didn't matter to them.
I had to join a field group in Kokand [a small town in Uzbekistan, 3,000 km from Kiev]. My journey there took seven or eight days until I arrived at the 'Karakum geological group.' Kokand was a small town on the Sokh River flowing into Syrdarya in Fergana region, Uzbekistan. There were few pise- [rammed earth] walled houses in the town. Uzbek people wore heavy cotton gowns and tubeteika caps that looked like a kippah to me. [Editor's note: tubeteika is a small cap worn by men in Middle Asian countries; it's very much like a kippah.] There were a few Jewish specialists who had come there from the European part of the Soviet Union before the war. During the war the population of Kokand expanded due to the arrival of evacuees.
Camels were the main form of transport. We were to collect yellow stones and some sand and send these to Moscow to be studied . We were told that they were studied to find oil and it was only 20 years later I came to know that they had been looking for uranium. In a few weeks I went into the desert in a vehicle. There were about 200 Tajik and Uzbek people there already. They were wild, uneducated people and I was to be their supervisor since I had an education. I was to explain to them what they were supposed to do. Once every two to three weeks we got food supplies and we loaded stones that we'd collected, to be taken away. Once nobody came for three or four weeks.
We were starving, but we weren't allowed to leave our work area. I took a risk, although I didn't know it was a risk. I asked the workers where they lived and it turned out that the nearest houses were 100 kilometers from where we were. I told them to bring any food they could from their homes. They returned in one week's time and the food they brought lasted for another couple of weeks. When my supervisor came and I told him what I had done, he cursed me and said that I deserved to be shot. I told him that I had to do it to save people and he replied that I could have written them off if something happened. This was when I came face to face with the Soviet mentality. They didn't care about an individual. An individual didn't matter to them.
In fall 1943 I was sent to Moscow to take secret maps there. The head of the laboratory offered me a job in his technical library. I did technical translation work, from German and Polish. I had the status of an employee on a business trip and every now and then I had to return to Kokand.
I entered Veterinary College in Kiev and obtained a certificate confirming that I was a student. On the basis of this certificate I got registered at the hostel of this college. However, I took no interest in the Veterinary College. I lived in the family of my future wife in a communal apartment 14 in the very center of Kiev. Ninel got pregnant and we registered our marriage on 13th August 1944. I studied in college and worked as a loader at a wood-cutting facility. I wanted to be a teacher, but when I was told that a teacher earned 550 rubles per month - this was the price of a loaf of bread - I went to the university. I had an appointment with the rector of the university. He said that if I were a graduate of their university I could become a post-graduate student. During that year I passed 13 exams and got a degree from Kiev University.
There was another rector though, and when I came to see him he said, 'We are encouraging national specialists.' This was April 1945, after Victory Day 15. For the first time I faced state anti-Semitism. I lived in Kiev for a year. I didn't get along with my wife or my mother-in-law. She used to say 'What kind of a Jew is it that cannot provide for his family?' I went to Lvov since I was told that it was easier to get an apartment there.
I arrived at Lvov on 9th May 1945. This was Victory Day. Expecting a telegram from my mother-in-law or wife, I went to the post office and received a telegram that said that I had a daughter and that she was named Victoria - 'victory' in Greek. We were overwhelmed with victory and hoped that life would improve. We believed that everything would be wonderful from then on. The situation was horrible in Lvov. People were arrested and then disappeared. I didn't understand what was going on. People were scared.
My closest ones - my father, brother, mother and sister perished in Lublin ghetto. Only few years ago I found out that they were on the lists of those exterminated in Lublin ghetto on 7th November 1942. I received a document from Lublin confirming that Mordekhai Honiksman and Samuel Honiksman were on the list of those that were exterminated. My mother and sister were not mentioned in any lists. They perished without being included in any lists. I don't even know where their ashes are buried.
In Lvov I went to work at a garment shop, but I didn't like it there. I attended the library of the Academy of Sciences. This was in 1946. I saw a man lying in a tram stop. I thought he wasn't well, but when I came closer I saw that he was drunk. He was mumbling something in Polish. I took him home where he had a big collection of Jewish books. I went to see him the next day. He introduced himself: Professor Tadeus Zadarecki. He was a Polish orientalist, a Professor of Lvov University. He owned a library and needed an employee there. He offered me a job at the library. They spoke Ukrainian there, while I didn't know a word in Ukrainian. They asked me what languages I spoke. I said, 'Polish, Russian, Yiddish and German.' They believed me and in 15 minutes I became a senior scientific worker of the Jewish department of this library of the Academy of Sciences. I quit the shop where I worked. I also lived in this library.
I worked at the library from 1946 to 1948. In 1949, the campaign against cosmopolitans 16 began. All Jewish writers were arrested. I thought I would be arrested, too, since I knew all those people. The library was destroyed. 19 boxes of books were moved to the Academy of Sciences in Kiev. The library ceased to exist. In May 1949 I was declared a cosmopolitan at my college. I didn't know about it since it was announced at a party meeting that I didn't attend since I was a Komsomol member. When my boss saw me in college, he said 'Yakov, why are you here? You could be arrested. Go away. They've declared you a cosmopolitan. You are fired.' I lost my job and expected arrest every night.
In a month I received a permit to become an employee of the archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Lvov. I worked at the logistics department and had no right to enter a sensitive - secret department. [Editor's note: the secret department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs kept materials about political trials, arrests of innocent people, fabricated cases, etc. Residents got partial access to those archives only in the early 1990s.] I did more than I was authorized to and collected a big archive of files for joint-stock companies of the oil industry. I wrote a letter to the Academy of Sciences asking them whether I might write a thesis on the basis of these documents. They replied that these documents could be the basis for both scientific candidate and doctor's thesis. Later the archive got the order 'fire' with no explanation. I was fired and so was another Jew, Grossman. This happened in 1951.
I found a job as a teacher of history and German language in a village in Lvov region since I couldn't find a job in Lvov. I worked there for nine and a half years. My colleagues treated me well. I became deputy director and then director of this school. I was also responsible for the collection of money for state crediting. It was a mandatory procedure, although newspapers wrote that the population gave money to their country ruined by the war voluntarily. In May, state officers came to institutions and declared how much one owed and if people refused they beat them with sticks. However, I managed to convince people. I joined the Party. I still believed in communism. I didn't understand many things, but I also needed this for my career. I became a representative of the regional party committee for collectivization 17. People respected me. There was another Jew - a doctor. People also respected him.
At the beginning of 1952 another period of arrests began. I was very afraid of being arrested. My wife said, 'We don't need you.' My wife and my mother- in-law spoke against me to my daughter. I was afraid that they might act against me and got a divorce. I was a bachelor for four years. I was desirable as a fiancé throughout this time.
I was glad when I heard that Stalin died on 5th March 1953. I didn't know what the future might be, but I knew that one of the greatest bandits had died. He was another Hitler, only even more treacherous since Hitler spoke directly and openly while Stalin complimented somebody and then at night this person was arrested and taken away. I had realized this many years ago, but I had remained a follower of Marxism.
Rita and I were dating for some time until I asked her, 'Rita will you marry me?' and she replied, 'Yes.' We had a wedding party at a restaurant on 10th January 1956. My guests were about ten close friends and her guests were her father's former military comrades. They were Russian and there were very few Jews.
I worked on my scientific candidate thesis on the subject of economic development of Eastern Poland at the beginning of the 20th century. In October 1960 I defended my thesis in Moscow. The subject of my thesis was the history of the Polish economy. I was awarded the scientific title of candidate of economic sciences. I got a job in Lvov where I became deputy director of an evening school. I gained a standing in my scientific field, but authorities kept emphasizing that they needed national personnel. There was no open anti-Semitism, but it was clear that the reason why it was so hard for me to find a job was my nationality.