My grandfather was a hairdresser, and my grandmother was a housewife; she kept house and took care of the children. I only vaguely remember my grandmother: she was a short stout woman dressed in dark clothes and wearing a black kerchief on her head.
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Lev Galper
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My father's parents were religious. I don't know if my father had any Jewish education. Evidently, he had some elementary knowledge, as he could read Hebrew and knew how to pray. But he was unable to get a secular education. His family was very poor and the sons, at the age of eight, were sent to learn a trade. So they didn't have an opportunity to study. The eldest brother, Beniamin, became a tailor's apprentice. The two younger sons, my father and Meilakh, started learning the hairdresser's profession when they turned eight.
At first they were bottle-washers: they warmed water for shaving, had tools ready for the barbers, swept the floor and, at the same time, learned how to cut hair and shave. After two years, the apprentices were able to work on their own. Both worked at my grandfather's barber's shop. Certainly, it was not a 'salon,' but a small room with two or three working places.
At first they were bottle-washers: they warmed water for shaving, had tools ready for the barbers, swept the floor and, at the same time, learned how to cut hair and shave. After two years, the apprentices were able to work on their own. Both worked at my grandfather's barber's shop. Certainly, it was not a 'salon,' but a small room with two or three working places.
Volchansk used to be rather a large merchants' town [see Guild I] [2]. It was located within the [Jewish] Pale of Settlement [3], so Jews were allowed to live there. Volchansk had a large Jewish community. The Jewish population made up about 40 percent of the town's residents. Besides Jews, there were also Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles there. Downtown houses were made of stone and had one or two stories. There even were several three- storied houses. Jews settled mainly in the central part of the town.
There were people representing the Jewish intelligentsia: doctors, lawyers, teachers. But, at the same time, there were a lot more poor people; those who could hardly make both ends meet. In the center of the town, houses were built close to each other because the land there was more expensive than on the outskirts. Those who lived on the outskirts fed the town. They were mostly involved in agriculture. Volchansk often hosted major wholesale fairs, and people used to come there from far away. In the center of Volchansk there was a big synagogue built with the money donated by rich Jewish merchants.
There were also smaller synagogues, and several prayer houses, and a cheder. Of course when the Soviet power came most of the synagogues were closed. The Soviet power started its struggle against religion [4]. But the big downtown synagogue was left open, as well as the small house next door where the shochet worked.
There were people representing the Jewish intelligentsia: doctors, lawyers, teachers. But, at the same time, there were a lot more poor people; those who could hardly make both ends meet. In the center of the town, houses were built close to each other because the land there was more expensive than on the outskirts. Those who lived on the outskirts fed the town. They were mostly involved in agriculture. Volchansk often hosted major wholesale fairs, and people used to come there from far away. In the center of Volchansk there was a big synagogue built with the money donated by rich Jewish merchants.
There were also smaller synagogues, and several prayer houses, and a cheder. Of course when the Soviet power came most of the synagogues were closed. The Soviet power started its struggle against religion [4]. But the big downtown synagogue was left open, as well as the small house next door where the shochet worked.
Both my father's sisters got married in Volchansk. Certainly, they had traditional Jewish weddings: with the chuppah and with the rabbi - as it should be.
My father's elder brother, Beniamin, took a great interest in revolutionary ideas. At that time the Bolshevik [5] party was prohibited, and my uncle became a member of an underground revolutionary circle where they studied works by Marx and Engels [6]. In 1915 my uncle joined the Bolshevik party. In the circle he met his future wife Manya. She was a Jewish girl who had come to Volchansk from a shtetl and worked as a dressmaker. They joined the party together and got married soon after that.
Naturally, they didn't have a Jewish wedding; communist ideas were incompatible with religion. The party division they belonged to sent them to Dnepropetrovsk [a city with a population of more than a million in the east of Ukraine, 420 km from Kiev]. Beniamin and Manya settled there, and both of them worked as dressmakers. They stayed in Dnepropetrovsk and never returned to Volchansk.
They had two children. They named their daughter Rosa after revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg [7], and their son was named Felix after Dzerzhinsky [8].
Naturally, they didn't have a Jewish wedding; communist ideas were incompatible with religion. The party division they belonged to sent them to Dnepropetrovsk [a city with a population of more than a million in the east of Ukraine, 420 km from Kiev]. Beniamin and Manya settled there, and both of them worked as dressmakers. They stayed in Dnepropetrovsk and never returned to Volchansk.
They had two children. They named their daughter Rosa after revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg [7], and their son was named Felix after Dzerzhinsky [8].
In Volchansk, my father got a job at a barber's shop. Of course, he had no money to start his own business, and, together with his brother Meilakh, he worked for their master.
Grandfather Chaim Glukhovsky was a craftsman; Grandmother whose name I don't know was a housewife. My mother's parents were religious people, and they gave Jewish education to their numerous children.
Once, in the middle of the 1920s, my mother's sisters even came to Volchansk to see us. They stayed for a few days and left. Then reprisals started [during the Great Terror] [9], and to keep in touch with relatives abroad [10] became dangerous, so mother ceased doing so. Three other sisters left for the USA during World War I. We never heard anything from them.
Three of my mother's brothers stayed in Belarus. Before the war mother occasionally corresponded with them, but during the war we lost touch with them. Since we failed to find them after the war and they never got in touch with us again, I think they all died during the Great Patriotic War [11]. Germans organized mass shootings of Jews in Belarus. I believe that my mother's brothers and their families fell victims to these actions.
During World War I my mother's family moved to Bobruisk, Mogilev Region [130 km from Minsk]. It was a big city for those days.
In Glusk people suffered from famine very much during the war. That was probably why they decided to move to Bobruisk.
In Glusk people suffered from famine very much during the war. That was probably why they decided to move to Bobruisk.
My mother went to see them. And my father already lived in Volchansk at that time. So it was there where they met. They did without a traditional Jewish matchmaking; my father just asked my grandfather Chaim to bless their marriage.
My parents got married in Volchansk at the beginning of 1919. They had a traditional Jewish wedding. After the wedding they rented lodging from a Jewish family in the same street where Aunt Nekhama lived.
My parents got married in Volchansk at the beginning of 1919. They had a traditional Jewish wedding. After the wedding they rented lodging from a Jewish family in the same street where Aunt Nekhama lived.
The [Russian] Revolution of 1917 [12] in no way influenced my parents' way of life. The Soviet power took property from the rich and exiled them to Siberia, but nothing threatened my parents. My father continued to work as a hairdresser, and hairdressers are needed under any power. My mother didn't work after her marriage.
It was a very hard time, the time of the Civil War [13]. People starved and suffered from terrible epidemics of different types of typhoid, which also killed a great number of victims. Besides, Jewish pogroms [14] often happened during the Civil War. Volchansk wasn't spared of them either. My mother used to tell me about the Jewish pogroms that started when Petliura's [15] troops came to Volchansk.
My parents' neighbors, Russian Orthodox believers, hid our family in the attic of their house. Mother said that she was most of all afraid that I would cry and gang [16] members would hear me crying, so she was holding her hand against my mouth all the time. But I was calm and none of Petliura's men suspected anything. After the Civil War, life straightened out little by little.
My mother's sister Nekhama, with her husband and two children, occupied a half of the house; the other half was inhabited by Yankel Polyakov, a cousin of Nekhama's husband Meishe. During the NEP [17] Yankel became a businessman and grew rich. When the NEP was over he was afraid that he would be arrested very soon if he stayed in Volchansk where everybody knew him. So he left Volchansk for some place in Donetsk region. He sold his half of the house to my parents. The house was big, made of wood covered with plaster. It had been built for two families, that is why it had two separate entrances and its two parts were isolated from each other.
Each half consisted of two rooms and a kitchen with a big Russian stove [18]. My father did his best to make the house comfortable; he faced it with bricks and made a well in the yard so that my mother wouldn't have to fetch water from the street. The plot of land near the house was so small that there was no room for a kitchen garden. Mother planted some flowers there and she grew some greenery in a small bed for our meals.
Each half consisted of two rooms and a kitchen with a big Russian stove [18]. My father did his best to make the house comfortable; he faced it with bricks and made a well in the yard so that my mother wouldn't have to fetch water from the street. The plot of land near the house was so small that there was no room for a kitchen garden. Mother planted some flowers there and she grew some greenery in a small bed for our meals.
In Volchansk Jews didn't live in one neighborhood, like they often did in other places. In our street there lived three or four Jewish families besides us and Nekhama's family. We had a good relationship with our Ukrainian neighbors. Jews didn't keep away from 'goyim,' and Ukrainians and Russians weren't anti-Semitic. In general, I think that before World War II there was no anti-Semitism, at least I never noticed any manifestations of anti-Semitism or heard about it from other Jews.
Having moved to Volchansk, my parents continued to observe Jewish traditions. Near the market place there worked a shochet. My mother always bought live hens and then sent me with them to the shochet. We observed the kashrut. Mother had separate crockery for meat and dairy meals. Saturday was a working day at that time. On Friday evening my mother lit the candles and prayed over them.
On Saturday my father went to work but mother tried not to do anything about the house before the first night star, when, according to the Jewish tradition, the next day began.
On Saturday my father went to work but mother tried not to do anything about the house before the first night star, when, according to the Jewish tradition, the next day began.
Yiddish was spoken in our house; I used to know it well and I still remember it. But my sister who was just two years younger than me didn't know Yiddish; she spoke Russian.
On Jewish holidays my parents always went to the synagogue. After I turned four my father used to take me to the synagogue with him. Mother sat upstairs, together with other women, and I was with my father downstairs, in the men's seats. At our home we also celebrated Jewish holidays according to all the rules.
Before Pesach we baked matzot. Our relatives and Jewish women from our street came to our place.
We had a spacious kitchen and a big Russian stove. Some made dough; others rolled the dough out, while I had the most important job: I had to make small holes in the rolled dough with a special wheel made from the pinion of the big wall clock. It took us several days to bake the matzot, because there had to be enough matzot for all the families who took part in the baking. There was no bread in our house during all the days of the holiday; we ate only matzot.
Mother cooked various dishes for the holiday meals: chicken broth, boiled chickens, gefilte fish, cholent, tsimes [19], various baked puddings; she baked strudels of matzot flour stuffed with jam, nuts and raisins. On Pesach Eve we took a big wooden box with the Passover crockery down from the attic. On the first Passover night father held the Pesach Seder.
I used to ask him the traditional questions that I had learnt by heart. In the center of the table there was a beautiful gilded cup for Elijah the Prophet. I already knew that during Pesach the Prophet came to every Jewish house, blessed it and took a sip of wine from his cup. We left the front door open for the Prophet to come in. I always watched his cup very carefully and sometimes I was lucky to see the wine in the cup tremble for a moment.
We had a spacious kitchen and a big Russian stove. Some made dough; others rolled the dough out, while I had the most important job: I had to make small holes in the rolled dough with a special wheel made from the pinion of the big wall clock. It took us several days to bake the matzot, because there had to be enough matzot for all the families who took part in the baking. There was no bread in our house during all the days of the holiday; we ate only matzot.
Mother cooked various dishes for the holiday meals: chicken broth, boiled chickens, gefilte fish, cholent, tsimes [19], various baked puddings; she baked strudels of matzot flour stuffed with jam, nuts and raisins. On Pesach Eve we took a big wooden box with the Passover crockery down from the attic. On the first Passover night father held the Pesach Seder.
I used to ask him the traditional questions that I had learnt by heart. In the center of the table there was a beautiful gilded cup for Elijah the Prophet. I already knew that during Pesach the Prophet came to every Jewish house, blessed it and took a sip of wine from his cup. We left the front door open for the Prophet to come in. I always watched his cup very carefully and sometimes I was lucky to see the wine in the cup tremble for a moment.
Before Yom Kippur we always held the kapores ritual at home. Mother bought white hens for herself and for my sister and white cocks for my father and me. Father read aloud a prayer, and then each of us took his/her hen by its tied feet and twisted it above the head with the following words: 'Let you be my atonement.' Mother always cooked a square meal to be eaten before the fast. My parents fasted for 24 hours, but I and my sister were fed, as the fast wasn't obligatory for children. On the morning of Yom Kippur my parents went to the synagogue and stayed there till the night prayer.
. I also remember how everybody who came to our house during Chanukkah gave me and my sister coins.
And in the early 1930s the Soviet power intensified its struggle against religion. The only synagogue left by that time was closed, and people didn't celebrate Jewish holidays any longer.
During the NEP we were well-to-do though only my father worked. Later, when the NEP was forbidden and transition to the planned economy was under way, Cheka [20] started arresting people and taking their gold and other valuables. The wisest people managed to leave before the arrests began. Most of the Volchansk Jews were arrested no matter whether they had any valuables or not. For some reason the Cheka thought that all the Jews must have hidden at least something. My father was arrested, as well as his brother Meilach, and Uncle Meicha Polyakov, too. When chekists came to us to search the house they didn't find anything but still arrested my father.
My mother had a tsarist golden coin hidden somewhere; she was going to use it to have false teeth made for herself. She sewed it up into the belt of her skirt. She went to see my father in prison and was told that they would keep him until he handed over his gold. So mother brought them that coin and soon my father was released.
My mother had a tsarist golden coin hidden somewhere; she was going to use it to have false teeth made for herself. She sewed it up into the belt of her skirt. She went to see my father in prison and was told that they would keep him until he handed over his gold. So mother brought them that coin and soon my father was released.
In 1932-33 there was a famine in Ukraine [21]. We didn't starve only because there was a big oil-mill in Volchansk and we could buy there oil- cakes [pressed sunflower seeds with the husks]. Normally these oil-cakes were bought to feed cattle, but in those hard years we ate them ourselves. One couldn't eat much: they caused stomach ache, but we nibbled them little by little which saved us from the permanent hungry feeling. We are everything that was eatable; we gathered grass and roots and cooked soup with them. By and large, we survived somehow.
In 1927 my parents sent me to a general education school. There were three schools in Volchansk: two of them provided a seven-grade education and one was a ten-year secondary school. Al those schools had been built by a rich merchant before the revolution. There was no Jewish school. I had known Ukrainian well since my childhood, so I was sent to the Ukrainian class. There were two Ukrainian classes and one Russian class where children from the nearby Russian villages studied. In my class there were almost no Jews. I didn't feel any anti-Semitism; the relationships among the school students and between teachers and students were absolutely even.
At school I joined the Young Octobrists [22], and then the pioneers [see All-Union pioneer organization] [23].
In the 8th grade I joined the Komsomol [24]. The attitude towards me in the new school was good; they even elected me chairman of the school Komsomol committee.
I first felt anti-Semitism when I was in the 10th grade, when a new teacher of the Russian language and literature came to our school; her name was Dudina. She hated me and my sister who went to the same school. Maybe she was just a mean person, but I think that our Jewish background also played a part. Certainly, it was easier to deal with my sister: she came home in tears almost every day. The teacher picked on me all the time, but I was able to stand up for myself and other students saw that she was unfair towards me.
Once, six month before the graduation exams, she complained to the principal about me again, and the next day they held a class meeting where Dudina said that I didn't let her teach properly because I was smiling skeptically while she explained the lesson to us. Of course, that wasn't true, but the history teacher who was the chief of the school Communist Party division and a very unpleasant person, supported her. He said that my behavior was nothing else than the Trotskyist theory and I was a Trotsky [25] follower.
Once, six month before the graduation exams, she complained to the principal about me again, and the next day they held a class meeting where Dudina said that I didn't let her teach properly because I was smiling skeptically while she explained the lesson to us. Of course, that wasn't true, but the history teacher who was the chief of the school Communist Party division and a very unpleasant person, supported her. He said that my behavior was nothing else than the Trotskyist theory and I was a Trotsky [25] follower.
It was in 1937, in the heat of the reprisals and such an accusation was very dangerous for me. But I wasn't sitting on my hands waiting for my arrest. I was in good repute with the regional Komsomol committee, so I went there, told them about the meeting and asked them to transfer me to a suburban school, otherwise that couple would just eat me up. They reassured me at the regional committee and helped me to be moved to the only Russian class of our school where Dudina didn't teach.