In 1944 our army liberated Vitebsk from the Germans. Mother wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, M.I. Kalinin [19], asking for a permission to return home. During the war years in order to come back to a liberated town after evacuation, one had to obtain an invitation from an enterprise or a family member. We received a reply from M.I. Kalinin’s chancellery, saying, ‘Not a stone was left standing in Vitebsk, so you can’t go there. You have no man to take care of you, so you can’t return.’ After that Mother asked for a permission to go to Leningrad, where her sisters lived, or to Vyshniy Volochok, where her husband’s sister lived. Thus we obtained a pass to Vyshniy Volochok.
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Displaying 34141 - 34170 of 50826 results
Lyudmila Kreslova
In 1946 Vladimir suddenly fell ill. He was put in a hospital and a small egg-sized tumor was found in his armpit. It was already inoperable. A German doctor treated him. Maybe she didn’t treat him correctly. He died soon. He was only 17 years old. He was buried at the Jewish cemetery.
Mother married for the second time in Leningrad in 1946. Her husband was an Orthodox Jew. His name was Nukhim Davydovich. He was a nice and kind man. He had a separate two-room apartment. He was married before, but his wife had died during the siege. He had a daughter and a son. He didn’t keep in contact with his son, but his daughter helped him. He was very pious, always attended the synagogue, in the morning, at daytime and in the evening and observed Sabbath strictly. We didn’t celebrate Jewish holidays together.
My mother’s husband was an antiquarian by occupation and worked in a store, which accepted antique objects. When in 1960 the money exchange reform was carried out, he lost 50,000 rubles. I called him Uncle Nukhim. We had very good relations, he loved me more than his own daughter.
I started to work at the Ordzhonikidze plant, a ship-building plant, in 1945. I worked as a registrar in a design office. My job was to do the following: an engineer came in and asked for a scheme of a ship. I found it and gave it to him on receipt. When a ship was built, its scheme and passport remained in the archives. I had a very good salary, 400 rubles and wasn’t needy.
My husband was born in 1915 and was six years older than me. When he was 14, he moved to Leningrad from his native village. A lot of Jews moved here, because the prohibition to live in big cities was lifted [20]. He came here all alone and began to work at the ‘Vulkan’ plant. Later he studied at a military school and became an officer. As soon as the war broke out, he went to the frontline.
Almost all his relatives were murdered by the Germans. His father was hanged, because his four sons were at the front and couldn’t hide him. His five sisters and mother were buried alive in Kamen. Two of his brothers perished at the front. Only two people survived of the whole family, my husband and his brother Misha.
Almost all his relatives were murdered by the Germans. His father was hanged, because his four sons were at the front and couldn’t hide him. His five sisters and mother were buried alive in Kamen. Two of his brothers perished at the front. Only two people survived of the whole family, my husband and his brother Misha.
My husband was a Communist. When he came back from the army, he was assigned to work at the ‘Bolshoy Dom’ [‘Big House’ – regional NKVD and later MGB and KGB Administration, located on 4 Liteiny Prospect [21], [22]] and worked there until he was 60. He was offered a position of a supervisor at the prisoners-of-war camp near Leningrad. He agreed. It wasn’t a prison, but a camp where imprisoned Germans were kept.
I got married in June 1946. I was 25 at that time. We didn’t have a wedding celebration. After the wedding I started to live at my husband’s place. He had a small room – 11 square meters – in a communal apartment located on Goncharnaya Street. While we lived in the communal apartment, our children were born. We lived in that communal apartment from 1946, right after our wedding, up to 1969, with evil neighbors. Later we got a three-room apartment in the South-West of Leningrad. Our neighbors were anti-Semites. They fought and quarreled with me. They even sent for the Deputy [Member of Parliament]. The Deputy said, ‘You are scolding her, but no one scolds you, so why are you complaining?’ My stepfather once heard the neighbors abuse me and said, ‘Take the children, let’s go!’ And he took us with him to his apartment.
We celebrated only Soviet holidays: the New Year, 1st May and October Revolution Day on 7th November [23]. We didn’t know any Jewish holidays anymore and didn’t even think of them.
Our eldest daughter Galina was born in 1947. I was rather plump after the war and no one guessed that I was pregnant. Galina went to a Soviet school for ten years. She went to work as a cook in a cafeteria after finishing school. She didn’t continue her studies, because she didn’t want to and money was needed. She married a Russian, Victor Gurianov, at the age of 20 in 1967. In 1969 their daughter Julia was born and in 1974 their son Yuriy was born.
Our second daughter Elena was born in 1950. She went to a Soviet school for ten years and after that entered a technical school to study to be a sales assistant of confectionary goods. She worked in a store for a year. After that she studied to be a projectionist in the ‘Barricada’ cinema, there was a teacher who taught her. She found a job at the ‘Leningrad’ cinema and worked there until 1970. After that she studied to become a hair-dresser and now works in a beauty shop.
Our youngest daughter Lyubov was born in 1955. She got married when she was 19. She has a daughter [Karina], born in 1978. Her husband’s name is Yuriy Iosifovich Gapchuk, his father was a Jew, his name was Rubinstein. He is a ‘khokhol’ on his mother’s side. Later, when his grandparents and parents died, he inherited two million rubles. They were already married by that time. He didn’t plan to leave and go abroad. He had 63 commercial outlets: at Moscow, Baltic and Warsaw railroad stations, he had such outlets everywhere. He sold food products and haberdashery there. Some people started to envy him. He was general manager, the president of the company. He was threatened and he always carried a gun with him, it wasn’t so easy to get him. They began to threaten my daughter and granddaughter. So my granddaughter had to be guarded. I woke up early in the morning and came to her to see her off to school, because I was scared that they would kidnap her. When a bomb was blown up at the apartment door and they started to openly hunt for my granddaughter, my son-in-law’s partner offered him to leave for Florida, where he lived. He said that it would be possible to live at his place and later, when everything calmed down, to return home. My daughter and her husband packed quite spontaneously, they didn’t take anything with them, only some clothes and money and left with that American. It happened in 1992.
My husband was a war veteran, disabled, with a pension of 120 rubles. Bread cost 14 kopecks, we didn’t have luxurious food, we wore common clothes. We spent money on his medicine and on our three children. 120 rubles was a big pension, but my husband had the right to earn officially up to 300 rubles per month, that is, he could have earned 180 rubles more at the ‘Vulkan’ plant, where he worked. If he earned 302 or 320 rubles, the 2 or 20 rubles wouldn’t go to him, but to the state, as tax. He was given a paper every month at work, which said that he had earned 180 rubles and his pension was 120 rubles. Such was the Soviet system. We were assisted with money and with work.
I didn’t love my husband. He was a rude disciplinarian. He was wounded in his head, had to receive some treatment and was cured. He was one of these people, who don’t understand what love is. At first I didn’t understand, if I loved him or not. I believed that there can be only one love. I loved a Russian guy before the war, but he perished. Maybe if he had perished in front of my eyes, I would have perished with him. When I met my would-be husband, it was important for me that he was a Jew. Besides, he had a room to live in. He was an officer, not just a soldier. Sometimes he started a row and I kept quiet. When we got married, he once hit me because of some trifle. I don’t even remember why he threw me on the floor. While we were fighting, we forgot to close the door. His brother’s wife came in at that moment. She was a very brave woman, a Georgian Jewess from Makhachkala [today in Dagestan, Russia]. She grabbed him by the collar – she was a robust woman – and said, ‘If I ever see this happen again, I will destroy you.’ Nothing of the kind ever happened again, but he did beat our children.
We did face anti-Semitism in everyday life after the war. The so-called Doctors’ Plot [24] of 1952 affected me very painfully. I felt very sorry that the Jewish physicians, who couldn’t have done anything bad, had been accused of a monstrous crime.
Once, in the 1980s, we were on our way to our summer house on a train. My husband, as a war veteran, was granted a summer house in Per, at Karelia Isthmus [a summer-house settlement 50 km north of Leningrad]. My husband had his battle decorations on. People in the railroad car started to say that we were Jews, that our summer house was bought with stolen money, that my husband had bought his decorations. My husband said, ‘May God let you buy such decorations as I did, I would like to see you after that.’ We didn’t talk to these people anymore. Another time when I was on a train, a man stood up to give up his place for me to sit down. Then, suddenly, he changed his mind and said, ‘You are a Jew-woman’ and sat back down. I told him, ‘Who are you praying to? Jesus Christ? Well, he was a Jew.’ ‘It can’t be.’ ‘Go ask your priest.’ My daughters faced anti-Semitism during their studies. It happened even more often with my granddaughters, though my daughters are married to Russians.
I didn’t respect Stalin. I felt that he was different from other people. When before the war he granted the Germans 18 railroad cars of flour, I began to hate him. I found out about it from the newspapers, which said that Stalin helped the Germans, reckoning that in that case they wouldn’t attack us [25]. I was 19 already and I thought, ‘My God, why would they not attack us?’ I knew that they would start the war, people were talking about it. We had a radio, some black plate, and Stalin said on the air, that if the war started, we wouldn’t give a single inch of our land and would carry out the war on foreign territory. It seemed fine when he said so, but then he gave bread to the Germans, who were our enemies. I understood that he was a sick person. My father also said that something was wrong.
Then Stalin died in 1953, and I rejoiced. One of my husband’s relatives perished at Stalin’s funeral. She was very upset about Stalin’s death. She went to his funeral and she was crushed to death there. I was really surprised by the grief she felt, because I was happy. My husband and I knew that he was already preparing railroad cars to take all Jews to Siberia [26]. My husband was a Communist, but he still remained a Jew.
Then Stalin died in 1953, and I rejoiced. One of my husband’s relatives perished at Stalin’s funeral. She was very upset about Stalin’s death. She went to his funeral and she was crushed to death there. I was really surprised by the grief she felt, because I was happy. My husband and I knew that he was already preparing railroad cars to take all Jews to Siberia [26]. My husband was a Communist, but he still remained a Jew.
I knew about the foundation of the state of Israel. When Golda Meir [28], who was actually a distant relative of my stepfather, came to Leningrad, she met him and tried to persuade him to leave. He didn’t want to. My mother saw her, but I was busy at that time. If he had left, we would have left with him. I wanted to leave together with my husband, but he was in doubt, ‘I am a Communist, what if they don’t accept us, we won’t be able to return.’ But I wanted to leave with all my heart.
Perestroika [31] also filled me with indignation, I was crying for three years. I was outraged by the fact that we had been trying to achieve Communism, and suddenly found ourselves in capitalism. When my husband was dying in 1986, he told me, ‘I feel sorry for the children, I am sorry I haven’t left for Israel, what a fool I have been.’ I replied, ‘What do you feel sorry for?’ He was wounded during World War II in his head and I decided that he was raving. He said, ‘They will live in capitalism.’ He thought that it was bad. There is capitalism in Israel too, but kolkhozes [the interviewee means the kibbutzim] have existed there for 80 or 90 years already.
The fact that there are extremist movements in Russia now horrifies me. God loves me, but he punishes me, because politically I appear to be concerned more than others.
I came to Hesed [32]. There is a canteen in front of Hesed, the ‘Nautilus’ restaurant, I go there to eat.
I have believed in God since I was five, though starting from the 1930s I didn’t observe the traditions. My children lead a secular life but today I attend the synagogue very often. I even have lunch there. On Saturdays I go to the synagogue, 25 people gather in the big synagogue. The rabbi gave me a Jewish prayer book, a siddur, in Russian. I read it in the morning and in the evening.
My father Navtoliy and Uncle Lyova observed traditions. Neither their parents, nor they were interested in politics. They wore tzitzit under their clothes. It was passed to them from Grandfather.
Aunt Frida worked as a seamstress in Vitebsk and later left for Petersburg for further study. She was very beautiful. At a ball she got acquainted with the son of Putilov, the owner of Putilovskiy Plant [a large machine works in St. Petersburg, renamed to Kirovskiy Plant in 1934]. Putilov’s son fell in love with her, but he couldn’t marry a Jewess. She converted to Christianity and was baptized with the new name of Nina. Frida was baptized but remained a Jewess in her soul. He concluded a marriage contract with her for 20 years. They got married in a church.
I remember my maternal grandparents, Mendel Kurnov and Esther Kurnova. Grandmother was a tall woman and Grandfather was short, he hardly reached her armpit, he was actually my height. Esther and Mendel were promised to each other in their youth, when they lived in their native shtetls. They had a lot of children: four daughters and three sons. They lived in Vitebsk, in the same street as we did, just next door. They were very religious. Grandfather wore a beard and Grandmother wore a shoulder-length wig. They always had kosher food. Grandmother went to the shochet to slaughter chicken and bought only kosher meat.
Grandfather Mendel was very neat, very clean and wore only good clothes. He had a taste for clothes, as he was a tailor and he was an expert in it. They lived well, they were neither poor nor rich. Grandfather never smoked, but liked to drink: vodka, wine, but not too much. He certainly drank on holidays, both Jewish and Soviet. Since there were many holidays, it turned out that he drank often. At dinner he liked to pour himself a small glass of alcohol. Grandmother scolded him for that, but he replied, ‘I drink because of my nerves!’ Mendel had suffered from Jewish pogroms and he had nervous stress and fear from those times.
There were Jewish pogroms in Vitebsk, but only before the Revolution of 1917. Grandfather Mendel, my mother’s father, told us how he had hid in the attic from the pogrom-makers. It didn’t happen again after the Revolution. During the Civil War [7] there were pogroms in Ukraine [8]. Khokhly [topknots; pejorative name for Ukrainians] didn’t live in the town, only Belarusians did [terrible pogroms of Jews in Belarus were arranged during the Civil War by Polish soldiers and local gangs]. There was probably nationalism in everyday life, but I didn’t notice it.
Grandfather Mendel stayed in Vitebsk when the Germans occupied the town in 1941. He perished in 1942. Those who survived told us later that the Germans had a high opinion of my grandfather, even though he was a Jew. He sewed uniforms for them and did that very well, so they needed him. He lived until 1942, but later he was murdered together with the other Jews. This is all I know about them. I found out about their fate from Polish Vera’s letters.
,
1942
See text in interview
I don’t remember Grandmother perform any ceremonies at any Jewish holidays, but I know that she kept Jewish candlesticks to lit the candles on holidays, one for two candles and another was a chanukkiyah for Chanukkah, for nine candles. Grandmother came from a religious family, she also raised my mother and all her children like that, but they all lost it later. We believed in Stalin, not in God!
Vitebsk was a small town, there were only 5,000 people living there or even less. There were a lot of Jewish communities, but no synagogue. The synagogues were shut down by the authorities after 1923 [9]. The Jews gathered in various apartments to pray. They said there were 63 of such meeting-houses. Father attended such meeting-houses on Saturdays. There were wardens at such meeting-houses. There must have been a mikveh, as my mother’s sisters also attended it. The Jewish education still existed in the 1920s, there were yeshivot and cheders.