When I turned five a melamed from the synagogue began to teach me at home. He taught me Yiddish, basics of religion and general education and told me about the history of Jewish people. This was like a cheder for one pupil. I went to school at 6 and a half. This was a Jewish primary school at first, but after I finished my second year it was made a Russian school. However, the only difference was that we switched to the Russian language since the curriculum remained without changes. I stayed in this school. My father was right to think that one needed to know Russian to do better in the future. I studied well. I was fond of mathematics and physics. I became a pioneer at school. I remember the ceremony in thee concert hall at school. Senior pupils tied read neckties on us and took an oath of devotion to the cause of Lenin. My father had no objections to this. He understood that I had to keep pace with the requirements of a new way of life. Even though I was a pioneer I went to the synagogue with my parents on holidays. Of course, I didn’t wear my necktie when going to the synagogue. He didn’t tell me to go to the synagogue, but I knew that he liked it when I went there so I wanted to please him.
- Tradíciók 11756
- Beszélt nyelv 3019
- Identitás 7808
- A település leírása 2440
- Oktatás, iskola 8506
- Gazdaság 8772
- Munka 11672
- Szerelem & romantika 4929
- Szabadidő/társadalmi élet 4159
- Antiszemitizmus 4822
-
Főbb események (politikai és történelmi)
4256
- örmény népirtás 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
- Soviet invasion of Poland 31
- Siege of Leningrad 86
- The Six Day War 4
- Yom Kippur War 2
- Atatürk halála 5
- Balkán háborúk (1912-1913) 35
- Első szovjet-finn háború 37
- Csehszlovákia megszállása 1938 83
- Franciaország lerohanása 9
- Molotov-Ribbentrop paktum 65
- Varlik Vergisi (vagyonadó) 36
- Első világháború (1914-1918) 216
- Spanyolnátha (1918-1920) 14
- Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920) 4
- Nagy gazdasági világválság (1929-1933) 20
- Hitler hatalmon (1933) 127
- 151 Kórház 1
- Thesszaloniki tűzvész (1917) 9
- Görög polgárháború (1946-49) 12
- Thesszaloniki Nemzetközi Vásár 5
- Bukovina Romániához csatolása (1918) 7
- Észak-Bukovina csatolása a Szovjetunióhoz (1940) 19
- Lengyelország német megszállása (1939) 94
- Kisinyevi pogrom (1903) 7
- Besszarábia romániai annexiója (1918) 25
- A magyar uralom visszatérése Erdélybe (1940-1944) 43
- Besszarábia szovjet megszállása (1940) 59
- Második bécsi diktátum 27
- Észt függetlenségi háború 3
- Varsói felkelés 2
- A balti államok szovjet megszállása (1940) 147
- Osztrák lovagi háború (1934) 9
- Anschluss (1938) 71
- A Habsburg birodalom összeomlása 3
- Dollfuß-rendszer 3
- Kivándorlás Bécsbe a második világháború előtt 36
- Kolkhoz 131
- KuK - Königlich und Kaiserlich 40
- Bányászjárás 1
- A háború utáni szövetséges megszállás 7
- Waldheim ügy 5
- Trianoni békeszerződés 12
- NEP 56
- Orosz forradalom 351
- Ukrán éhínség (Holodomor) 199
- A Nagy tisztogatás 283
- Peresztrojka 233
- 1941. június 22. 468
- Molotov rádióbeszéde 115
- Győzelem napja 147
- Sztálin halála 365
- Hruscsov beszéde a 20. kongresszuson 148
- KGB 62
- NKVD 153
- Magyarország német megszállása (1944. március 18-19.) 45
- Józef Pilsudski (1935-ig) 33
- 1956-os forradalom 84
- Prágai Tavasz (1968) 73
- 1989-es rendszerváltás 174
- Gomulka kampány (1968) 81
-
Holokauszt
9685
- Holokauszt (általánosságban) 2789
- Koncentrációs tábor / munkatábor 1235
- Tömeges lövöldözési műveletek 337
- Gettó 1183
- Halál / megsemmisítő tábor 647
- Deportálás 1063
- Kényszermunka 791
- Repülés 1410
- Rejtőzködés 594
- Ellenállás 121
- 1941-es evakuálások 866
- Novemberpogrom / Kristályéjszaka 34
- Eleutherias tér 10
- Kasztner csoport 1
- Jászvásári pogrom és a halálvonat 21
- Sammelwohnungen 9
- Strohmann rendszer 11
- Struma hajó 17
- Élet a megszállás alatt 803
- Csillagos ház 72
- Védett ház 15
- Nyilaskeresztesek ("nyilasok") 42
- Dunába lőtt zsidók 6
- Kindertranszport 26
- Schutzpass / hamis papírok 95
- Varsói gettófelkelés (1943) 24
- Varsói felkelés (1944) 23
- Segítők 521
- Igazságos nemzsidók 269
- Hazatérés 1090
- Holokauszt-kárpótlás 112
- Visszatérítés 109
- Vagyon (vagyonvesztés) 595
- Szerettek elvesztése 1724
- Trauma 1029
- Beszélgetés a történtekről 1807
- Felszabadulás 558
- Katonaság 3322
- Politika 2640
-
Kommunizmus
4468
- Élet a Szovjetunióban/kommunizmus alatt (általánosságban) 2592
- Antikommunista ellenállás általában 63
- Államosítás a kommunizmus alatt 221
- Illegális kommunista mozgalmak 98
- Szisztematikus rombolások a kommunizmus alatt 45
- Kommunista ünnepek 311
- A kommunista uralommal kapcsolatos érzések 930
- Kollektivizáció 94
- Az állami rendőrséggel kapcsolatos tapasztalatok 349
- Börtön/kényszermunka a kommunista/szocialista uralom alatt 449
- Az emberi és állampolgári jogok hiánya vagy megsértése 483
- Élet a rendszerváltás után (1989) 493
- Izrael / Palesztina 2190
- Cionizmus 847
- Zsidó szervezetek 1200
Displaying 35851 - 35880 of 50826 results
Semyon Levbarg
I also had a bar mitzvah at the age of 13. My father prepared me to this ceremony teaching me to put on a tefillin and prayers. He understood that I would not be religious in the future, but wanted me to go through this ritual. Of course, none of my friends – and I had Jewish, Ukrainian and Russian friends – knew that I had a bar mitzvah. If I had spoken about it I might have been expelled from the pioneer organization and probably from school. This was in late 1920s, when any religion was declared outlawed and persecuted [Struugle against religion] [5]. My father told me to not mention that he was a senior man at the synagogue. He knew that it was better to keep silent about things at that period of time.
I was an active pioneer at school. I especially liked parades on 1st May and October Revolution Day [6]. We gathered at school and went to Kreschatik, the main street in Kiev carrying flags and slogans. We didn’t celebrate any Soviet holidays at home, even though my father accepted the soviet power.
After finishing lower secondary school I entered the Ship Mechanics Faculty of Kiev River Technical School.
Since I didn’t mention to anyone at school that my father was a gabbai I managed to join the Komsomol [7] league at this school. Although I respected my father’s faith I was a young man of that time: I believed in communist ideas and took an active part in the first five-year plans [8] and construction of communism. I was an active Komsomol member and took part in Komsomol meetings and was also a subbotnik [9]. I tried to be no different from others I didn’t want any extra acknowledgement of my diligence since if Komsomol officials decided to offer me some position they would have revealed the history of my family.
My friends at the technical school were Ukrainians and Russians from Kiev region; they lived in the hostel. We got along well. They were especially warm during the famine in Ukraine [10] in 1932-33. Our family didn’t suffer from hunger in 1920s or 1930s. I managed to even bring some food to my friends. They didn’t ask me where I got food that was a luxury at the time, but were grateful for my support.
In those years I also changed my name from Solomon to Russian Semyon. My father insisted that I did it. I had to write a request to have my name changed where I wrote that I wanted to change it for the sake of euphony, but my father explained to me that this would help me in the future.
In 1933 I finished my technical school and went to work at the ‘Lenin’s forge’ plant. Graduates of higher educational institutions were released from service in the army and so were workers at the plant. I began my career as assistant foreman at the shipyard and later became a foreman. In those years of the first five-year plan periods we believed in the bright future and believed ourselves to be builders of communism and socialism. I was fond of work and didn’t notice what was happening around me.
In 1936 arrests [Great Terror] [11] began: the management of the plant was arrested. Their replacement didn’t last long and were arrested, too. We were young and still believed that everything happening in the country was just and fair. Fortunately, none of our acquaintances suffered. There were ‘enemies of the people’: Trotskyites [12], Zinovievists [13] and spies working for all possible foreign intelligence services. My friends and I understood that there must have been something wrong about it and that people that were devoted to the Party and the people couldn’t have possibly been enemies. However, nobody dared to pronounce it: they said, even ‘walls had ears’, such was the time.
Religion and religious people were persecuted. My father became even a bigger conspirator than he used to be. He only wore his kippah at home and at the synagogue. In summer he wore a cap and in winter he wore a warm hat. However, my parents kept observing Jewish traditions, but I didn’t. I worked on Saturday and couldn’t celebrate Sabbath. Besides, I had meals at a canteen at the plant where I ate what they offered. The synagogue in Schekavitskaia street never closed except for during occupation and my father continued working there. I had never been there before 1946. I grew up an atheist and I didn’t care about such things and secondly, it might have had a negative impact on my life and career. At this period very few people attended synagogues. Most of them were elderly people that had nothing to be afraid of.
Therefore, when in 1937 I was offered a job at the Komsomol construction site in Nakhodka [Far East, in 8000 km from Kiev] where they were building a shipyard he was even glad that I got an opportunity to move away. Even thought this meant that we were not going to see each other for a long while, he was glad that I would be away from Podol and the synagogue and would be involved in the construction of a new life. My friends and I went to the Far East on a Komsomol assignment. We traveled by train. Our trip lasted for over two weeks. In the carriage we sang new patriotic songs from the movies that we liked: ‘ Spacious is my native land’, ‘March of enthusiasts’ and others.
There was a big shipyard to be built in Nakhodka. This was a gigantic construction site and there were probably about ten thousand workers to be involved in it. We were accommodated in barracks and in few months we moved to a hostel that was like a barrack only there were more comforts. We worked three shifts and the night shift was the most difficult, but we were young and made a strong team. There was no national segregation: workers were the children of proletariat and peasantry. They came from various towns of the USSR. We didn’t have these Komsomol meetings to condemn ‘enemies of the people’. We were far from the Central Party and Komsomol offices and it made our life there more democratic. We worked and were equal. I was soon elected a crew leader of our crew of ship mechanics. Since we completed our five-year plans and did higher scopes of work than scheduled I was awarded a medal ‘For work achievements’ by the government. It was a very honorable award handed by high officials in the Kremlin. We were invited to Moscow to receive our awards, but it was too far from where I was and I decided to postpone this trip until I went to visit my parents in Kiev. My plans were not to come true: the Great Patriotic War began.
There was a big shipyard to be built in Nakhodka. This was a gigantic construction site and there were probably about ten thousand workers to be involved in it. We were accommodated in barracks and in few months we moved to a hostel that was like a barrack only there were more comforts. We worked three shifts and the night shift was the most difficult, but we were young and made a strong team. There was no national segregation: workers were the children of proletariat and peasantry. They came from various towns of the USSR. We didn’t have these Komsomol meetings to condemn ‘enemies of the people’. We were far from the Central Party and Komsomol offices and it made our life there more democratic. We worked and were equal. I was soon elected a crew leader of our crew of ship mechanics. Since we completed our five-year plans and did higher scopes of work than scheduled I was awarded a medal ‘For work achievements’ by the government. It was a very honorable award handed by high officials in the Kremlin. We were invited to Moscow to receive our awards, but it was too far from where I was and I decided to postpone this trip until I went to visit my parents in Kiev. My plans were not to come true: the Great Patriotic War began.
On 20th June 1941 we received our certificates and on 22nd June the Great Patriotic War began. I went to the military registry office. However, in those first days only those born in 1915 were recruited. I didn’t go back to the Far East since I had been registered at the registry office near Moscow and was to wait for their further instructions. I began to work as a mechanic at same plant where I had training and lived in the hostel of the plant.
I got to the front in November 1942. I was assigned to 143 Separate Red Banner Constanta [major port in Romania] marine battalion of the Black Sea Navy. I was a platoon leader there. We were at the very frontline. Our life was always at risk. Usually only about 10% of all marines survived in each combat action. [Editor’s note: sounds unusually high.] During my first days there I took part in defense of Taman [a town on the Black and Azov Sea on the side of the Caucasus Mountains]. I remember vividly some episodes of the war.
On 24th September 1943 I took part in the landing on Peschanaya spot near Taman. My platoon was one of the first to jump into water from a boat and get to the shore. We attacked the enemy and occupied a beach-head [on the side of the Crimea]. The battle on the spot lasted 9 days non-stop. We were to break through the so-called ‘Blue line’ defense line of the enemy. I lead my platoon in attacks one hundred times and repulsed enemy’s attacks. Then we started operations to prepare to attack Kerch [a town in the Crimea, spreading 80 km along the eastern shore of the peninsula]. Right before this operation I joined the Communist Party. There was no ceremony. All applicant officers received Party membership cards before the battle. I was appointed a commanding officer of a group of marines that included machine gunners, rifle men and mortar men.
In spring 1945 I took part in combat action in Vienna in Austria. The war was over when I was there. This was a lovely sunny day of 9th May 1945 [15] – Victory Day. We were all happy, hugged and kissed each other. This was a holiday with tears in our eyes. We recalled our comrades that hadn’t lived to see this day and our relatives and friends that perished in this war.
I continued my military service after the war was over. In summer 1945 I took part in a special task. We were ordered to lead the navy of the Soviet Zone of occupied Germany that was given to our country as reparation. Since I was a military I followed the orders of my commandment without thinking about their political or ethical meaning. We were ordered to move few dozens of German battleships equipped with newest weapons to the port of Kronshtadt in Leningrad.
In 1948 my father died. I tried to organize a Jewish funeral in accordance with our traditions. Although my father was buried in a coffin his body was wrapped in cerement and a rabbi recited prayers. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery.
After I returned home from the recreation center I got a job in the ‘Ukrsovkhozspetsstroy’ trust (design and construction of enterprises in rural areas). I was an engineer there. I didn’t mention, though, that my father was a religious Jew and that he worked at the synagogue before the war. I worked in this organization until retirement. I was promoted to the position of head of department.
I was an active communist. For a few years I was secretary of the Party unit of our company conducting meetings and struggling for increase of labor productivity. We celebrated Soviet holidays – 1st May and 7th November at work. We went to parades. There were many Jews in our organization.
When the period of state anti-Semitism began in 1948 and Jews were accused of all deadly sins, beginning from cosmopolitism [16] and ending with the ‘doctors’ plot’ [17] when Jewish doctors were accused of poisoning the Party leaders it actually didn’t have any impact on me. I hated to read in newspapers or hear on the radio threats addressed to ‘rootless cosmopolites’ or ‘doctors poisoners’ where there were only Jewish names involved, but this all seemed to be happening somewhere far away, in Moscow, in high echelons of the power. It had no impact on my acquaintances either. Of course, I didn’t believe what newspapers wrote, but I was afraid to even acknowledge that it could occur to me. I still believed that everything happening in our country was just and that there was some overdoing, but it was impossible to build communism without them.
When Stalin died in 1953 I attended a meeting and was grieving along with all others. It never occurred to me that the ‘father of the people’ was to blame for arrests and death of many thousands of people.
In 1956 I was one of the first to hear about this (there was a closed letter of Nikita Khrushchev [18] to Party units issued on XX Congress [19] of the Party, and I was secretary of a Party organization). I couldn’t believe this could happen, but the course of time offered more and more evidence that this was true. It became known that Stalin was preparing deportation of Jews to Birobidjan [20]. This information was a final drop that put an end to my loyal attitude toward Stalin.
When I met her Sarra was a planner in a trade organization. Sarra and I fell in love. We got married in 1952. Although I was a member of the Party and didn’t mention my father’s religiosity at work I decided to have a Jewish wedding. Sarra and I had a chuppah at the synagogue in Schekavitskaya Street where my father had worked his whole life. We had a religious wedding in secret. Only Sarra’s parents and my friend Lyova Golfman and his wife were at the wedding. The rabbi recited a prayer. I drank a glass of red wine, broke the glass with my shoe and we signed a wedding contract. There was no party at the synagogue. Our guests wished us happiness and gave their wedding gifts: crockery and bed sheets that were hard to get at that time. Later we had a wedding party at home where we invited our relatives and friends. We agreed to use our neighbors’ apartment as well since we had about 30 guests at the wedding.
My wife and I tried to raise him a Jew. Every year I fasted at Yom Kippur in the memory of my father. We always had matzah at Pesach, even in those years when it might have jeopardized my career and membership in the Party. Our acquaintances, older Jews, bought matzah from the synagogue and brought it to us in the evening so that nobody could see. However, we ate bread at Pesach as well. We celebrated Chanukkah and New Year [Rosh Hashana]. We had small parties with our relatives. We didn’t celebrate Sabbath or follow kashrut since we were not religious Jews, but just gave tribute to the memory of our ancestors. Our son always identified himself as a Jew.
After finishing school he went to Leningrad where he entered the Collage of Optics. After finishing his studies Evsey returned to Kiev. He couldn’t find a job for a long time. He was a physicist, but he was a Jew and potential employers refused to hire him. He finally got a job at the Institute of Standardization. He is an engineer at the State Standard Agency now.
In early 1990s Jewish life began to revive after Ukraine gained independence. There were numerous Jewish organizations established. My son became deputy chairman of the society of Jewish culture ‘Sholem Alechem’. My son didn’t become religious which is a usual thing considering that he grew up in Soviet society. However, he studies and promotes Jewish culture and history and is very fond of Judaism. His wife Lena is also fond of these. She has a Doctorate in Arts and works at the Conservatory, but she also lectures at the Jewish society and helps Evsey in his work. Their daughter Anna attends a Jewish kindergarten.
I speak to them on the phone and attend the Daily Center at the society of Jewish culture in Hesed. I read Jewish newspapers and try to keep pace with life. I am interested in the Jewish history and culture. I haven’t come to observing Jewish traditions. I haven’t become a religious person. I do not celebrate any Jewish holidays either, but I try to get more information about them. The only thing I've never failed to observe is fasting at Yom Kippur in the memory of my father.
We’ve had a good life. We went to theaters and concerts at the Philharmonics together. In summer we spent vacations in the Crimea or the Caucasus having trade union discounts. We didn’t have a dacha [cottage] or a car. We were two engineers and couldn’t afford such luxuries.
I didn’t think much about perestroika when began in 1980s. I believed it was another action of authorities. It didn’t change my life much. During the Soviet period I received a big pension, but then it was reduced.
Irina Lopko
All my maternal and paternal ancestors were born in this green town of Nezhin on the Ostyor river in Chernigov region in about 100 km from Kiev. My mother and father’s families always supported each other at hard times and were friends. There was Ukrainian and Russian population in Nezhin and there were numerous Jewish and Armenian communities. The Greek community was the biggest. Greek merchants were the richest. In 1815 one of three Russian lyceums was established in Nezhin. This was a school for the children of nobility. Later, during the soviet regime, a Pedagogical College was formed on the basis of this lyceum. Nezhin was not within the Pale of Settlement [2], but there were many Jews in the town before the revolution. They lived among other nationalities. There were three synagogues in the town.
My maternal grandfather Isroel Silin’s family had many children like all other Jewish families. My grandfather was born in 1881. He owned a small haberdashery store in the center of the town. He worked alone purchasing and selling his goods. My grandfather was an educated man. He always had some club gatherings at home and my mother laughed that my grandfather was a member of Bund [3], and my grandmother was a member of another Jewish party and they always had arguments at home. They were a religious family. My grandfather’s friends were religious Jews who finished a yeshivah school like my grandfather. My grandfather also studied in a grammar school. The family observed all traditions and my mother knew about all holidays. My grandfather died at the age of 44 (in 1925), leaving his widow with six children. After he died the family did not observe traditions any longer, but my grandmother remained religious for the rest of her life.
My grandmother Basia, born in 1886, was a religious woman for her time. She studied in a grammar school, but I don’t know whether she finished it. She was religious and observed all Jewish traditions and customs. They followed kashrut strictly and lit candles on Friday before Saturday. There was a Ukrainian cook who knew Jewish cuisine well in the house. My mother could make Jewish food and I learned from her. We didn’t make traditional gefilte fish, for example, but we stewed it with vegetables (carrots, beetroots and onions), cooked beans in a specific manner and made chicken stew with stuffed necks. They often made strudels and pudding with honey and poppy seeds. My grandmother spoke Yiddish in the family, but she could speak fluent Russian and knew Ukrainian like everybody else in Nezhin. My grandmother was interested in politics and read books and newspapers. It’s hard for me to tell about her political preferences before the revolution of 1917 [4], but I know that she was interested in Jewish movements and parties. My grandmother wore clothes that were in fashion in the early 20th century. She wore her hair popped up and she always went out with a hat on, which wasn’t based on her religious convictions, but was a trend of the time. It was improper for ladies of all religions to go out without a hat.
My maternal grandfather Isroel Silin’s family had many children like all other Jewish families. My grandfather was born in 1881. He owned a small haberdashery store in the center of the town. He worked alone purchasing and selling his goods. My grandfather was an educated man. He always had some club gatherings at home and my mother laughed that my grandfather was a member of Bund [3], and my grandmother was a member of another Jewish party and they always had arguments at home. They were a religious family. My grandfather’s friends were religious Jews who finished a yeshivah school like my grandfather. My grandfather also studied in a grammar school. The family observed all traditions and my mother knew about all holidays. My grandfather died at the age of 44 (in 1925), leaving his widow with six children. After he died the family did not observe traditions any longer, but my grandmother remained religious for the rest of her life.
My grandmother Basia, born in 1886, was a religious woman for her time. She studied in a grammar school, but I don’t know whether she finished it. She was religious and observed all Jewish traditions and customs. They followed kashrut strictly and lit candles on Friday before Saturday. There was a Ukrainian cook who knew Jewish cuisine well in the house. My mother could make Jewish food and I learned from her. We didn’t make traditional gefilte fish, for example, but we stewed it with vegetables (carrots, beetroots and onions), cooked beans in a specific manner and made chicken stew with stuffed necks. They often made strudels and pudding with honey and poppy seeds. My grandmother spoke Yiddish in the family, but she could speak fluent Russian and knew Ukrainian like everybody else in Nezhin. My grandmother was interested in politics and read books and newspapers. It’s hard for me to tell about her political preferences before the revolution of 1917 [4], but I know that she was interested in Jewish movements and parties. My grandmother wore clothes that were in fashion in the early 20th century. She wore her hair popped up and she always went out with a hat on, which wasn’t based on her religious convictions, but was a trend of the time. It was improper for ladies of all religions to go out without a hat.
, Ukraine