When I came back to Sumy, I learned that the Germans had shot all Sumy Jews - a total of 186 people.
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Displaying 8281 - 8310 of 50826 results
Faina Khorunzhenko
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In October 1943, after Sumy was freed from the fascists, I wrote a letter to my institute. I got a reply from its director, Zaitsev, who wrote that the history department was in operation. And, in October 1943, I returned to Sumy.
It was a long ride. At the Kharkov railway crossing we were heavily bombed. We were kept in a heated goods van. But thanks to our hospital chief, we were not hungry, because he brought enough food along. We came to the town of Gorky and got settled in the House of Councils. We all lived in one room, slept on mats, ate on mats, made tables of mats, so we lived with 'soft furniture'.
I remember the day when war broke out [on 22nd June 1941]. I was preparing for an exam on the history of the Ukraine and was reading Grushevsky's book - a big volume with a leather cover. Now people say that Grushevsky was banned in the Ukraine, but back then we all studied his books. I was sitting on the porch, holding the book on my knees. The window was open towards the porch, and I could hear the radio. Suddenly, I heard the word 'fascists'. I did not react because I thought I had misheard something. And then I heard 'they attacked...', and it was already Molotov's address. I jumped up, and the book fell on my feet - I had two bruises on my feet for a long time afterwards. The building of our institute was immediately transformed into a hospital.
I finished school in 1938. But as they said, we were unlucky, because in 1937, the Stalinist repression started, and many teachers of our school were arrested. [The interviewee is referring to the Great Terror.] [5] We could never get the whole picture and believed everything we were told. All the teachers of the basic subjects at our school had been arrested.
Back then we knew about Hitler's attitude towards Jews, about destroyed stores, persecutions and concentration camps. [Editor's note: It is unlikely that they already knew about concentration camps at the time, so the remark is probably a retrospective memory.] And when the Molotov- Rippentrop Pact [7] was signed we all supported it, and even now I believe it was necessary.
I finished school in 1938. But as they said, we were unlucky, because in 1937, the Stalinist repression started, and many teachers of our school were arrested. [The interviewee is referring to the Great Terror.] [5] We could never get the whole picture and believed everything we were told. All the teachers of the basic subjects at our school had been arrested. Somebody put 'B's' into all our high school certificates, so that we would have some grades, but not be able to get special golden medals [for graduation with honors from high school], which would have enabled us to enter institutes and universities without exams. But in general, all the students who studied well entered institutes, including Jews. Moreover, when I was already a student of the Sumy Teachers' Institute, I was rewarded with Stalin's scholarship, which was introduced in 1939 in honor of Stalin's 60th birthday. This scholarship was worth 700 rubles, while the regular one was only worth 250 rubles.
There was a synagogue in Sumy. My uncle and aunt went there, but my mother did not. On Passover, when we could not buy matzah in Sumy, my aunt made it herself. Our family celebrated big traditional holidays, both before and after the war.
There were many Jewish boys and girls, approximately one third, in our class in Sumy. But I only started to think about it as a grown-up; we never paid attention to any nationalities back then.
At our school we had a wonderful drama course. I studied there for three years and received a certificate on graduation. It meant that I could continue my theatrical career. But none of my friends from the studio took advantage of this opportunity. We staged both classical and modern repertoire. With great enthusiasm we marked the 100th anniversary of Alexander Pushkin's death by staging one of his plays. Very often we gave concerts and performed plays during the lunch breaks in workshops of big factories.
In Sumy I also went to a Ukrainian school; there were no Jewish schools there at the time.
I was a true Soviet child. We celebrated all kinds of holidays in a beautiful way; we had special sports parades, and 1st of May and October Revolution Day [3] demonstrations. By the way, we didn't only celebrate Soviet, but also other holidays; for instance, we had a very nice celebration of the Paris Commune Day. I was dressed as Marianna, a symbol of the French Revolution, and older boys carried me in their arms, while I held a flying French flag in my hands.
In the family, I always spoke Russian, even with grandfather and father; I understood Yiddish, but it wasn't enough. Back then I began to take German classes with a tutor outside school; I knew that language pretty well.
I continued to go to school. It was a Ukrainian school. There were a lot of Jews in our class, but we really never thought about who was who. It was simply not on our minds. There was a Jewish school in town, and when we were in the fourth grade we, the Jewish kids, were almost transferred there by force. We didn't want to go there because we didn't know the language and didn't want to be bad students.
My father was in bed, and I was sitting in another room, drawing. Suddenly he called me and said, 'My dear daughter, let me kiss you'. I gave him my lips, and he said, 'Do not kiss me on the lips for they are already dead'. He kissed my forehead, and was gone... It was 3 p.m. on 5th October 1927. I saw my father when he was wrapped in his tallit, if I'm right, but I wasn't present when he was being taken out of the house. I only know and remember that my mother sat on the floor and slept on a carpet for seven days, just as she should...
I went to school at the time, in 1927, because my father knew that he was dying and he really wanted me to study. So he asked his good friend, who was a school director, to accept me earlier than they usually did.
During the Civil War, my father's neighbor betrayed him, and my father had to spend two days at the camp of Denikin [2]. Then they took him to be shot. I don't know why, but there was another man, a Russian, who was about to be shot as well, Vladimir Ivanov. Denikin's gang was retreating - the troops of Kotovsky attacked them. [Kotovsky was a famous Red Army commander.] My father crawled to the house, called, but my mother could not open the door, because it opened to the outside. My father fell in front of it, and his body wouldn't allow the door to open. Anyway, she opened the door somehow, stepped over my father, and ran to get a doctor. The doctor, Mikhail Mikhailovich Mikhailovsky, lifted my father up and helped him come to his senses. As he was leaving, my mother asked him, 'What's wrong with Lyova?' He hugged her and said, 'Daughter, he has the heart of a 100-year- old man'.
Once ataman Grigoryev sent somebody to gather gangs together to pogrom the Jews in Yelisavetgrad. He decided to go with him, but got drunk, couldn't get on the train and fell under it. People rescued him, but both his legs got cut off. So later, when all kinds of gangs would attack that town, people said the doors of Medvedev's house would open widely for the Jewish families with children to run there and hide. Old man Medvedev would take an icon and his handicapped son, stand in the doorway of his house and tell the gangs, 'First, beat up this icon, then beat up me and my son, and only then will you enter my house'. Thus he saved as many Jews as he could. But I cannot tell you if everyone acted like him.
My grandfather and my father were very religious. We kept every Jewish holiday in our house; I especially remember Passover. My grandfather always wore a yarmulka; he also had a beard and small payes. He was religious, but not fanatically. He observed the Sabbath, on this day he prayed and wore a tallit. My father and my mother went to the synagogue. I don't remember how often they did that, but they definitely did. There were a lot of Jews in Novoukrainka, which is why they had a synagogue there. They had no special Jewish streets: Jews, Ukrainians, and Russians all lived in one neighborhood, and were on good terms. My parents had a lot of friends, both among the Jews and other nationalities.
My mother didn't work anywhere; she was a housewife. In the morning she made breakfast for my father and saw him to the door; then after feeding my grandfather and me, she took me for a walk or shopping. We had no servants, so she did all the housework herself.
During the Soviet times my father worked as an economist in the system of central work cooperatives. Our financial situation was not bad: there were no super incomes, but it was enough for us to live on. I had a good fur- coat for winter, and many different dresses - woolen and velvet. My mother also had very good clothes, and my father was even called a dandy. He was very elegant.
We didn't have our own house, so we always rented houses or apartments. I remember our last flat: it was big, with three rooms and two kitchens - a warm one and a summer one; there was a dining room, my parents' bedroom, my grandfather's room, and the smallest room for me.
It was there that she met my father. My father, Lev Levinson, was five years older than my mother. He courted her for a very long time - more than a year and a half. They married, and lived with grandfather, and then I was born on 1st May 1920.
My father was born in Novoukrainka in 1885. He graduated from the College of Commerce. His sisters, aunts Sonya, Lyuba and Manya, received an education, which was considered very good for women. They graduated from something like a pro-gymnasium, a junior course, because it was very hard for Jewish children to get accepted into a school, even a private one.
My grandfather was very religious. He went to the synagogue every day, spoke Yiddish and kept all Jewish traditions.
For it doesn't matter who belongs to which nation; the most important thing that people need to understand is that they are all human and that they should value one another.
, Ukraine
Anna Ivankovitser
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My grandfather began to have problems in 1925. Everybody in the village knew that he had money. State security officers were beginning to take away valuables from wealthy people. They summoned my grandfather to the committee and demanded that he gave them his gold. My grandfather was scared and gave them all he had. Mama kept only a few pieces of jewelry that she had received as her wedding gift from her father. Anyway, this committee didn't leave him alone. The local communists who had become state security officers constantly persecuted my grandfather. They knocked on the windows and doors at night shouting for my grandfather to give away the gold that he had stolen from the people. He kept telling them that he had nothing left, but in vain. They called him to the committee almost every week. Once, they arrested him and kept him in a cell for over a week. Then they let him go, offering no explanation. My grandfather had a poor heart and every such visit ended in a heart attack. He was living in constant tension. They threatened to send him into exile or shoot him 'accidentally' in the street. My grandfather Iosif died from a myocardial infarction in 1927, after another visit to the state security committee office. He never tried to leave his own town. He believed he was innocent and didn't owe anything to the authorities after he had given away all he had. He was hoping that they would leave him alone one day.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
My parents married in 1921. I don't know whether they had a wedding party. It was a difficult time in the country. By that time my mother's brothers got married and left their parents' house. Gershl and another brother lived in their own houses in Polonoye. Motl, the youngest, moved to Murafa and worked at the mill there. My grandparents remained alone in their house. They wanted to have at least one of their children living with them. My parents settled down at my mother's parents' house. Mama told me that my grandmother did the housekeeping and wouldn't allow my mother to do anything around the house. She told her that she would have her share of housework in her life and she might as well take some rest while she could afford it. My sister Maria was born in Polonoye in 1925.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Before and after the Revolution of 1917 Petliura's [2] gangs attacked towns and villages. They didn't kill people, but robbed them. They would beat or threaten people, but in all this time they didn't kill anybody in Polonoye. This town was lucky in this respect, because Jews were killed in other towns. Polonoye was a small town with a population of 1,000 at most. Before the war, Jews had no conflicts with the Ukrainian and Polish population. In 1941 the entire Jewish population was exterminated. Since then there have been no Jews in this village. The Revolution of 1917 had no impact on the way of life in Polonoye. There were communists among the poorer people in Polonoye, but they didn't make any difference in the general pace of life of the town.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
After finishing grammar school in 1916 my mother also wanted to go to America, but it wasn't easy. Mama went to Warsaw, Poland, hoping that it would be easier to leave for America from there. She told me how beautiful Warsaw was. My father was in Warsaw at that time and my parents met. They decided to go to America together. My mother's sisters even sent them boat tickets. I don't remember what exactly happened, but they couldn't leave. They stayed in Poland for some time and then returned to Ukraine.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview