By 1940 everybody knew how the situation was likely to develop. In 1939 Moscow presented an ultimatum to Ulmanis [10] and there were Soviet military bases at sea. The bases needed protection! The war was going on in full swing all around, and the people's state of mind was quite predictable! We knew that nothing good was going to come out of it. On 17th June the Soviet troops entered Riga. On the 21st there was a demonstration at the central prison: all communists were granted amnesty. On that very day I decided to go to Riga from our summer residence. I saw an incredible show! Crowds of people moving, carrying red banners. It was something tremendous! Just recently, for a red cloth, thrown at night on wires, you were sentenced to several years of imprisonment.
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Displaying 8881 - 8910 of 50826 results
Simon Gutman
My son was born in May 1945, just before Victory Day [14]. My son's name is Lyova, or Lev, a name inherited from our Jewish grandfathers, almost all of them had double names. My brother's name is Solomon, but in honor of our grandfather his real name is Zalman-Mendel. I'm Simon, but in honor of our grandfather I'm Simom-Shleme. Lyova was first called Ruvin-Leibe, like the father of my wife, but then we decided to give him a name in honor of Leo Tolstoy [15]. He graduated from the Polytechnic Institute, the power faculty. In the army he served in Kaliningrad region. He worked here, got married and has a daughter. After some time his wife had the idea to leave for the USA. They lived in Houston. He worked under contract. Then they moved to Colorado, the State of Denver. He now works as an interpreter in the Hague, Holland, translating from English to Russian. But he divorced his wife. His daughter must be around 23 by now.
1941 - the smell of a thunder-storm hung in the air! I remember that morning, Sunday, 22nd June [the beginning of the so-called Great Patriotic War] [12], I was in our office. I remember the speech delivered by Molotov [13]. And then we hid in a cellar as the Germans were bombing the city. On Wednesday the 25th the Fifth Column riflemen started to fire from roofs! From all roofs! It was horrible! Everything was prepared! We were sitting and asking each other, especially Jews, 'What now?!' Everyone was panic- stricken!
We married in 1936. Did we have a chuppah? Let me just tell you this: I wasn't religious, and to this day I am not. Her father, who came from Lithuania, was religious. Her mum died two or three years before our wedding, of breast cancer. Her father spoke Russian, as everyone from Lithuania, with a very strong accent. Well, there was something like a chuppah, but I preferred not to disclose this to people! We had a kind of chuppah at some relatives' home, in an apartment. I yielded to their request to avoid a scandal. My wife wasn't especially religious. She spoke good Yiddish, but didn't go to the synagogue.
During the first year I worked in the decoration workshop, and the next year I was offered the position of a stage property-man. What is a property- man? Well, I was supposed to prepare everything: the tools, the guns and so on. If they were going to eat on stage, I was to cut the bread. I prepared the wine, but diluted it with water; it was just for make-belief.
Ruth Halova
This moment of truth cost me a lot of money. Not only that I didn't get a raise when the long-promised and awaited wage reform in the health care sector was implemented, but I also lost my premiums, including the so- called 'funeral allowance' for working in the region with the worst air pollution in the whole country. But for my conscience it meant a huge relief. I left the Party during the time of Israel's conflicts with its neighbors. At a party meeting, someone addressed this issue in a report, and during the discussion that followed, our ambulance medic, Bohousek, a Russian by origin and still an illiterate, proclaimed that it was after all common knowledge that Jews are like rats leaving a sinking ship. All eyes turned to me, and I turned red from head to toe. I sat there stunned, and waited for someone to say something. No one said even a word. I took advantage of this incident to rid myself of a yoke that had long weighed on me.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
When it was my turn, our director, who meant well, read me my evaluation and asked me whether I was willing to sign it. The first sentence read: 'Comrade Dr. R. H. agreed with the Party's politics both before August as well as with the Party's policies after 1968.' At first I thought that he was joking, and began laughing. It wasn't a joke, and finally I ended up in tears. When I told him that I can't sign something that doesn't make sense, and what's more isn't true, the director grew angry and asked me that feared question, which perhaps he had wanted to avoid with that formulation, because he was well aware of my opinions.
When it was my turn, our director, who meant well, read me my evaluation and asked me whether I was willing to sign it. The first sentence read: 'Comrade Dr. R. H. agreed with the Party's politics both before August as well as with the Party's policies after 1968.' At first I thought that he was joking, and began laughing. It wasn't a joke, and finally I ended up in tears. When I told him that I can't sign something that doesn't make sense, and what's more isn't true, the director grew angry and asked me that feared question, which perhaps he had wanted to avoid with that formulation, because he was well aware of my opinions.
,
1968
See text in interview
Milan was a Christian and steered me towards reading the New Testament; up till then I'd only read the Old. I began reading, and my heart melted. Here was the gospel of love expressed in the most moving picture of the embodiment of love itself, that of the gentle Nazarene. But soon I stood before a serious problem: Could I, as a Jewess, accept something like that? Wouldn't it be a character flaw, to be so enthused by Christianity the moment I fell in love with a Christian?
I really enjoyed my work there, even though I've got to admit that I would've enjoyed it more if the absurdity of socialist management hadn't been so evident in it. At that time the activity and power of the party organization at our institute was at its zenith. Whatever its functionaries wanted, and of course whatever those higher up in the Party hierarchy wanted, had to be unanimously agreed to and performed. So once when a decree came that one of our young colleagues, who'd I'd come to know as a good and hard-working person, was to be thrown out of the institute for political reasons, I was the only one who defied the principles of so- called democratic party centralism, that is, the fact that the minority obeys the majority, and voted against his expulsion.
The divorce proceedings went on for an unbelievable seven long years, and I think that the saddest part of it was the fight over our children. Once again, the Communist Party [15] and its ideology had a part to play in it. Both Hanus and his mother were Communists, and after the wedding they'd decided to give me an ideological education as well. Up till then I'd never even had the slightest brush with politics, but because I'd come across class discrimination two or three times in British society, I agreed and submitted an application to the Communist Party. During my two years of candidacy, they were hard at work persuading me to end my membership in the Jewish religious community.
The head doctor at the Motol hospital helped me, by arranging for me to start working at Motol as a lab technician. And when the director changed, I was able to transfer to a microbiologist's position. I got a raise, and was even promised my salary would be matched three months back, but then the currency reform arrived [13] and nothing was remained of the money. Despite that, I've got to admit that poverty bothered me much less than relationships in our marriage.
After about a year, I wanted to start working again. By coincidence, it was at the time when the political trial with Jewish doctors was taking place in the Soviet Union [12]. Another coincidence was that one of them was named Adler, the same as my maiden name, which was enough for me to not be able to find any work. This is an example of the anti-Semitism that I encountered after the war. Though I answered ads that were offering a position for a microbiologist, after a certain time, a negative answer would come. My friend Frantisek, who as a journalist had access to cadre materials, revealed to me the reason for my failure.
We were married in November 1947 in the Clam-Gallas Palace on the Old Town Square in Prague. The first months after the wedding, I was truly happy. We had to skimp and save a lot, as we both had small salaries from which we had to furnish our household. Because back then everything was in short supply, and we were always happy when someone gave us something that they no longer needed. We were happy for every iron bed frame, old mattress or piece of carpet.
I met my first husband, Ing. Hanus Eisler, in 1946, soon after his return from emigration to the United States. He was a childhood friend of my dorm roommate Eva. Up until then all my first loves and friendships had been platonic. His American behavior differed from my Puritan upbringing, and he got me into bed; I became convinced that I had to marry him.
Because I'd experienced anti-Semitism already in my youth, and believed that my future husband must be as one body and one soul with me, I suffered from a fixed idea that I had to marry a Jew.
Perhaps to partly compensate for the dangerousness of this work, we used to get special rations in addition to the usual food coupons; I think it was thirty eggs, some butter and some milk for the month, whether also meat, that I don't remember any more. But I used to take these special coupons home to my family in Teplice, because they were quite starved after Terezin, and they never did receive any special assistance.
With a feeling of patriotic pride, I registered as a student of the Faculty of Sciences at the old and famous Charles University in Prague. Today's students would probably have a hard time comprehending what it meant for me back then, that our Czech university had survived the German occupation and six years of war, that I'd also survived that horrific time, and that I was allowed to set foot on academic ground that had been founded by such an enlightened and wise ruler as was the Father of our nation, Charles IV [Charles IV (1316-1378): Czech king, from 1355 Roman Emperor], for whom I feel great respect and admiration to this day.
Mom and Grandma had to leave our Prague apartment and moved to some little closet on Kourimska Street, where they lived up until my mom's deportation to Terezin. Actually, almost all the members of my family were deported, except for Aunt Ida's family, who'd managed to immigrate in time to the United States, Uncle Hugo's family, who'd emigrated to Norway, and Grandma Marie Kohnova. Grandma died shortly after Mom's departure, probably from sorrow, in the Jewish hospital in Prague's Old Town.
My boldest hope had been fulfilled, my most fervent prayer had been answered. I lived through the next several weeks that separated me from my repatriation on 25th August and the subsequent reunion with my mother on the platform of the Usti nad Labem train station in some sort of trance, as if I was floating on a rose-colored fog of joy, and my feet were barely touching the ground. All I can clearly remember is that on that big day, I wanted to look my best, and wore a bright red beret, like Marshal Montgomery wore, which flew off my head and rolled along the platform right when I flew into my mom's arms.
Anna was a year older than I was. I very much wanted to be in the same year with her, and thanks to the fact that we had a considerate lady for our school principal, it was made possible for me. We sat in the same desk, lent each other clothing, and shared food as well as all our troubles and joys.
The town of Rugby lies not far from Coventry, and so when Coventry was subjected to destructive German air raids, Rugby had its share, too. It was always a very unpleasant experience, when German bombers were flying above our heads. Jack was a member of the fire department, and always when the air raid siren sounded, he'd take his safety helmet and flashlight, and go to work.
Another person who tried to make my melding into the new environment as easy as possible was the butcher's helper from the store next door. We were about the same age, and whenever he noticed my tears, he sat me in the sidecar of his motorcycle amongst the sausages and meat, and drove me around. He was also my first English teacher, and my English soon came to resemble his. The problem was that he had a strong Birmingham accent, which of course I didn't know, so my style of speaking must have chafed sensitive ears.
We had name cards hanging around our necks, and I clearly remember my feelings, not so much of sadness or tragedy, but of absolute helplessness. This is how calves must feel, when they're separated from the nourishment and protection of their mothers, put in human hands and at the mercy of human beings, I said to myself. My young friends gradually disappeared, leaving with their new parents to their new foster homes, until finally a few of us for whom no one had come remained in that whole big room. You can imagine the anxiety we little pilgrims sitting on our suitcases felt.
With the passage of time, my mom's face grew more and more serious. I don't know where, but somewhere she'd managed to find out that someone was helping Jewish children get into foster families in England. And so she took my sister and me to an office on Vorsilska Street to register us, then we stood in a long, long queue for passports, and on the last day of June I was leaving Wilson Station towards an unknown fate.
In Prague I began attending school again, while my sister didn't continue her studies. She went to learn how to cook and bake pastries instead.
One fall day in 1938, I went to school as usual. I entered the classroom, sat down and began to take things out of my briefcase. But my classmates began chanting the slogan 'Juden raus!,' 'Jews out!,' so I stacked my things nicely back into my briefcase, and my Jewish friend Leo and I left the class. We were the only two Jews in the class.
Only now, with the passage of time, do I realize how hard it must have been for Grandma to make ends meet on Mom's modest salary for a household of four.
We lived in one apartment building that belonged to the factory. The building was divided into five apartments, and I remember that we even had subsidized electricity. This only applied to electricity from wall outlets, so we mostly used table lamps, and very rarely switched on the [main, ceiling] lights.
Despite that, Uncle Max, Dad's brother, who after our father's death became our guardian, made a wise decision, and put us into a German school. One reason was for us to really learn German properly, but our uncle also used to say that anti-Semitism is much more noticeable in German institutions than in Czech ones - and so it would be best for us to get used to it as early as possible.