My father always worked hard and earned a lot. As a matter of fact he supported grandmother and all my mother's sisters. They needed clothes, since they were young girls. My mother always helped. My father did not interfere; he merely brought the money. My mother was a housewife. Later she worked as a nurse in a hospital.
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Displaying 12751 - 12780 of 50826 results
Lev Khapun
Both my grandmothers were literate, could write in Russian, read prescriptions and understood German. I don't know where they studied. My mother went to a common school, she had beautiful handwriting, but she wasn't very literate and usually made three mistakes per page.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
My parents were religious, but not Orthodox. They didn't pay a lot of attention to praying, but observed the traditions. We had guests on Saturdays. Father's friends came, drank nalivka, but there were no drunk people. The traditions were observed, yet not strictly; matzah was cooked.
There was a synagogue in the main street in Vinnitsa. It was of the same type as the Leningrad one: A gallery for women above and places for men below. A philharmonic society was set up there during the Soviet times. There was another synagogue, in which a gym was built. Father adhered to democratic views. He didn't like the atmosphere at the synagogue. They didn't only pray there, but also solved public problems. Jews got together and settled some problem. Everyone had to speak in order to come to a mutual agreement. But if a poor man stated that something had to be done, they showed him well-off Jews and told him, 'Where are you sticking your nose into? Don't you see there are respected people here?' Father didn't like it at all, that's why he almost never attended the synagogue. He didn't like the attitude towards the poor, who were treated as if they were people of second quality.
In the Soviet time [1930s] the Vinnitsa community still existed, though the synagogues didn't operate anymore. There were four or five of them in Vinnitsa before. The main synagogue was shut down earlier, in the 1920s. There are prayers according to Jewish tradition, which can only be said if there's a minyan - ten people, all men. Such meetings were held in private houses and were half-legal. They gathered mainly at widows' places. If a widow allowed people to come to her place, they were all anxious to do so, because it was some kind of assistance to her. Money wasn't only collected for this widow, but also for some other good causes. People came to pray and make donations. As a matter of fact, I never attended these meetings; neither did my mother. But father did, since he considered it a tradition. All in all, however, he believed that if God existed, it was possible to address Him and talk to Him directly. He is Almighty, so why gather in a certain place?
Earlier people attended one certain synagogue in each district. It wasn't allowed not to come to the synagogue, because it meant loss of authority and prestige. Even if one was an unbeliever or unserious believer, or simply a sympathizer, he attended the synagogue. People came to the synagogue both to pray and to communicate. There was no other way.
Earlier people attended one certain synagogue in each district. It wasn't allowed not to come to the synagogue, because it meant loss of authority and prestige. Even if one was an unbeliever or unserious believer, or simply a sympathizer, he attended the synagogue. People came to the synagogue both to pray and to communicate. There was no other way.
In Russian Orthodoxy when a person dies, funeral repast [commemoration] is organized. The deceased and his good deeds are recalled at the repast. Jews have no such funeral repasts. On the contrary, a fast was organized; people took off their shoes and sat in mourning for a whole week. We observed it all, everybody without exception.
Jews always have a matchmaker, and everybody knows that woman is a matchmaker. She has a list of all marriageable girls and young men. It was not necessary to ask her for help. If there was a pair that saw each other and planned to get married, it was still on the matchmaker's list. The matchmaker saw that there was a beautiful girl and a handsome man, who deserved each other. So she went to the family of the young man or the girl and offered them to get acquainted. They were very good psychologists and could organize it all. The tradition wasn't always maintained but matchmakers existed. They were paid for what they did. Sholem Aleichem [8] has a story about male matchmakers, two friends, who met and in the end matched two girls.
Klezmer musicians were definitely present at weddings. It was an interesting Jewish tradition. They were not invited, but they wandered about looking for a wedding. Sometimes two bands came to one wedding. Such situations sometimes ended with a fight about the use of musical instruments. Why? Because the wedding organizers never paid the musicians. Those guests who ordered the music paid them. When the guests came to a wedding, they entered one by one in order to pay respect to each guest. The musicians played a flourish to each, a welcome march. And the guest in his turn had to give the musicians some money.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
When I was small, five or six years old, a Jewish teacher, a melamed, began to teach me. He was hired by my parents. He was supposed to teach me Yiddish. At home I spoke Russian. But he just visited me for a short time, about a month, because I didn't understand what he wanted from me. The teacher was old. Jewish families merely hired teachers if they wanted their kids to have Jewish education because there were no cheders at that time.
There was no bar mitzvah. My parents were communists. Maybe they did something according to tradition but I don't remember. There were no special celebrations. However, when I was thirteen years old, and took liberties, violated something, or behaved badly, they reproached me, saying that I was already thirteen, how could I behave that way, one could get married at that age.
I remember that in my childhood theaters in Vinnitsa were always packed, especially when popular Jewish actors arrived. There were such festivals. For example, there was Epelbaum, a famous Odessa and Vinnitsa singer. Then Clara Yung came. When she arrived, there was a welter in the theater. I actually didn't seen any pure drama performances there. They were all musical shows.
I started school in 1932. There were around 70% Jews in our class. There were also Poles, Ukrainians and one German. There was no anti-Semitism in our class. One trick was played on someone once, but the person who had done it, was blamed for that and never repeated it. There was no difference between the pupils. Poles lived at the place where Boma lived. It turned out that they formed a group of their own. When I visited their place to see my friends, who lived in that house, I didn't need an interpreter. I listened to what they said and understood everything perfectly. They spoke in Polish, and I replied in Russian, and we understood each other very well.
After I finished school war broke out. I was in evacuation in Tashkent with my family. We got there by train as soon as the war began, that was in 1941.
I entered Ashkhabad Infantry College and was enrolled into the army from the second year of my studies. I was in the army until the end of the war. I stayed in Stalinsk, now it is called Novokuznetsk, after I was wounded. There was a metallurgical plant there. I found myself in the labor army. Those, who could not serve in the army, because of wounds, but could work for the frontline, were enrolled into such labor army. They worked in the hinter-front and close to the frontline. The college was there and it was possible to study part-time, which I did.
When my father was in evacuation, he worked at a plant. Every time they came to mobilize, father was not touched; no one could imagine that the plant management would send him away. Father worked until he fell ill.
Our relatives in Vinnitsa, who were young, were evacuated. Those who were of mobilization age were enrolled into the army. Part of them perished, part came back crippled, some returned fine. Many of those who were older stayed in Vinnitsa, and they all perished. But since they were blacksmiths, and the Germans located their administrative unit in Vinnitsa and required blacksmiths, they killed aunt Mekhlya, but did not touch her husband. They took him to the unit to work for them. He was a skilled blacksmith so they kept him. They told him not to go outside, because his appearance left no doubt about his nationality. But he couldn't stand it and one day went outside. One Ukrainian saw him and told him to follow him. That Ukrainian decided to hand him over to the police, since the police paid money for each handed over Jew. Uncle was walking, thinking, 'I can kill him with one blow, but everybody in the street will see it; what else can I do?' Suddenly he saw German soldiers from the unit he worked in and they read in his eyes that he begged for assistance, though he didn't say a word. They told him, 'Follow us.' The Ukrainian said, 'I have to bring him to the police.' They started to argue. The Germans said, 'We have a military unit of our own and we are police, follow us.' The Ukrainian followed them to the unit and they started to beat him. Then he disappeared, and my uncle never saw him again. The Germans must have killed that Ukrainian.
There was a synagogue during evacuation in Tashkent. To be more precise, it was a big room in a private house. I went to a rabbi and told him, 'We have relatives in Odessa.' We failed to find them. One of them left for the Far East. He was in the army, graduated from college, became a lieutenant and was assigned to work in the camps [The Gulag] [9]. He rescued a lot of people. My future wife's uncles were also imprisoned in the camps, and he helped them as much as he could. He almost got into prison for that himself. He had a decent commander, who told him, 'Stop it, or you'll get into prison yourself.
When the war ended, I wanted to leave the plant where I worked. I wanted to return home. I wrote an application asking for release. But they didn't want to let me go. The chief electrician didn't even want to hear about it, he just spat at me. The plant was very big, almost as big as the Moscow district. I took them to court and the court released me, so I left to continue my studies. After the war my older cousin lived and studied in Dnepropetrovsk. I already worked as a mechanic at that time, but I needed higher education. My cousin studied at a similar metallurgical institute. We exchanged letters and he invited me to come. I visited him and we studied in the same group. I graduated from the Dnepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute named after Stalin.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
When we finished our studies, my cousin was already married and stayed in Dnepropetrovsk. I was not captivated by the city, and left. I was assigned to work in Makeyevka, in the Donetsk region. It was impossible not to go; otherwise one would have been imprisoned. I was severely injured at the plant there. There was an accident: I stepped on a hot object, tripped and burnt my hands, both palms. The pain was unbearable; I almost fainted. I was told to put my hands into cold water, I did so and it became less painful. When I took them out I felt terrible pain again. I couldn't put on my pants and eat because of the burns. I even thought that they were completely burnt, but my hands got better within a month. I don't know how they healed. I left for my home place and began to work at the chemical plant in Vinnitsa. My parents lived there, too. They came back straight after the evacuation; their house was demolished by the Germans.
In 1966 I moved to Leningrad, where I worked in Sevmormontazh, then in Glavzavstroy. [Enterprises specializing in the field of installation of various structures, like ore reloading complexes at marine ports.] I both liked and disliked my work. When I recall the brightest moments of my life, I can only recall a few events. I worked in the North and in the South, in Mariupol and in Murmansk; I was an assembler and had to travel a lot. Later I worked in Krasnoye Selo.
My boss was Jewish. I got fewer bonuses, awards and gratitude. He wanted to show that he didn't pay attention to nationality. It was very unpleasant for me. When he was on vacation, he was replaced and my relationship with the new boss was totally different. Later his attitude towards me influenced other people, too. I was Deputy Secretary of the Party Bureau. And the Party Bureau Secretary, Osetrov, had no leg. He was injured and ill most of the time. I had to do all the work for him. I was responsible for ideas and propaganda. All communists and non-party men had to attend the studies. We had a group of propagandists; I had to give them material, which I received from Raykom. [The committee of the local department of the Communist Party.] And they conducted further studies at the workshops. Sometimes I conducted these studies. It wasn't difficult for me; I managed to do everything.
We had been dating occasionally since she was 18, but she only agreed to marry me when she was 29. We met sometimes and lived in different places. I lived in Makeyevka and she studied in Moscow. She came to Vinnitsa for holidays. I also went there for my vacation. We saw each other and there were 'high and low tides' in our relationship. She even wanted to move to my place in Makeyevka, but I understood that she wouldn't do it, so I didn't propose it to her. Later I lived in Vinnitsa, and she was already in Leningrad. She entered the Pedagogical Institute, then the post-graduate department and became a teacher of English. I worked in Vinnitsa. Once, when I went on a business trip to Leningrad, I married Larisa. After that I had to return to Vinnitsa. I lived there for some time but soon moved to Leningrad for good.
When I came to Leningrad in 1960, I started to look for work. However, it didn't appear to be easy. All chiefs saw that I was a Jew and told me that they weren't in need of specialists. Once I came to a plant to talk to the chief. I felt that he looked at me trying to figure out if I was a Jew or not. Then he asked me to show him my passport, which I didn't need to do. I felt his peering look. He certainly didn't reject me openly. This was a peculiar diplomacy. He told me that just the day before a person was found for the position, but that he wanted to write down my data. I understood he was bluffing. I was embarrassed by the laws of that time: If one stayed without work for a month, the record of service would be interrupted. I was afraid that my work experience would be interrupted. This influences the pension and sick-list payment. I decided not to spend any more time looking for a job and took the first decent position that came along.
I can't say that my wife and me tried to follow Jewish traditions in our family or tried to raise our daughter that way. We visited the synagogue very rarely, almost never. Of course I remembered my family's traditions, but that was more of the past, just memories of my childhood.
Now that my wife and me are old, we have become more interested in our heritage, Jewish traditions and Jewish community. This is mostly thanks to Hesed. We don't only get help from it, but it also keeps us in touch with the world. We enjoy reading its newsletters, and if we could only move around better, we would take part in its social events more actively.
My paternal grandfather, Elyukim Khapun [1863-1914], was a blacksmith; and all his relatives and brothers were blacksmiths, too. His daughters only married blacksmiths; thus all men in the family were blacksmiths. They lived in Vinnitsa, in Kamenetsk-Podolsk province of Ukraine.
At that time, by the beginning of the 20th century, the population of Vinnitsa was 80,000-100,000 people. My father's family had a monopoly for blacksmith's work in town. There were four marketplaces in Vinnitsa, and since peasants came there on horseback, each marketplace had to have a smithy.
Vinnitsa was a 70% Jewish town. Besides Jews Poles, Ukrainians and some Germans lived there, but almost no Russians. Jews were in very close relations with each other and talked only in Yiddish. If they didn't speak Yiddish, then they talked in Ukrainian with the Ukrainians who lived in town. Russian was also well known. For example, before the war people in a tram only spoke Yiddish, and some Russians and Ukrainians spoke Yiddish as well. There were beggars sitting in front of the marketplace, and they knew how to beg in Polish, if a Pole approached, and in Yiddish, if a Jew approached. All in all several languages were popular in Vinnitsa. There was a Roman Catholic church and a Lutheran Church in Vinnitsa. When the Soviets came into power, an aero club was organized in the Roman Catholic church. The Roman Catholic church was so big, that inside it an airplane was disassembled and assembled again, and it remained there. Later the Znaniye Society was set up there. Now it is the Roman Catholic church again.
There was a district in Vinnitsa, which was called Jerusalimka. There were several streets with a lot of alleyways in between. Even when one walked there with eyes closed, one knew that it was Jerusalimka because of the dreadful stench. There were two-storey houses where poor people lived. In the course of the Soviet Power all of Jerusalimka was destroyed, and Verkhnyaya and Nizhnyaya streets were built instead. Several houses were constructed in the country and all former Jerusalimka citizens were moved there.
There was a district in Vinnitsa, which was called Jerusalimka. There were several streets with a lot of alleyways in between. Even when one walked there with eyes closed, one knew that it was Jerusalimka because of the dreadful stench. There were two-storey houses where poor people lived. In the course of the Soviet Power all of Jerusalimka was destroyed, and Verkhnyaya and Nizhnyaya streets were built instead. Several houses were constructed in the country and all former Jerusalimka citizens were moved there.
As a child my father studied in cheder for two or three years; he did not study anywhere else. He was proposed for some courses later on. Since everyone in the family was a blacksmith, my father also became a blacksmith; it was inevitable. Father didn't shoe horses. Plants were constructed and developed in Vinnitsa at that time [1910-1920s], and various specialists were in demand. Father went to a plant and worked there as a blacksmith. The family expanded during that time and lived in a big house in friendship.
In 1905, they say, there was a big Jewish pogrom. It's not true that the government didn't fight against pogroms. When there was a pogrom in Vinnitsa and Berdichev, the tsarist government sent Cossacks [1], either from Don or Kuban, to suppress the pogrom-makers. Cossacks were heavily built men and behaved conceitedly towards the local population. For instance, they came to the smithy because they also needed to shoe their horses. Cossacks believed that they had a privileged status. They bumped into my uncles, or, to be more precise, grand-uncles. A conversation started and, since they behaved haughtily, they were verbally refused. A scuffle began. There were twelve Cossacks with horses, harness, weapons; and the blacksmiths were fewer in number. But when the brawl began, they beat those Cossacks up so badly that the latter weren't able to leave on their own. The Cossacks complained about it to their officer. The colonel started an investigation. Since it wasn't possible to talk to the beaten, he had to wait for some time.
I know about this incident from what my father told me. He was a small boy at the time (he was only seven years old), and he could not have seen it all, but he knew the story very well. The policemen visited the colonel, saw the beaten and started an inquest in order to punish those bandits who had beaten up the Cossacks. But the blacksmiths escaped. There was this village fool in Vinnitsa. He was short, weak and a bit twisted. The police and the Cossacks looked for the guilty but couldn't find them. At that time it was impossible not to reveal a crime.
So they caught the village fool and brought him to the colonel. The colonel said, 'What kind of Cossacks I have, that such shabby Jew men can get the better of them?' He turned out that guy and closed the case. The Cossacks suppressed that pogrom, so it cannot be simply said that the tsarist government welcomed the pogroms.
I know about this incident from what my father told me. He was a small boy at the time (he was only seven years old), and he could not have seen it all, but he knew the story very well. The policemen visited the colonel, saw the beaten and started an inquest in order to punish those bandits who had beaten up the Cossacks. But the blacksmiths escaped. There was this village fool in Vinnitsa. He was short, weak and a bit twisted. The police and the Cossacks looked for the guilty but couldn't find them. At that time it was impossible not to reveal a crime.
So they caught the village fool and brought him to the colonel. The colonel said, 'What kind of Cossacks I have, that such shabby Jew men can get the better of them?' He turned out that guy and closed the case. The Cossacks suppressed that pogrom, so it cannot be simply said that the tsarist government welcomed the pogroms.