I married Itzyk Moshevich Knepfolgen in 1951. My good friend introduced us to one another. We had a Jewish wedding with a chuppah, and our marriage was registered in the synagogue. We had many guests and a lot of food at our wedding party.
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Displaying 241 - 270 of 50826 results
Rachel Gitelis
My sister married Leib Goldferb, a Jew, that returned from the front, in November 1945. They had a Jewish wedding party at home with a rabbi and a few guests.
I didn't feel any anti-Semitism in Odessa after the war, although there was anti-Semitism on a state level. Jews had problems entering higher educational institutions and finding jobs after finishing university.
We continued to celebrate Jewish traditions. My parents went to the synagogue on Saturdays and on holidays and never used public transportation. My mother had a seat in the synagogue in Peresyp.
There was only one operating synagogue left in Peresyp [13] whereas there were over 100 synagogues before the war.
After the war all Jewish schools and the Jewish theater were closed. We couldn't believe that we wouldn't have an opportunity to go to performances in Yiddish.
Many Jews who stayed in Odessa during the war perished in the ghetto, including my cousin Yasha, his father Itzyk and my mother's cousins Sosia, Freida, Enta and Feiga.
It was difficult to find a job after the war. There were only vacancies for qualified personnel. I got a job by chance and became an assistant accountant at the card office. My sister got a job as an accountant in an office. My father worked as a nickel plater, and my mother was a housewife. My father worked several years until he fell ill and died in 1950.
We stayed at our acquaintance's house for some time. We found out that some people in high positions were living in our old apartment. They refused to move out, and we went to live with Mirl, Aron's widow, in the center of Odessa before we received a new apartment. Her daughter, Sonia, and Sonia's two children also lived there. Sonia's husband had perished at the front. They lived in a poor one-bedroom apartment. The living conditions were terrible, of course, but we were happy to be alive. After a few months we received a one-bedroom apartment. It was just one room but we refurbished a small hallway into a kitchen. We had no comforts whatsoever. Later we installed a water supply pipe, but the toilet was outside. There was no heating in the apartment, and it was very cold. We bought coal and used a burzhuika [a primitive iron stove] to heat the room. We didn't have any furniture. Everything had been stolen from our former apartment. Only our wardrobe had been saved by our neighbor and he gave it back to us.
On 9th May 1945 the war was over and we began to pack to go home. We went to Kodyma on foot and from there we took a train to Odessa.
During the war there was a ghetto in Olgopol, guarded by the Romanians, who were a little bit nicer to the Jews than the Germans, and my aunts and their families survived.
In 1944 we heard that Odessa was liberated. Through a search bureau we found out that my father's sisters, Manya and Gitl had survived and were in Olgopol.
Later my sister got a job as an assistant accountant at the same canteen. My father got a job as a storeman at the railroad storehouse. My mother was too weak to work. She observed Sabbath and followed the kashrut even in evacuation She didn't work or cook on Saturdays, but we had to work on Saturday.
There were people from Bessarabia [12] who had been traveling for a long time. They had lice and we contracted lice from them. There was no food on the boat either. We reached Novorossiysk, a port on the Black Sea in Krasnodarskiy region [200 km from Odessa]. There we could either exchange our clothes for food or buy some. We got on the train heading for Karaganda region in Kazakhstan. When the train stopped we could go and buy some food again. It was my duty to fetch some water to wash ourselves and drink. Our trip lasted a week, or longer, before we arrived at Jan-Arka station, Karaganda region, Kazakhstan [2,000 km from Odessa]. We rented a small room with two single beds in it from a Kazakh family, where we lived throughout the evacuation period. They had a cow and every morning our landlady left a jar of milk at our door. 'This is for the children', she used to say.
,
During WW2
See text in interview
We decided to evacuate in September 1941. Our relatives didn't come with us. My father was against it. His argument was that our army would defeat the enemy and that the war would be over soon. My mother told him that they had to leave for the sake of the children. We didn't have any information about what the Germans were doing in the occupied areas. We obtained an evacuation permit and boarded a boat at the port. We didn't know what its point of destination was. The boat was overcrowded and there was no water there to wash oneself.
He fell ill in 1938 and died in 1940. He was a very talented and handsome boy. His death was a terrible blow to our family, and my father said that there wouldn't be any music or entertainment in our house for a year. After a year had passed, he turned on the music and said that life was to go on. My brother was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Slobodka [8]. During the war the cemetery was ruined and we couldn't find his grave after the war.
My sister Freida finished secondary school and an accounting course in the 1930s. She worked as an accountant in an office. My brother Berl finished secondary school in 1932 and entered the Odessa Machine Building College. He studied there several years, but then quit and went to work as a nickel plater with my father in the Caucasus.
got a job as an accounting clerk at the Krupskaya knitting wear factory. I finished an evening accounting course in 1940 and worked in the factory until 1941 when we evacuated.
In 1936 my father went to look for a job in Kutaissi, Georgia. He worked as a nickel plater there. When I was in the 9th form in 1938, I left my school because we were going to follow my father to live in Kutaissi. However, we had to cancel our departure because my brother fell ill with tuberculosis.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
In 1933 there was a famine [5] in the country. It was a hard time for our family. My father was ill and my mother couldn't find a job. My mother took her golden earrings to the Torgsin store [6] to exchange them for some bread. My mother and Hava, Shimon's wife, were selling this bread at the market to buy some other food from the money. Every evening we had some bread, a loaf among the five of us, and some soup. Every afternoon I came from school and took a bowl of soup to Grandmother Brana, who was living with Uncle Shimon. Sometimes she stayed with us for a few days, but she always hurried back home 'to sleep in her own bed', as she used to said. She was very old, and it was hard for her to endure the hardships of the time. She died in 1934 when she was about 80. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery near the Chumka [7]. All our neighbors came to her funeral. The Kaddish was recited in the cemetery and for seven days we all sat on the floor wailing for her.
There were several Jewish schools in Odessa before the war. In 1929 my sister, my brother and I went to the Jewish lower secondary school. I remember a big gym, and I also recall concerts where I sang Jewish songs. We had a very good singing teacher. We called him 'Tra-la-la'. We studied Yiddish language and literature, German and Russian, mathematics, history and many other subjects. We didn't have any special Jewish subjects.
In the beginning we lived in a small one-bedroom apartment. There were five of us. There were two beds, a wardrobe and a table. I shared a bed with my sister Freida. We lived in this apartment until 1937 or 1938, and then we moved into a bigger one-bedroom apartment. It was twice as big as our previous apartment, and there were two kitchens in it. One was a common kitchen that we shared with other tenants. We cooked in this common kitchen, and our own kitchen served as my parents' bedroom.
There was a Jewish theater in town. I often went there. They had very good performances, but I don't remember any plays or names of actors.
We kept observing all Jewish traditions. My mother and my father went to the synagogue on Sabbath. There were several synagogues. We dressed up and visited our relatives or they came to see us. We only observed some rules of the kashrut, as it was impossible to buy kosher products in stores. We had special dishes for meat and dairy products though. On Pesach we had Gefilte fish, gefrishte motses [steamed matzah in Yiddish] and pancakes. My father held the seder ceremony. On Yom Kippur all members of the family fasted, even children over 5 years of age. I remember Purim and hamantashen with raisins and poppy seeds. We observed Jewish traditions until my mother died in 1966. I still have two candlesticks which my mother used on Sabbath.
Life was hard in Odessa in the beginning. My father didn't have a profession and trained to become a nickel plater. It was a hard and hazardous work, and my father was often ill. My mother was a housewife. We became poorer, but my mother still tried to cook something better on holidays.
My parents didn't discuss the Soviet power and its attitudes towards Jews in the family, but I know that it was due to the Soviet power that we had to move. In Ladyzhin we were considered rich people because we were shop owners. Therefore it was dangerous to stay after the Revolution of 1917. Some people came to search our house in 1927. They were looking for gold, but we didn't have any. My mother had a leather-and-fur coat, a very nice one, which they took away. They even apologized to my mother for having to fulfill their order. My parents decided to close their store.
I began to study at a Jewish lower secondary school in Ladyzhin in 1926. All subjects were taught in Yiddish. My sister and my brother also went to this school. I only attended classes in Ladyzhin for two years.
My father prayed on all Jewish holidays. We celebrated the major holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Chanukkah and Purim as well, but I don't really remember them, only the gifts on Chanukkah. My grandmother and my parents spoke Yiddish, but they could also speak Russian and Ukrainian. They spoke Yiddish and Russian with the children.
We had separate kitchen-ware for dairy and meat products. The dishes that we used at Pesach were kept in the attic. They were very beautiful pieces. I remember that the house was always cleaned before Pesach to remove the chametz. I helped, of course, but I don't recall details anymore. On Pesach we always had matzah, matzah pudding, broth and Gefilte fish. My father conducted the seder ceremony and read the story of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. The whole family was there for the seder.
We always celebrated Sabbath. On Sabbath we always had a lovely tablecloth, beautiful dish sets and lots of delicious food: Gefilte fish, very nice and rich broth, meat, pickles, white bread, apples and wine, of course. My mother and grandmother always lit candles on Saturdays. They all prayed and never worked on Saturdays. My parents went to the synagogue on Saturdays and on holidays.