My son served in the army and afterwards got a technical education. He became a communications worker. Alexander married a Russian-Pole, Anna, at a rather early age. He had two children: Tatiana, born in 1978, and Dmitriy, born in 1984. Recently, my son started his own business. He did well. Three years ago [in 2002] there was a tragedy. He felt unwell and within a month he died of brain cancer. I see my grandchildren, but not very often. I hardly keep in touch with my daughter-in-law Anna.
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Ranana Malkhanova
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My daughter Ilana graduated from Vilnius University, from the French Language and Literature department. She’s currently working in the French cultural center. Ilana married a Lithuanian. His name is Subachene. My favorite granddaughter Gabriela, born in 1986, is finishing a lyceum. She would like to become a doctor. She’ll probably continue her education abroad. Gabriela is fluent in English and is studying French. She identifies herself as Lithuanian, but treats Jews with great respect.
Since my husband’s death I’ve tried to be active and have a fully-fledged life. In 1972 I became a member of the Council of the Journalists of Lithuania. I took part in all the events of the Council. We received foreign delegations, and held symposiums. I enjoyed the trips throughout the country and overseas. I took the first trip during the Soviet regime. I went to Hungary and Bulgaria. I became a real globe-trotter in 1995.
I always keep in my heart the people who saved my life. I’ve kept in touch with my rescuers for many years. Now the parents [Strimaitis] and their daughter Mildei, with whom I still keep in touch, were conferred the title ‘Righteous among the Nations’ [17] by the museum Yad Vashem [18]. The Lithuanian family of Mamra, who had been sheltering us for a long time, was exiled by the Soviet regime. My mother and I exerted every effort to find them, but didn’t succeed.
In 1991 [actually in 1990] Lithuania gained its independence [see Reestablishment of the Lithuanian Republic] [19]. All of us took hard all those events connected with the resistance of Russia against the independence of the Baltic countries. I was never a communist. Being born here and living among Lithuanians, I’ve always supported their right for independence.
One of the ways the state status of Lithuania was displayed was the revival of Jewish life. There’s a wonderful Jewish community in Lithuania. There’s also the Jewish state school and Jewish state museum. I became an active member of the community. I’m a volunteer of the social department and member of the [Lithuanian] Council of the Ghetto Prisoners [20]. I didn’t become religious, but I gladly go back to the Jewish traditions. I take part in the Jewish holidays in the community.
My work in the community helped me find new friends in Lithuania and out of its boundaries. Here I met a Dutch man Fritz and his spouse, a Polish photographer. I showed them Vilnius, the Old City. I walked along the former streets of the ghetto. I paid a lot of attention to them. Since that time we have remained friends.
After a year Fritz sent me an invitation and I went to the Netherlands. After that I went there twice. Fritz assists our community considerably. He often comes to Lithuania. Our friendship is cemented.
After a year Fritz sent me an invitation and I went to the Netherlands. After that I went there twice. Fritz assists our community considerably. He often comes to Lithuania. Our friendship is cemented.
Recently, in May 2005, I and another activist of the community were sent to the feast in Krakov [today Poland] on the occasion of a sad date: the 60-year anniversary of the liberation from Oswiecim [Auschwitz] camp. It was sad and joyful at the same time: the commemoration of millions of innocent victims. We perceived the tolerance and internationalism of the modern world.
I know that my maternal great-grandfather was a rabbi, but I don’t know his name, and where he lived. All I know is that he was from Lithuania. My maternal grandfather, Jacob Solomin, was born in Vilkaviskis [renamed Pilviskiai in 1920s] in the 1870s. My grandfather was a merchant of the 2nd Guild [see Guild I] [2]. He owned a rather large construction materials store in the central square of Vilkaviskis, but my grandparents lived in a very small town, 22 kilometers from Vilkaviskis. As far as I understand, Pilviskiai, where my kin used to live, was a real shtetl. There were only one-storied houses, mostly wooden, and very rarely stone, with yards and household annexes. Most of the population was Jewish [the community numbered 4,417 in 1856 (as against 834 Christians), 3,480 in 1897 (60% of the total population), 3,206 in 1923 (44%), and 3,609 in 1939 (45%)].
I remember that Grandmother Yena wore a wig, dark skirt and blouse like all Jewish women back in that time. My grandfather always wore either a kippah or hat when he was in public.
My grandfather owned half of the house in Vilkaviskis. Half of his house was usually closed as he was rather well-off and didn’t need to lease his property. He stayed in his part of the house when he went to Vilkaviskis on business.
Grandfather Jacob was a very religious man. In Vilkaviskis he went to the synagogue every morning clad in a tallit and tefillin. Though Pilviskiai was rather small, I assume that there was a synagogue. My grandfather always started his day with a prayer. He read the Talmud all day long. When he discovered something new, he was so excited that he wanted to share what he had read with those who were willing to listen. I remember once when he tried to explain something to me, but I didn’t understand anything. My grandmother was also a devoted Jew. All Jewish traditions were kept in her house, holidays were marked and the kashrut was strictly observed. Jacob and Yena raised their children religiously.
As for my mother, she wasn’t religious and didn’t observe the traditions when she was an adult.
My grandparents perished in 1941 during the occupation. I think they were killed during one of the actions against Jews in Pilviskiai.
My mother’s youngest brother, whose name I don’t remember, died when he was an infant. My mother’s two elder brothers, Shimon and Lipo, born in the 1890s, went abroad. Lipo settled down in America, аnd Shimon went to Canada. We had our own business before the Soviet occupation [see Occupation of the Baltic Republics] [3]. My mother corresponded with them. Then she didn’t keep in touch, as it wasn’t safe and was fraught with persecution [see Keep in touch with relatives abroad] [4].
Another one of my mother’s brothers, Meishel, lived with his wife and daughter Riva in a village not far from Vilkaviskis. Meishel owned a small store. He was surrounded by Lithuanians. He and his family remained in occupation and perished at the very beginning of the war.
With the outbreak of World War I, my maternal grandparents decided to leave the town temporarily, fearing the status of a frontier town. They went to a Russian city: Voronezh [1300km from Vilnius, and 500km from Moscow]. It was a large cultural Russian city, where the family of Jacob Solomin had lived for several years. There my mother entered and finished a Russian lyceum. Owing to the opportunity of living and studying in Voronezh with Russian girls, my mother was fluent in Russian, and she was fond of classic literature. She was good at foreign languages. When she returned to Vilkaviskis, she taught German at the local lyceum for a while.
My father’s family had also moved to Voronezh from Vilkaviskis with the outbreak of World War I.
They got married in 1923. I don’t think it was a pre-arranged marriage, which was customary with Jews. My mother said that my father had been wooing her for a long time, but she was rather picky. Ester was very beautiful and popular with young men. Despite the fact that both of them weren’t religious, the wedding was in accordance with the Jewish traditions. My parents got married under a chuppah in a large synagogue in Vilkaviskis.
I remember my paternal grandfather Jacob, though. Jacob Kleinstein had his own bakery in Vilkaviskis, where he baked and sold his products. Bread was on offer every day. On Thursdays, special dough was made and Sabbath challot were baked.
Jacob Kleinstein also stuck to Jewish traditions, marked Sabbath, and went to the synagogue on Saturdays. He wasn’t as religious as Jacob Solomin, and raised my father in the modern spirit of times.
Grandfather Solomin and both his daughters perished in Vilkaviskis in 1941 during the first days of the fascist occupation.
My father was born in Vilkaviskis in 1901. I don’t know if he went to a cheder. He didn’t tell me anything about it. I think that my father got a traditional Jewish education. When his family returned to Vilkaviskis, he decided to go on with his education, having finished the Voronezh lyceum. He entered the Lithuanian State Teachers’ Training Seminary, which was located in Marijampole, 28 kilometers from Vilkaviskis [about 150km from Vilnius]. He was admitted without any problem, as at that time Jews were loyally treated in Lithuania.
I don’t know where my father taught after having graduated from the seminary, as he specialized as a Lithuanian teacher. By the time of getting married he was the director of an eight-year Jewish school in Vilkaviskis.
I had a happy childhood in a rather rich house, with overwhelming love. My father got a pretty good job as a school headmaster. He was a well-known and respectable man. He was a member of the municipal self-government along with other honorable citizens. My father was the only Jew among them. He was a member of the Shaulist organization [see Shaulist Council] [5]. Judging by the way we lived I can say that my father made pretty good money.
I vaguely remember our house. It was a well-built one-storied wooden house. Of course, there were no conveniences: sewage, running water. We had an outhouse. As for the rest, it was a true European house. There were four large rooms, namely, drawing-room, my parents’ bedroom, my father’s study, and the children’s room. I remember a beautiful tiled furnace in the drawing-room which made the house pleasantly warm. The furniture in the drawing room was grand. It was carved ebony custom-made furniture. There were lovely velvet curtains on the windows. The table cloth was also from the same material as the curtains. I can’t say anything about the kitchen. I don’t think I went there when I was a child. I’m not sure whether my mother was there very often. There were two maids in the house. One maid took care of the house, making sure it was kept clean, and the other was a governess: she fed, nurtured and took us for a walk. Maybe there was a cook, but I never saw him.
My mother was a true lady. She stopped teaching at the lyceum after getting married. Of course, she looked after the house, but she didn’t do any manual work, just gave orders to the maids. Her way of life was the same as the other rich ladies. Ester regularly went to the milliner. She probably had the most fashionable dresses in the entire Vilkaviskis. She had a number of fur coats from expensive pelt, and beautiful jewelry. But there were no places to wear it in our tiny town. My mother spent most of her time having coffee and cakes with the ladies from her circle.
In summer, my parents went to the popular resorts in Europe.
I started talking early in Yiddish and Lithuanian, as these were the languages spoken in our house.
There were synagogues in the town: a small one and a big one. Maybe there were more, but my parents never attended them and I wasn’t taken there either. I think that brit [milah] was performed on the eighth day after my brother was born. I think my grandparents insisted on that the way they did with the Jewish wedding. The bar mitzvah wasn’t performed on my brother, which upset both my grandfathers.
Мy parents didn’t observe Jewish traditions. I don’t remember my mother lighting candles on Fridays, and my father usually worked on Saturdays. The kashrut wasn’t observed either: we ate pork, tasty sausages and ham. There were a lot of Jewish dishes though: gefilte fish, chicken stew and broth, and tsimes [6]. My mother mostly tried to stick to European cuisine. I tasted Jewish desserts at Grandmother Yena’s place, when we went to Pilviskiai, or when she came to our town with my grandfather. My grandmother baked scrumptious cookies with poppy and nuts, strudels with jam and raisins, made tsimes from matzah with honey. I enjoyed all that food. If they were in Vilkaviskis on Chanukkah, my brother and I got Chanukkah gelt.
Мy parents didn’t observe Jewish traditions. I don’t remember my mother lighting candles on Fridays, and my father usually worked on Saturdays. The kashrut wasn’t observed either: we ate pork, tasty sausages and ham. There were a lot of Jewish dishes though: gefilte fish, chicken stew and broth, and tsimes [6]. My mother mostly tried to stick to European cuisine. I tasted Jewish desserts at Grandmother Yena’s place, when we went to Pilviskiai, or when she came to our town with my grandfather. My grandmother baked scrumptious cookies with poppy and nuts, strudels with jam and raisins, made tsimes from matzah with honey. I enjoyed all that food. If they were in Vilkaviskis on Chanukkah, my brother and I got Chanukkah gelt.